Jobbsøking, altså

Nå har jeg vært aktivt jobbsøkende i to måneder. Jeg har ikke meldt meg som arbeidsledig til NAV og lever på sparepenger og to sett foreldres kjøleskap. Jeg har hatt litt sommerjobb, litt ferie og har begynt å lære meg å programmere. Jeg har vært flink jente og trent, jeg har begynt å bruke en slanke-app (for det er så teit jeg er) og jeg har blitt overtalt til å dra på en ukes ferie Tunisia i september.

Det er mye rart som skjer til at det egentlig ikke er noe som skjer. Folk spør meg om hvor jeg skal og blir overrasket når jeg sier at jeg ikke skal noe sted på en stund. Jeg skal flytte fra Trondheim, men vet ikke helt hvor jeg skal flytte til ennå. Jeg skal på jobbintervju (mitt andre), men synes det har vært stille fra alle de andre plassene jeg har søkt. Jeg tenker nesten bare på framtiden, men prøver samtidig å la være. Det er jo helt umulig å planlegge noe som helst, så jeg later som om livet fortsetter som vanlig og sier “ja” til å bli med på ting langt fram i tid.

Til å ikke ha noe å gjøre har jeg en travel timeplan. Og så er jeg veldig glad for at jeg har med meg Erik. Det hadde vært slitsomt å være alene om dette her. Litt mye usikkerhet for én person…

Like mye for meg selv som for Det Store Internettet, en oversikt over den nære høsten:

august

intervju i Uppsala, fest hos Ruben, Lederløft i Stavanger, tur til Trondheim (flytte?)

september

kurs i programmering på UiO, ferie med Sara til Tunisia, sikkert helgemøte med KS

oktober

veldig mange helger med nasjonale speiderarrangementer

Det var ikke så mange planer, det. Det er vel kanskje sånn det blir. Vi må flytte ut av leiligheten innen utgangen av september og annet enn det har jeg ingen planer. Nå håper jeg bare at jeg får tilbud om en jobb jeg har lyst på. Det hadde vært fint, det.

Udacity

I have decided that I need to learn programming. The idea has been with me for a while (a year or two), but I have had too many things on my mind to do anything about it. But now it has been on my To do list for a year and I find more and more job applications where programming skills are an advantage, so now I have enrolled for the Udacity course “Intro to computer programming”.

I know next to nothing about computer programming, but the courses seem solid and I have Erik to help me, so I think it will work out fine. I have given myself until the end of August to finish the first course and hopefully I will have started a more advanced one too. The courses are with videos with real university professors and tasks and quizzes, and there are final exams in all courses. And when you do the final exam you actually get a diploma, so you can use it when hunting for jobs. Lovely.

It will be exciting to see how it works. I hope I will manage everything. It’s strange not to have anything to do and everything to do at the same time.

Lab work at an end

(Photo from Instagram: bulldozerborg. My lab journal, the samples (DNA extractions) I am using and the ones I selected for today’s run)

The lab work seems to be over now. I will complete the PCR and gel electrophoresis I’m doing right now and then the next thing on my do to list is to send everything to Germany and then wait for my results. And then we will see if we get the same patterns (or lack of patterns really) as I did with the microsatellites last year (aka in my master thesis).

As I have told you, I am applying for jobs like my life depended on it (because it does) and yesterday I was invited to my first job interview! I know an interview is not a job, but it was a great boost to get invited after only four applications. It made me believe that I will actually manage to find a job before the summer is over and all my money has run out.

I have started to come to terms with the grade on my master thesis and as I have had to look at other options than only PhDs (even though I am still able to do a PhD in some universities) I have begun to wonder if I really want that life. The secure and safe life in an ordinary company with an apartment and 8-4 days sounds better and better every week. Maybe what I need now is not a life of even more uncertainty, but the boring A4 life. I mean, I have never tried it. This summer I have completed 18 years of continuous school attendance. That’s a lot.

Well, we’ll see. The next month will be exiting, to say the least.

Drowned in lab

As I am currently working in the lab, trying to figure out how to do this PCR, I will give you this

I have found it on the internet, so thank you internet. So you can think about this important issue, while I worry about concentrations, cycling times and temperatures.

But, there will be beer tonight (not that I can afford it at this moment)! I love how people are finished with their masters and want to celebrate. Now there are celebrations almost every day 🙂 And I have managed to get my excersising plan back on its feet. Hurray!

Fail

🙁

It didn’t work. I realize how spoilt I am, but it still makes me sad that I failed.

But I will be working in the lab to get more results for an article based on my master thesis and everything will work out fine (just as everyone says it will). But I’m sad anyway.

This is the first time in eight years that I will have to reconsider my plans for the future. Good luck, to me.

Busy -> nervous

I am back in Trondheim, I am busy, but have a social life and get enough sleep at night. I just, haven’t had time to sit down with my computer (or Erik’s computer as it really is), to post pictures from Romania, because this final oral exam is hanging over me.

TWO DAYS!

Then I’ll get my final grade on my thesis and will finished at NTNU (and probably in Trondheim as well). It is such a strange feeling.

Thursday we’ll barbeque with people from the Museum and this weekend Erik and I will go hiking and get some fresh air. And on Monday I will start working in the lab and continue to apply for jobs and PhDs. I sent one while in Romania and will send another this week. This job hunting business is tiresome. But I still have no clue where I will be in the end of August, so I just have to keep on writing (and googling).

How’s your summer holiday? Started yet?

