A number of us in lab have papers in manuscript that hopefully will be submitted/published soon. In the interim we were talking about the current competition in science -- how it's changed from the past and how it might change once we all graduate and (maybe) have our own labs.
The topic of housekeeping genes was brought up at lab meeting recently. Housekeeping genes are always expressed and we use it as a marker for (c)DNA quality. Usually we run a reaction with just one housekeeping gene, but my advisor stated at the meeting that some journals request that authors run their experiments with two or more, just to double-check, because sometimes these genes are not expressed at a constant level, even though we expect them to. While this seems like a minor change, many times reviewers will send a paper back with a list of control experiments that need to be done, which may take anywhere from a week or two to a couple months.
In my senior year of undergrad, I took a class called "Evolution, Development, and Genetics" (i.e. "evo-devo"); it was a discussion-based class where we read papers every week and then talked about trends in the field. One of the first things we read was a Science paper that was considered the founder of evo-devo. Our assignment for this paper was to rewrite the abstract because the original one was only a sentence long, and in today's standards, is unacceptable. The paper itself proposed some really new ideas, but in today's standards, was lacking in terms of data. The authors basically ran a series of proteins on a gel. Which makes me wonder -- do we need to do more work today to get published...compared to, say, 40 years ago?
Science has advanced rapidly in the past few years, which I think is the main reason why it takes "more" work to publish in a good journal. One of the best examples is PCR, which used to take (literally) all day. At that time, the researcher would sit in front of multiple hot-water baths, and drop the tubes in, wait a minute or two, and go on to the next water bath. Oh, and they had to add fresh reagent after each cycle... for about 30 cycles. Now, we just stick all the tubes in a machine and have the machine do it while we go work on something else. People are coming up with new ideas and new techniques all the time, and everything points to increased efficiency.
I have a feeling that 30 years from now, I'll look back at my thesis and say "is that all I did??"
Friday, March 23, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Data Dump
The professor next door teaches an upper-level undergrad class on mammalian endocrinology. Last month he asked me to give a guest lecture in his class about my research, with a request to spend at least 50% of my lecture on background material before segueing into current information. I was (kinda sorta) starting on a literature review for lab, so I made my slides based on the review draft and thought I was good to go... until I practiced it in front of my lab.
One of my labmates said that I essentially zipped through 4 papers' worth of data in five minutes, which would be too fast for the audience, who , according to my labmate, would be drifting in and out of consciousness. My advisor said to make the slides more textbook-ish and not show too many cutting-edge things. That's when I found out the statement "because it's cool" is not a good enough reason to show/talk about a specific data set.
I was surprised at the amount of information I had to remove from my first set of slides. I think that "research seminar mode" has become my new default, where I give minimal, but crucial, background information and then immediately jump into what's new. This way, I don't have to feel like I'm repeating myself a million times in order to get a point across.
That being said, it's been difficult for me to realize what constitutes a data dump for an audience of undergrads. During my own undergrad career, one of my pet peeves was when the instructor would write complete sentences (paragraphs, even) on their slides and spend all hour reading off the screen. My issue seems to be the opposite; I'll put six rectangles on the slide and say that they're hormone receptors. Then I'll start talking about how the receptors work, which leads me to signaling pathway A and how it works. After that, if I really start to lose myself, I'll start talking about homologies within species. One of my other labmates said it best: "If you were an undergrad, would you REALLY care that tyrosine 1127 in species X is responsible for signaling?"
***
My lecture was on the morning of February 14. The professor had a last-minute trip out of town, so I essentially took over the class. Everyone seemed really engaged and I didn't get funny looks, so I assume it went well. :-)
***
The title of this post comes from a phrase that an emeritus professor introduced us to when he was talking about his grad school days at MIT. It's when you go through so much data per unit time that the audience can't process it all fast enough to ask questions (i.e. question your technique).
One of my labmates said that I essentially zipped through 4 papers' worth of data in five minutes, which would be too fast for the audience, who , according to my labmate, would be drifting in and out of consciousness. My advisor said to make the slides more textbook-ish and not show too many cutting-edge things. That's when I found out the statement "because it's cool" is not a good enough reason to show/talk about a specific data set.
I was surprised at the amount of information I had to remove from my first set of slides. I think that "research seminar mode" has become my new default, where I give minimal, but crucial, background information and then immediately jump into what's new. This way, I don't have to feel like I'm repeating myself a million times in order to get a point across.
