Updates

Since the initial shock wore off last month we've been able to get basically back to normal. Four and a half months is a long time, and so we're back with our noses to the grindstone with a little job searching on the side. I haven't been really sad about the situation in quite a while, but then this morning there was a little bit of a new reality check.

J told me that our boss talked to her this morning and she now only has until June 12, rather than the 30th, or the actual end of the fiscal year. Now, she's not under a contract, so technically she can be terminated at any time, but it's difficult to see the benefit of just 2 weeks. She was ok with it, there's not much she can do about it, but suddenly we were talking about the end again. And now it's closer. She's told me that she is kind of scared to come in each morning because she has this sense that one day our boss will tell her that this is her last day - and while only two weeks were shaved off, that kind of came true.

Then J told me that our secretary in charge of all things financial explained to her that we'd be getting our "termination packages" next week. Basically this is all the paperwork and information we need to prepare for being laid off and potential unemployment. It will explain Cobra insurance and how to sign up for it. It will detail how we'll have the vacation time we never took compensated for in our final paycheck. It will tell us how to sign up for unemployment and what we might be eligible for.

It wasn't until J mentioned collecting unemployment that I really got sad. I just don't feel like that person. But for a while again this morning we had to think about the inevitable again and I don't think we liked it very much.

In other news - I'm a little worried about the data upon which our graduate student has built her research. I'll spare you the details, but it seems like effects she's seeing may just be an artifact (that's when any differences in your gene/protein of interest are caused indirectly by the tools your using to study it or the environment/biochemistry you're using). Basically, it's a very bad thing. I worry because she hasn't got too much other data from other projects and if this main project falls through, it will be extraordinarily difficult for her to come up with enough data for a new paper (you need a 1st authored manuscript to graduate) within the very limited time frame she's got left. I'm trying to very subtly light fires under her, but it's difficult. That won't stop me though - I love a challenge, and I would hate to see her not end up with her Ph.D. after this effort.

And in other, other news - we're having our first "real" (with all due respect to our mothers) company at the house tomorrow night. We're starting out small - a guy S works with plus his wife and 3 year old for pizza, beer and basketball. If that's a success we can work on a larger gathering. The highlight of the night promises to be my cats' reactions to a human who isn't much bigger than they are. I suspect that my uber-brave felines will take one look at mini-human and go hide under the bed - if that's not the case, I foresee a lot of hissing and bottle brush tails - lets hope they go with the first option.