Browbeaten Foggy-headed Ones,
Having spent the last 6 weeks working continually in the laboratory, I am now slowly re-attaching myself to my version of normality. I never worked less than 12 hours a day, every day of the week for the duration, 15-16 hour shifts were normal, I even put away a 19 hour effort. Such is the supply of equipment at the university, we only have short stints with certain apparatus, during this time, we have to work intensely and make the most of the limited time.
By halfway through the haze, my brain could no longer handle many thought processes, but I have never been a person who could stop caring, be lazy, not work hard or give up. I had to endure the strain, because that’s what scientists have to do.
The first two weeks did not go so well, there were malfunctions and blunders. There was a day of extreme crankiness on my part, I can’t say that it wasn’t necessary, but I disagreed with every move suggested by my co-worker
I only had a co-worker for so long; the combination of the seemingly lengthening distance from glorious results and my unplayable personality was the likely reason for the eventual solo effort. There was no announcement to mark the change in our tactics, but it was for the best, it led to my becoming more competent and better results.
In the early stages, when nothing worked and all I gained was fatigue, one song stuck in my head, Up All Night by Young Knives, I guess it could be adapted for a chemist in a laboratory. Later, when things nearly began to happen, I had sorted out how to dose my chemicals, yet I could not see them mixing and reacting, Highland League by I, Ludicrous became the song booming out of my brain’s music player because I thought of my two reactants, “May the twain never meet” did not only apply to the Highland League and the namby-pamby lowland leagues but also to my two reactant compounds. Like I say, my brain had stopped working fully; it could only focus on the task in hand, the remaining power was only sufficient to maintain some effortless idiosyncrasies. I searched for a sound to satisfy throughout my time, the most helpful album was Forward March! by Strange Death of Liberal England, it combined my favourite mini-orchestra compositions with energy that I could draw on to keep going into the night when some good radio became available.
Apart from the day of extreme crankiness, when I can say I became stressed for the first time ever, there were few other notable events. Each day merged into the next. If I finished working on the same day that I had started working, that counted as going home early. There was an eventful 18 hour shift, apart from my own monitoring my own reactions, I had to contain a fire, caused by another party in a different lab, at 2300hrs and avoid the alarms to call out the Fire Brigade being triggered. I used this fact to make the guilty party feel small. When I finally left the building, I was stopped by the police on the way home, not for any particular offence, but for “a routine check”. At 0030hrs, after my initial blunder in pulling in at the “wrong” side of the road, I was interrogated and examined for what seemed like forever. One officer was standing right in front of my carriageway and the other was on the pavement at the right hand side, I initially thought they were there to intercept some suspect thus I made my way into the other lane to pass the policeman on the road, then it became clear that they wanted me to stop, so I did – on the other carriageway, which whilst convenient for me, because I can roll the window down to the officer on the right hand pavement, is apparently dangerous. I was told off for this although, my defence that I did not want to mow down the policeman standing on my lane was not sufficient. They could find no other faults and I was allowed to move on, and I moved on as slowly as I approached; I don’t like driving in the dark, having my own full-beam headlights on spooks me for some reason, I’m wary of nocturnal animals entering the road. Driving slowly also lets me monitor the skies a little, my search for noctilucent clouds, Aurora Borealis and UFOs goes on.
It took me ages to work out that I was actually doing the work of two men in the lab, I was obviously aware that I was working on two samples at once from the off, but I suddenly became conscious of this after two weeks, when I noticed that I had no time to have a break, I was always doing something to one of the two samples. It was like being struck by a bolt of lightning but it even though it wasn’t really such a revelation; it became a soundbite I could use.
Likewise, it took me until the last weekend before the end of the stint to realise that I actually lived in the lab. On Sunday morning, after attending the Futureheads gig the night before (I left the lab just in time to catch the start of their set and I returned after the gig), I thought the lab and the office looked just like a version of my bedroom, I had CDs, books, clothes, towels, food and cups, everywhere. I decided that evening that I would take most of my stuff home.
There were not many triumphs during the stint, but a couple made me lose drop my guard and go bounding into other people’s offices, it seems embarrassing when I think about that now. However, most of the time, I spent trying different sequences and conditions in order to nurture the reaction to produce the structures I wanted, I’ll admit that I tried some methods for the wrong reasons, I carried out certain experiments because other people, who are meant to be smarter than me, suggested they would work and not because I believed they would work. I felt I was betraying myself and the failure encountered on those occasions will not appease me even if it proved I was right.
Three days from the end, I got defensive; it seemed the next user of the lab was getting ready to boot me out early and people had decided I was a lost cause. This knocked my fragile brain. I had to make clear that my time was not going to be infringed upon.
On my second last day, I had a major triumph, the predicted reaction occurred. I stayed monitoring it and putting the final touches to the experiment until 0230hrs. The next morning, on what was meant to be my final day, at 0900hrs, I was drained; I was only there to complete what I had not just a few hours before. I was ready to finish. Surprisingly, I was told that I was to be given a few more days of lab time, in light of what might be success. I was strongly against taking it. They tried to persuade me but I stood firm…for 2 hours. By 1100hrs, and my second wind, I decided that I would go on, if only for political reasons.
By 1100hrs the next day, I decided to give up. It was a strange feeling; I’ve never given up on anything, except a car that I decided to sell because the key had snapped in the lock (straw that broke the camel’s back). To go to a boss and say that I was to finish working was an action I had never taken. Of course, everyone was aware of the effort I had given and the decision was accepted. I have enough results to tell a story, that’s enough for now. I’m glad to be relieved of my duties, I have grown unhealthy, I need to get out into the Kingdom sun and kick a football.
