Crushed

I got an email from a lab mate of mine asking for directions to my internship place for an interview with J. I dont think things get more obvious than this. Right now I am more angry at QoH than anyone else. He should have given me a heads-up. He owes me atleast that much. He cannot pretend to be my best bud, and go behind my back at the same time. My world is coming crashing down on me. I have lost my internship. QoH has no funding for me. My coffee shop is going no where. I havent heard back from the CEO of the other company yet. I dont know what I am going to do.

Reality Continues to Ruin My Life

After all of last week’s hype, reality has finally caught up with me. I now realize that even though taking a leave of absense and starting my coffee shop is the best choice for me personally, it however borders on career suicide. Not to mention that my parents have flipped on me. They have successfully bullied my uncle into backing out of his partnership offer too. They think I am being immature. How do I tell them this is a wise decision without going into details? I dont want to discuss the war I am waging with myself with them. Even if I do, I dont think they will understand; or worse, they will start handling me.

My roommate and I were discussing this coffee shop move over dinner last night. He wanted to know what exactly was I hoping to achieve by this. For the first time in my life, I didnt have a logical answer. I could validate it emotionaly, but logically I was beaten.

I havent heard back from the CEO of the company I had offered to consult/work with as a back up plan to my coffee shop. He was supposed to get back to me last Friday. 5 days and counting.

It is so funny, thats its almost tragic, to see how little of our lives we actually control; much less steer.

Weekend Update

The worst thing about recovering from depression is remembering what it is to be happy. Especially during the slumps. The very fact that you can recall being happy a few days ago just seems to make things even worse. That pretty much summarized the majority of last week. At work, I spent all my time patching up with J, and trying to keep him happy. My neck depends on it now. I think I made some progress with him over the past few days.

Yesterday I took a labmate to a concert on campus. We danced our asses off. It has been a while since I last danced so it was quite a bit of fun. Just being around a bunch of enthusiastic people riding a collective high, lifts your spirit up. The mojo carried well into today, and I got a bit of work done. Well not so much work, as a productive meeting. To be fair, it was a 3.5 hour meeting, but it was pretty useful.

Its going to Monday in a few hours, and I got to get back kissing J’s ass. If only J was a hot long legged brunnette

The Boy Genius

There is a really funny posting in the Washington DC section of Craigslist about a possible job opening. A must read.

Via Wonkette

The Changes

I made a few conscious moves today. First, I dropped all my classes for this quarter. They were really interesting and I would love to take them, but they are more work than I can handle right now. Second, I excused myself from all of QoH and his research related tasks/activities. Right now, I don’t see them having enough returns for me to justify so much effort. So for the next 3 months, ALL I have to do is keep J happy and make progress at my internship. This solves two problems. First, if J remains happy, he will fund my stay in grad school and I don’t have to worry about QoH pulling the plug on me. Secondly, the research I am doing for J is actually pretty exciting. It is challenging, but exciting. If I get the device to work, it will be good for my career just incase I stick to stupid engineering. I had detailed discussions about this with QoH last weekend. He has been really understanding and supportive. He is worried that I might burn out at this rate, and just make a mess of myself. He was the one is suggested that I take a break from his research for a while. Now, that is quality advising.

A New Start

I have nearly decieded on to make a fresh start to my career, my life, my priorities, everything. I am not happy with myself right now, neither am I happy with the way things are going at work. I have lost that sense of purpose and accomplishment in life. Infact, I think I have seized to live and am just existing. I need a fresh start.

I am going to take an year of extended leave of absense from my PhD and go home. While there, I will start my own coffee shop. It will be a nice and cozy but spacious, trendy but not pretentious, friendly place for people to hang out. I have a few ideas on it already. I have to convince my father that this is a good thing, and I am not being an idiot about this, and I will be on my way.

I was discussing this with my roommate earlier today. He thinks, that I might be depressed and may be acting out of frustration. He does not know that I have been depressed for over 5 months now but this does bring up an interesting point. May be I am being an ass about all this, and should just shut the fuck up and continue with my life. On the other hand, I have never taken any risks in my life so far, and the ones I have always repented have been the ones I havent taken. I dont want this to be one more thing in that list. So what if I screw up? I will be bankrupt at 27. There is plenty of time to get out of that, isnt there? At the bare minimum, I will be happy that I did something with my life.

Maybe I need to go see my therapist the first thing in the morning. I need to know that I am not delluding myself and this is not some wierd phase that I am going through.

The other shoe…

I was starting to feel a bit better, when I see a posting on an online singles forum from the person I am currently dating. I didnt blog about her coz I didnt want to jinx it. Oh well, wonder why do I even try.

I slept with the angels and woke up with demons….

I slept with the angels and woke up with demons. I am my own downfall. I want peace and calm, maybe I will find it in my grave. I do not have the strength to live, nor can I afford to die. Right now, all I repent is ever being born.

The world this week

I spent all week at home, resting. Now I am bored beyond words. I am still not 100% ok. I have occasional dizzy spells and another weird sensation I am not able to put a word on. I will get the final diagonosis on Tuesday.
On the plus side, QoH has been really understanding. He has asked me to hand off as many tasks as possible to other grad students so that I dont strain myself too much. He has dropped all deadlines, and tasks. I havent heard from J all week, but I am assuming he isnt too happy about me missing the deadline earlier this week. QoH also hinted at something to that extent. I, for once, honestly dont care.
I liked this week. I was at peace. My mental composure was nearly impeccable, and serene. I did not feel guilty about taking a week off to take care of myself, and missing work and classes in the process. I dont recall the last time I was so relaxed (and happy?).
On the other hand, this week I did participate in an activity that I am not proud of. I think it was just me trying to rebel against my own moral and ethical limits. I need to figure it out.

Back in office. Back to work.

Back in office. Back to work.