The devil is in the details

Saving the world is so boring

It all sounds so glamorous, working on vaccine development. It sounds like I come up with brilliant ideas all day long and save people (probably small children) from the brink of infectious disease-induced disaster. But in the end, it is not all that interesting, and the challenging parts don't usually involve doing anything that takes brain cells, they involve being willing to put up with picky pain-in-the-ass details. Example? This afternoon, I have been working on making out my orders for reagents that I need. While that sounds fun and exciting, I have been browsing different antibody manufacturers' websites trying to find precisely what I need. It's not like they're helpful either-they just list the antibodies and the general type of experiment and do not say helpful things like "Attention all you graduate students new to the Fas-mediated apoptosis field, this is the apoptosis-inducing positive control antibody that everyone in the field uses. And oh by the way, this is how they set up the experiment." That is really what I needed, and when I rule the world, that is what they will say. In the meantime, I got to spend my afternoon combing through random papers that I have no interest in, just to see what controls they used, and then going to manufacturers' websites to find prices and availability etc. etc. etc. Who thought up this system, anyway? I need to get back to orders eventually, but I needed some down time first. Any science educated peeps out there just dying to be my personal assistant and order stuff for me and look up reviews on subjects I need to know about and print out papers I ought to have read? Yeah, didn't think so.

Oh, and why do my boss and co-workers always walk in when I am in the middle of surfing or whatever, but not when I am scrupulously looking up science-y stuff? Damn. I mean, if I really wanted to be an uber-slacker, I would go down the street a ways to the Museum of Fine Arts or to Best Buy or something instead of hanging out here at my desk in the lab.

So you may have noticed that I started a blog. Again. This time, I'm going to remember to write in it. I like this one much better than the last one. At least right now I do. Get ready for some enthralling stuff...just probably not today. (I am not feeling particularly interesting today. I just needed to stop having my screen filled with pages that contain words like PI-3 kinase. Oh. Well shit. Now this page contains the word PI-3 kinase. Twice. Hmmm. I think that's a sign I ought to stop for now and get back to apoptosis.

posted by Immunegirl @ 4:46 PM