Bethanie's Brain

OK, so it's been a while since I last posted. But we are drowning here. Drowing in more ways than one. Drowning in life due to soccer, school events, and life events (we have a family wedding this weekend, so everyone's in town and wants to visit). Drowing in resposibilities at the Evil Day Job, which is getting perpetually stranger every single day... Oh, yes. And it's raining. It's been raining all week. We're supposed to have "possibly severe thunderstorms" today (so the wedding won't be outside this afternoon; poor sister-in-law-to-be :( And actually, we get a break from drowning in soccer today, since the fields are closed, which is good since because of the wedding we'd have been running around like crazy all day. This way we're only running around like crazy half the day....) I don't even want to talk about school - my school - and the test I have tomorrow and how I haven't even read the chapter yet, let alone done any studyi...

So a few weeks back a Big Editing Company notified me that they wanted to hire me as a freelance editor, but didn't want me to edit in the field where I actually have editing experience -- they wanted me to edit in the field I have a degree in, even though I haven't done THING ONE in that field for 14 years. I didn't know what to tell them because I was so irritated with their lack of respect for the actual work that I DO and their apparent faith in a piece of paper given to me by my undergraduate university so long ago that it is now lost in the mists of time. So I did what came natually: I ignored them. Yesterday they emailed me back, ever so politely requesting that I send them the other stuff they need for me to start editing for them and again suggesting that I edit in that other field. Perhaps they're hard up for editors in that particular field. I don't know, I don't really care, and my inclination is to ignore them again. However. Drollerie Press ha...

Tuition & Fees: $600. Required Book & Lab Manual: $335. Assorted Notebooks, Pens & Binders: $25. Going to Class at 4AM in My Pajamas: Prrrrriceless! .

...so I can walk off it, 'cuz I could really use a dip in the drink today. It's been a helluva week. It started with a list of 5 papers to edit, submit and/or do something! with (as-soon-as-possible, thank-you-please), which soon grew to 7, then 8, then 10 , which is as many as I normally deal with in a month. Add to that another massive data entry project (which apparently counts as editing, don't ask me why...) and -- drum roll, please! -- a page proof! I knew it! I just knew there would be a page proof this week, since I'm insanely busy. There's always a page proof when I'm insanely busy. Never on a slow week. What fun would that be, anyway? And then, there are the pirates. I got frustrated with them for going full-blown novel on me, when all I wanted was a short story, so I fussed, pouted, and was generally very grumpy until they agreed to tone it down. And then I tried to cram them into a 500-word flash piece. That sorta worked, because I actually FIN...

For once, not one of my own... Happened across this today: What happens when you remove the first "e" from the word "genome"? Yes! You guessed it! You get a "gnome-wide association study"!!!!! 'Cuz, yanno, the better we understand the gnomes among us, the happier our gardens will be. Or something. Anyway, Go Gnomes!! .

Boss Lady had a meeting today with somebody who arrived when I was away from my desk (they have to walk by me to get to her), so I didn't know who it was. I could hear them talking, but they were speaking in Chinese, which I don't understand well enough to figure out who the visitor was from listening in. And then the visitor laughed - a good laugh, genuine, not fake. And then I smiled, because I knew exactly who it was. It's a good thing when you can recognize a person from their laugh, and it makes you smile, you know what I mean? .

'Cuz it can't ever just rain, yanno... Here's a summary/brain-dump about the multitude of shit going on in my life that is simultaneously about to hit the fan, just so I can clear my head: There's NaNo, of course -- 1667 word/day, right? Do-able and I've done it. But I wasn't planning on having quite so many other things going at the same time. Work-work is being crazy-crazy and the rumors, they are a-flyin'... there are more small signs every day that I should maybe be looking for another job - so I started to... ...which means updating the CV, churning out brilliant cover letters, answering unknown numbers when my cell rings, being all bright and goddamn cheerful when I do so (this requires a rather monumental amount of effort for me)... Trying to come up with a catchy name for my business that doesn't sound just like every other biomedical editing firm out there. Harder than it sounds, because as it turns out there just aren't that many ways t...

