For two years, I worked as a Project Coordinator.  In no-man's land.  Project management consisted of myself, StringBean, and a director.  Occasionally, I'll interact with project leaders and have one-on-one meetings with each of them.  Project leaders are usually much older, or at least more mature.  So I never found myself having much in common with them enough to want to have lunch with them or have beyond a work conversation.

Back then when I was in the lab, I worked in a single project.  The project team had a mixture of scientists and research associates working on various tasks or experiments.  We each had our own thing to do.  Although we were a team, we worked separately. 

Being in the High Throughput (aka robotics) project has been very different...in a good way.  The team works much more cohesively because we're part of a workflow in which each step leads to the next.  This promotes working together to ensure that each step is completed in on target.  People never hesitated to offer help and working selflessly.  It's no wonder why I've been slaving away these days and pitching in where needed.  You can't help it in such an environment.  But I've been rewarded for my hard work twice, with Peet's coffee gift card and movie tickets.  There was no question in my work ethic.  Anyone can see that.  Many occasions, the higher ups came in for tours or whatnots and I was the only one in the room, working away.  Of course, I've received positive feedback from both the supervisor and project leader and even my peers (unsolicited and one girl said I'm "fun"...LOL..ME? the typical wet blanket?  ).

The group is very tight-knit.  You just can't help being close when you're working so hard together.  It creates a close bond like nothing else.  It was difficult and initimidating initially joining a well-established team that have worked together for a year.  They weren't exactly welcoming, but as we started to work together people began to open up and let me in.  Even the two girls that had issues with me (LONG story...let's just say it was like Mean Girls all over again) had let bygones be bygones, making work less hostile and more civil than it was before.  It was a major concern as I joined the project.

I've always considered myself a loner--an introvert, preferring to work independently.  But then again, I was miserable at work.  And now, I find myself in a huge group of young research associates--12 (!).  I've always thought I related better to the people older than me since I consider myself more mature than an average person my age.  I enjoy it a lot more now.  People have commented that I look a lot happier.  No longer do I feel so isolated anymore.  I actually feel like I belong for once in the organization.

While working so hard to contribute to the project, I finally feel like I'm making a difference in the company's goals--maybe because I'm doing so much manual labor...(I feel soreness in my shoulders)...and we can see it in the numbers...

Hopefully, work will slow down a bit after the year end push, and things stay pleasant with the team so I can stay with the company a bit longer--saving money for culinary school and vesting more stocks.

Take a look at me.  I look the part of a strong confident woman.  Superficially, I don't have many complaints.  Some female counterparts have even mentioned wanting my life.  Never would you have thought the dark past I had growing up.  Would you really want my life knowing my emotional struggles?

We all know the teenage years are the toughest.  Girls, in particular, had to deal with major transformations in their bodies and becoming a woman.  I remember those days so vividly.  I hid my curves--the small developing breasts, hips, and butt--ashamed so as not to attract attention from the opposite sex to those areas and to ellicit perverted thoughts.  That kind of unsavory stares can make any young girl uncomfortable.  It was no wonder I covered myself in long big tees and baggy pants, automatically categorizing myself a tomboy...if that's what it takes to be invisible.  The thought of going out with a boy was unimaginable.  I didn't know how to be a girly girl!  So how on earth can I be with a boy?  I hated everything about myself.  My name.  My body.  My hair color.  My face.  My awkwardness.  My non-prissiness.

The self-consciousness did not go away with age.  Never was I satisfied with my body especially surrounded by bikini-clad models and celebrities with perfect shapes everywhere.  Flat-chested and butt.  However, I did have the feminine small and defined waist.  Other than that, I could as well be mistaken for a guy if not for my face and long hair.  I did NOT feel womanly...even until my early 20s.  My self-esteem was in the pits.

Add to the mix, the woman who gave birth to me was always antagonistic towards me.  Yes, I've uttered the shameful words, "I wish I was never born."

