The meeting

My meeting today was fine. Chip was late, Sam left early, and everyone present signed the form saying that I'm making good progress towards my degree. Yay!

I got some very useful suggestions and feedback about some of the projects. They suggested combining two of them, and gave me a lot of food for thought on another. I got weird vibes from Sam, but Jon tells me not to worry about it. I'll catch up with him more on Friday and I'm sure he'll tell me his take on the meeting then.

But the thing nagging me after this meeting is the plan for my upcoming field season. Because... I don't really have one. Not in detail. Not in the kind of nitty gritty detail that I need to be confident going in. There are many things that I am good at, but complex experimental design is not one of them. It's not something that comes easily to me. I am easily overwhelmed by it and need to talk things through to break it down and think it through. Unfortunately, Herb is not that kind of advisor. He's not the "brainstorming session" type. So, I have to find other ways to make that happen. Usually I end up talking about it with Jon, since he has a logical, methodical way of thinking. I'm also going to talk about it next week at lab meeting.

The meeting was ok, but I just have this slightly funky aftertaste that I haven't been able to get rid of, mostly from feeling like Sam thinks I'm kinda clueless (which I am compared to him, but that's hardly a fair comparison). I don't know. I need to sleep on it.