I believe I mentioned recently that my work email address is very similar to one of the intro biology TA’s address. I keep getting misguided emails from the students, and normally I just say, “I am not your TA. His email address is ____.” Today I felt like being a little more creative:
Subject: Bio 2108 [...]
It’s too bad I didn’t win the lottery last night–one of the winning tickets was even sold in GA. I can think of a lot of useful things I could do with $355 million.
So I left work early yesterday because I was feeling particularly pathetic and lame. I’ve come to realize that my current job [...]
Currently, I am resisting the urge to rant about my job for the 1223576th time. Lucky for you I made the resolution to complain less. I need something to return me to a zen-like state when I discover that a co-worker–hypothetically, of course–has gone through my stuff over the weekend and made off with one [...]
Sometimes my job is bad. Sometimes it is good. And let me tell you, when it is good, it is very, very good.
When I was a grad student, I made a goal in life: to one day find a novel compound and get to name it. In fact, I wanted to establish a whole class [...]
[A sad way to start the morning: ordering cheese grits then discovering there is no cheese in the grits when you get to your office. A bland breakfast for what will probably be an equally bland day.]
You see, I have been doing a lot of HPLC lately. High Performance Liquid Chromatography (in case you care) [...]
This article–written by a scientist for scientists–may interest some of you. It’s a little on the pessimistic side, but I’d have to say it sums up EXACTLY my feelings/thoughts about why science is not a feasible career for everyone.
A few lines I particularly enjoyed:
“Young Americans have generally woken up to the bad prospects and absence [...]
No time to write, so this one goes out to my crabs. You know, the blue ones who live in tanks that I do experiments on. Maybe you should go read the previous entry if you are confused.
The most exciting thing to happen so far today is that our ceiling here in the lab is leaking. The ceiling tile from where the leak originates is bulging from all the water. I am watching it like a hawk because when it finally gives, it should be a good show. It is awfully close [...]
I’ve often wondered if my job will one day cause me health problems. Especially when I do something dumb in the lab, like what I just did 10 minutes ago.
I was drying down a sample that was in solution in deuterated pyridine:1
There’s a pyridine molecule for you, looking all cute and cuddly and ringy, right? [...]
Today is looking to be an exciting day. I have been instructed to read and study a 30-page booklet entitled, “Basic Principles of Pulse Fourier Transform NMR.” Seriously. Thirty pages of page-turning formulas and theories regarding nuclear magnetic resonance And then after I study it, I get tested on it. And THEN, if I pass [...]
You know what I like? Linear tetrapyrroles, that’s what.
That’s bilirubin. It’s in your blood, in the hemoglobin. I don’t really know what it does. I just wanted a nice picture of a linear tetrapyrrole. You might be asking yourself at this point why I have this sudden fascination with linear tetrapyrroles. Here is my response:
Saying [...]
There is an aquarium in the lab in which I spend most of my time. In this fishtank lives one fish. Its name is Sandy. Sandy is possibly the smallest fish in the world and definitely on the list of the top 50 cutest. Sandy is a dwarf pufferfish.
Up until I started working here, the [...]
In between injecting crap into the HPLC and blowing my nose (I have the mother of all colds), I have spent my day perusing this blog:
blog.tenderbutton.com
Thanks to Tracey for alerting me to this amusing chemophile’s blog. A lot of it is over my head since he’s a synthetic chemist, but I can appreciate entries like [...]
So some of the habits of my new lab are a little, well, disturbing.
They have a coffee maker (with which they routinely make jet-fuel-tasting coffee)…sitting on the lab bench…next to HPLCs and all other manners of solvent-related equipment. Coffee laced with methanol. Mmm.
EVERYTHING when I got here was broken (or so it seemed). The roto-vap [...]
Because of a brief disappearance of my contraband wireless internet (hey, it’s not my fault my neighbors don’t secure their wireless networks), I’ve not posted anything since last week. Now the *ahem* free internet has returned, and I have many recent occurrences that need to be written about. These include a job interview at the [...]
So I recently updated my Blogger profile (over there on the right–you can read the whole version if you click on it), and reupdated my “random question.” The random question is generated–randomly, of course–by Blogger. My previous random question was “That can’t be a fish you’re standing on, can it?” which was pretty relevant, considering [...]
While in a convenient store this morning, I came across this:
I bet they vastly improve one’s ability to endure extended hours staring at a squiggly line on a computer screen and catching solvent in tiny vials. If only I’d found them six months ago.
Guess what? Paper #2 (the rotifer one) got accepted to Marine Biology sometime around Christmas. So even though I’m fairly far down the authors list, I’m thinking that having a paper in Marine Biology makes a person an official marine biologist. I want business cards now. I just need to get off my lazy bum [...]
Important life lesson #4523: Don’t mix liquors. It won’t end well.
Actually, I managed to not vomit, but man, did I ever feel like it. My fiance rounded up my friends and had a graduation party for me. It was an absolute blast. It was good to see friends I haven’t seen in awhile, all in [...]
Hmm. I’ve not been updating this regularly. Sorry–I know you all hang on my every written word about my incredibly exciting life.
So I defended my thesis and passed. Not so surprising. I would’ve known if I wasn’t ready or hadn’t done enough to satisfy the requirements. I spent Thanksgiving with Josh’s family in Augusta, where [...]
Ladies and gentlemen, I have officially earned a Master’s of Science in applied biology.
I now have two options as to how I should spend the rest of the day:
1) Sleeping.2) Drinking.
Maybe I can work it out to do both…
Here’s an update on my thesis writing:
Money spent on copies of obscure scientific articles: ~$20Number of said articles I’ve collected: Roughly 150Hours spent in the GT library: 8 hours a day for the past week and a half plus about 5 hours on Sat. and Sun. Whatever that adds up to.Ounces of coffee consumed: Too [...]
