Home body

I had a short business trip this week (Tu AM to Wed early PM) and on the plane home tonight I realized that I'm becoming a home body.

I still yearn for a tropical (or at least warm) vacation but I don't like to be away for long periods of time and especially without my husband. I recognize that some of that maybe due to the fact that I'm pregnant but reflecting back I think this has been building. I suspect some of stems from the realization that work travel isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

I just couldn't wait to get in my own house, where my comfy sweats are located. Where I could sit on my own couch and watch TV and I've been dreaming about sleeping in my own bed tonight (even though I was only in a hotel room for 1 night).

I'm traveling again next week for a conference. I'll be gone Wed through Sun. I'll probably be a mess by the time I get back. Fingers crossed I don't have any traveling snafus. After that, I don't have any travel plans (although it looks like I might have a couple of short work meeting trips next month).

Home!!

I got home last night, it was a relatively uneventful flight except it was super foggy at home and I didn't realize we were landing when we did. Was glad it was just the plane tires hitting the ground and not the entire plane! :)

I've realized that traveling for work sucks. When I first took this job I thought it sounded like an adventure but the novelty has worn off. I primarily travel for conferences and each time has been with a different set of colleagues.

I went to quite a few conferences in graduate school and my experiences always equaled a really good time. It was an opportunity to learn new stuff, present my work, get some time away from the office and hang out with people I really liked. This is the complete opposite of my work travel experience.

• Although some of the conferences I have learned a lot, it's not as intellectually interesting to me as the ones I went to in grad school and this last conference was not all that informative for me.
  
• I always feel the pressure to both attend sessions and do some actual work (unfortunately the work does not go away while I'm away and there really is not anyone else to do my work while I'm gone). So I end up conferencing from 8am-7-8pm and then going back to my hotel room to work for a few hours and when I'm on the West coast, that is just a disaster for me.
  
• I am very fortunate to have great colleagues... but they're not my friends. I have a good time with them sharing meals and having someone to hang out with during breaks but it still feels very lonely.
• I've been a co-author on a few of the presentations that we've given but I it's not as rewards as presenting my own work. I've mentioned previously here, here and here about the crazy restrictions I deal with at work which takes away a lot of the joy of sharing what we do.
  

Moral of the story, I am so glad that right now I don't have any work travel plans in the future! I am working on a conference proposal right now but it's not until late next summer and maybe by then I'll be okay with traveling again.

Surprises

I hate them. Seriously, in this very pathological way. It all goes back to my need for truth, when someone surprises me all I can think about is the fibs they had to tell to keep it a surprise and it eats away at me.

My 16th birthday was a disaster, my parents threw me a surprise party and the entire time I was miserable.I kept thinking through the conversations I had with my best friends and boyfriend for weeks before the event and the many lies they told me in order to keep this secret. You should see the pictures from the party, I was miserable.

It even extend to an inability to throw other people surprise parties. I threw hubby a surprise party for his 30th birthday and it almost gave me a heart attack. In order to pull it off I had to tell hubby that I was planning a surprise and he needed to not ask me questions. :)

Now, I realize what I'm going to say next makes me a hypocrite: I love to surprise other people!! :) Hubby and I have made a habit of it after living out of State for 6 years we had to disappoint enough people who invited us to events that whenever we could we would show up and surprise them (don't worry not for weddings or events that a head count was really important).

Our favorite experience was showing up to hubby's BFF house for his New Year's Eve party. Nobody knew we were coming (we were not even invited because Hubby's BFF just assumed we wouldn't make it given we were home the week before for X-mas). The look on Hubby's BFF face when he opened the door to see us standing there was precious! He started screaming for his wife who came around the corner and also started screaming. :) Hubby's BFF still talks about it as his favorite surprise ever.

This weekend I get to do it again. My sister and I are driving 9.5 hours to attend a friend's 30th birthday celebration! We're leaving on Thursday and coming back on Sunday, it is going to be a blast. We're staying with another friend who RSVPd for 3 (see making sure we don't screw up the headcount) which birthday girl assumes was Friend, her hubby and son. I can't wait to see the look on her face, even if it does make me a hypocrite. :)

Work Travel

If you follow my blog at all you know that I travel a moderate amount for work, usually for conferences or conventions. I am traveling again next week and just found out that our coordinator forgot to book our rooms so we are not in the conference hotel!! As a matter of fact we are in a hotel that is 3 miles away with limited shuttles between the two hotels!

This fact alone makes me want to cancel the whole trip (alas it's not just me and I'm actually presenting so that would be super uncool). I will be there from Wed through Sat and I can already see what a huge pain in the ass this is going to be. Usually I go to my room often throughout the day, if I don't have a session I'm particularly interested in or if I need some downtime after an intense talk. I also usually have to work a bit during the day which means not only will I not have the opportunity to go back to my room and rest, but I'll also have to carry my lap top around with me. I am so not looking forward to this, something tells me I'll be attending less sessions than I usually do.

I have only stayed at the non-conference hotel once before in my career. Hubby came with me for my first poster presentation and although I liked the smaller boutique hotel we stayed in I vowed to never do that again!

Oh and god help them if they don't have a bath tub!!!

4 day workweek= 4 day weekend :)

I have a 4 day work week this week, hubby and I leave Friday for grad school town. Going to grad school's football game on Sat and visiting friends/colleagues the rest of the weekend. Really looking forward to our 4 day get away. I'm sure I'll need it after my meeting tomorrow. I haven't seen some of my friends in just about a year! I am so excited to see them all.

Home sweet home

My East Coast brain can not handle the West Coast time zone. I have been sleeping well but you would never know it too look at me, I look like a walking zombie. I'm at a work related conference which means I had to go to a session during every available time period (for both taking notes to report back to the team and because it was important to have a presence at this conference).

