State of the Melanie: part I
I was reminded today that I don't really post here at all. I usually keep up with friends' posts and even occasionally comment but my own updating has been so infrequent that most of the post titles are some variation on "Yes, I really am still alive."
Plus, my life has actually had quite a bit of change going on recently and the friends I don't see every day, friends with whom I correspond merely sporadically because I am like that, might actually be interested in a few more details, especially if I make them entertaining.
In installments: first, work.
As previously posted, my job with the Lovley lab at UMass was going to end at the end of January of this year. Grants disappearing, my supervisor having bullied the boss into creating this position without his full support, the position was eliminated. I do get a bit of a warm glow thinking about how much less efficient the lab will be with the work I did spread out over about a dozen people.
After a month of searching and finding out that although I am a highly competent individual and could do office work of data entry and filing on autopilot, they wanted experience - which I don't have, not in anything other than lab work. I would have liked to find something with a library or information research bent seeing as how I'm going to grad school for it (more on that later): those jobs wanted experience and a Master's degree, not just the promise of one in three years.
So, I got a lab job. The company is called SunEthanol and they are hoping that we scientist types will take a microbe (the "Q" microbe - none of the science folk had a hand in the name; that was all marketing's idea) and increase it's natural ability to hydrolyze cellulose and ferment it into ethanol and sell this amazing product to other companies. We already have microbes (yeast) that have been fermenting sugars into ethanol for centuries and many microbes that can break down some cellulose into simple sugars but none of the others can do both. Also, there is hope that our bug can do more different kinds of cellulose. There is the potential for the whole process the be made incredibly cheap and efficient - and out of waste plants instead of food plants like corn.
This is going well, as of month four (or so). I really like most of my coworkers and don't dislike any of them. The work itself - well I'm really not sure how much I can talk about given the pretty comprehensive Non-Disclosure Agreement they insisted on and of course there could be spies from other companies reading my Livejournal... Yes, they are that paranoid about it. I miss my UMass benefits something fierce - I now have half the vacation time, pay twice as much for health insurance and don't have dental yet. They do, however, pay me more than enough (by a bit) to make up the difference and there is a much higher likelihood of actually getting a raise. The work is interesting and much more challenging than what I had been doing. More new science, less cooking the same thing everyday.
So why, if I I have spent all this time learning to be a scientist, am I paying ridiculous amounts of money and giving up my Saturdays to get a Master's of Library Science? Well, umm... I'm sure I can come up with a reason by my next post!
Plus, my life has actually had quite a bit of change going on recently and the friends I don't see every day, friends with whom I correspond merely sporadically because I am like that, might actually be interested in a few more details, especially if I make them entertaining.
In installments: first, work.
As previously posted, my job with the Lovley lab at UMass was going to end at the end of January of this year. Grants disappearing, my supervisor having bullied the boss into creating this position without his full support, the position was eliminated. I do get a bit of a warm glow thinking about how much less efficient the lab will be with the work I did spread out over about a dozen people.
After a month of searching and finding out that although I am a highly competent individual and could do office work of data entry and filing on autopilot, they wanted experience - which I don't have, not in anything other than lab work. I would have liked to find something with a library or information research bent seeing as how I'm going to grad school for it (more on that later): those jobs wanted experience and a Master's degree, not just the promise of one in three years.
So, I got a lab job. The company is called SunEthanol and they are hoping that we scientist types will take a microbe (the "Q" microbe - none of the science folk had a hand in the name; that was all marketing's idea) and increase it's natural ability to hydrolyze cellulose and ferment it into ethanol and sell this amazing product to other companies. We already have microbes (yeast) that have been fermenting sugars into ethanol for centuries and many microbes that can break down some cellulose into simple sugars but none of the others can do both. Also, there is hope that our bug can do more different kinds of cellulose. There is the potential for the whole process the be made incredibly cheap and efficient - and out of waste plants instead of food plants like corn.
This is going well, as of month four (or so). I really like most of my coworkers and don't dislike any of them. The work itself - well I'm really not sure how much I can talk about given the pretty comprehensive Non-Disclosure Agreement they insisted on and of course there could be spies from other companies reading my Livejournal... Yes, they are that paranoid about it. I miss my UMass benefits something fierce - I now have half the vacation time, pay twice as much for health insurance and don't have dental yet. They do, however, pay me more than enough (by a bit) to make up the difference and there is a much higher likelihood of actually getting a raise. The work is interesting and much more challenging than what I had been doing. More new science, less cooking the same thing everyday.
So why, if I I have spent all this time learning to be a scientist, am I paying ridiculous amounts of money and giving up my Saturdays to get a Master's of Library Science? Well, umm... I'm sure I can come up with a reason by my next post!