a moment to preen

So...I am second author on a manuscript in preparation. It's on draft 7, and is from my short stint at MGH. !! I think I have seen an earlier draft of this manuscript, but then sort of dismissed it as not going to happen anytime soon. So seeing this draft gives me a nice warm feeling all over again. It's kind of cool to recognize some of the figures in the paper as the same ones I prepared for my Biochem91r report. I sort of can't believe I'm second author? I'm ahead of another post-doc, the technicians, more ppl. I suppose after my own post-doc, who supplied most of the brainpower and did all the writing and all the other figures...my own meager 2 or 3-figure contribution counts as second. But still--it just blows me away. Even though I worked my ass off commuting to MGH and dealing with those mice and labeling their cells and such.

Just skimming the draft makes my head hurt. It's been a long long time since I've had to think about the "story" behind my and my postdoc's research. And boy, it is a complicated story, even more complicated than the usual immunological story. Even while I was actively doing the research, I kept getting confused about my post-docs story (my part of the research was a much smaller bit of the larger story, and at least I could keep my bit straight). Do I have any major comments to give to my post-doc? Oh God, if he and the PI have already hashed through that many drafts, then I doubt I'll be able to give any major constructive comments. Especially since I have to reacquaint myself with the story. I wonder if any remnants of my own text (from the 91r report) remain in the paper. Again, after so many drafts with an incredibly detail-oriented PI, I highly doubt it. It makes me doubt my own abilities to ever write a publishable paper, since I was quite proud of my 91r report! If this is the work that's necessary, the level of ...abstruseness...then I am doomed for sure.

But then, switching to reading papers about BMI and such in my current field gives me hope again. "Look! Their data is shitty too! Mine's only a little bit shittier...and I'm doing a very similar analysis. Maybe I have hope after all".