the "increase your output" talk

well, the boyron called yesterday morning and asked if i could get back together with them. i told him i kinda needed to be at work for a while, but that i would catch up with them in geneva later that afternoon. so we picked a time to meet in front of the train station in geneva, and then i tried to get some work done.

obviously, i should have seen the portents of disaster looming as soon as i realized that i had no way of contacting them...

anyway, around 11:30, alcherio comes in and exclaims that he's going to have a quick meeting over lunch with jim, and that after that, i should go have my personal meeting with him, which shouldn't take very long. all sounded fine, at the time...

but, all-too-predictably, his meeting with jim went over by like two hours, and then the "short" meeting with me was over an hour. by the time i finished, there was no possible way i was going to make the train i told doug i would be on. and, as i mentioned, i had no way of warning them that i would be late by almost half an hour. which sucks for many reasons, not the least of which is that if they didn't wait, i'd be stuck in geneva with no idea where they were and nothing to do, but if i didn't go, then they might be waiting even longer... so of course, i hauled ass to the train station and went anyway.

luckily, it worked out pretty well, since they were about 15 minutes late getting there as well, and were still looking around for me when i came sprinting out of the station. so, yeah, i suppose "all's well that ends well," but for a little while there, i was really feeling like i wanted to wring alcherio's neck.

incidentally, the content of said individual meeting was none too reassuring either. i mean, it's not really all that bad; everybody gets this talk from time to time, regardless of who their advisor is, and most just make jokes about it, but it still makes me uncomfortable, and i don't like that. right, so basically what he told me was the boilerplate speech about "you're smart, you work hard, and i still have plenty of faith in you--- *but,* you need to get your ass in gear and publish some stuff, or we're going to be up shit creek." well, in so many words. you get the idea.

i guess i don't think i'm quite as autonomous as i should be. i'm much better at executing things than pulling random ideas out of thin air. sadly, that probably means i'm not a particularly good candidate for a phd, but i really hope that i can finish it anyway, even if i don't necessarily use it to go into a pure research position. yeah, that's about the size of it. not sure what else to say right now.

in other [happier] news, though, i'm going to london this weekend! with dena and conlin, and we're going to try to see a show or two, and catch some sights, and generally just be somewhere other than here. i'm clearly going to end up spending waaaaaay too much money on this little joyride, but it will be fun, and i'm always telling myself (and being told by others) that i need to learn to be more spontaneous, so i'm just trying to flow with it for the moment.

oh hey, back to yesterday---so the hanleys and i walked around geneva for a while. we eventually found the UN headquarters and the red cross, but both were closed by the time we got there (figures). but we spent some time in the part (the weather was perfect), and then had some beer and pizza before mr. and mrs. hanley decided they should probably pack up and get some rest before the early morning flight, and boy and jason came back to lausanne with me, where we had a few more drinks before putting them on the last train back. it was fun, and i'm tickled pink that i got to spend so much time with them. really, really great people. i miss all my friends. sigh.