That being said, it's been difficult for me to realize what constitutes a data dump for an audience of undergrads. During my own undergrad career, one of my pet peeves was when the instructor would write complete sentences (paragraphs, even) on their slides and spend all hour reading off the screen. My issue seems to be the opposite; I'll put six rectangles on the slide and say that they're hormone receptors. Then I'll start talking about how the receptors work, which leads me to signaling pathway A and how it works. After that, if I really start to lose myself, I'll start talking about homologies within species. One of my other labmates said it best: "If you were an undergrad, would you REALLY care that tyrosine 1127 in species X is responsible for signaling?"
***
My lecture was on the morning of February 14. The professor had a last-minute trip out of town, so I essentially took over the class. Everyone seemed really engaged and I didn't get funny looks, so I assume it went well. :-)
***
The title of this post comes from a phrase that an emeritus professor introduced us to when he was talking about his grad school days at MIT. It's when you go through so much data per unit time that the audience can't process it all fast enough to ask questions (i.e. question your technique).
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Impulsivity
Things haven't been quite the same since I came back from overseas. I'm not sure if it was the concept of vacation that threw me off from my usual work schedule, or the fact that after I came back, most of the experiments I ran yielded negative results...which leaves me feeling like I'm scrambling not just to produce something, but also to get some solid footing on where to go next. Unfortunately, that can lead to impulsively doing experiments and going around in circles wondering why things don't work. The good news is that I think I've calmed down enough to figure out what I've been doing wrong in terms of experiment design and technique, so there's some solace that things will work out "correctly".
The other part I've noticed lately is how I have a tendency to zone out in a non-lab setting. The best example would be two weeks ago, when someone I know was visiting the city with their boyfriend, their high school friend, and the latter's married friends. It was a slightly awkward position for me to be in (especially when someone said "everyone's getting married or pregnant!"), but for most of the time I felt like I was mentally absent. My half-baked explanation is that I had spent the entire day in lab making a reagent, and was getting antsy on when I could go back and finish it. My mind doesn't wander nearly as much when I'm actually in lab, but then when I go home, I start thinking about research again (especially why things aren't working the way I want them to), which makes me slightly hypertensed.
I've been able to clear my head with dance class and running, the reason being that I can't think and dance (or think and run) at the same time unless I screw up the choreography or slow down my pace. I'm hoping this whole restless-impulsiveness phase goes away soon. Either that or I'm going to run 5 miles to relax.
The other part I've noticed lately is how I have a tendency to zone out in a non-lab setting. The best example would be two weeks ago, when someone I know was visiting the city with their boyfriend, their high school friend, and the latter's married friends. It was a slightly awkward position for me to be in (especially when someone said "everyone's getting married or pregnant!"), but for most of the time I felt like I was mentally absent. My half-baked explanation is that I had spent the entire day in lab making a reagent, and was getting antsy on when I could go back and finish it. My mind doesn't wander nearly as much when I'm actually in lab, but then when I go home, I start thinking about research again (especially why things aren't working the way I want them to), which makes me slightly hypertensed.
I've been able to clear my head with dance class and running, the reason being that I can't think and dance (or think and run) at the same time unless I screw up the choreography or slow down my pace. I'm hoping this whole restless-impulsiveness phase goes away soon. Either that or I'm going to run 5 miles to relax.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
The Road Behind
As 2011 draws to a close, I've been thinking about how I got here, as a grad student working in science. I hear a lot of stories about how various people were interested in science at an early age, how they chose their college major and their current career. It seemed like for those people, everything had been planned out early on, when in reality, the road leading up to a chosen profession is a rather twisted one, with a couple lucky accidents along the way.
