My mouth is blessed.
For the 3 decades of my life, my mouth has been blessed with good teeth. I give credit to my maternal grandfather's side for being Darwinian and carrying "good" teeth genes. Not one cavity, filling, maybe a touch of gingivitis, but hell who doesn't have that.
However there's a draw back of having good teeth... you never experience the pain in your mouth. So this week my wisdom teeth decided to migrate a lil north. They have moved before, even cut. It produced some discomfort, but nothing I couldn't handle. My dentist has always urged for me to get them removed, but there's a quirk with me. Thanks to my patneral side, I inherited a blood disorder. Nothing too life threatening, just that I bleed much more and it's hard to get it to stop. So... teeth extraction requires more than a trip to the orthodentist, it requires hospitalization. Which then there's a lot of questions about the cost involved, yadda... And me being a poor grad student, it's not on my list of priorities.
Though soon I'll probably find out. Holy sh!t my toothies decided to migrate this week. My lower right wisdom tooth has impacted in my mandible and I pleaded for pain killers all yesterday. The codeine is working, though my mouth and face have swollen up, and can barely extend my jaw. I find out my fate tomorrow at the dentist... so it'll mean surgery within the next few weeks if not months. I'll keep ya posted.
Now off to spoon feed myself some soup.
the (continuing) woes of being a grad student...
For those who don't know, I've been a grad student since the turn of the millennia. So you do the math and that means I've been a labrat for 8 years now. I think it's due to my mild masochist nature why I've stayed so long being a grad student. That doesn't mean I've been 8 years on this project alone. The first three tender years were spent on my try at eukaryotic genetics for my Masters. They say that a Masters is a buffer degree. When you graduate with your Bach, there's still too many directions to go. So I ventured to watch worm porn (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXx35u7zLxs) for three years and thought... ehhh, no. So I went back to my first love: bacteria, and I've been happy ever since to work in the field.
That's not to say that I'm a happy grad student. I think the number of years you spend in grad school is porportional to the bitterness of being a grad student. Seriously, we're slaves. Sure it's a full circle as the advisors were once mistreated as grad students long ago and now it's their turn to hold the whip. I think Gandhi was onto something with that "eye for an eye..." way of thinking.
yeah... I'm bitter, but it goes with the territory... c'est la vie!
That's not to say that I'm a happy grad student. I think the number of years you spend in grad school is porportional to the bitterness of being a grad student. Seriously, we're slaves. Sure it's a full circle as the advisors were once mistreated as grad students long ago and now it's their turn to hold the whip. I think Gandhi was onto something with that "eye for an eye..." way of thinking.
yeah... I'm bitter, but it goes with the territory... c'est la vie!
once more with feeling...
It's amazing how easily your "no plans" weekend can quickly change into "cultural" weekend.
A labmate o' mine picked up tickets to see the latest local production so we put down our pipettors and took in an evening of theater. It was a 2 fer 1 billing, "What Gives?" and something about a "South Sea balloon" (the latter was less memorable than the former apparently). Same actors in both skits, a foursome troop and actually it was fairly entertaining. "What Gives" was a musical of sorts which are the productions I enjoy the most. Call me corny, but I enjoy the idea that you could be sitting on a bus or even working at your lab bench and suddenly you hear a music intro, you begin a melody, and everyone around you knows the words, bursting into the song with a smart choregraphy display! I think the world would be a better place if every now n then that would happen...
...and all that jazz!
A labmate o' mine picked up tickets to see the latest local production so we put down our pipettors and took in an evening of theater. It was a 2 fer 1 billing, "What Gives?" and something about a "South Sea balloon" (the latter was less memorable than the former apparently). Same actors in both skits, a foursome troop and actually it was fairly entertaining. "What Gives" was a musical of sorts which are the productions I enjoy the most. Call me corny, but I enjoy the idea that you could be sitting on a bus or even working at your lab bench and suddenly you hear a music intro, you begin a melody, and everyone around you knows the words, bursting into the song with a smart choregraphy display! I think the world would be a better place if every now n then that would happen...
...and all that jazz!
Hockey year in Canada...
cue the "Hockey Night in Canada" theme....
Well that was a weekend. I had a ice hockey tourney Fri, Sat, Sun, then ball hockey practise on Sun afternoon. Can we say OVERKILL?
We didn't fare well in the tourney, only winning the final game of three, which meant that at least we didn't finish last. It was a close game too. And I swear the ref was blind... at least a landlubber - literally as the tourney had this priate theme where the refs were dressed up as pirates and instead of yelling "YAY" it was changed to "YARRR!"
