Drama

Latest issues that have appeared in my social and work circle lately, worthy of any self-disrespecting soap opera.

1) Love triangles/quadruples/polygons

2) Unrequited love

3) Disputes over the balance of power in the lab (luckily, not my lab)

4) Infidelity

5) Weddings - four at least to attend this summer alone

6) Births and christenings

7) Friends stressing over the lack of partners to get married to or reproduce with.

8) Family disputes. Arguments with parents/siblings/extended family.

9) Siblings MIA (mine)

More sobering;

10) Cancer and illness

11) Bereavement

Specifically for the PhD students;

12) The end is NOT in sight. Panic over looming deadlines and depression over the lack of foreseeable job prospects.

13) Student-supervision relationship break-down (not mine, thankfully)

14) Stressed undergraduate friends and supervisees close to mental breakdown in the run-up to exams (wait til they start a PhD. Then they know what mental breakdown really is)

15) Everything else. Life.

I've finally realised why I got so much more work done when I was far away in Oklahoma.