It is 6:30 am. You jump start your day by cart-wheeling out of bed and smoothly landing next to your alarm clock. You stop its tantrums, grab a towel and get washed, cleaned and dressed. You wolf down a bowl of cereal grab your essentials and head out to lab. It is a beautiful day and everything outside looks surreal. You jaunt down the walkway as you turn on the music. 'Bhor aayi gaya andhiyara' floats into your ears. It is perfect.
It is 7:15 am. You walk into lab, open the -20, get out a frozen cell pellet and put it in the water bath. You head to your desk where two screens of floating 3D bubbles suddenly switch to a login screen as you roll your fingers over the mouse. You want to start your perfect day with checking the news, mail and sporting highlights. John walks into your room and sees you, looks at his watch, smirks and walks away. You look at him, turn back to your screen and smile to yourself. He's not going to ruin this monday. Yeah.
It is 7:45 am. The mail has been marked as read. Some have been responded to. Nothing new in sports or world news. You interlock your fingers and bend them till you hear eight cracking effects in unison. Work begins.
It is 8:45 am. Every one else pours into lab and wishes you a good morning. You pull off your head phones and wish them back. You stop scaling the data that you were at and start discussing with them, your ideas on the idiots of the world.
It is 9 am. Rob walks in with a tall mug of coffee. 'He drinks too much coffee for a Brit', you tell yourself for the nth time. Rob claps his hands and announces, 'protein group meeting'. You grab your notebook and walk over to the meeting desks.
It is 9:30 am. You have to leave for Dr. Muzyczka's Advanced Virology class. But you also want to just leave the lab and run away. John told the others about how you showed up at 7:15 am. Kat raised her eyebrows, Jeanne laughed and Rob nearly spilt his coffee. You gave an uneasy smile and said you do come in early sometimes. They laugh harder. It dies down and the meeting resumes. Near the end Rob says, "The ones of you that are really cool would...". Jeanne buries herself further into her arms, Kat looks straight up at the ceiling and John tilts his chair back further. Rob looks at you and smiles. You open your mouth in horror. He hands you a small list of high school student names and tells you about how they will visit the lab and look to you for a 2 hour tour of the facility. You curse yourself. You want to run away. Rob realizes your plight and smiles wider. John smiles too and Kat gets back to looking around the table. You want to run away. Yeah.
It is 10:30 am - You spent an hour in Dr. Muzyczka's class learning how to tilt your chair on one leg without holding the table. You grab a tall cup of hot chocolate from Starbucks on your way back to lab. You enter and notice that the morning's excitement has died down. People are briskly walking around with gloved hands and others are peering into lines and lines of codes and numbers on their computer screens. You head silently to yours, open a terminal and resume your scaling. You take breaks to go to your wetlab bench and work on the cell pellet.
It is 12:30 pm - Your data scaling has progressed. The cell debris has been seperated from the supernatent. Rob walked in 3 times and informed you that he has emailed you something that he also tells you in person. You nod away to the side and see Kat and Jeanne head out for lunch. You join them and walk over to the cafeteria.
It is 1:00 pm - Life is not fair at all. Tina needed the cells that you had lysed because the virus in them was a mutant virus and not the wild type that you expected it to be. She apologizes to you for not labeling the tube. You get a fleeting image of mahatma gandhi in your head and tell her that she can of course have the sample. She smiles at you and thanks you. You walk back to your desk in the manner of a saint that gave up the last of his clothes to a freezing man. Tina thanks you again and smiles at you. You wave your hand and smile like a good king and sit down at your desk. Tina thanks you again and smiles at you. Something is wrong. It took you too long to realize that it was quite a foolish move to do that in front of the rest of the lab. Everyone else is grinning away too. John turns around, looks at you and a broad grin opens up on his face and mutters, "Waitaminnit. You did that all morning and it wasn't wild type?". He is evil. Rob walks in, smells the air, turns to you and smiles almost identically. You curse both of them and make a mental note to enter their email addresses at a porn site database. On second thoughts, you decide to enter the entire lab's set of email addresses at a porn site database. With the exception of yourself.
It is 2:30 pm - You download the paper that is to be discussed at Crystallography journal club and read through it carefully. You take short breaks in the middle where you stare around at what the others are doing and check your mail.
It is 2:55 pm - You have finished reading the paper. You look up at the Chuck Norris poster that you got on your birthday, grab your laptop and join the rest of the bunch as the head out for journal club.
It is 4 pm - Journal club was fun. Your spirits return. You check your mail. You call the racquetball club and book a court for 6 pm. You do not want to work now so you join the rest of the bunch as they crack jokes on Rob and ridicule his accent. You join in and use the chance to call Rob a few names as Rob sighs silently and takes the hits. You realize that Rob will never be the bully of the lab. Ever.
It is 5 pm - You walk to Mavis' room and tell her about your day's progress. You nearly talk to her for 45 minutes before you realize that you have to run to racquetball. You grab your shoes and break into a trot as you head up the hill.
It is 7 pm - Racquetball was a blast. You won the series 3-2. You walk home, get a shower and make some spaghetti. You eat it slowly as you check on recent videos on youtube. After that you grab a cup of Yoghurt and settle on the couch and watch Sportscenter on TV.
It is 8 pm - You head back to lab. Its quiet. Nobody is here. You flip on the lights in your room and get back to work. You turn on the music. It was a good idea to rummage through the old computer equipment to find these speakers. People randomly walk in and out of lab. You briskly walk get some purification done and refine data.
