still running....

Conference/vacation time is over and the data analysis was done, the slides were prepared on time and all the students had a measurement schedule before I left. So I actually could enjoy my time off!

The only thing that was unclear was if the lecture will be on or not. The number of enrollments said "no", but the teaching committee did not meet until a week ago. And even though the enrollments were below the official threshold they decided that my course will be on - a week before the first lecture had to take place. Yeah! Great fun! That will keep me busy for the next weeks.

And of course not everything worked out with my well planned measurement schedules for the students. One of them needs access to a shared lab and for some reason her electronic access was not activated during the last weeks, even though all the paper work was done - most likely because the main person in charge was on leave and nobody felt particularly responsible to take over the job. As the student is just with us for a couple of weeks this "laziness" delayed her project a lot and so her schedule will be busy as well - and mine with it.

Additionally, there are some reports with deadlines coming up, so it seems that at least until the lecture is over I'll be the first one in and the last one out of the office. Double-yeah!

A post-doc colleague of mine said once to me, that I should enjoy the first 18 month of my post-doc time. Afterwards it would start to be very stressful. He seems to be totally right!

Oohh, and one thing about the financial situation: the commencement of the new taxation rules (LAFHA) has be moved to September and even then it's still not clear who will be affected how much. I guess, everybody who moved house, sold their car, quit their job,... because of the expected massive net pay reduction, feels a bit taken for a ride. Everybody else is quite happy about this new announcement - me, too!

leaving on a jetplane

The last weeks have been a bit crazy! After two long and more or less successful experimental sessions with lots of data to analyze, there was not much time to settle back in the office. One of our collaborators from the experimental session stayed a few days longer and we discussed and pre-processed our data - and had a few lunches/dinners/beers. Directly after that our group got "swamped" with short term exchange students, who all need the same pieces of equipment to do their projects. And of course they all just have limited time, whereof a lot is already taken by safety instructions and paperwork. All their projects are related to what I'm doing, so I'm their main contact person. Which is sort of great, because they are in very different stages of their studies and its great to see them progress. But of course it takes up a lot of time. 

At the end of the week I'll leave for a combined conference/vacation trip and until then there is still a bit of data analysis on my table and ... yeah .... the conference talk needs to be prepared and I still didn't come up with a great way to present my data. After the conference there may or may not be my first lecture to be given - which is as well not amazingly prepared yet. I mean, the first lecture - I refuse to think about the rest of it for now. Because maybe the number of students enrolled is too low and then the whole course is skipped - so my motivation to prepare a lot is quite low.

Sounds all like bad time management, I guess. But until the deadline/departure of the plane everything will be organized, slides will be prepared, I'll know if the lecture will take place and all the exchange students will have a plan for the time I'm not there and they will do great stuff and present exciting results when I'm back!

This is how it will be!

ticked off

Sample prep (half a truck full) - 90% done

Equipment check - done

Putting all needed data together - 90% done

The boss' writing task - done
Organization of my absence - done

Not too bad for Friday evening of the "deadline is coming up" week. Just a small bit of work to do on the weekend and a bit on Monday and everything can start smoothly - at least it looks like that at the moment.

And there was even time for an Ayurvedic treatment and a Yoga session - on the expense of two not so important workshops/trainings. Hopefully the good vibrations will last for the upcoming experiments - that would be awesome!

other peoples deadlines

A deadline getting serious because I myself mess up my scheduling is one thing. Bad scheduling that gets additionally messed up because other people can't hold their deadlines and they "need my help" is something totally different:

my boss decided that I should do some writing for him, not much and even a nice task - just that his deadline was already last week, so I have to squeeeeeeeeeeeeeez this task into my already tight schedule of this week. But as I wanted to make "getting up earlier" a habit anyways, this is just a bit of extra motivation ...

deadline coming up

Finally, after 19 posts without a single deadline topic, I can proudly present my first serious deadline since quite a while. And it is getting serious! 

There is a major external experiment coming up next week, for which half a truck of samples needs to be prepared. The samples come from two different collaborators. One of them has send the samples in way before schedule, so I had to delay the whole preparation process quite a while, to build up the right amount of mental pressure for this task. Even before this threshold value was reached, I checked if all the equipment needed for preparation was there - and, of course, it was not. Some significant parts got lost and the PhD student, who most probably new where they could be, was away for a few weeks. It took a while until we found out that some not-authorized person had "borrowed" the equipment and broke it in action - the secret person and the PhD student knew about it, but it seems they were all too busy to inform somebody. This first issue was luckily fixed very quickly and I was still relaxed in schedule.

Sample prep was already progressing well this morning, when I realized that the prep lab will be blocked by student classes half the week and I have to squeeze my prep time in between classes, group seminars, meetings about the upcoming experiment,.... - there goes my "still relaxed in schedule". But finally the other half of the half a truck of samples arrived today, so at least I can't blame it on anybody else anymore (= .

So the next days will be a great practise in prioritizing and keeping calm (and maybe humming "soft kitty" once in a while).