By halfway through the haze, my brain could no longer handle many thought processes, but I have never been a person who could stop caring, be lazy, not work hard or give up. I had to endure the strain, because that’s what scientists have to do.
The first two weeks did not go so well, there were malfunctions and blunders. There was a day of extreme crankiness on my part, I can’t say that it wasn’t necessary, but I disagreed with every move suggested by my co-worker
I only had a co-worker for so long; the combination of the seemingly lengthening distance from glorious results and my unplayable personality was the likely reason for the eventual solo effort. There was no announcement to mark the change in our tactics, but it was for the best, it led to my becoming more competent and better results.
In the early stages, when nothing worked and all I gained was fatigue, one song stuck in my head, Up All Night by Young Knives, I guess it could be adapted for a chemist in a laboratory. Later, when things nearly began to happen, I had sorted out how to dose my chemicals, yet I could not see them mixing and reacting, Highland League by I, Ludicrous became the song booming out of my brain’s music player because I thought of my two reactants, “May the twain never meet” did not only apply to the Highland League and the namby-pamby lowland leagues but also to my two reactant compounds. Like I say, my brain had stopped working fully; it could only focus on the task in hand, the remaining power was only sufficient to maintain some effortless idiosyncrasies. I searched for a sound to satisfy throughout my time, the most helpful album was Forward March! by Strange Death of Liberal England, it combined my favourite mini-orchestra compositions with energy that I could draw on to keep going into the night when some good radio became available.
Apart from the day of extreme crankiness, when I can say I became stressed for the first time ever, there were few other notable events. Each day merged into the next. If I finished working on the same day that I had started working, that counted as going home early. There was an eventful 18 hour shift, apart from my own monitoring my own reactions, I had to contain a fire, caused by another party in a different lab, at 2300hrs and avoid the alarms to call out the Fire Brigade being triggered. I used this fact to make the guilty party feel small. When I finally left the building, I was stopped by the police on the way home, not for any particular offence, but for “a routine check”. At 0030hrs, after my initial blunder in pulling in at the “wrong” side of the road, I was interrogated and examined for what seemed like forever. One officer was standing right in front of my carriageway and the other was on the pavement at the right hand side, I initially thought they were there to intercept some suspect thus I made my way into the other lane to pass the policeman on the road, then it became clear that they wanted me to stop, so I did – on the other carriageway, which whilst convenient for me, because I can roll the window down to the officer on the right hand pavement, is apparently dangerous. I was told off for this although, my defence that I did not want to mow down the policeman standing on my lane was not sufficient. They could find no other faults and I was allowed to move on, and I moved on as slowly as I approached; I don’t like driving in the dark, having my own full-beam headlights on spooks me for some reason, I’m wary of nocturnal animals entering the road. Driving slowly also lets me monitor the skies a little, my search for noctilucent clouds, Aurora Borealis and UFOs goes on.
It took me ages to work out that I was actually doing the work of two men in the lab, I was obviously aware that I was working on two samples at once from the off, but I suddenly became conscious of this after two weeks, when I noticed that I had no time to have a break, I was always doing something to one of the two samples. It was like being struck by a bolt of lightning but it even though it wasn’t really such a revelation; it became a soundbite I could use.
Likewise, it took me until the last weekend before the end of the stint to realise that I actually lived in the lab. On Sunday morning, after attending the Futureheads gig the night before (I left the lab just in time to catch the start of their set and I returned after the gig), I thought the lab and the office looked just like a version of my bedroom, I had CDs, books, clothes, towels, food and cups, everywhere. I decided that evening that I would take most of my stuff home.
There were not many triumphs during the stint, but a couple made me lose drop my guard and go bounding into other people’s offices, it seems embarrassing when I think about that now. However, most of the time, I spent trying different sequences and conditions in order to nurture the reaction to produce the structures I wanted, I’ll admit that I tried some methods for the wrong reasons, I carried out certain experiments because other people, who are meant to be smarter than me, suggested they would work and not because I believed they would work. I felt I was betraying myself and the failure encountered on those occasions will not appease me even if it proved I was right.
Three days from the end, I got defensive; it seemed the next user of the lab was getting ready to boot me out early and people had decided I was a lost cause. This knocked my fragile brain. I had to make clear that my time was not going to be infringed upon.
On my second last day, I had a major triumph, the predicted reaction occurred. I stayed monitoring it and putting the final touches to the experiment until 0230hrs. The next morning, on what was meant to be my final day, at 0900hrs, I was drained; I was only there to complete what I had not just a few hours before. I was ready to finish. Surprisingly, I was told that I was to be given a few more days of lab time, in light of what might be success. I was strongly against taking it. They tried to persuade me but I stood firm…for 2 hours. By 1100hrs, and my second wind, I decided that I would go on, if only for political reasons.
By 1100hrs the next day, I decided to give up. It was a strange feeling; I’ve never given up on anything, except a car that I decided to sell because the key had snapped in the lock (straw that broke the camel’s back). To go to a boss and say that I was to finish working was an action I had never taken. Of course, everyone was aware of the effort I had given and the decision was accepted. I have enough results to tell a story, that’s enough for now. I’m glad to be relieved of my duties, I have grown unhealthy, I need to get out into the Kingdom sun and kick a football.
posted by Leif at 11:20 PM
0 comments
