The bitch that I am....

Sundays in the lab are my few hours of escape.  I don't come in for a full eight hour day- more like two or three hours-- but it is enough to save me a day or two of frantically running around like a chicken with my head cut off during the week. I usually do a few transformations and some plating, some cleaning, some planning for the week, some catching up in the lab notebook.  Nothing too serious (as in a full day of assays), but enough that I can hit the ground running on Monday morning.

I love Sundays in the lab.  Why, you may ask?  Because it is quiet.  Because no one is here.  Sure, Big Boss Man may pop in to check his e-mail or to work on a grant or something (since he lacks the modern convenience of having the internet at home) and the research scientist who drives me crazy during the week is usually holed-up in her office searching the internet for the latest-greatest ways to rear her spawn-but for the most part I can sneak in, close the lab/office door and work in silence (OK, silence as in no one bothering me--Metallica and Hinder are still playing away on the iPod).  Sundays are my days to recharge.

I can normally play nicey-nice and smile and are helpful and great to talk to, but I harbor a deep, dark secret.  If I don't get some downtime away from people, away from being on my game, I will totally and completely loose my shit.  I need that downtime where I don't have to put in the effort to carry on a conversation with anyone.  I have noticed that if I am severely lacking in that "me time", its a struggle for me to not look at someone and tell them point blank "I don't give a flying fuck." when on a normal day I don't mind hearing about their latest escapades, or the fact that your child is teething or they can go "poopy and pee-pee in the potty" (yes, this is how the 40-year old woman talks to me) or that you can afford to have the windows redone in your house.

Well, folks, it seems that today is not my Sunday.  I came in a few hours ago made the coffee and settled in for a few hour incubation that would leave me free to start working on my poster and such.  The tunes were going, the floor was deserted and Dr. Zeek was happy.  Until the phone rang.  Our new visiting scientist wanted to come in to set-up a column today to save himself some time.  No problem, I can set you up a bit.  That was two hours ago.  Where is the soap?  Where is the gradient maker? Where is this? That?  How is this? How is that? Can you help me set this up?  I don't mind, really--and I am trying not to be a bitch-but I guess I feel like one.  Yes, I will set up the column for you.  Need some tubing? No problem.  Mop for the flood? Sure, here it is...AGGHGHGHGHGHGHHHH...

This, my friends is bad enough.  Then, crazy research scientist comes in and starts telling me how I am setting everything up wrong.  Snide comments about how she wouldn't have done things this way or that way.  The other RS just sat there and watched.  I made it clear that he could do it anyway he wants.  She of course wants to redo the set-up for him- he is perfectly content leaving thigns the way they are since I appear to know what I am doing.  Then the "conversation" begins--and I quickly dart out the door. 

Of course, the conversation between the two of them--of which I have NO involvement in- then moves to my lab.  Not that they don't have their own lab or anything- I just think they couldn't stand the thought of me sitting in my lab by myself on a Sunday, enjoying the solitude.

Now normally, I give two shits and cheerily carry on a conversation. But today, it's hard.  Not even hard-down-right frustrating.  It is Sunday, and I hold my Sundays sacred. 

Looks like my two hours is turning into six since I do have some things I need to get done and now I feel like a bitch.

Poster Virgin...

Things have been crazy here.  Beyond crazy.  Downright chaotic.  Between the wedding (and all the various drama that goes along with standing up as a bridesmaid), the following nearly week-long intercontinental pow-wow with our collaborators here at post-doc university and getting the visiting professor/research scientist up to speed on my project and what he will be doing this summer-I have had little time to breathe, let alone blog.

I finished the initial drafting of the PPT slides for Big Boss Man's upcoming talk at the conference we are going to go to in July and decided to start working on my poster. 

That is when it hit me.  In all of my academic career, I have never, ever had to make a poster.  Ever.  Including undergrad- that's nearly  13 years of advanced education.  I am a poster virgin.

Not that I have never attended a conference before- but I have always opted to give a short talk instead of laboring over the intricacies of PhotoShop and Illustrator (and by now I am a PowerPoint whiz-not that it is that difficult to master).  I like giving talks.  I enjoy standing in front of a crowd and putting my "Dr. Zeek. Woman of Science-" hat on.  Could be that all those years in theater and drama in high school have finally paid off, because not only do I love to give talks, but I am fairly good at it as well.

But today, I must embark on a new adventure, expand my horizons, explore uncharted territory, fumble through vector-based vs. bitmap-based drawings and figures and schemes, much like the kid in the backseat trying to clumsily unhook a bra for the first time. Hopefully, I can avoid all the pitfalls that seem to plague the n00b posters.

May the PhotoShop gods smile kindly on me and, as always, any advice, tips and truly horrific stories are always welcomed.

Trust me.

After a freak storm this morning (which was impressive to watch from my third-floor lab window) and a two-second (literally, the lights flickered-no computer nor clock reset) power outage, the air compressor and extremely important piece of equipment went out.  Fixed important equipment, fixed air compressor.

Did I mention that the air-con in the building also went out?  Did I also mention that, due to air-flow/circulation in the building, the windows in every lab and office are covered with storm windows screwed into the concrete that cannot be opened?  Did I also mention that an 80 degree lab is more unbearable than the 90 degree weather outside?

Really, it is.  Trust me.

And turning off the fluorescent lights in the lab-while conserving energy-doesn't do much for the overall temperature in the lab.  I would be working from the confines of home right now if the silly bacteria would grow....

