Sometimes I think we all get carried away on this blog, going on and on about how much we love it here. The truth is, there are hard days, there are bad days, and there are days when all you can do is hop on a bus, head downtown, and buy yourself the most decadent bar of chocolate you can find. It’s ok. Those days happen to everyone, in every profession.

I find that my fellow grad students and I start fantasizing about other jobs we could have. These other jobs that we think about don’t have downsides when our experiments are failing and our advisors don’t like our physical explanations. No no, being an opera singer would be easy.

Personally, when I start to daydream about other career options, I don’t start wishing I had taken that consulting offer. If I’m going to leave grad school, it won’t be for anything that practical. If I leave, I’m going to take up the violin and become a fiddle player in a bluegrass band. Or maybe I’ll go play professional baseball.

I know I’m really frustrated with grad school when my delusions get a bit more real. Those are the times I find myself thinking, “My family has COOKED for the POPE. WHAT am I doing HERE?” It’s all planned out, you see. I open a restaurant (with what money, exactly?) where I cook my grandmother’s gnocchi and my mother’s meatballs. I make it big, maybe get a show on the Food Network (I almost forgot - having a show entitled “Cooking through Grad School” is another possible career option for me), and then I cook for the pope. It’s foolproof.

And then I think about how many restaurants fail and how I hate the minute details of business and could I really stand to chop garlic for the rest of my life? Usually by this time, it’s the next day, and my experiments are working a little better - or I at least understand why they’re failing.

But there’s always that part of me that wonders. Maybe I should have been a cook. I mean, you can’t make diodes for the pope.

Ok folks, I’m going a little stir crazy here. I had my ACL reconstruction surgery last week and for awhile, I lounged around in a Percocet-induced haze. Now the pain is gone, but I still can’t get around very easily. Crutches are inherently slow. My biggest problem, funnily enough, is that I can’t sit comfortably. I still can’t bend my knee that much, so trying to sit at a normal chair is quite difficult and annoying. I’m currently working from my recliner at home. And while I love my apartment, oh my dear God, I need to get out.

But I’ve been thinking. Before the surgery, the WTP staff was working pretty hard to read applications and make our decisions. I’ve never done anything like that before and it gave me a whole new respect for admissions offices. I’m sure the application seemed long to the girls filling them out, but they contain such little information for us.

I suspect this is normal, but I couldn’t help trying to put myself back in 11th grade and trying to fill out the application. Which teachers would have written recommendations for me? What activities would I list? How would I answer the essay questions? This last one threw me for a loop. The first essay question was something like, “How does your interest in science and math influence the way you interact with the world?” How would my 11th grade self answer this vague, nebulous prompt? Actually - how would my 4th year grad student self answer this prompt? How do I interact with the world?

And then I filled out a pre-surgery questionnaire. It asked for my surgical history.

In 1995, I had an appendectomy. In 2002, I had a fibroadenoma removed (some of you, especially guys, may not want to know more about what this is, but go ahead and Google if you like). And in 2009, I had an ACL reconstruction.

Well now that’s a pattern! Apparently I have surgery every 7 years. I called up my mom and told her of this great discovery and she just said, “I can’t believe it. You’re right.” This is how I look at the world: I find patterns.

Does anyone want to take bets about what I’ll need done in 2016?