I was pushed toward math and engineering at a young age, and frankly, I didn't enjoy it. I particularly detested the plastic Erector sets my dad bought me, which were supposed to become helicopters and tanks if you followed directions and built them correctly (which I usually didn't do). I would have much rather gone to dance class and played with dolls instead of building Lego models, and my dad knew it, so as a compromise, I got to build a Lego model of a dollhouse. Beyond memorizing dinosaur names, I had limited exposure to science in grade school, and it wasn't until third grade when I got my first official science lesson on ear anatomy, where we touched on how sound is conducted through the inner ear and the information relayed to the brain. I thought the lesson was interesting, but didn't have much motivation to learn more. Besides, that memory was diluted out later with other science lessons, like taking apart owl pellets and assembling basic circuit boards. The best memory from grade school science lessons was the time where some wildlife expert came to our class and brought an assortment of animals for us to learn about. His menagerie included a chinchilla, a python (which some students wore around their neck, then promptly got very red in the face because the animal was so heavy), and a Komodo dragon. We also had a guinea pig and a tarantula as class pets, which were fun to observe, and I think that really got me interested in animal life, even though my exposure at that age consisted of cleaning the guinea pig cage.
I hardly learned anything in middle school science either, and the part I did remember involved dissecting that earthworm right before lunch in 6th grade, then immediately forgetting why we had to do that. We raised monarch butterflies in class, and watched many nature documentaries, which I thoroughly enjoyed. However, after 6th grade, my parents must have thought that I wasn't learning enough of what they considered important (read: science, math, engineering), because they got me a book called "1000 Science Questions and Answers...With Illustrations!" and told me to read it cover to cover, which I think I did, but only remember the section on animals. This book was followed by The Handy Science Answer Book, which I got for Christmas one year when I was in late middle school, and was also required to read cover to cover. The animal life section in these two books focused mostly on behavior instead of physiology, so everything I gleaned from those tomes fell under ecology (i.e. food chain), unaware of the existence of other fields like physiology, development, and genetics, all of which I'm doing now.
In high school, I told my guidance counselor that I wanted to go to med school, but in retrospect, I was making that up because I didn't have a clue as to what that entailed, and didn't have much exposure to what else was out there (aside from engineering, but my dad is an engineer and I was under the impression that it was all about cars, which I found dull). The counselor suggested that I take AP biology, which was the first lucky accident, because I loved everything about it...so much that I decided to major in it in college. The AP class gave me a wide range of interests, and I chose plain "Biology" over Cellular/Molecular and Ecology/Evolution because it gave me freedom to take any bio class that sounded interesting and still have it count toward the degree. Most of my classes fell under the Ecology/Evolution category, although if I knew then what I know now, I would have changed my major to the cellular/molecular side.
The second lucky accident happened junior year of college, when I took developmental biology (which was awesome) and its corresponding lab class (which was even more so). My GSI for the lab class, who was also one of my current advisor's former students, asked if I had considered going to grad school because I had noted my interest in animal development. And here I am.
***
My interests have changed even in grad school; on my application, I listed stem cells as one of my interests, but throughout my rotations I found out that I'd much rather be dealing with animals than growing cells in a dish. I never would have guessed that what I'm working on now would consist of animal development, genetics, physiology, and evolution, given that my early interests were something so far removed from it. I think I owe it to my AP teacher and my GSI, because otherwise I'm not sure I would have found something that I loved so much to study it for 8 years... and counting.
I was pushed toward math and engineering at a young age, and frankly, I didn't enjoy it. I particularly detested the plastic Erector sets my dad bought me, which were supposed to become helicopters and tanks if you followed directions and built them correctly (which I usually didn't do). I would have much rather gone to dance class and played with dolls instead of building Lego models, and my dad knew it, so as a compromise, I got to build a Lego model of a dollhouse. Beyond memorizing dinosaur names, I had limited exposure to science in grade school, and it wasn't until third grade when I got my first official science lesson on ear anatomy, where we touched on how sound is conducted through the inner ear and the information relayed to the brain. I thought the lesson was interesting, but didn't have much motivation to learn more. Besides, that memory was diluted out later with other science lessons, like taking apart owl pellets and assembling basic circuit boards. The best memory from grade school science lessons was the time where some wildlife expert came to our class and brought an assortment of animals for us to learn about. His menagerie included a chinchilla, a python (which some students wore around their neck, then promptly got very red in the face because the animal was so heavy), and a Komodo dragon. We also had a guinea pig and a tarantula as class pets, which were fun to observe, and I think that really got me interested in animal life, even though my exposure at that age consisted of cleaning the guinea pig cage.
