Working Late

What a crazy week this has been. It started on Monday with a close to 14 hour work day. Right about the time I was getting ready to leave, I was asked to help process mice. With 10 mice left to do, at about 30 minutes a piece, this added quite a few hours. I thought I would be home at about 7, so I called Daniel and told him to hold off on dinner for another hour or two. Then at like 9pm, he decided to just go ahead and cook dinner and bring it to me :-) Isn't he amazing? He is so supportive. Judy was really excited to meet him too. I was absolutely exhausted. I didn't get home until almost 11pm. So I slept in the next morning and got to work about an hour late. I also left about an hour early. Then on Wednesday, I got to work and after only about 30 minutes, I thought I was going to throw up. I was going to try and stick it out and see if I felt better, but that seemed silly when I could just come back if I felt better. So I went home. I felt really terrible about missing a day of work, but what good is it to be there if I couldn't do anything because I was so nauseated? It passed fairly quickly, and I was actually able to eat lunch and dinner and keep it down. So I worked the rest of the week really without incident. I logged a lot of hours, even with the sick day in the middle of the week. I was busy!

On Friday, the whole lab was invited out to wish one of the secretary's happiness on her maternity leave. We all went to a nice French restaurant down the street for happy hour. I was really nervous about going. I haven't been to any purely social activities with my co-workers before, and I didn't know how I would fit in. I also don't know the secretary very well so it seemed silly for me to be at an event in her honor. But Judy really wanted me to go. So I went. And I had a fantastic time. Everybody got at least a little tipsy (including me). I thought I would only go for a couple hours, and ended up there for 4 or 5 hours. We had appetizers and drinks all paid for by the boss. I really enjoy hanging out with everyone in the lab. I fit in so well. David, the head boss, was there too and I thought it was really great to gain some visibility and for him to see me interact with everyone as an equal, and not as a student. I was the only student there, actually. The only bad thing is how guilty I felt about leaving Daniel at home. It really wasn't appropriate to bring him since everybody went straight from work and nobody else brought a date. So I'm gone all day every day, working really late hours some days, and then Friday comes around and I'm out until almost 10pm. I just feel terrible that my job is going so well. He is so great though. He's supportive, and encouraging, and he told me to go out and not to worry about him. He takes care of everything at home. All the cleaning, running errands, and cooking dinner. I'm so lucky. I try to remind myself that there will be a time, perhaps in the near future, in which our roles are reversed. And I wouldn't want him to be guilty. I would be happy that he is enjoying his job, and successful at it. So in the meantime, I'm going to do the same: enjoy my job, and work as hard as I can to be successful.