Hi everyone!!! Sorry about the delay in writing... but this time I really do have a good excuse! But even so, I can't let Mark out-blog me... LOL So here's my latest story...
Many of you have already heard all about this since I've bitched on the phone... but for those of you haven't heard... :) So before I left my lab, I wrote a review on all of my work and how it compared and related to the field, etc. Fine... it's a somewhat typical thing for a grad student to do after finishing their work. Anyway, so I write my review and we submit it in June. Now, Mary (my former PI) pulled some strings to get it submitted to AJP (American Journal of Physiology). It never would have gone there if she hadn't "invited" it in. Anyway... so I wrote the paper and Dawn (my former supervisor) submitted it. Well, I never heard anything after I left. I saw Dawn in July and asked her what the status was and she said it was in decision pending. I said... okay... just let me know. Well then I never heard anything and I got busy with school starting. At the beginning of September I e-mail her to get the scoop. Find out that the paper was rejected, needs to be re-written, the reviews were bad, but it can be re-submitted. I'm just like... okay, do you need any help? She says no. So I figure... okay, she's handling it. I've got classes to worry about. So late last month I had coffee with Ange (friend from the lab) and she tells me that the whole situation is a mess. I guess it came out at lab meeting that Dawn hadn't done ANYTHING with the paper and the deadline to re-submit had come and gone. Mary was pissed because she pulled strings to get it in and Dawn did nothing, etc. And I'm pissed cause I'm sitting here going... I could have done something but I never got to see anything!! So Ange recommends that I call Dawn. So I do... and I play dumb and just ask how things are going and what's happening with the paper. I told her that I had lots of time right then (a big fat lie... but I would say anything to get that paper!) and that I could work on it. She says not to worry... that she's going to take a stab at it. Inside I'm thinking... "take a stab at it?? You've had it for 3 months and haven't done anything!! That was you 'stab'!!" So I was just like... fine... I give up. I figured I'd wait until January when I wasn't teaching and talk to her again. Well, a little over a week ago now, Ange sends me an e-mail with the most recent table of contents of Cancer Research. And in it, a competing lab (the one that stole some of my data!!) has now published a review on my protein in cancer. I'm just like... crap. So I e-mailed Mary. I was just like... should we just cut our losses now since this other review is out? Granted... that review has a different spin than our's. So we still have a shot... but with Dawn just sitting on my review and not doing anything, that isn't helping!!! Based on the publication date, we were both writing at the same time... but they actually did their revisions while Dawn sat on our's. :P Anyway... so Mary called me back and told me she was going to have a meeting with Dawn about "many issues" and you could tell that she was pissed at Dawn. So that Monday, she has the meeting... and I get an e-mail from Mary right after saying that I'll be getting the reviewer comments. This was Monday the 6th. I don't get the comments until the 7th in the afternoon. And the first thing I notice when I read through them is that we actually had 120 days to resubmit, not the 90 Dawn said we had (of course... I'm guessing Dawn skimmed the comments once, sobbed, and never looked at them again). So the due date is Nov. 25th, not October (the e-mail was sent July 25th). So I quickly sent a note to Mary telling her that important tidbit... her reply back was... "make the deadline." So yeah... no pressure. Dawn had had it for 3 1/2 months and did nothing. I had less than 2 weeks to get it done. So I tried to get stuff for school all caught up so that I could spend some time writing this paper. I then spent part of Sunday, all day Monday, and a good chunk of Tuesday working on the paper. So pretty much... 2 full days in total. And the paper is done. I got it to Mary on Wednesday morning. She is out of town, so it got faxed to her at her hotel and she's going to work on it Friday on her flight back. I expect that I will get a copy this weekend to fix. Dawn comes back Monday (did I mention that she is in Maui this week... so she was OBVIOUSLY going to "take a stab" at the paper this week before the deadline). Because the paper was originally submitted by Dawn, we have to re-submit it through her. But Mary was like... we will re-submit on Tuesday. I was just like... that's fine. I realized that we are re-submitting on a day when Mary will be in lab so that she can watch over Dawn and make sure that it gets done. So that is the scoop with that. Let me tell you, as soon as I had to start dealing with the lab again, my stress level went WAY up. I never realized how much I had calmed down and relaxed being here until I had to deal with lab people again. I'm so glad to be out of there. But yeah... I REALLY hope that this paper gets accepted... even if it's with revisions. After all of that work, I want something out of it. And I know this is really mean to say, but I wish we could take Dawn's name off of it. I'm honestly really pissed that she screwed me over like this and I had to bust my ass at the last second... and she is still getting credit for this paper even though she screwed up. I mean, in the end... my name is still first on the paper... so I get the credit. But her name is last, meaning she gets just as much credit, for the most part. Oh well. Needless to say, this is a reason why I'd like a bit of my own research money to do stuff with. Because Mary said that all I have to do is acknowledge them in the paper for giving me cells. So my name would be the only one on any other papers. No one else. And yeah... I like that idea. Not to give me any sort of fame or glory... but just because then I have no one to blame but myself if things don't get accepted, etc.
Anyway... that's the update with that.
In other news... nothing much going on over here. The semester is winding down, which is SO nice!! :) I've almost made it!!! Next week I just have to teach one class and that's it. YAY!! And when the semester is done, I don't teach again until the end of January!!!!!! Can you tell I'm excited?? :)
Vicki is coming home for an interview this weekend and will be here through the week... yay!! So we've already tentatively scheduled time for coffee outings and such. Since I don't teach on Wednesday and Mark has to work, I think that will be a perfect time to get together!! Anyway... I really think that's all of my news for now. Sorry if you wanted more drama... one story is more than enough for me!!
Oky doky pokies... I'm going to head on out for now... I hope you are all doing well! :)
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