I hardly learned anything in middle school science either, and the part I did remember involved dissecting that earthworm right before lunch in 6th grade, then immediately forgetting why we had to do that. We raised monarch butterflies in class, and watched many nature documentaries, which I thoroughly enjoyed. However, after 6th grade, my parents must have thought that I wasn't learning enough of what they considered important (read: science, math, engineering), because they got me a book called "1000 Science Questions and Answers...With Illustrations!" and told me to read it cover to cover, which I think I did, but only remember the section on animals. This book was followed by The Handy Science Answer Book, which I got for Christmas one year when I was in late middle school, and was also required to read cover to cover. The animal life section in these two books focused mostly on behavior instead of physiology, so everything I gleaned from those tomes fell under ecology (i.e. food chain), unaware of the existence of other fields like physiology, development, and genetics, all of which I'm doing now.
In high school, I told my guidance counselor that I wanted to go to med school, but in retrospect, I was making that up because I didn't have a clue as to what that entailed, and didn't have much exposure to what else was out there (aside from engineering, but my dad is an engineer and I was under the impression that it was all about cars, which I found dull). The counselor suggested that I take AP biology, which was the first lucky accident, because I loved everything about it...so much that I decided to major in it in college. The AP class gave me a wide range of interests, and I chose plain "Biology" over Cellular/Molecular and Ecology/Evolution because it gave me freedom to take any bio class that sounded interesting and still have it count toward the degree. Most of my classes fell under the Ecology/Evolution category, although if I knew then what I know now, I would have changed my major to the cellular/molecular side.
The second lucky accident happened junior year of college, when I took developmental biology (which was awesome) and its corresponding lab class (which was even more so). My GSI for the lab class, who was also one of my current advisor's former students, asked if I had considered going to grad school because I had noted my interest in animal development. And here I am.
***
My interests have changed even in grad school; on my application, I listed stem cells as one of my interests, but throughout my rotations I found out that I'd much rather be dealing with animals than growing cells in a dish. I never would have guessed that what I'm working on now would consist of animal development, genetics, physiology, and evolution, given that my early interests were something so far removed from it. I think I owe it to my AP teacher and my GSI, because otherwise I'm not sure I would have found something that I loved so much to study it for 8 years... and counting.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Realistic Optimism
Over the past few years I've heard from various people that I'm "blissfully optimisitic". One time I was stepping off to bus to go to school, and some random guy came up to me (while I was zoned out on my headphones) and said "I see you all the time and I have to ask: why are you so smiley?" Another person told me multiple times last year "I can't believe you're so happy all the time." Another time during recruitment weekend I ran into someone on the walk to lab and they were talking about how only first and second year grad students are asked to host a prospective student, since at that stage of their career, they're still "happy and excited about their research," while senior grad students are stereotypically bitter and irritated that they haven't graduated yet.
Looking back on my blog posts starting from undergrad commencement, I've definitely taken a more serious tone in my writing about the grad student experience. I've rarely written about my project as of late and have focused more on experiences outside of lab and the changing perceptions of myself and other people. However, that doesn't mean that I'm not excited about my work anymore (my advisor recently told me that I seemd very optimistic about experimental outcomes). I think it's more of the realization that if experiments don't work, there's really nothing I can do except think it over, change a thing or two, and rerun it.
...which takes care of my life inside the lab. Outside the lab, things become very different. Sometimes I find it difficult to simply be happy when I'm surrounded by subtle pessimism, not just about lab, but also about their lives outside of lab. Two people I know have made their love lives a running joke by saying things like "what love life?" and "yours can't be more of a joke than mine!" While their comments may be on the light side of things, there are other people who say things like "marriage makes you a better person." I know one person who told me that she cried herself to sleep because she didn't have a boyfriend on her birthday. It's hard for me to deal with stories like that, especially if I'm being constantly bombarded with messages that I can't be happy as I am, or that I simply can't become a better person because I'm unmarried.
***
My cold-emailing-club-directors-and/or-instructors is finally starting to pay off; I've started dancing again and got involved with a science outreach group. And I'm definitely seeking out happier people to be around.
Looking back on my blog posts starting from undergrad commencement, I've definitely taken a more serious tone in my writing about the grad student experience. I've rarely written about my project as of late and have focused more on experiences outside of lab and the changing perceptions of myself and other people. However, that doesn't mean that I'm not excited about my work anymore (my advisor recently told me that I seemd very optimistic about experimental outcomes). I think it's more of the realization that if experiments don't work, there's really nothing I can do except think it over, change a thing or two, and rerun it.
