musings

It's one of those days at work where I have the best of intentions to be highly productive. Reservations about where I am going to be in a month completely put aside, today I wanted to get stuff done. Partially I shot myself in the foot with this one by lack of ordering properly, but figuring out that I was out of one of my reagents was a small deterent; always something to be done. So instead I park myself in front of the computer, iPod headphones snugly in place, and pull up one of the multitude of bioinformatic tools available on the internet and start plugging away at one of my datasets using it. Eventually I come up with a few interesting genes and pull up their respective associated papers. This leaves me staring at a journal article on my computer screen whilst Jimmy LaFave whisks my thoughts away from what I was so recently attempting to focus on. Unfamiliar vocabulary slips through my gaze without really registering.

Lately the hours I put in at work have increased quite a bit. Nor am I shy about telling people how much I work . It's part of grad school and graduate students in the hard science fields take it in stride or generally don't make it through. It's also another thing to impress people with, on top of the usual "wow, you're in graduate school..." (Hey, these days I take what I can get.) It recently occurred to me that I actually don't mind the long hours. Not because they make me look diligent and dedicated, but because I have no reason to leave work at a decent hour. Going home to a 13 inch TV in an empty, messy apartment isn't exceptionally appealing prospect most days. Does this make me completely pathetic?