Keeping on keeping on

So, it's been a while.  Almost a year, actually.

For better or worse, not much has changed.  Current GPA (overall/upper/major): 3.68/3.6/3.55.  Which means, so far, I qualify for the Exceptional Student Admissions Program (ESAP), which means guaranteed admissions to the master's program and slightly easier admission as a PhD.  There's no such thing as "guaranteed PhD admission", since that's kind of complicated, but more on that later.

Still working 28 hours a week.  Nothing much changed there at all.  The boss I have who didn't really "get" what I do has finally started to understand and is now all gung-ho for me helping out in all sorts of different areas.  I suppose that's better than not being valued at all, but we've creeping closer to the time when I won't be here any more (whenever it ends up being), so this just means she's starting to panic a little.

One thing that has changed since last time: I'm working in a lab at school.  Actually, I'd just started when I made my last post (March of last year), but I was only working on a paper at the time and wasn't sure where it was going to lead.  I've officially been physically working in a lab since late June, and I'm actually playing with some cool equipment and doing a few basic experiments.

Interestingly, I got the position primarily because of my "medical" experience (which is largely non-medical, but I at least know the terminology).  The PI and his new postdoc were looking to start up a branch of his existing lab that focused on a specific technology, and the medical applications are more easily monetized than some of the other; I was the first student they brought in, mostly to help on a long lit review (which is apparently in the final stages of publication now), and my background working at the hospital plus all the papers I've co-authored led them to decide to give me a shot.  I'd also talked to the PI previously, so he at least recognized my name.

Now, I mostly don't want to be working on this specific tech in the future; my interest is in propulsion (which the PI's lab also does), and this isn't really useful for that.  But PI knows this.  In fact, he and I had an hour-long talk last week, both going over the current stuff we're doing in side of the lab I'm on as well as talking about my future.  And he all but guaranteed me a position as a PhD candidate in his propulsion lab, including Graduate Research Student standing and funding, so long as I keep my ESAP qualification.  I'll still have to do my GREs, of course, and it's a year away anyway, but that takes a fair bit of stress off my shoulders.

One thing that also hadn't changed: I'm still pretty isolated.  I mean, there are a few students in classes that I am friendly with and who I've shared a few classes with, but no one's ever expressed any interest in hanging out outside of class or anything.  Normally, working in a lab would at least lead to more interaction there, but while there are 30-something people in the *other* lab, I'm literally the only one in the lab I'm in most of the time.  The postdoc I work with is a nice guy, generally speaking, but he's a Chinese national with very specific ideas about how things work that kind of rub me the wrong way sometimes in addition to the language barrier.  I also don't think he knows I'm gay, though I've hardly been secretive about it, and frankly I don't think he'd react well to the news if he did (not badly, necessarily, just not well).

No dating prospects what-so-ever.  I had Tindr and something else on my phone for a few months, and even popped on Grindr (though I then decided that I had zero interest in that crowd and haven't launched it since).  But, really, I'm too old for college students (and frankly wouldn't want to date most of them anyway), and most guys my age think someone who is an undergrad in their 40s obviously has something wrong with them.  Neither of those is likely to change much even when I switch to grad school; by the time I get out, I'll be near 50.  Given how little I dated before complicating things with school, I'm probably not going on any dates at all for the next 5 or 6 years.

I haven't even gone on one of my gay-cations recently: over summer, I was working in the lab almost non-stop getting the paper ready and helping out with some interns we had, and since then I've been either in school, sick, or just not really wanting to spend the money.  I may have to book something for spring break just so that I can get out a bit.

To be clear, I pretty much knew this was going to happen; it's part of the costs I knew I'd likely have to pay to go to school, back when I considered it 4 years ago.  I still wouldn't have changed that decision, and I'm still willing to pay it to do this.  It just might be nice to not have to.