The Week of Ends

I titled this with the intention of writing the actual content of this post the next day. Come 2-3 weeks later...

I haven't written in a long while. I should change the name of my blog to that. I really don't have a good excuse either, other than that I don't tend to have any free time to think to myself lately; unless it is composed of the maturation of cells, immune responses, or different bacterial/pathological diseases that can occur from a lack of hygeine and common sense. Then there's the fact that I have nothing to write about, which will also tend to do it--whatever it is. Thus the week of ends where pretty much in the course of days everything changed, and most of the normalcy in my life terminated. But despite those facts, I do have a computer at my command at all times, and we have the internet at my house...both ideal situations for others to hear about my non-life.

So 2-3 weeks ago I started school and changed positions at the lab to be working nights instead of days. All this was like being thrown into a swimming pool without the prior knowldege of how to swim--which I should know considering I can't swim--just hoping that desire to live would trump the tendency to drown. I guess school has only been going for 2 weeks, but it feels like a wide expanse of eternity stretching out both from behind and in front of me. I had my first exam in hematology 10 days from when class started, and on my birthday no less. I'm not sure how I did, other than that I was prepared and that I didn't fail. But I do now know how that particular professor will test, and I'm not too worried about it in the future. It will be a lot of looking at stains on microscopes and differenciating cell types and stages, which would be interesting if I could dwell on it more instead of rushing from one subject to another. Immunology will be another matter for sure. I have two Immunology classes actually, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about them. On the one hand, after working in the Immunology department of my lab for 3 years, it's cool to see the names of the tests I've heard thrown out over the last few years and to finally know and understand a little about them, and what's involved with them. I answer a lot of phone calls at work with people asking questions about sed tests, and it's quite something being the middle man in a conversation between two people who know what they're talking about when you yourself are off in a distant land where English is still the national language and latin is extinct. But both classes (basic and clinical) are exremely involved, and if my professors could talk any faster than they already do my hand would fall off from the effort involved in writing it all down. I did get a nifty digital recorder for lectures, which I think is more of a security blanky than anything else, because I have no idea when I'll have time to relisten to any of these lectures. Microbiology, like Hematology, shouldn't be horrible. We do a lot of culturing of bacteria in agars in the lab, and I actually quite enjoy myself. Why, just the other day I accidentally stabbed my agar with my thumb, simultaneously wiping out my developing community of chicken broth bacteria and in its place laying down the beginnings of what would become quite a beautiful array of skin flora. This was the part of my Genetics class I actually liked.

Anyway, I have 4 classes and 4 labs to go with them. On my on weeks from work I go straight from school to work, and straight from work to bed. Then I wake up and go to school. Factering in showers, brushing of teeth, eating...I get far less than the recommended 8 hours of sleep that I'd like, and there is no time left over to even study, which makes for delightful evenings of study on my off weeks. Going from school lab to work lab has thus far thrown me for a loop. I'm used to the morning people, and considering I'm the only person working at night right now for the most part (until the new kid I will work with gets trained and starts nights), it's just kind of eery getting to work and having the lab so empty. The morning people are so happy, and the only morning people still there when I get to work are the former night people, and we're all still getting used to the changes so I generally have no time to think at work either. There's a lot to do at night, far more than two people should have to handle on all days except Monday/Tuesday, so it's even more fun when one person is doing them and doesn't quite have the schedule down that is required to finish them all in a 10 hour period. On the one hand work is just different enough that when I go straight from school to work I'm suddently trying to let my mind adjust to the changes, like ones eyes would to a change in light or darkness. But it's the same in that both are fast paced and there's a lot of science involved, and for someone with a lot of varying interests and hobbys in addition to an interest in science...It's a lot more monotonous than I'd like.

All this has taught me that I will either have iron self-discipline by the end of this whole experience (the next year for sure, and the one after that though it will be less intense than the first), or I will have a nervous breakdown which will probably result in a name change and a life spent outside of the country documenting the lives of flatworms. We'll see how it goes and hope for the first.