Mom was the sole contributer for my depression back in the tough pubescent years.  Outward appearances aside.  (She kills everyone with kindness...STRANGERS.  And treats her family like shit.  Except she's oblivious to what she's doing to everyone.)  Always negative with her comments.  Never affectionate.  Never handed praises or any sort of positive reinforcements.  Nothing was ever good enough--even when I stayed out of trouble.  No drugs.  No underaged drinking.  No sex.  No dating at all.  I was the most obedient teen, despite the excessive hair-bleaching that resulted in a gawd-awful orange hue.  She nagged me incessantly.  Yah, it was pretty unsightly, even I must admit and immediately remedied the problem and dyed it back to brunette.

My teenage years were wrought with depression.  It was obvious in the black clothing I cloaked myself in.  Yup, she nagged me about that too.  I'm not even free to express my sadness that you cause?  With so many unreasonable restrictions to your life, how can one be happy?  Suicide was on my mind a lot.  I found myself often contemplating which form was the best way to go.  I decided on sleeping pills.

The way she can drag our moods down is nothing short of astonishing.  The month she lived with my sister after my niece's birth brought a serious case of postpartem depression to my poor sister.  My dad has high blood pressure.  I feel bad for him since we've all abandoned the nest to get as far away from her as humanly possible and he's stuck.  She's always yelling at him.  I feel so bad...his last years in sorrow living with someone like that.

Did I mention she is the master manipulator?  A couple of years ago, she made up the fact she was having heart problems just so I would take her to the ER AFTER a long day of work.  Her ultimate intention was to have her cast loosened a few months after her surgery.  I was in the fuckin' ER until 2 AM and have work in a few hours.  HOW selfish!  She's always complained about the cast tightness.  I don't think she's ever understood the purpose of wearing it.

To mommy dearest, there's always something wrong with me.  Even now.  FLAWED.  Issues she brought up included my diet (stop eating cheese and drinking soda, does the dress you bought months ago still fit?), my clothing (she always hated whatever I wore), my hair, my snaggle tooth, my attitude problem (she's the only person who pushes my buttons and makes my temper flare)...  I also had opposition in the decisions of my college major, moving out, purchasing a $28K car, changing jobs, and most likely my impending career change...

Current topic she harps on me now is getting married...maybe if I changed my attitude and fixed my anger problem, she suggested.  WHAT are you talking about?  Ask anyone...nobody would agree with you.  Maybe it's YOU, NOT me!

We clashed all the time on almost every topic.  She desired a close relationship with me.  BUT how???  When you are so quick to crush my dreams?  If not for you, I would have been a successful psychologist/therapist.  Or I would already have become a chef.  Instead of 8 years of misery in biotech--breathing problems from the chloroform accident and the repetitive stress injury to speak of. 

I can never open up all my thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams with her since she'll put a negative spin on it no matter what.  And oftentimes, I tell announce stuff that had already occurred and never things I am planning.  Then years later, she finally accepts everything and realizes that I'm right.  I do have a brain, you know.  I am independent.  I don't need you to boss me around.  I'm a grown-ass woman. 

There were times when I've been open with her but I've ALWAYS regretted it.  Any conversations longer than 5 minutes tend to be unpleasant.  I DO envy women with tight relationships with their moms.  They're like best friends.  It'll never happened for me...

Just like George Costanza (I may prefer his parents over my mother), I often wondered how differently I'll turn out had I had a normal, loving, supportive family.  I wouldn't be so messed up today.  Some people should not be allowed to parent and given the opportunity to fuck up someone really bad.

My greatest fear?  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.  Ever since identifying the aspects in her personality that I disliked, I strived to be the exact opposite.  It helped me to be the person that I am proud to be now.  I'm scared of becoming LIKE her...maybe I'll finally off myself...

Yup, I've been MIA for a while.  No, I haven't been spending my waking moments with NB.  Actually I haven't seen him for almost 2 weeks!  It's really difficult sustaining feelings for someone without seeing them regularly.

This week was the start of my full-time status at the lab.  I wasn't exactly sure if it's an experience I would embrace.  However, I was mentally-prepared for the hard work up ahead.  Monday, the very first day, was an intense day of filling 425 plates with various media (growth and production).  Although the filling itself was performed by instruments, there was still a substantial amount of manual labor involved, such as wiping down the instruments, priming the tubes, calibrating them, unpacking the 96-well plates from a bag of 5 plates, loading the "hotels" with a stack 25 plates each, printing and sticking labels onto each plate, switching media bottles, unloading the stack of plates, manually sealing each plate, taping them together in stacks of 10.  ALL this done while on my feet.  There's no way of handling the tall stack of plates while seated.  425 must have set some sort of record within the organization.  My trainer eventually felt bad about it.  After talking to the manager, we got a $10 Peets gift card.  I want me some pastries!!!

