quantitativeimagining is trapped in purgatory jury duty, so it seems I’ve primarily got myself to talk to this week. This might make a great opportunity to get back to semi-anonymous whining blogging.
I may have made a mistake when I planned my schedule for this semester.
As a graduate student, my funding (stipend + tuition) for the last few years has principally come from teaching-assistantships. The theory is you have a ‘half-time’ teaching position (~20 hours of work a week), which pays the bills, and leaves ‘half-time’ (~20 additional hours) for research. I’ve been intending to TA an intro biology lab for a while, and this semester finally got the opportunity. However, one of the intro-biology lecture professors requested me specifically as a TA, and I’m a sucker for that kind of flattery, so I’m splitting my time. Theoretically I’m 1/4 time (10 hours) for the lecture, and 1/4 time for the biology lab. In reality, I have more responsibilities for the lecture than I did last semester, when I was 1/2 time for that position, and TA work is consuming close to 30 hours a week. It also has been more stressful and less fun than some of my previous teaching experiences– lots of circumstances outside of my control (people not communicating with me, technological quirks) that have been setting me up to look stupid and incompetent.
This schedule also leaves 10-20 hours for research, about 5-10 of which gets sucked into my own class/meetings/chores/etc. I end up having maybe one to two afternoons during the standard work-week to actually devote to research, which puts a fair amount of pressure on me to be productive on evenings/weekends. As it happens, I’m not someone who works well under that kind of pressure. Have I mentioned that I’m in the fifth year of my PhD, and research progress this semester is non-optional? I haven’t been able to sleep on Sunday nights since the first week of the semester. All-nighters and I are old acquaintances– we go way back, but I’m twenty-six and I’m starting to feel a little weird about this lifestyle.
These are all purely first-world problems, causing only minor frustration. It’s also absolutely a situation I created for myself, eyes open. I should still have enough time to accomplish all that I need, especially if I stop psyching myself out.
Science Pilgrim 