The devil is in the details

*Insert Scream Here*

I'm not generally a fan of Mondays. We have lab meeting at 9 am, and my lab job is to be the lab meeting coordinator. This involves scheduling people to give talks (which is somewhat like pulling teeth) and also coming in early on Monday morning to set up/run the audio-visual stuff and generally run the show. I start lab meeting sharply at 9:05 by shouting/asking the group if there is any lab business to be discussed.

For some reason, I could not fall asleep last night. I tried to go to bed early, but ended up waking up after an hour and not falling back asleep until 5:30. My alarm went off at 6, I stayied awake long enough to listen to the good song was on the radio, and then I promptly re-set the alarm for 7. I managed to get up at 7:30 and somehow left the apartment at 8:05 to make it to lab on time to do all of the setup. If you do the math in this paragraph, you will see that I got 2.5 hours of not great sleep last night, and I am EXHAUSTED. In fact, I am so exhausted that when I was talking to someone before lab meeting started (while mainlining caffeine so that I could be upright) I tried to ask "Do you think I have enough energy to ask if there is any lab business" and instead random "Hiebeydtuitiuyeetetjkiougaosg" sounds came out of my mouth, causing my co-worker to laugh hysterically. The lab meeting was outstandingly boring.

So what do I have going on today? Well, I worked from 5 pm-9pm last night setting up an experiment for today. A small part of me wanted to say screw that and do the set-up part today, but instead I was a diligent graduate student. As soon as I left lab meeting, one of the techs who I needed to help me with my experiment pulled me aside and said "We need to talk about your experiment." Turns out I scheduled it for a time where she couldn't help me. While we talked about how we would finagle the schedule, she also explained the instrument controls to me, and said "whatever you do, don't add the normal activation media to the cells." Oops. Guess what I spent 6-7:30 pm last night doing? It now looks like I am going to throw the cells I set up last night in the trash can and start again with new (but less optimally grown) cells this afternoon, which will result in finishing the experiment at a time where she can actually help me read it on Wednesday. Of course, it also requires a doing two large experiments tomorrow instead of one, but that's why I have people working for me, now isn't it? Ugggggggh. I think I need to turn around, go home, go back to bed and take a Mulligan on today. I guess I won't be so busy after all. If you find me asleep at my desk (or you see that I have written more incoherent things for all to read), you'll know why. Please can I take a nap? Please, please?

posted by Immunegirl @ 10:50 AM