I don’t, of course.  But it’s hard to sit around and do nothing.

Today it’s especially hard because SharkWrestler’s mom lives in Moore; she lost her house in the tornado.  (Luckily, she works about 10 miles away and therefore was unhurt.)

I want to help.  I want to do *something*.  AAAAAAH.

Al (21) has decided to go to a Local State University to study Music Production. He’s had an associate’s degree for 3 years now, but left school confused as to what he wanted to do. I’m glad he didn’t waste my money on an education that he wasn’t going to use.

Nate (18), who has known for years what he wanted to do, is going to a Very Well Known School Back East (not Ivy-League, but famous enough to knock everybody’s socks off) to study computer science and math.

It’s kinda cool to see my kids growing up.

I’ve put on about 30 pounds since I started grad school, maybe a little more.  It’s true that I’m tall and so that 30 pounds does not look quite as bad on me as it does on others, but still.  30 pounds = 3 pants sizes up = three times that I’ve had to buy new clothes.

I know what sort of diet works for my metabolic type.  I used it successfully during the divorce process and lost a good 10 pounds.  In a nutshell, it’s a low-carb/high protein diet.  My daily meals looked something like this: breakfast–fruit, eggs, and bacon; lunch–green salad with some sort of meat; dinner–meat, lots of veggies, and just a bit of carbs;  ice cream for dessert.  

I know this sounds counter-intuitive to most people.  Bacon helps you lose weight?  Well, it certainly does for me.  I need enough fat in my breakfast so that I’m not hungry again at 10:30.  A bacon-and-eggs breakfast can last me until 1-2 pm, at which point I just need a small lunch to help me make it to dinner.

So why don’t I follow this diet now?  Answer: I just haven’t been able to get going early enough to cook myself breakfast in the morning.  I’m also pretty bad about bringing my lunch every day, so I usually rely on non-perishables that I keep in my office.  (I tried bringing in a big bag of salad one Monday–actually I’ve tried several Mondays–but our office refrigerator tends to freeze everything no matter what temperature it’s set to.  Frozen salad sucks.)

Maybe some day I’ll get around to losing weight again.  I can’t stand being fat.

So here I am, stuck to 

I am normally a very light sleeper.  However, having taken my seasickness meds (as I always do the night before leaving port), on this particular night I was out like a log.  When the chief mate came by the next morning to check my stateroom for stowaways, I thought he was pulling my leg…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/09/woman-tries-to-steal-research-ship_n_3046760.html?ir=Weird+News

Generally once I get the water I get my experiment running ASAP, then monitor it every 2-4 hours for 18-20 hours.  This makes for somewhat interrupted nights, but I can usually manage to get a reasonable amount of sleep every day.

But again, this time our water cast on day 1 is late and the one on day 4 is substantially early.  This means that my experiments will be overlapping by quite a bit, which means that I’ll be doing more or less continuous monitoring (first on experiment 1, then 2, then 1 again, then 2 again) for two long stretches.  This also means I’m going to get a grand total of 2 hours of sleep on the last night.  Ah, the things we do in the name of science!!

*sigh*

(2) Alas, about the same  time, she also gave me a nasty cold.  I was out of bed after a couple of days but I haven’t been able to think straight for the past week or so.  (And it’s not just me: Dr. HW said she had to postpone writing a proposal until she got better.)  I’m still fighting the absent-mindedness, the fatigue, and the nasty cough.

Luckily, most of my time right now is spent prepping for a short jaunt to sea–acid-washing bottles, packing, getting the analytical equipment into top-notch operating condition–most of which can be done with only half a brain.  Unfortunately I can only stand up for about an hour or so before needing to sit down and rest.

Gah.  I think I’m going to go home an hour early so I can take a nap.

“I’m about to the point of telling you that I’m going to leave with a Master’s degree,” I said in frustration.

“Uh oh,” she said.  ”I know, I’ve saddled you with all the hard projects–and none of them have gone as planned.  Time to think of something easier that you can do.”

Ahhhhh.  It’s nice to have a responsive advisor.

And so I’m back to an “easier” project that I was working on two years ago but had to abandon when I went to sea…I will be heading out into the wild blue yonder again at some point, but my primary focus is going to be somewhat different than it has been for the last year or so.

This contest was inspired by a friend of mine.  When I was on my last cruise we only knew each other a little bit, basically just well enough to be friends on Facebook. When I posted that we were going through what might be shark-infested waters–and that we were throwing bait overboard–he asked if I could bring him back a shark’s tooth. I thought it was kind of an odd request at the time, but since we never spotted any sharks, I couldn’t bring him one anyway.

Since then we’ve become pretty good friends. One night he explained that not only is he fascinated with sharks, he wishes he could wrestle a shark for fun.

“Do you really think that you’d win?” I asked.

“Oh, maybe,” he replied. “But if I didn’t–what a way to go!”

This guy, now dubbed SharkWrestler, and I actually tried dating last May; it didn’t turn out very well, so we agreed to remain just friends.  We continued to have an open and honest friendship for the next seven months or so (even as we dated others).  And then a couple of months ago we both started seeing each other in a whole new light, and we started talking all the time, and a few weeks later we decided to try being more than just friends…

[Side note: he has a roommate and I have my eldest son, Al, at my place most of the time, so "more than just friends" might not mean what you think it means!  We do not have *that* sort of relationship.]

It’s been heavenly.  I’m glad at least one thing in my life is going right.

Here are the major components–the ones I can actually weigh out on a balance. (We make stock solutions for trace elements.)

Usually I weigh out each salt individually and transfer it directly into my milliQ water, but just for grins I put it all in one big weighing dish this time.

It works out to about 40 g per liter of seawater. Major components are sodium chloride (of course), magnesium chloride, and sodium sulfate.

Yes, I am a single mother. Yes, I am also a grad student. Yes, I am also involved in other things. But this does not mean I “do it all.” It’s true that I do lots of things, but right now I am doing none of them very well.

My research is creeping along. My custody evaluation is moving at a glacial pace. My house is a mess.*

Do I “bring home the bacon”? Yes I do. But I make somewhere around the federal poverty line for a family of four, and I have to pay my ex child support out of this amount. Did I mention that I have a son (Nate) who’s applying to colleges such as Caltech, MIT, and Brown? So next year I not only have to support myself, my oldest son full-time, and my youngest two half-time; I have to pay for Nate’s college somehow. I hope he gets lots of financial aid.

Do I take care of my kids? I try. Of course, they spend most of their time on weekdays with their father, and as a result at least one of them has mental health issues that I can’t fully address with the current parenting plan. Again, I try.

Do I have hobbies? Thankfully, yes. Unfortunately I have hardly any time to indulge in them any more, and as a result I am very stressed.

I am tired all the time. I get frustrated at how little I get done, or rather how much I leave undone. I move forward only because I have to.

So please stop treating me like a brilliant, amazing, immortal heroine. Just give me a hug or pat me on the back and say, “Hang in there. I’m on your team.”

Your exhausted friend/family member,

UnlikelyGrad

*My kids always try to tell me that my house is quite clean compared to their Dad’s place, but this is little comfort, since UnlikelyDad is the worst kind of slob.