The Training Grant Adventure from Hell is over. Fucking finally. I didn't think we were going to make it when I got to work on Friday at 6:30 AM. I didn't think we were going to make it at 12:00 PM when we were still missing 3 biosketches. I didn't think we were going to make it at 4:00 PM when we still didn't have the signature page. I didn't think we were going to make it at 5:00 PM when Boss Lady LEFT to go pick up her son and attend his piano concert. (Nope. She didn't come back.) And I really, really didn't think we were going to make it at 7:15 when we were still making copies and only had 15 minutes to get them assembled and downstairs to the FedEx drop-box. But we did and it's gone: signed, sealed, and will be delivered Monday morning by FedEx. And then I almost had to kill someone. Because after I had run downstairs to the FedEx box and dropped off the boxes with the proposal inside, I came back to my computer - at 7:30 PM, mind you - and fou...

Well. My bank failed this morning. Not a good way to start Grant Submission Hell-Day. Does not bode well. Not at all, really. Gah! Where IS my coffee and when can I have another one please?!?? .

Tomorrow is Doomsday.... er.... I mean, Grant Submission Day. Yeah... um, same thing. Anyway. I've been at it since 6 AM this morning and now we're approaching 11 PM and, even though I shockingly only had ONE coffee this morning, I am SO AMPED, I can already tell that I'm never going to get to sleep in time to get any kind of rest before the alarm goes off at 5 AM Friday and the race to beat the FedEx guy starts.... I'd use this time to do some fun fiction writing, but I've been typing for, like, 16 hours straight and my damn hands are about to fall off.... I suppose it's not helping matters I'm listening to death metal.... *collapses on floor in fits of giggles* Yeah. It's that fun. Don't you wish you could do this for a living, too? OK, I'm off to bed now. Really. *more giggles* .

Rain pounds the rocks. They are slick, trecherous. The only moon in the sky this time of night is Hell, and even She and Her Hounds are hiding. A hand appears over the edge of the precipice. Stark white, waterlogged, it scrabbles for a hold on anything at all. Its owner doesn't seem to notice when it is cut to the bone by a bit of rock. Wheezing and panting with fear, a small, wretched form pulls up onto a tiny ledge. No telling whether it is man or woman, it makes for a crack in the cliff that rams into the ledge. There it huddles, gasping, shivering, praying for the storm to pass, the rain to cease, morning to come. This is how I feel right now. Beat to a pulp mentally and physically (even though I was chained here in front of my computer all day and hardly moved). I do not like Training Grants. I do not like them, Sam I Am. Seriously. Somebody just shoot me. Please. .

And just when I thought things were going so well... I've got a pretty good handle on the grant thing by now. R01's? I can do 'em in my sleep. K series? A few extra details, but no big deal. DOD-BCRP? Details galore, so they're a pain in the ass, but I've done enough of them by now that I know how to head off the worst of their gremlins. And, really, I knew better than to believe Boss Lady when she told me in July that the endometrial cancer grant was the last one for the year. I did. And sure enough, we're submitting TWO this month. ( TWO!! ) But she managed to blindside me anyway. With a monstrous beast known as a Training Grant. It is colossal. It has fangs. It has teeth. It is due on the 29th. This means I will be eating, sleeping, dreaming, breathing Training Grant for the next 3 weeks. Oh, the happiness. Oh, the joy. Oh, the glory of offering myself up as a sacrifice to such beasts. Gah! .