Yesterday was even more frenzied.  Using the robots, we picked individual colonies of microbes into the wells of the 96-well plates that we filled the previous day.   How many of these plates did we pick colonies into?  120!  Another record.  Again, although the process is automated, we still had to set the pin height, align the camera, calibrate the camera, label, unseal and load the plates (15) into the instrument, unload and seal each plate--while filling 175 plates again concurrently. 10 hour day on my feet!  I was beyond loopy.  Lupe, my sleep-deprived personality, came out of hiding.  Goofy.  Giggly.  I just wanted to go home.  My coworker told me my eyes were really red.  They stung!  After staring at the images of colonies (spots) for aligning the camera, I began to see spots and not focus my eyes well.  Yet I stayed to finish up because I'm a team-player.  I sighed out of fatigue, and the bastard said quit whining!  Mother-fucker, you better be grateful I stayed to do all the work while you lazily, at a snail's pace, created an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), sitting on your big butt, while I did all the work.

Lest not forget the bad habits that slaving away in the lab promotes.  I get home at 7:30 PM, tired out of my mind.  I plopped down on the couch and did not budge as I polished off half a bag of chips.  I sat like a lump on the upholstered furniture, refusing to move an inch--even to microwave food.  I settled for 2 breadsticks since I had already had milk and cereal during my last hour at work.  NO WONDER my coworker was bitching about needing to buy new pants because of his weight gain.  I can see that happening to me if I continued to work in the lab.

I can't shake the feeling that they're secretly wishing I'll re-discover my love for the lab and decide to stay with the project.  Before the ramp up, I did think about missing the people and working in the little room with green glass windows.  Now after slaving away for 2 days straight, I would like the retract my previous sentiments.  They'll miss me just as much as I'll miss them.  Even during my 3-day vacation, they were buzzing about me when I returned.  They are so cute.  Yes, they are all men/guys.  And no, they're neither cute nor my type.  Okay, maybe one.  I spent time training with him today.  To be honest, he's not that great of a trainer but great to look at.  The guy I worked with already spoke of missing me, since he planned on my taking over his work so he can move on to the automation group.

Last week, I had the dreaded lunch with the manager---the one with the Napolean complex--StringBean's boss.  And we know that StringBean is 6'5"...taller than even Abe Lincoln himself!  He swings his arms clumsily as he strolls--not unlike a giraffe.  HR girl thinks he walks like cattle.  *LMAO*  I digress..but that little manager is arguably as disliked as another senior vice president of the company, whom anyone in the company sees crossing the street would NOT hesitate to slam on the gas while behind the wheel.  He tried his darndest to connect with me on a personal level.  He asked about my husband.  WTF dude.  And he did not know my ethnicity.  Gah, buy a clue, dude!  Isn't it obvious from my surname?  He was pushing me to give him an answer on whether I liked the lab more or project management.  Can I say NEITHER?  Then he read my mind and added "baking."  StringBean told!  He is such a blabbermouth.  I feel as though he was trying to phase out my project management position and get me back into the lab.  Maybe it was the intention all along!  To secretly plot to get me back onto the R&D side of the company!  StringBean assured me that there are plenty of work for me to do and in no way will my job be obsoleted.  I never did trust his word all that much, but then again I'm paranoid at work. 

Work has been a horrible environment the past month or so, with people working throughout the entire weekend and napping on the couch now and then.  This is a real cause for concern since any of these people can end up with carpal tunnel and tendonitis like yours truly.  One coworker was already diagnosed with it last week.  Horribly mis-managed, we struggle to reach our year end target (that we learned about a month or so ago).  There are groups who are denied weekends and holidays!  What kind of culture have we become?  Especially when everyone is walking like zombies and miserable.  People are bound to burn out sooner or later.  It's only a matter of time...  I really don't want to be part of this.  I want to depart and pursue my pastry certificate and get the HELL outta there!