...which takes care of my life inside the lab. Outside the lab, things become very different. Sometimes I find it difficult to simply be happy when I'm surrounded by subtle pessimism, not just about lab, but also about their lives outside of lab. Two people I know have made their love lives a running joke by saying things like "what love life?" and "yours can't be more of a joke than mine!" While their comments may be on the light side of things, there are other people who say things like "marriage makes you a better person." I know one person who told me that she cried herself to sleep because she didn't have a boyfriend on her birthday. It's hard for me to deal with stories like that, especially if I'm being constantly bombarded with messages that I can't be happy as I am, or that I simply can't become a better person because I'm unmarried.
***
My cold-emailing-club-directors-and/or-instructors is finally starting to pay off; I've started dancing again and got involved with a science outreach group. And I'm definitely seeking out happier people to be around.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Isolation and Impatient Optimism
Several older students told me that everyone in grad school eventually enters the "bitter grad student" phase in their career, and I think that time is around now. I don't even have to talk to other people about grad school and research to realize this. I've noticed that many people I talk to don't have any enthusiasm to do anything...social or otherwise. For the past few months, getting people together to do something fun has been (and still is) like pulling teeth. I usually get some variation of the excuse "when I get home from lab I just want to sit and do nothing," which makes me wonder (a) if I'm not working hard enough in lab, since I still have energy, and (b) if I get cabin fever way faster than everyone I know.
I think part of the problem is that by now, we've settled into a life of routine...we get up, go to lab, do work, come back, and crash, only to repeat this cycle 6 or 7 days a week for the next couple years until our advisors say we can graduate. While routine can be comforting (sometimes), it also is a recipe for isolation. And after a long time, it becomes a hard habit to break. The other problem is that we're surrounded by the same people day after day, and opportunities to meet new people who aren't in the same field (or the same lab, for that matter) are scarce to nonexistent.
One of my friends goes to med school at MSU and he came to visit several weeks ago. We talked about some of the trends we've seen in people as we go through grad school: the pessimism, isolation, and general laziness which gets progressively worse with time. He said that the best way to combat it is with optimism, "impatient optimism" to be specific. (The phrase came from a graduation speech that Bill Gates supposedly gave at Harvard.) It means to be happy, but also to be proactive in pursuing the activities that bring happiness.
I really think I've been trying to get people together, but it's not working. At the same time, I've also looked into other activities that branch off of what I liked to do when I was younger (dance, for instance) as a way to fulfill my mental health time. Several people have told me that I should stop trying so hard, but I don't think that passivity is the best way to solve this problem.
I don't think I've ever felt more alone in my life.
I think part of the problem is that by now, we've settled into a life of routine...we get up, go to lab, do work, come back, and crash, only to repeat this cycle 6 or 7 days a week for the next couple years until our advisors say we can graduate. While routine can be comforting (sometimes), it also is a recipe for isolation. And after a long time, it becomes a hard habit to break. The other problem is that we're surrounded by the same people day after day, and opportunities to meet new people who aren't in the same field (or the same lab, for that matter) are scarce to nonexistent.
One of my friends goes to med school at MSU and he came to visit several weeks ago. We talked about some of the trends we've seen in people as we go through grad school: the pessimism, isolation, and general laziness which gets progressively worse with time. He said that the best way to combat it is with optimism, "impatient optimism" to be specific. (The phrase came from a graduation speech that Bill Gates supposedly gave at Harvard.) It means to be happy, but also to be proactive in pursuing the activities that bring happiness.
I really think I've been trying to get people together, but it's not working. At the same time, I've also looked into other activities that branch off of what I liked to do when I was younger (dance, for instance) as a way to fulfill my mental health time. Several people have told me that I should stop trying so hard, but I don't think that passivity is the best way to solve this problem.
I don't think I've ever felt more alone in my life.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Evolution I
The grad school environment isn't exactly a breeding ground for social activities, and in some ways, the lack of "practice" coupled with constant, focused brain activity forces people to change. The other part, I suppose, is growing up in general. I'd be naive to think that people won't change with time, but sometimes the way they evolve can be surprising.
