Sick to the stomach

That's the feeling all day. There's nothing physically wrong, just mentally, emotionally very wrong.

A weekend ago, I felt possessive. Yesterday I was angry. Slightly angry at me for being selfishly possessive, for putting hope in places where I shouldn't. Slightly angry at people for being so freely giving in their words and actions. Slightly angry at others for being, well, so different from me. And the slightlies add up to a non-slight.

Today I just feel like a failure. I think the purpose of a job, besides bringing in the money, is to feel useful, a sense of fulfillment. After all that's all you do all day. Better do a good job and be great at it. Today, I saw that the only experiment that I was doing this week failed. Think I need to re-evaluate the way I'm doing expts, to reduce failures and increase my utility. Half the time I think i'm just wasting reagents. Adding on to the list of failures, in lab and in life.

It's times like this that I re-read my blog. Visit past eras. Learn from experience. Look for inspiration. And there was this post on a ballet teacher. She was the one who made me want to dance again, who made me feel like it's ok to dance even though I suck. She made my summer in lab much more enjoyable. If I become a teacher one day, I want to be like her. Encouraging, caring, personal, inspiring, qualities that I wish to have. She was the one who said just tell yourself you can do it and you can. That's what I'm going to do now.

You know what? I'm going to repost everything i've quoted her for.
"Pretend you're confident."
"Think happy thoughts. Think of a day when things went better than expected."
"You can't always be nice and gentle in life. Sometimes you have to be strong and angry."
"If you can't remember any of those things, I have one more trick, just think of this: I am going to do it. It's simple but it works."