So ice hockey season came to an end and within 6 h ball hockey season began with a practise. I won't groan too much about it as it's mostly the same ppl I play ice hockey with, so everyone was tired. Which do I enjoy the most? It's a toss, but I like being on the ice. In ball hockey, you play either on cement or rubberized field. So sliding/gliding is limited to make sweeping saves. Not that I'm a pro in those style of saves... it's just easier to lunge your body across an area on ice. The other pro about playing on ice with 20kg of equipment on... ice is COOL... muggy rubber arenas are not. I sweat BUCKETS under the equipment in ball hockey. So it means major water treatment during and after the game. I'm not the idea person to hug after a game.
Our first game is tonight. Hopefully my team will be committed in attendance this season. It's hard to hold the line with 6 runners and yourself standing in front of the firing squad.
Tally ho!
Well that was a weekend. I had a ice hockey tourney Fri, Sat, Sun, then ball hockey practise on Sun afternoon. Can we say OVERKILL?
We didn't fare well in the tourney, only winning the final game of three, which meant that at least we didn't finish last. It was a close game too. And I swear the ref was blind... at least a landlubber - literally as the tourney had this priate theme where the refs were dressed up as pirates and instead of yelling "YAY" it was changed to "YARRR!"
So ice hockey season came to an end and within 6 h ball hockey season began with a practise. I won't groan too much about it as it's mostly the same ppl I play ice hockey with, so everyone was tired. Which do I enjoy the most? It's a toss, but I like being on the ice. In ball hockey, you play either on cement or rubberized field. So sliding/gliding is limited to make sweeping saves. Not that I'm a pro in those style of saves... it's just easier to lunge your body across an area on ice. The other pro about playing on ice with 20kg of equipment on... ice is COOL... muggy rubber arenas are not. I sweat BUCKETS under the equipment in ball hockey. So it means major water treatment during and after the game. I'm not the idea person to hug after a game.
Our first game is tonight. Hopefully my team will be committed in attendance this season. It's hard to hold the line with 6 runners and yourself standing in front of the firing squad.
Tally ho!
your tax dollar at work...
Well I have returned from my homeland (which is just an 8 h drive from where I currently live) from reaquianting myself with a past profession: making rubber stamps. If you're never trained for such a practise, I'm not surprised. It's not your normal run of the mill job. But this family business has provided a roof over our head (though there were many months where we pondered putting up a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn) and as well as valuable trade skills from working heavy machinery (table saws, bench drills) to finer details with properly cutting rubbers carefully to account for the correct pressure applied in stamping to computer designer skillz to make custom stamps to even proper book keeping and dealing with retail.
However among the skillz for making rubber stamps, one does not still learn how to deal with impossible idiotic people. The target of the past week: lazy ass govt employees. We tendered to make 350 new stamps and 30 repairs... they send us 500 new stamps and 65 repairs. We call back, "this isn't what we agreed"; they answer, "so what?"... drama ensues. To top it all off, if we did what they requested, 60% of the final product would be wrong due to wrong addresses and/or postal codes. It's our job to make the stamps... not question "hmmmm why does 1900th block have the same postal code as the 2000th block?". At the end of the week at home helping with what could be done, only 30% of the order was completed. My mother was thankful for the help, but I wish I could have done more.... woe well.
So I'm back at my bench... need to figure out a few things before fresh minions enter my lab to be trained (I'll save that for another post), plus prep a "fascinating" abstract for a conference in late May. ye gawds.... it's May already!
However among the skillz for making rubber stamps, one does not still learn how to deal with impossible idiotic people. The target of the past week: lazy ass govt employees. We tendered to make 350 new stamps and 30 repairs... they send us 500 new stamps and 65 repairs. We call back, "this isn't what we agreed"; they answer, "so what?"... drama ensues. To top it all off, if we did what they requested, 60% of the final product would be wrong due to wrong addresses and/or postal codes. It's our job to make the stamps... not question "hmmmm why does 1900th block have the same postal code as the 2000th block?". At the end of the week at home helping with what could be done, only 30% of the order was completed. My mother was thankful for the help, but I wish I could have done more.... woe well.
So I'm back at my bench... need to figure out a few things before fresh minions enter my lab to be trained (I'll save that for another post), plus prep a "fascinating" abstract for a conference in late May. ye gawds.... it's May already!
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