Did I also mention that a highly humid lab is not conducive for weighing out LB media?  Really.  Trust me on this one.

8-12...

The satellite company we have is coming to upgrade our satellite boxes this morning. Not that we couldn't do it, but the logistics of shipping us the new boxes and shipping back the old ones is a nightmare-therefore having them come and install them would be easier.

Or so I thought.

Being the one with a more flexible schedule, I told Mr. Dr. Zeek that I would stay home this morning and wait for them to come.  Running out the door this morning at 7:30, Mr. Dr. Zeek called over his shoulder, "The appointment is for sometime between 8-12."

Wait.  What? A four-hour window?  They cannot narrow it down farther than that?  I am chained to the house, and the phone, for four hr?  And, the really cool thing, if you miss their phone call (they call you as they are leaving their last job), the put you at the end of the cue and go to the next place.  I am afraid to even go to the bathroom right now for fear of missing a phone call or the doorbell ringing.  I wonder if I can pull the four-hour window for meetings with Big Boss Man or my undergrads.  Yep, Big Boss Man, we can meet to talk about very important manuscript tomorrow, say sometime between 12:00 and 4:00.  Just wait for me in your office. 

Somehow I don't think that would go over so well.

A letter to my next-door neighboor...

Dear ass-hat-

Could you please refrain from using any power-tools before, let's say 9:00 am, on a Sunday morning?  Starting your power-sander thing outside my window at 7:30 am on a Sunday morning is not conducive for anything but pissing me the fuck off.  I understand that you are busy and may need to get some stuff around the house done, but seriously dude, WTF?  I was up till 3:30 last night working on some cool ass science, and four hours of sleep is going to make me one cranky mofo.  I mean really, 7:30? On a freaking Sunday.

And, if you were only going to sand-whatever-the-fuck you are for 30 min and then start packing everything up, could you not have waited until a reasonable hour?  Really, douchebag, you never show any fucking common courtesy, I understand that and should expect no less from you, but since I have been sitting on the porch with my coffee for the past 30 min (since, for some silly reason-I couldn't get back to sleep with all the buzzing and the whirring and the general cacophony coming from your backyard) you have talked on the phone, paced around, and not done anything but glare my way.  Thank you for the wonderful wake-up call.  You are right, I had things to do today, so what is an extra hour of sleep anyways, ass-munch.

No love me.

Dear Mr. Dr. Zeek-
Damn you for being able to sleep through a fucking tornado. 
I expect a nice dinner tonight.
You sleep-deprived wife...

6 minutes (UPDATED)

Supposedly, frantic collaborator will be in my lab in 6 minutes.  We have a ton of data to talk about--let's see how this goes....

UPDATE: So, frantic collaborator just left.  Twas not so terribly bad.  But, I find it amusing when he focuses on a piece of data that I thought was only so-so in importance and blew by my "really cool thing" piece of data.  Ah well, I can't fault him for that.  

TIme to get down and dirty...

There was an interesting post in the blog sphere a few weeks ago (which I can't seem to find at the moment) about when you know it's time to start writing up a manuscript.  If you have read any of my last blog post, you know that I have been frantically trying to finish data for not one, but two manuscripts which Big Boss Man wants to submit to somewhat impressive (at least in the broad definition of our field journal) back-to-back, which hopefully will be published back-to-back-to-back* with the manuscript from frantic collaborator since all three papers deal with the same enzyme.

Last week I finished** the data for manuscript #2 and have just a few more experiments for manuscript #3 which can easily be finished in the early part of next week.  I have been reading and reading and reading in the down time between experiments and have most of the background/intro already formulated in my brain.

So, how do I know it's time to sit down and write these damn papers?  Because they are all I have been thinking about.  On the bus, in the shower, laying in bed at night, even during conversations over lunch.  When it becomes obsessive and all I can think about, then it is time to purge my brain onto the paper.

One small problem, though, which is keeping me from sitting down with the laptop is that I need to come up with the models, derive the equations and do the data fitting.  Not that I mind, in fact this is one of the reasons why I choose this field.  There is something so elegant and extremely satisfying when your model and therefore the system can be described by simple mathematical equations.  Show me the numbers.  Even so, the task is somewhat daunting and sometimes my intuitive sense for what is going to work does not work.  While frustrating in the beginning and sometimes slow to get going, it is my favorite part of the whole thing.

While I am by no means one of the great writers of the century, I do enjoy writing manuscripts (even though I curse myself and the data and all while doing so.) It is my chance to put my spin on things.  I like hunting through the literature to see if there is any scrap of previously published data that may further support our claims, I love making sure all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.  Maybe I am a closet masochist.

So, today on this wonderful glorious, rainy cold Sunday, I will embark on the model-making and the equation deriving armed only with a legal pad, a pot of coffee, a pencil, my data and my worn copy of Segel's Rapid equilibrium system.  I hope to make it through relatively unscathed, but I know that tears, frustrations, and such are inevitable.  As long as I can get all this craziness out of my head and onto the paper, though, it is worth it.


*This was something that he (Big Boss Man) and others did in the early days--while frowned upon now, I think that he may have enough pull with the editor's to push this through this way.  It's not that the papers wouldn't stand up on their own, more that they tell three highly intertwined stories, but as one massive paper we are looking at around 30 pages in the journal....

**Finished is a highly relative term- finished in that I can tell the story without resorting to major, major hand-waving--although each experiment brings up several new questions, as some point I have to draw a line for these things-they are already going to be the manuscripts from hell to write--a ton of data with a ton of side-stories, etc.