I almost was one. I was this close: ||. But then I thought I should probably tell them that Ms. Baby is still breastfeeding (yes, she just turned two and yes, she's still breastfeeding and no, I don't plan to wean her until she's good and ready. so there. :D) and as it turns out, breastfeeding women do not make good endometrial tissue sample donors. Bummer. Bigtime, 'cuz they would have paid me $200/sample and I could have donated up to six samples, and that would have covered the launch of my freelance medical editing gig very nicely. With room to spare, probably. OK, I would have earned that $200 every single time, because I don't think endometrial tissue donation is, like, a really pleasant experience, involving as it does a speculum up your wa-zoo and dilation of your cervix... But hey - I survived two labors with no meds, so I think I probably could have hacked it. I mean, really, how long can it take? Not more than 10 minutes, 15 tops. Piece o' cake...

Well, it's about time for a post, non? OK, it's past time - kids are sick, work is nutso, etc. And coincidences are coming out of the woodwork. Event 1: Best college girl friend sent me a birthday card last week and we started emailing (after an embarassingly long hiatus). Turns out she's ended up doing much the same thing as I am -- editing for non-native English speakers (although she's in economics whoo-haa, rather than biomedical whoo-haa). Event 2: Not so much an event as the general atmosphere of disorganized bureaucratic clutter at FPU lately has been approaching the itchy side of intolerable. I'm getting fairly burnt out on it. Event 3: One task set out for the Impending Vacation is to write up the content for my freelance website. I did some of that today, since I was stuck at home mopping up vomit (again) and therefore found it difficult to concentrate on actual work stuff and decided: what the hell, I'll just take an effing sick day. Event 4:...

From the manuscript on the top of the pile today: A comparison with local female outpatients who visited community health centers for bearing advisory was performed as well. I'm pretty sure this should be 'pre-natal consultation' or something of that nature. But the mental picture... Be on the lookout for low-flying pregnant women. Just in case. Ya heard it here first... .

You'll recall my painful encounter with Pilates . Oy. So, unwilling to hobble for days on end (again), I switched to "Stretch It", which is billed as "gentle yoga stetching" on the FPU health club website. And that first week it was - gentle, that is. Well. Today, we were upside down with our feet on the wall. It was sort of an L-shaped handstand. Somehow, my definition of "gentle" is not really in the vicinity of "handstand". Oy. .

I'm editing Boss Lady's proposal backwards, paragraph by paragraph, in order to pay attention this time, 'cuz it's, like, the 18th time I've read it and I just can't seem to pay attention like I should anymore... Anyways. One of the funny things you notice when you do this is how NONE of the abbreviations are defined before you see them and so you end up with unintelligible gobble-de-gook like this: Phase II will have 92% power to detect an HR=1.5 for DFS for a SNP with a MAF as low as 10% in the BCSS. And yes, actually, you DO need a degree to know what the hell that means... or you need to have read the rest of the bloody thing 18 times in 4 days... whichever works for you... And I'll stop procrastinating now and get back to work already. .

I love Boss Lady, really I do. But some days she just wears me out. Today would be one of those days. Why she cannot understand that it is bad idea for her to make changes to the same document that I am making changes to, I shall never understand. To the end of my days. Never. .

So yesterday I got this invoice from the publisher of one of our papers, and they're charging us $3.00 for every correction we made to the page proof (a grand total of $117.00). Normally, I would have no problem with this -- I understand that it's a pain to change things once they've gone to the publisher. However. In this case, the publisher is charging us for correcting things that the journal changed when they copy-edited the paper and didn't check with us about first. THAT ticks me off. I mean, if you want to copy-edit the articles you publish, fine. GOOD, in fact, because another set of eyes looking through something is never a bad idea and if you want everything you publish to reflect your house style, that's fine, too. But if you're going to do that, fer Pete's sake, check with the people who wrote the damn thing to make sure you're not changing the intended meaning before you send it to your publisher. I know, I know - I'm ranting. But I...

It's been one of those days. In fact, it's been one of those weeks. Every blessed thing I touch, think about or try to do at FPU goes straight to Hell's Handbasket (do not pass Go, do not collect shit). And it is the days/weeks/months like this that make me seriously reconsider my career path. How much experience do I really NEED before I start freelancing? Some days, I wonder. Some days, I really wonder. .