I was talking to my (now married!) friend the other day about how I found it increasingly difficult to connect with "normal" people, defined as people who never went to grad school. Obviously upon meeting someone new, you try to find some common ground first, and with other students, going to grad school IS the common ground. You start off with "Hey, nice to meet you. What program are you in? Who's lab?" and then drift to other topics that may or may not be related to work. With non-grad students it becomes harder:
-So, what do you do?
-I'm a grad student doing developmental biology.
-Masters or PhD?
-PhD.
(conversation dies in about two more sentences, unless the other person is actually interested in what you're saying)
One could argue that it's just a personality thing, but in general, I find that meeting and talking to other grad students is easier than meeting non-students.
**
That's not to say that all people in grad school change the same way. Some become hyperfocused on their work and let everything else (friends, hobbies) drop to the side, and in some extreme cases, drop entirely. I don't think school is very conducive in making people strike a balance between work and leisure; there's always "I'm too busy with lab," the universal reply to almost anything that anyone asks, unless it's the PI who's asking.
It's becoming more of a struggle for me to strike that work-leisure balance as I go into my fourth year here. Not like I don't want there to be a balance... I feel like I'm trying really hard to seek out my friends to do something fun once in a while (even as a mental break), but the act of getting x number of people together at the same place and time is sapping out the fun in whatever activity there is to do. Disagreements about where to go and what to do are normal, but they cross the line when people start complaining about my ideas without offering any of their own. I even had one person tell me (when I invited her to go to the comedy club with us) "No thanks, I don't wanna go," which would have been perfectly fine, except she continued, "I don't know why you keep inviting me to do stuff; it's not you, it's the things you plan. They're just bleh." Who needs to hear something like that? And for the record, it's not the first (nor the last) time that someone has vetoed my ideas without a countersuggestion.
I'm trying to not use the "I'm busy" line too often without giving an alternate time, and it's been working pretty well. But right now I'm grappling with my own (perceived or not) increasing social awkwardness and decreasing sanity/patience. I also perceive that I have been constantly seeking out others, which makes me feel clingy and very dependent, something that makes me quite uncomfortable.
I suppose the good thing is that I'm relaxing a bit this upcoming weekend without having to strain myself in getting groups of people together in the same place at the same time.
I was talking to my (now married!) friend the other day about how I found it increasingly difficult to connect with "normal" people, defined as people who never went to grad school. Obviously upon meeting someone new, you try to find some common ground first, and with other students, going to grad school IS the common ground. You start off with "Hey, nice to meet you. What program are you in? Who's lab?" and then drift to other topics that may or may not be related to work. With non-grad students it becomes harder:
-So, what do you do?
-I'm a grad student doing developmental biology.
-Masters or PhD?
-PhD.
(conversation dies in about two more sentences, unless the other person is actually interested in what you're saying)
One could argue that it's just a personality thing, but in general, I find that meeting and talking to other grad students is easier than meeting non-students.
**
That's not to say that all people in grad school change the same way. Some become hyperfocused on their work and let everything else (friends, hobbies) drop to the side, and in some extreme cases, drop entirely. I don't think school is very conducive in making people strike a balance between work and leisure; there's always "I'm too busy with lab," the universal reply to almost anything that anyone asks, unless it's the PI who's asking.
It's becoming more of a struggle for me to strike that work-leisure balance as I go into my fourth year here. Not like I don't want there to be a balance... I feel like I'm trying really hard to seek out my friends to do something fun once in a while (even as a mental break), but the act of getting x number of people together at the same place and time is sapping out the fun in whatever activity there is to do. Disagreements about where to go and what to do are normal, but they cross the line when people start complaining about my ideas without offering any of their own. I even had one person tell me (when I invited her to go to the comedy club with us) "No thanks, I don't wanna go," which would have been perfectly fine, except she continued, "I don't know why you keep inviting me to do stuff; it's not you, it's the things you plan. They're just bleh." Who needs to hear something like that? And for the record, it's not the first (nor the last) time that someone has vetoed my ideas without a countersuggestion.
I'm trying to not use the "I'm busy" line too often without giving an alternate time, and it's been working pretty well. But right now I'm grappling with my own (perceived or not) increasing social awkwardness and decreasing sanity/patience. I also perceive that I have been constantly seeking out others, which makes me feel clingy and very dependent, something that makes me quite uncomfortable.
I suppose the good thing is that I'm relaxing a bit this upcoming weekend without having to strain myself in getting groups of people together in the same place at the same time.
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