It is 11 pm - You head back home and speak to Subbu along the way. You then speak to mom and dad on skype for 10 minutes, do the dishes, clean up, grab your psp and turn on some comedy videos and flop on the bed. You are asleep in 3 minutes.
It is 7:15 am. You walk into lab, open the -20, get out a frozen cell pellet and put it in the water bath. You head to your desk where two screens of floating 3D bubbles suddenly switch to a login screen as you roll your fingers over the mouse. You want to start your perfect day with checking the news, mail and sporting highlights. John walks into your room and sees you, looks at his watch, smirks and walks away. You look at him, turn back to your screen and smile to yourself. He's not going to ruin this monday. Yeah.
It is 7:45 am. The mail has been marked as read. Some have been responded to. Nothing new in sports or world news. You interlock your fingers and bend them till you hear eight cracking effects in unison. Work begins.
It is 8:45 am. Every one else pours into lab and wishes you a good morning. You pull off your head phones and wish them back. You stop scaling the data that you were at and start discussing with them, your ideas on the idiots of the world.
It is 9 am. Rob walks in with a tall mug of coffee. 'He drinks too much coffee for a Brit', you tell yourself for the nth time. Rob claps his hands and announces, 'protein group meeting'. You grab your notebook and walk over to the meeting desks.
It is 9:30 am. You have to leave for Dr. Muzyczka's Advanced Virology class. But you also want to just leave the lab and run away. John told the others about how you showed up at 7:15 am. Kat raised her eyebrows, Jeanne laughed and Rob nearly spilt his coffee. You gave an uneasy smile and said you do come in early sometimes. They laugh harder. It dies down and the meeting resumes. Near the end Rob says, "The ones of you that are really cool would...". Jeanne buries herself further into her arms, Kat looks straight up at the ceiling and John tilts his chair back further. Rob looks at you and smiles. You open your mouth in horror. He hands you a small list of high school student names and tells you about how they will visit the lab and look to you for a 2 hour tour of the facility. You curse yourself. You want to run away. Rob realizes your plight and smiles wider. John smiles too and Kat gets back to looking around the table. You want to run away. Yeah.
It is 10:30 am - You spent an hour in Dr. Muzyczka's class learning how to tilt your chair on one leg without holding the table. You grab a tall cup of hot chocolate from Starbucks on your way back to lab. You enter and notice that the morning's excitement has died down. People are briskly walking around with gloved hands and others are peering into lines and lines of codes and numbers on their computer screens. You head silently to yours, open a terminal and resume your scaling. You take breaks to go to your wetlab bench and work on the cell pellet.
It is 12:30 pm - Your data scaling has progressed. The cell debris has been seperated from the supernatent. Rob walked in 3 times and informed you that he has emailed you something that he also tells you in person. You nod away to the side and see Kat and Jeanne head out for lunch. You join them and walk over to the cafeteria.
It is 1:00 pm - Life is not fair at all. Tina needed the cells that you had lysed because the virus in them was a mutant virus and not the wild type that you expected it to be. She apologizes to you for not labeling the tube. You get a fleeting image of mahatma gandhi in your head and tell her that she can of course have the sample. She smiles at you and thanks you. You walk back to your desk in the manner of a saint that gave up the last of his clothes to a freezing man. Tina thanks you again and smiles at you. You wave your hand and smile like a good king and sit down at your desk. Tina thanks you again and smiles at you. Something is wrong. It took you too long to realize that it was quite a foolish move to do that in front of the rest of the lab. Everyone else is grinning away too. John turns around, looks at you and a broad grin opens up on his face and mutters, "Waitaminnit. You did that all morning and it wasn't wild type?". He is evil. Rob walks in, smells the air, turns to you and smiles almost identically. You curse both of them and make a mental note to enter their email addresses at a porn site database. On second thoughts, you decide to enter the entire lab's set of email addresses at a porn site database. With the exception of yourself.
It is 2:30 pm - You download the paper that is to be discussed at Crystallography journal club and read through it carefully. You take short breaks in the middle where you stare around at what the others are doing and check your mail.
It is 2:55 pm - You have finished reading the paper. You look up at the Chuck Norris poster that you got on your birthday, grab your laptop and join the rest of the bunch as the head out for journal club.
It is 4 pm - Journal club was fun. Your spirits return. You check your mail. You call the racquetball club and book a court for 6 pm. You do not want to work now so you join the rest of the bunch as they crack jokes on Rob and ridicule his accent. You join in and use the chance to call Rob a few names as Rob sighs silently and takes the hits. You realize that Rob will never be the bully of the lab. Ever.
It is 5 pm - You walk to Mavis' room and tell her about your day's progress. You nearly talk to her for 45 minutes before you realize that you have to run to racquetball. You grab your shoes and break into a trot as you head up the hill.
It is 7 pm - Racquetball was a blast. You won the series 3-2. You walk home, get a shower and make some spaghetti. You eat it slowly as you check on recent videos on youtube. After that you grab a cup of Yoghurt and settle on the couch and watch Sportscenter on TV.
It is 8 pm - You head back to lab. Its quiet. Nobody is here. You flip on the lights in your room and get back to work. You turn on the music. It was a good idea to rummage through the old computer equipment to find these speakers. People randomly walk in and out of lab. You briskly walk get some purification done and refine data.
It is 11 pm - You head back home and speak to Subbu along the way. You then speak to mom and dad on skype for 10 minutes, do the dishes, clean up, grab your psp and turn on some comedy videos and flop on the bed. You are asleep in 3 minutes.
1 comment:
Like it :) You missed something ;)
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