Wake Me Up When September Ends

[Green Day are clearly closet academics]

Well, judging by JaneB and Propter's blogs, we're all pretty much feeling the same at the moment. We all seem to be stricken by an illness that spreads like wildfire in every university at this time of year - Augustitus.

Augustitus is what happens before September Syndrome kicks in. It's the calm before the calm before the storm. We all feel (and look) like hammered shit throughout August, then, in September, we some how re-invent ourselves as semi-human ready to look Smiley and Oh So Very Charming in October-ish time when the sodding undergraduates come back and the new Ph.D students start.

I'm battling a bit with lupus at the moment. I wish life was an episode of House because then it wouldn't be lupus. It would be something else. But it's real life and it is lupus and this time it's playing with my heart. Well, not my heart, it's playing with my pericardium (sack what my heart lives in) and making it inflamed, putting pressure on my heart. Now, to the unacquainted, this sounds terrifying and life-threatening, but I can assure you it's no more than a pain in the chest. It's tiring though as it keeps one awake at night and it's not come alone. Every flare of lupus that I've had seems to come with the same suite of symptoms - a rash all over my body that itches like galloping scabies, sudden hair loss (it's not too extreme, just more of it on the pillow than normal of a morning), sore/stiff joints, sore kidneys, strange-coloured wee-wee and a complete lack of interest in anything relating to cultivating a two-backed beast. Good thing I'm single at the moment, eh? So, yes, I feel like shit BUT I've been to work every day, I've only had 2 days off (as annual leave - I need to use it up or I lose it) in the last month and they were planned ahead. I'm a bit "slow" compared to normal - I'm not thinking at my normal speed and I have to stick to "light duties" (which, in my case, means I can't tax my brain too hard, rather than my body). Lab work is right out at the moment as various things set my skin off and I can't be doing with that. An update on my minions:

Pleb - Working like a bitch and still as enthusiastic and lovely as always. I've got him 50% FTE still at the moment but, alas, I'm likely to be losing him in the next year as he's decided he wants to do a Ph.D. I would LOVE to keep him and have him do his Ph.D with me but I'm not sure I can get the funding in time, though we are going to try.

My GRA - What an absolutely lovely man. Is it part of a GRA's job description that one should give one's PI a shoulder massage without being asked on a Friday afternoon in the middle of the lab? Of course not, but he did it last Friday and his timing was perfect. That's the kind of behaviour that I'm sure makes people talk in the department about my sexuality/attitude to my male staff/colleagues but fuck it. Who cares when one can get ones shoulders rubbed?

Students - All doing swimmingly and DUE TO SUBMIT ON TIME WITHIN THE THREE YEARS A Ph.D S H O U L D TAKE! Note to my department: 3 years is NOT "early submission", it is ON TIME!!!

Newbies - In the next few months I am getting 1.5 Ph.D students - one of my own and half a one with someone at another University. I am also about to advertise for 50% of a PDRA (the PI is someone else, I am Co-I), once HR get their fingers out of their arses...

Right, I must go to bed!