During down time I have been logging into work and troubleshooting what I can. The team has become increasingly more frustrated and their unrealistically (in my opinion) impatient with the fact that things haven't changed since I last week. The fact that I'm on the opposite coast, 3 hours behind has made all of this worse because I can't respond to them timely and help to simmer things down before they get all worked up. I am exhausted.

I never ended up using the bathtub. But I'm glad it was here. :)

I scheduled a big meeting at work on Monday, otherwise I may think about not going in. I feel like I am in serious need of some downtime. But at least I'll be able to spend the weekend in my own bed with my hubby and my puppies.

Breaking News

There is a bathtub!! :)

My east coast body can't handle the west coast time right now.

Can't a girl get a bathtub?

Back in May I traveled for work and complained about the fact that the hotel did not have a bathtub. This past week on vacation, no bathtub (and even worse it was a 3 square foot shower)! I am traveling next week for work again, this time on the west coast... but I just received my hotel information and it's the same hotel chain as the May trip.

So help me if there is no bathtub this time I am done traveling. Luxury! Vacation! Not without a bathtub I say!

So wrong!!

There is no bathtub in my hotel room. Granted I am not a huge bath person normally but if there was ever a time to take one it's when you're in a hotel room all by yourself because you're traveling for work!

Otherwise the room is great. I am loving the king size bed all to myself, but seriously I don't care about the pretty tiled stand up shower, I want a tub!! There was nothing about this on their website either.

Vacation Pics

My life is full of unbloggable infuriating work situations right now, so here are some long awaited vacation pics to hold you over until I am no longer as angry and find something I can actually blog about.

I'm baaaack!

Sorta. Lots of catching up to do (still around 300 posts in my reader, I'm working on it though).

DH and I had a fantastic time! 2 days of beaches and 2 days of baseball = a great vacation.

Here's a picture to hold you over, I'll be back with more later this week.

Girl's Weekend

I'm headed to the mountains with 5 girlsfriends for a little R & R in front of the fireplace, along with a little rum and diet coke! :)

Be back Sunday afternoon.

RBOC: the catching up after vacation version

• Vacation was FABULOUS. I slept a lot, even tried to sleep through thunder and lightening on the beach, my sisters thought this was a bad idea and woke me up.
• I wish I could have had another day or two, once I was done sleeping off my exhaustion it would have been nice to do something other than sleeping. :)
• The thing about vacation is that it makes me want to plan my next one. Maybe if I can get a job (or a grant to stay in my current job) DH and I can go somewhere in September. Any suggestions?? :)
• Came into work yesterday to meet our 20 summer interns. They're great but it's going to be a shit load of work to get them all trained and get our studies up and running. I've worked 10 hours each of the last 2 days, just training these guys, and I have two more days of this ahead of me.
• Post doc advisor told me yesterday that she had a breakthrough on PD MS 1 and now we have a game plan for which journal we are going to target. She's still working on it and will send it to me soon.
• Job Interview #2 is on Friday. I received an email from the director on Friday asking for a writing sample (sent MA thesis manuscript that was just published in Feb) and then gave me a question that they're going to ask all interviewees. It required reading material they have generated in the past and coming up with a future analysis plan. It's a good way to get a feel for stuff I'd be doing in this position, however I have no friggen time to deal with this right now so I've been trying to read their past materials during any and all free time.
• No word from the people from Job Interview #1. I have had a chance to skim through the 200+ page documents they sent me, and sent an email yesterday saying I had some general questions and wondered whether I should email them or set up a call. Frankly, if I'm not going any further in their interview process I'm not interested in discussing the reports. Of course they're isn't any nice way to say that so I'm waiting to see what their response is to the email. A week ago Friday they said they would contact me next week and that did not happen. However, they have been a least a little late in each of their interactions with me so I'm not yet giving up hope that I'll get the job.
• Post doc mentor has been giving me more and more responsibility lately, supervising new lab manager, training personnel from a collaborators lab, assigning me tutorials for our interns. It makes me wonder whether she's trying to entice me to stay, or just thinks I will if we get one of these grants regardless of my non-academic options.
• Speaking of the grants, no word yet but it should be VERY soon.

Ok, I have a collaborator phone meeting in 15 mintues and have some stuff I have look through. There is my update thus far, I promise to post more as soon as I hear.

Vacation!!

I leave for Florida tomorrow for a little extended weekend with my sisters. Friday includes a spa morning (manicure, pedicure, massage & facials), and the rest of the weekend includes sitting by the pool with drinks in our hands...And occasionally napping. I can't wait. This is the first non-working vacation I've taken since I started my post doc in September and oh boy do I need it.

I haven't decided if I'll take my computer. I am definitely not working, but might want it for directions and stuff while in FL. If I take it I'll definitely post, if not.. until Sunday!

Still no word from last week's interview place. They said they looked forward to speaking to me this week so we'll see, they've been off in timing for most of my interactions with them so I wouldn't be surprised if the contact came next week. I can't decide whether I should email them tomorrow and let them know I'm headed out of town for a few days or if I should just wait and see if they call/email me. I will set my email to a vacation message. Any suggestions about whether I should contact them or not?

Procrastination...

Over the last two days I have gotten nothing done at the office. I'm too busy thinking and planning my vacation. Everything is booked now hotel, flights and rental car, guess I have to get back to work tomorrow.

Sh... don't tell anyone but I have a tooth ache, and a terrible fear of he dentist. I have a feeling I'm not going to be able to ignore this for much longer.

My fear is quite rational though, I had a REALLY horrible experience at the dentist as a pre-teen and I have been petrified ever since. I chocked on a piece of tooth when it broke and the dentist was screaming at me for being upset about that. Nice huh? So I'm always afraid that I'm going to choke and picture that jackass screaming at me whenever I go.