He's Back!

This morning, when I was busy checking my e-mail while waiting for my rat's brain tissue to rest after slicing and while Postdoc was doing something on the other computer and one Technician was weighing something on the scale and someone else was preparing solutions, Advisor came in, out of nowhere, and without any warning.

We were all surprised. Didn't he say he was going to be away for two weeks??? What is he doing here? Did something go wrong?



I personally thought I went into psychotic depression and that Advisor standing there was nothing but a hallucination. When everyone welcomed him back and started talking with him, I realized that he was "real", and went closer and welcomed him too.

The conference went well, he said. And this is the day on which he planned to come back the time but he didn't tell us as to make it a surprise.



As he always does when he comes back from a conference, he came in with a tote bag from the conference full of "conference goodies". You know, pens and pencils, coasters, key chains, stickers, etc etc. He gave everyone who was in the lab some of those goodies and kept only the coasters and the mug for himself (he's a caffeine junkie). But before all that, he took out the drafts I gave him before he left and handed them to me, full of corrections. He said they were good for a first draft, and he said that his friend, who he met at the conference and was his PhD mate, said they were impressive. I was happy to hear that, but still a bit skeptic; I don't know why I sometimes I get the feeling my work is crap and means nothing to nobody.



He told me that he met someone there who's an expert in a field related to what I'm doing. He discussed some ideas with her and she gave him lots of helpful tips. He told me to go online and search her papers to get some more ideas. He also met someone else who published a neat paper related to the other project on which Postdoc was working. He gave him some ideas too.


I felt happy and excited for a moment: when will I finally be able to go to international conferences show my own work to the world, meet other scientists, and discuss scientific stuff with them (and get my own conference goodies)? But this same thought made me depressed again: what if that day never comes?