overcoming instinct
Today:
2:00 AM: Strobe-light-like lightning, house-shaking thunder, and a Biblical amount of water falling from the sky wakes me up after having gone to sleep at around 10:30 PM. I am unable to go back to sleep despite my best efforts, so I read. I finally remove myself from Cryptonomicon and thus my bed at 7:15 AM.
8:30 AM: I arrive on a relatively puddle-free campus.
8:50 AM: Dr. D catches me in the hall. "What are you doing here this early?" "I'm going to help Johannes kill some rats, remember?" "Oh yeah...well I have some news that will only just make your day worse." His mom has a tumor in her ureter and will have to have surgery in June to remove the ureter, the failed kidney attached to it, and part of her bladder. This throws a wrench the size of Thor's hammer into our research plans this summer.
9:10 AM: Johannes and I collect frozen CO2 and H2O in separate Styrofoam boxes in preparation for the next 5+ hours of sacrifices and tissue collection.
9:20 AM: Johannes's real undergrad student finally arrives, 25 minutes late (I am only present for experience.) We begin the process of injecting a barely sub-lethal dose of ketamine/zylazine, severing the jugular, collecting blood samples, decapitating, and removing the uterus and brain from twenty rats. I know that sentence is an excellent example of how not to write, but after having only gotten about 8 hours of sleep total in the past 5 nights, I am unable to communicate at an intelligent level.
9:21 AM: At the sight and consecutive smell of blood pouring out of the first rat's neck, I strike a compromise with the neurons in my autonomic system and sit down in order that I do not pass out. Johannes brings me a cup of water and I slowly overcome the activation of my sympathetic nervous system and take a normal human interest in the deaths occurring in front of me (which happen without any danger to my own survival.)
9:45 AM: I am no longer dizzy. I finally make myself useful by giving the injections of anesthetics and removing brains. I watch very carefully the blood collecting, decapitation, and uterus dissection for the remaining 18 animals.
3:00 PM: I have successfully removed 5 rat brains, given over 20 injections to conscious or semi-unconscious female rats, have learned to distinguish the difference between an estrogen-deprived uterus and a healthy uterus, and completely lost any sense of squeamishness over spilling blood and guts on a lab countertop in an effort to add data to the body of scientific knowledge.
Unfortunately, this update does not equate to my having read my friends' page. I needed to spend about 30 introspective minutes tonight to process this major event by putting it into words. Now on to the remaining 2/3 of significant data that entered my brain today.
2:00 AM: Strobe-light-like lightning, house-shaking thunder, and a Biblical amount of water falling from the sky wakes me up after having gone to sleep at around 10:30 PM. I am unable to go back to sleep despite my best efforts, so I read. I finally remove myself from Cryptonomicon and thus my bed at 7:15 AM.
8:30 AM: I arrive on a relatively puddle-free campus.
8:50 AM: Dr. D catches me in the hall. "What are you doing here this early?" "I'm going to help Johannes kill some rats, remember?" "Oh yeah...well I have some news that will only just make your day worse." His mom has a tumor in her ureter and will have to have surgery in June to remove the ureter, the failed kidney attached to it, and part of her bladder. This throws a wrench the size of Thor's hammer into our research plans this summer.
9:10 AM: Johannes and I collect frozen CO2 and H2O in separate Styrofoam boxes in preparation for the next 5+ hours of sacrifices and tissue collection.
9:20 AM: Johannes's real undergrad student finally arrives, 25 minutes late (I am only present for experience.) We begin the process of injecting a barely sub-lethal dose of ketamine/zylazine, severing the jugular, collecting blood samples, decapitating, and removing the uterus and brain from twenty rats. I know that sentence is an excellent example of how not to write, but after having only gotten about 8 hours of sleep total in the past 5 nights, I am unable to communicate at an intelligent level.
9:21 AM: At the sight and consecutive smell of blood pouring out of the first rat's neck, I strike a compromise with the neurons in my autonomic system and sit down in order that I do not pass out. Johannes brings me a cup of water and I slowly overcome the activation of my sympathetic nervous system and take a normal human interest in the deaths occurring in front of me (which happen without any danger to my own survival.)
9:45 AM: I am no longer dizzy. I finally make myself useful by giving the injections of anesthetics and removing brains. I watch very carefully the blood collecting, decapitation, and uterus dissection for the remaining 18 animals.
3:00 PM: I have successfully removed 5 rat brains, given over 20 injections to conscious or semi-unconscious female rats, have learned to distinguish the difference between an estrogen-deprived uterus and a healthy uterus, and completely lost any sense of squeamishness over spilling blood and guts on a lab countertop in an effort to add data to the body of scientific knowledge.
Unfortunately, this update does not equate to my having read my friends' page. I needed to spend about 30 introspective minutes tonight to process this major event by putting it into words. Now on to the remaining 2/3 of significant data that entered my brain today.