Matt's View tag:thenub.org,2006:/blog/1 2006-09-16T18:56:11Z A brief look at what is happening in Matt's life at the moment Movable Type 3.2ysb5-20051201 Another Day in the Life of a Grad Student on Drugs... tag:thenub.org,2006:/blog//1.2 2006-09-16T18:48:34Z 2006-09-16T18:56:11Z I should probably start by clarifying what I mean by being on drugs before the DEA or some other grad student regulating agency comes busting down my door @ 3 am while I am sleep to haul my butt off... Matthew Sherrill I should probably start by clarifying what I mean by being on drugs before the DEA or some other grad student regulating agency comes busting down my door @ 3 am while I am sleep to haul my butt off to jail or at least to take away my GRA for the semester.  The presciption, that is the key word prescription, drugs that I am taking are doing interesting things to me.  Since the Nubulation (the making of the Nub) happened, I have been in a reasonable amount of pain.  To help control said pain, the doctors prescribed some nice pain killers.  Although they are really great about helping to alleviate the pain associated with the Nub, they are also great at bringing most higher brain functions to a complete halt.

When I wake up in the morning, I find that most of the effects of the last dose of drugs that I took right before I went to bed have mostly worn off.  Then comes time for the next dose.  After I have taken the pills, I have discovered that I have less than one hour of true brain function left before I turn into what I like to call the oblivious vegetable.  I will describe the symptoms of this state in a minute.  This morning I used the limited time of brain function to proof read a portion of a grant draft that my boss Michael Rubin is preparing to submit next week. 

So that was all tjat I was able to get done this morning that was productive before turning into the oblivious happy vegetable.  This process starts with a slight warm fuzzy feeling that begins to grow of deep inside.  From there the vision begins to get slightly blurry.  Not horribly blurry, but the kind of blurry that you get when you have a good buzz from drinking a bit too much alcohol.  Next to go is the concentraion and the ability to think about anything that actually resembles rational thought.  You could have been working on solving the deepest mysteries of science and doing well at it, take some of these drugs, and the only things that you can contemplate after that is why if I hold my breath, I can't take any more breaths.  (You can see how much sense this whole last paragraph is making to see my point.)

So I spend the rest of the day in this vegetable like state doing a lot of not much.  I have been updating thenub.org a lot recently and learning about developing webpages and everything that goes along with that.  Plus I have gotten into this blogging trend.  Not sure how long it will last though.  Those were some of the random ramblings of a drugged grad student for the day.

Thanks Tiff for the comment and the encouragement.  I have to do something with my time or I would completely blow a head gasket, so I am going to try to keep everyrhtng updated at least until I get back on my feet and back to work. 

Now I need to put together an entry about the softball game last night.  I have it... the drugged musings of a grad students on the effects of chemists on softball...

]]> I am not really sure what I am doing! tag:thenub.org,2006:/blog//1.1 2006-09-16T03:04:49Z 2006-09-16T03:10:14Z Matthew Sherrill Ok, so I am new, very, new to this whole being on the web thing.  In the past week I have bought a domain name, put up a not very good website, and then started playing around with it.  I have been trying to learn the in's and out's of webhosting.  So I came across this option for my domain and that is to add a blog to it.  I have never blogged before, but I know a lot of people out there who do, so I thought that I would give it a shot.

Recently there has been a lot of stuff going on in my life.  Most of it related to the motorcycle accident that I was in two weeks ago.  There have been a lot of changes too that have been brought on by that same incident.  It has been really, really good to have family friends around to support me.  Without them, this recovery would be a whole lot more difficult than it already is going to be. 

 One thing that I have found really difficult is the change in pace.  I went from working 60+ hours a week in the lab on my research, to sitting at home doing very little due to the limitaions placed on me by the injury and the side effects of the pain medication that I am on.  I find that when I am taking the meds it is really hard for me to focus on anything and get anything accomplished.  It takes me forever to update the website when I have just taken the meds as I also have to battle the drowsiness that they bring on.

Anyway, I just wanted to throw this out there and see what it looks like and how the blogging thing works.  I will use this to keep everyone that is interested posted on what is happening in my life, and how the recovery is going.

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