school, what else?
At one of my jobs, I spend a lot of time in a tiny, dingy booth. I answer the phone, continuously update a spreadsheet of safe rides, and provide information to visitors to campus. I also read whenever I can. Likely because of this last propensity, I managed to develop a reputation for strong academics. I don't know how they found out that biology is not my only forte, but the freshpersons have started asking me to edit their university seminar (USEM) papers while I'm in the shack. They're lucky I agree to it. I almost quit ten words into the first one.
One of our new-hires asked me to review his composition. I picked it up and immediately asked what the course was about. Surely there was some sort of topic or theme? No. I asked again, over the radio. No, will you please just edit it for me? It turns out that my query caused gales of laughter on his end of the radio. Poor kid he deserves it aiiiiiieeeeee. I did not think that it was possible to make so many errors with commas, apostrophes, and quotation marks. High school is still a prerequisite for college, is it not? This kid had inserted his choice of punctuation willy-nilly, as though to say, "well, I know that one of those marks goes here/near here/in this sentence, so I'll pick this one and stick it here." Only 'with' more stray, marks of course.
I edited loosely in pencil, then went back over the errors I'd skipped with a pen so that there wouldn't seem to be as many corrections on the page. I don't know why I bothered at all. The thesis, though it's a stretch to call it that, linked a popular cartoon show with a "desert buffet" via a series of arbitrary metaphors. He skipped two lines between each paragraph to add length. A paragraph could be between one and four sentences. I could go on about this paper, but I've already gone past polite. I hope that somewhere a USEM teaching fellow appreciates this. (Or, if not, editing at least permits me to procrastinate on my immunology reading.)
In case I was afraid that my reading list wasn't long enough to sustain me, I've added a sixth course: Mechanisms of Recombination. I intend it to build upon last semester's Molecular Genetics.
This course actually ties in well with my thesis, or will when I chill out enough to benefit from it. It's a 300-level course, where as my other grad courses are 100-level. I don't think I'll be ready to work on a Ph.D for another few years, based on this experience.
Nevertheless, Mech of Rec is good for me and I will love it. Yes, I will. Well. It was more helpful with the old thesis project, which I'm still going to work on when I get time for it again. My new thesis topic is the initiation of replication in Escherichia coli and what happens when you eff with it in various ways (working title). I'm working on five projects right now: dnaA, dam, seqA, plasmid recovery, and REP sequences. I'm hoping to finish a couple of them fairly soon. In the meantime, I've been putting in excessively long days and weary weekends in the lab.
Grad students don't actually have time for rugby, but we fake it (read: I scrambled to come to 30 out of 360 minutes of practice this week). I have a game tomorrow morning against Babson, so I'm going to bed. They're the team we were playing when I broke my nose last fall.
None of that was particularly intriguing or insightful. Have some pictures to cheer you up.
I'm the one with the ball. We're winning. This is pre-haircut, when I thought I'd have a go at the urbane, debonair look. Suave is just not for me.
You know what is? Return of the fauxhawk!
Or just straight-up fucky, as per usual. It's probably going back to absurdly short and tufty in a bit. Ah well.
Mmm, reading corner. I love my bookcase.
One of our new-hires asked me to review his composition. I picked it up and immediately asked what the course was about. Surely there was some sort of topic or theme? No. I asked again, over the radio. No, will you please just edit it for me? It turns out that my query caused gales of laughter on his end of the radio. Poor kid he deserves it aiiiiiieeeeee. I did not think that it was possible to make so many errors with commas, apostrophes, and quotation marks. High school is still a prerequisite for college, is it not? This kid had inserted his choice of punctuation willy-nilly, as though to say, "well, I know that one of those marks goes here/near here/in this sentence, so I'll pick this one and stick it here." Only 'with' more stray, marks of course.
I edited loosely in pencil, then went back over the errors I'd skipped with a pen so that there wouldn't seem to be as many corrections on the page. I don't know why I bothered at all. The thesis, though it's a stretch to call it that, linked a popular cartoon show with a "desert buffet" via a series of arbitrary metaphors. He skipped two lines between each paragraph to add length. A paragraph could be between one and four sentences. I could go on about this paper, but I've already gone past polite. I hope that somewhere a USEM teaching fellow appreciates this. (Or, if not, editing at least permits me to procrastinate on my immunology reading.)
In case I was afraid that my reading list wasn't long enough to sustain me, I've added a sixth course: Mechanisms of Recombination. I intend it to build upon last semester's Molecular Genetics.
This course actually ties in well with my thesis, or will when I chill out enough to benefit from it. It's a 300-level course, where as my other grad courses are 100-level. I don't think I'll be ready to work on a Ph.D for another few years, based on this experience.
Nevertheless, Mech of Rec is good for me and I will love it. Yes, I will. Well. It was more helpful with the old thesis project, which I'm still going to work on when I get time for it again. My new thesis topic is the initiation of replication in Escherichia coli and what happens when you eff with it in various ways (working title). I'm working on five projects right now: dnaA, dam, seqA, plasmid recovery, and REP sequences. I'm hoping to finish a couple of them fairly soon. In the meantime, I've been putting in excessively long days and weary weekends in the lab.
Grad students don't actually have time for rugby, but we fake it (read: I scrambled to come to 30 out of 360 minutes of practice this week). I have a game tomorrow morning against Babson, so I'm going to bed. They're the team we were playing when I broke my nose last fall.
None of that was particularly intriguing or insightful. Have some pictures to cheer you up.
I'm the one with the ball. We're winning. This is pre-haircut, when I thought I'd have a go at the urbane, debonair look. Suave is just not for me.
You know what is? Return of the fauxhawk!
Or just straight-up fucky, as per usual. It's probably going back to absurdly short and tufty in a bit. Ah well.
Mmm, reading corner. I love my bookcase.