4/4/00

If any of you are interested in reading multiple accounts of my party, here they are, in alphabetical order: Beth, David, Jane, Lunesse, Mar, Michael, and Trish. Everyone seems to have had a pretty good time, except for maybe Michael, who complained that the bar was a dive, that the music was too loud and not to his liking, and that Eleanor couldn't seem to keep her hands off of him. Eleanor, you shameless hussy!

I'm still very busy. I've been spending my days playing with flies, and my nights in class. I haven't really had time to do much non-school-related stuff. I think I'm going to have to figure out a few things I can cut back on, because things are insane right now, and are going to get even worse. I haven't exercised in a couple of weeks. I don't have any time, except late at night (which would disrupt my sleep) or early in the morning (I tend to have motivational problems when trying to decide whether to sleep another hour or to get up and go outside in the cold for a 4-mile run.)

On the plus side, I have been getting a lot done in the lab. I've even learned how to dissect the brains out of fruitflies, which is every bit as much of a pain in the ass as it sounds. A fruitfly is much smaller than a regular housefly, and its brain only makes up a small fraction of its body. The dissection is done under a microscope with a sharp pair of forceps. The really hard part is pulling off the eyes without destroying the brain. But the hardest part of all is maintaining your sanity and your eyesight while attempting this task.

The lab itself is pretty nice, though a bit disorganized, as they moved their space a couple of weeks ago and are still in the process of unpacking. As a result, nobody knows where any of the lab equipment is, so everything takes twice as long as it should. Another result of the move is that I've been spending a lot of time crawling up on chairs and counters to try to reach things on high shelves. All the labs at UCSF use high shelves for storage, because the ceilings are high and lab space is at a premium. But in most labs, the commonly used equipment is on the lower shelves and the upper shelves are used for long term storage. But in this lab, everything is still being sorted out, so things can be on any shelf. Having to climb up on the counters and desks several times a day makes me feel like I'm in some sort of alternate universe inhabited by giants.

There's one other thing about that lab that's kind of strange--I've only been working there for a week now, but I've already observed several screaming fights among lab members. The fights are usually related to general lab maintenance: who is responsible for setting up the inebriometer columns, who left a mess in the fly room, who forgot to turn off the microscope... It would be disturbing, except for the fact that five minutes later, both parties will reconcile and be back on friendly terms. Maybe it's a good thing--if you get your gripes off your chest, they don't turn into seething resentment. But it's a bit weird for me. It's not just one or two people doing this, either...almost everyone in the lab has been in at least one heated argument in the time I've been working there. But overall, the atmosphere in the lab is quite genial.

The forum: Do people where you work ever get in fights?