Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Post-it notes
I have a confession to make: I have a sad, very sad addiction. To Post-it notes. Yes, seriously, I am not kidding. I love sticking them everywhere. At work, I've got 3 different colors of post-it note pads. And at home, I've got 2 post-it note pads, both green, and both lined (makes it better). I'm not sure if it actually keeps more organized, but at least they're all stuck to my desk so I can't lose them! I've got lists, chores, random scrawls, even the code for my blog to turn the font blue scrawled all over random ones. Hehehehe, see they're useful for something :)
Thursday, May 26, 2011
My Weekly Lessons
My posts are slowly becoming more and more infrequent. Whoopsies. Oh well. This past week I've been slowly relaxing again after a hectic American Thoracic Society conference week. My first international conference, I felt like such a grown up! I felt so relieved after last Wednesday, after my (short) presentation, and I didn't realize how much I was worrying about it until after it passed. And now it's nice to not have to motivate myself to go and practice yet another time. So this weekend was nice and relaxing, especially since we postponed (yet again, I live in a family of procrastinators it seems) our garage sale until June. So I feel like in this past week to week and a half I've learned a lot, and not just about lungs.
1. The whole saying about the more prepared you are the more relaxed you'll be is TRUE!!! :D Well, sort of. I was pretty prepared for my talk and studied like crazy, researching and memorizing all these answers to possible questions, and actually lucky for me I got asked some variations of those questions. But I was still nervous as hell, but I guess since I was prepared, I didn't stumble as bad, so the prep work did help I think. But leads me to point two.
2. If nervous, do not twist/shred a kleenex in your hands. Otherwise you will end up with white linty dusty crap all over your suit. Not professional. Oops.
3. It's possible to ventilate a lung in a jar. SO awesome!
4. Not really a lesson since I pretty much already knew this, but I guess I had a confirmation that even with a topic you're pretty comfortable with (in my case, lung mesenchymal stem cells, which I've worked with a little over a year now), it's still possible to be completely dumbfounded with aspects of the topic. Can you say secresome?
5. For me, the key I've discovered to clothes shopping last weekend, is XXSP. How pathetic is that. I had no idea I was that small. Truthfully I'm not actually that short, but it seems I've got to sacrifice length for the rest of me. Dangit.
6. It is possible to build an 8 foot tall Yoda without looking at instructions inside a busy mall. Another awesome discovery, I might add.
All in all, a highly interesting and informative week, I should say.
1. The whole saying about the more prepared you are the more relaxed you'll be is TRUE!!! :D Well, sort of. I was pretty prepared for my talk and studied like crazy, researching and memorizing all these answers to possible questions, and actually lucky for me I got asked some variations of those questions. But I was still nervous as hell, but I guess since I was prepared, I didn't stumble as bad, so the prep work did help I think. But leads me to point two.
2. If nervous, do not twist/shred a kleenex in your hands. Otherwise you will end up with white linty dusty crap all over your suit. Not professional. Oops.
3. It's possible to ventilate a lung in a jar. SO awesome!
4. Not really a lesson since I pretty much already knew this, but I guess I had a confirmation that even with a topic you're pretty comfortable with (in my case, lung mesenchymal stem cells, which I've worked with a little over a year now), it's still possible to be completely dumbfounded with aspects of the topic. Can you say secresome?
5. For me, the key I've discovered to clothes shopping last weekend, is XXSP. How pathetic is that. I had no idea I was that small. Truthfully I'm not actually that short, but it seems I've got to sacrifice length for the rest of me. Dangit.
6. It is possible to build an 8 foot tall Yoda without looking at instructions inside a busy mall. Another awesome discovery, I might add.
All in all, a highly interesting and informative week, I should say.
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Assertiveness
As I exchanged presentation slides with my boss in preparation for a lung conference in a couple weeks, I learned a curious thing. My boss has decided that I'm not assertive enough (ok, which I grudgingly admit is true), and so she spent the morning buying me books on Amazon on how to be more assertive. One of which, I might add, is a children's book written for 7 year old children. She pointed out that it had good examples (she bought it for her daughter), which is why she bought it for me. It's a weired feeling. I'm flattered that she obviously cares enough about me to worry about my future (she thinks that I'll be taken advantage of in med school if I don't assert myself), but I'm also a little unnerved, since she is technically my boss. I mean do bosses usually care so much about your well-being/future? It's a nice feeling I guess, but still weird.
On the other hand though, maybe if I learn something from the books I would be able to stand up to my demonic coworker, instead of doing what I did today, which was give her a look of confusion/disbelief every time she asked me something stupid, and then stormed around and slammed things on the lab bench for a while. So maybe it's a really good thing and I do have something to learn from all this :)
On the other hand though, maybe if I learn something from the books I would be able to stand up to my demonic coworker, instead of doing what I did today, which was give her a look of confusion/disbelief every time she asked me something stupid, and then stormed around and slammed things on the lab bench for a while. So maybe it's a really good thing and I do have something to learn from all this :)
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