Friday Reading Lesson

I am in the middle of a massive literature search. We have a theory, we think that someone may have done all the messy math for us, but now I have to find it. Let me tell you, this is BORING! Not only am I in the middle of trying to find a needle in a haystack, but it’s a quantum chemistry type needle, I fear (this isn’t my strong suit). In order to quell my boredom I’ve done lots of online reading, discovered a new blog that I’m adoring, and finally decided on the “Rory” approach. I’ll admit it; I’m a Gilmore Girls junkie. I can watch the reruns for hours, over and over again, in fact I do. So, in my boredom of trudging through lots of science that’s over my head trying to find my needle, it came to me – the Rory method! Read a paper, when I get overloaded or bored, switch to the next, ad nauseum (for those of you who don’t know the reference, see Gilmore Girls season 3, “Here Comes the Son”). Unfortunately this method has resulted in lots of first pages being read, with nothing of substance being learned. Oh well, it’s Friday evening, at least I tried.

Double Time?

So, I have a unique situation in that owing to a variety of political games and circumstances I came into the responsibility of essentially managing an instrument. Granted, it’s not highly used and usually I just train people and lock them in the room and come over to help if they need me. That’s fine. The benefits of my group having unlimited access to the instrument and my boss seems happy with the results of his political game. Part of how this came to be is that the professor who technically controls the instrument had 2 students, one who graduated with her Masters this summer and another who as far as I can tell doesn’t get much done. Which brings me to my rant…the professor (we’ll call him PwOI) who owns the instrument has started asking me for favors; as in, can you help out my Golf Buddy (GB) here who wants to try out this crazy experiment? Sure, GB’s generally only take a few hours of my time and if it leads to more then I train one of GB’s students and leave it at that. But today’s topic has me in a fury. So, PwOI comes to me yesterday and says, “I have agreed to supervise a high school student on the instrument for his senior thesis (he attends a magnet school) and I was wondering if you could help me out a little”. Ok, sure, I thought, run a couple samples for the high schooler, show him the basics, no biggie. WRONG! PwOI wants me to supervise the high school student, who is supposed to work in the lab 8 hours a week all year!!! He said to me that I can just use the kid to run my own samples, and he can be fine to be in there alone after a few weeks. First off, I don’t have that kind of time, and who does PwOI think he is, when he has no grad students of his own (and no intention of recruiting this year), agreeing to this? Also, this is a user facility – people use it for real research, and having a high school student there will just get in the way. Bottom line thought its that I don’t work for him, and in all honesty I already go above and beyond for him (don’t burn bridges and all that jazz). On top of which, I’m fairly certain that my boss doesn’t know any of this, and I don’t know how to bring it up without sounding whiny and ungrateful. I hate being taken advantage of, and even worse I hate that I’m too nice to actually do anything about it.

My science is broken

I am not that student who sits around and plays on the internet all day. I love research and prefer to spend my days in the lab working. I’m a classic workaholic, and if I even get the smallest sense that I’m making progress I’ll work all night if I have to. I find science to be stressful and rewarding all at the same time. I suppose most of us do, that’s why we torture ourselves in grad school. That brings me to today, the day where I’ve literally walked around aimlessly, given directions to new students, stalked people on the internet, played about 50 games of free cell, chatted online, read the news, and well, you get the point. I’ve hit a wall, I honestly don’t know where to go next, what I know I need to do I can’t because the instrument I need is broken. The boss is out of town, and I emailed him for help and got a “we’ll talk next week” response, and I have to present in group meeting in a week. Normally I’d move on, do something else, switch gears a little, but both parts of my project are stalled. Neither part works. We were so close with one of them, we just had to get out ducks in a row…and then it all fell apart. I thought that by this time I’d be finishing up my manuscript, instead I’m trying to make sense out of nothing. I’ve been fruitlessly staring at a plot that one of my labmates best described as a picture my nephew drew, and he’s three. I hate that I’ve managed to accomplish nothing this summer, and even more I hate that I can’t figure out what to do next – I feel like that’s a big part of having ownership over my project is knowing how to get out of this place, but I can’t and that frustrates me even more. Maybe tomorrow will be better?

When they are bad, they're really, really bad

Some days I just want to get the *$%@ out of lab. I realize that no work environment is going to be perfect, and in my job before grad school I had plenty of conflicts, but this is bad. I know that I’m supposed to be trying to patch things up and make the environment a little better, but today is a bad day. One of my labmates literally does nothing all day long, she’s not a very good scientist, and someday it will catch up with her, but she’s happy and pleasant to be around. Sure it drives me nuts when I work hard and get in trouble and she literally admits in her group meetings that she doesn’t work and the boss doesn’t say a peep, but if we don’t get any new students soon it looks to be her & I for a while, so I’d like to keep that relationship pleasant. Then there’s the next up to graduate – and he’s stressing and not very social or happy right now. His last group meeting was pretty bad, so he’s double stressed at the moment. Then there’s the other two, CL from the previous post, and my friend, his girlfriend (that’s right, we have lab dating to add to the mix). My friend is notoriously temperamental and today has decided to give me the silent treatment. I think I know why, but there’s nothing to be done about it, she’ll snap out eventually but for now I’m in exile. On top of all the high school drama we have going on, my data sucks. I can’t figure out what’s going on in my system and the instrument that I need is still down. I think I’m closing up shop for the day and going home to watch Michael Phelps.

Undergraduate Orientation

Having had the experience of working with an undergrad this summer, I am now of the opinion that there should be mandatory undergraduate orientation before even allowing them to step foot inside the graduate research environment.

This would include:

• An assessment of their skills, i.e. what they can actually do/what they actually know vs. what they say they can do/know.
• Complete overview of lab etiquette and safety (I know, I know boring…but hear me out on this one)
• Proper glassware/instrument cleaning; i.e. rinsing with tap water and leaving the still obviously dirty, as in particles are lining the sides dirty, glassware on the drying rack in unacceptable.
• Proper waste disposal; i.e. don’t throw your kimwipes in the glass waste – I know this is common sense, but learn from my mistakes people, don’t assume that the undergrad completely grasps this concept.
• Proper use of materials; i.e. ask before you take anything (that includes pH paper, tweezers, glassware) from a graduate student’s bench. We are highly possessive creatures and have gone to great lengths to pilfer, beg or borrow our supplies, taking anything without permission is a grand felony in the lab.
• Proper use of names. Again you’re thinking, yeah yeah Mrs. Chemist, that’s boring and common sense. But yet again, learn from my mistakes, be the superior, insist that the undergrad addresses you by name, otherwise you will forever be deemed “Hey”

Lesson on appropriate scientific terms: this might be the most important, otherwise you run the risk of having discussions like this:

UG: Hey, so my data looks funny

Mrs. Chemist: Can you elaborate on that for me?

UG: Well it’s different

Mrs. Chemist: Different how?

UG: Well when I ran the test last time it was different than this time

Mrs. Chemist: What was different?

UG: The results (with typical 19 year old look that says “duh!”)

Mrs. Chemist: Why don’t you show me the data, and we can go from there.

UG: Well I haven’t actually plotted it yet…

I think you get the gist.