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Extended Weekend of Cool Drunkery! (Part 3 of 3); fuck I hate silly little lab problems

2005-08-14 - 8:59 p.m.

There's not altogether much to tell about last saturday, the 3rd straight night of drunkery.

It was Becky's birthday party and she wanted to hang about at the Dane. I showed up as per my usual 'on-time' self, and was happy to see Bryan coming up one of the other streets. We said hi, commented on the encounter, and proceeded to swarm inside and through every crevice for evidence of our party.

One stuck-up bitch, some eye-brow raising dinner guests down in the back patio section, and a smile or two later...and we were in the main bar section. We'd snagged Physics Bryan in the process somehow. Physics Bryan is..well...a grad student in physics. Paladin sort. Noble to a T and genuine. He came into the psych partying fold by meeting Xtian through the famous volleyball team. All sortsa people come by because of that one.

Inevitably alot of people showed up, and I floated from little islands of conversation in the vast beer channel we stood in. Many people were Becky's friends, but unlike at Carolyn's party I didn't get to know most of them. The exceptions were Hawk Girl (Hawkie) and Obnoxious (Noxious). Hawkie and Obnoxious came with a friend of theirs who was a chef. All three of them basically stayed together, with chef and Hawkie chatting sometimes. Being the gracious person I am, I introduced myself and asked Hawkie's name. She smiled and wore her face in such a way that was somewhat insulting. It was one of those "gee do I want to get to know you, or am I so stupid I've forgotten my own name" sorts of expressions.

Chef was about as enlightening, although he'd taken my advisor's course and that provided a minute of amiable banter. 'Piano Man asshole in a stupid hat' sums it up.

Finally she told me, and conversation commenced. I quickly got bored and used my body language to indicate that whatever group X was talking about was much more interesting. At this time, she began to talk with chef about a guy--Physics Bryan, I think--and how she wanted to approach him, blah blah blah.

Noxious was a loathsome human-being. Not that she was nasty or mean. On the contrary, she was bubbly and laughing in that fat girl "I'm somewhat easy" way. But it would seem I was beneath her grace. Bryan and I occasionally said something to her, or mentioned this or that, and she'd just look off to someone else. As if we were talking mannequins. We both concluded the girl was a bitch and ignored her for the rest of the evening.

My stout was alright, not great but not bad. Bryan went for soda since he'd been drinking for 3 straight days. The pool table rental fees were shite, so all of us stood around and talked awhile. The talking was fun at alot of points, though, I'll give it that.

After an hour or so, though, we headed over to the Badger Hole. It's an Irish bar with Gaelic everywhere. The name is Irish (which I intentionally didn't put), many of the bartenders are Irish, and the appetizers are overpriced carbohydrate potato affairs.

We invaded and occupied the top left floor for the rest of the evening. The only interesting conversations I can remember were with Becky's boyfriend, the aeronautics engineer. We had a fascinating chat about the dead sub-field of aerodynamics, some of his research, that general wing of engineering, and stuff. It's strange how I've met so many engineers recently, but it's reinforced my bias: I think they're all kick-ass, down to earth people.

So that all ended much earlier than the other two parties, and we all went our separate ways.

Thus ended 3 straight days of drunkery. Except I didn't get drunk on the 3rd day. But it sounds better if I did.

* * *

But everything gotta come back down.

Sunday was a day of lots of writing for the game project. We're 15 people strong and actually making good progress. I write 1,500 or so words a day for it. Already have the equivalent of a small novel on this laptop. Probably end up with War and Peace by the end--even if I want to shorten things up some. After all, we're working with a 3 year old game engine.

And monday through friday was more lab stuff.

The experiment portion on tues and thurs went great. True, I forgot to do assignment and drop forms on tues, but I had to take care of some unexpected paperwork. I did wrap it up on thursday and said it wouldn't happen again. Guess my only excuse would be that I have to do everything in terms of prep, running things, taking stuff down, cleaning..and by the end I just want to get out of the building. I couldn't do the forms on wednesday since, er, I left early to read a statistics book at the center for ethnography library.

The thing just skipped my mind.

And on thursday, wouldn't you know it, another little error. While I was cleaning the monkey cage and washing the monkey crap and stuff into the drain, I bent over. Both pens in my front pocket fell out. They skittered into the drain. I'd had the drain cover off because that makes the job so much easier. At the time, I thought this was of no consequence.

When I brought it up with Gabe, though, I couldn't gauge if I'd fucked up again or if it was something I shouldn't worry about. She mentioned that a plumber needed to get them out before I did anything in that room, and that I might have to 'punt' on doing a monkey this coming tuesday if he hadn't come by then.

For whatever reason, this depressed the hell out of me. Even after I talked with the building manager assistant, got her to call the plumber and make an appointment, and have her tell me that shit like that happens and not to worry, I still felt wretchedly horrible. I didn't know if this would be yet another thing that Dr. C would get to hear about. And whether this would be another inconsequential problem blown out of proportion (and then casually dismissed with a chuckle until I fucked up the next time).

I mean realistically speaking, I'd forgotten the pens were there. And they were firmly in my lab-coat pocket. But they still slid out. I'm hoping that the plumber comes on monday and that everyone just forgets the whole thing.

I can't actually believe most of my friday was completely ruined by it. I can't believe I'm still worried about it. I worried about lots of shit with Dr. Zivago, but somehow I thought the situation with Dr. C was different. It's starting to look like, though, that they want to nail my ass for any little thing. For things that I sometimes have no control over or that I was ignorant about. I've only been doing this type of research regularly since mid-April. And even if, last thursday, he said that I worry too much about every thing that the women of the building might say I've done wrong...I get an entirely different air from reading his emails to me.

"Projects like this have a zero tolerance for errors"

How in the hell am I supposed to live up to that when I'm the only one on a project? Especially when some things come up that I simply didn't forsee and hadn't received training about? Everyone else is in a team or has a much less complicated project. It's very difficult keeping track of everything, even with a checklist--and sometimes I just forget one thing. Usually it's just one thing. But every time I come in to do something on an experiment day, something goes wrong. It may be nothing that affects my data, but still..something goes wrong.

And those words start to dominate my field of vision, and terror possesses me. The fear that 'you're still learning' is no longer a viable excuse. That I'm no longer seen as capable. I can do this stuff, but sometimes I forget one non-essential (to me) thing like a form..but I correct it.

The whole thing has me majorly stressed out when I think about it.

Most of this summer I coudn't really relax because of all the lab shit. I've told myself to at least enjoy these last few weeks--and I'm going to try my hardest. I'm also going to take off this next week, I think. I deserve at least one.

* * *

In terms of my nights, I've either spent them writing like a fiend or photographing my heart out. Yes. You read right: I'm doing photography again. TWO nights this past week. In a row. I'll be writing about 'em soon and posting what I got. I'd even thought about going out tonight after the cafe closes and doing some.

So in summary: really fun last weekend, and middling decent to utterly terrified last week during the days, and quietly letting the world blur or fade away during the nights.

UPDATE: I nearly forgot. I also talked to a semi-old friend of mine. She opened up to me about something. Truth be told, for the longest time, I'd thought she'd slipped into the great fade like most other friends of mine. But all this time, she still cared about me. I'd felt very close to her in the past, so the distance had hurt some at a few points. But then we got to talking a little more nowadays, and I realized how much I'd missed her friendship.

So here's to friends. And if you're one of mine, you've helped me through light and darkness. My deepest thanks, and love.

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