Hrmm. That's Not Good.

My boss and I were coming back from a fellow grad student's dissertation presentation, and talking about what it takes to finish up in grad school. And I received: The Official Nag. Not because the boss is a hardass or anything of the sort.

Rather, the promised funding for me, from the chairs of our two departments runs out in May.

meep.

I hadn't realized that the lab was already going through those monies.

For the second time in four months, my internal calendar/timeline of progress has failed dramatically. I'm facing the distinct possibility that I'll be defending in five months, rather than ten or eleven. Even if the boss lands the grant-extension for my work in the March-April review sessions, the money won't show up until sometime in December.

Umm, pardon my English, but HOLY FUCK.


(Of course the other option is for me to go "Well, what the hell, it's only money. I don't really need that.")

Alright, that worked.

Today also included a presentation of data to my boss and to my collaborator's boss (who's a bit of a heavy in the department, actually), concerning the project the collab and I have been working on for ~1 1/2 years. It's the most complete dataset of all of my research, and so it would be the first (half) paper I would will be authoring this year.

Given that I've never first-authored a paper before, that both bosses thought the way I'd organized the data (to best highlight the 'story' we wanted to tell) was very good and quite solid, I'll take that as an encouragement that I have a decent idea how to start these things.

I'm really only mentioning this as a reminder to myself that some of my lingering paralysis at starting something I've never done before (and is a significant part of my career) is entirely surmountable, and that I might actually know what I'm doing.

Therefore... Self, take Note:

Have Data. (just not Lore)
Have Clue.
Can Do This.