Last night

Yesterday the faculty threw a big party for all of the master graduates. It was really nice seeing all of my biologists again and interesting to hear what they think of the future. Some already have jobs, some don’t have a clue what they want, others are applying for anything, some are trying to get PhDs like I am.

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I wore a white dress and pearls. It was graduation after all.

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And my favorite red ballet flats.

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The weather was wonderful, even at ten in the evening.

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People were having a good time 🙂

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Kristin had just had her final oral exam (mine is on Thursday) and was very happy and exhausted at the same time.

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I walked home at twelve and the summer night was beautiful.

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Right on time

I just want you all to take a look at that time stamp. I have never been more on time… You said the dead line was 15. May, 2012, at 23:59:59?

“High genetic variation in the boreal forest moss Hylocomium splendens through its distribution range”

Two years’ work in 20 pages.

Next stop, oral exam in June.

You know the deadline is close when…

you leave the office at 21.15 a Saturday night and feel like you left the office early. Three days left now. I haven’t really exercised the last two weeks and I am actually looking forward to it, maybe for the first time in my life. I will be happy when it’s over.

Also, I can’t wait to have two days of “weekend” next week. Wednesday and Thursday are officially spare time. I will buy myself something pretty, I will go for a run and I will party. (But after that I have to start study for my last exam and start applying for jobs)

Focus

There is one week left and right now everything is working out fine. Yesterday’s smart trick was to work in 25 + intervals. 25 minutes of work, 5 minutes brake and then back to work. As long as you remember to eat and talk to nice people in your brakes, it works like charm. How I manage to get back to work after brakes? Watch something medium exiting on net-TV in the brakes.

I found this picture on the internet and was pleased that I already to a lot of these things. But the hardest part is not to make smart rules, but to follow them…

Hugs, Ingeborg

Life part 2.3.6

Ok, so today there are exactly 14 days left until the deadline of my master project.

TWO WEEKS!!

This is the most important thing I have ever done. Nothing has defined my future like this project will. And yes, I know that you can do anything, that I shape my own future and that this is just one piece in the puzzle, but this is also one of the most important opportunities I have to succeed in academia.

This weekend was my last two days off before May 15. I might have a beer and I might go see G7 at Avant Garden, and I most definitely will continue exercising three days a week, but other than that I spend 14 hours in the office every day.

Worst part? I am actually a bit thrilled. This is exhiting!

Hugs

Moar pictures

I think wordpress has started talking with my phone again, therefore:

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Erik on the way to a party all colours.

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Roses from Ola for my (our) birthday

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Drinks in Oslo sometime this Easter

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Very funny title for a master presentation on grasses in Niquaragua

Mus

Jeg tilbringer dagen på en datasal på Gløs, for første gang på to år, tror jeg. Reakelet har tydeligvis blitt tatt både av memes og humor siden jeg var har sist 🙂

Stress!

I can feel my stress level rising as Easter, the master project dead line and summer are approaching. Even though this March has been the quietest March I have had in years, I worry more than I usually do. I know I should spend 10, rather than 8 hours working with my master every day. And even though I have less to do in scouting, I still have some projects and I know I don’t supervise them as well as I should.

There is still so much left to do with the project and I have only 8 weeks to go. I have gotten myself a sommer job, so I think I’ll have enough money for the summer and maybe September too. We’ll see. But less to worry about there 🙂

Tomorrow is my presentation for the Department of Biology and even though I have worked with my presentation this week (and gone through it with my supervisors) I still haven’t tried to talk through it… And I have to admit that I am a bit nervous. It is my whole master, what I have done the last 1,5 years. Scary stuff. Have to rehearse later today.

I am too slow. I wonder if I should start a new regime in the office, so that I am not allowed to leave before I have finished the goal I have set for the day. Either it works or I die of exhaustion. I think I need a hug.

On Friday I’ll be in Oslo and I will go wisit the PhD that made the genetic markers I have used in my project to discuss my results. I wonder how it will be. Can’t wait for Easter. Even though I will have to work with my project, there will be some time off and Erik will be back.

Lybia tessellata

First, thank you to google for the picture.

Then, today’s blogpost is about this wonderful crab that was today’s article on Wikipedia some time ago. Why do I love this crab? Well, mostly because it seems to have an obligate relationship with a sea anemone (the species differ). It never actually uses its claws (their not actually called that, but this is not hard core science, either), but gets one anemone on each claw and then uses them both as protection agains predators and to eat. The anemones have poison that protekts it from predators, and when the anemone eats (whitch it does by stinging small animals and then digesting it partly externally on the top of its body) the crab will use its mandibles (mouth parts) to take some of the anemone’s food. Why is this cool? Because you have a whole species (or genera, maybe?) that doesn’t produce poison or anything itself, it just utilizes another organism’s abilities. I like it! (to read more, go here)

#$%&/!

Who would have thought that applying for jobs would take this much time?!? Gah. But now I have officially applied for my first job and will rush into town to get the last half of the conference I should have been attending this morning… And tonight I’ll be in Sogndal visiting my brother! 😀 It will be nice with som relaxing and excellent food. And I have even remembered my camera 😉

See you on the other side of the weekend!

Job applications

I am entering the world of job applications, and I can’t say that I like it much. But I guess that is what happens when you are getting closer to a finished degree… I have only written applications for summer jobs and scouting things before and this feels very serious. And exiting! Oh, real life, you scare me and exite me at once.

Master life

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Every week we listen to each other presenting our master projects. We all have to do it twice, once when we have just started our project and once when we are allmost finished. I will do my last presentation in two weeks. So I will have quite many presentations on the same subject the next month(s). First one, poster presentation, this Thursday. Wish me luck 🙂