So, over the last four days I have had a certain amount of thoughts that have been nothing less than lingering over my head.
This week in lab has been one of those weeks and in the scientific community "one of those weeks" is a very intimidating week. You spend two, three or more weeks concentrating hard on a subject gathering a lot of data and getting somewhere fast. Then, when all else is smoothly sailing along the seas of insight and well-kept-plans, you reach a week where everything slows down to a crawl, things don't work, colonies don't appear on your plates after all that work: PCR magnification, purification, running gels, dna extractions from gels, digests, ligations and then ultimately transfections.
Well, long story short, it's one of those weeks. It's been a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, the kind of work that is necessary; dirty and unhappy, but necessary for the big tickets. I've come to realize a very, very important aspect of my personality that I do not really think I ever fully realized even though I would make self-aware claims like this all the time.
I am dependent on responsibility, pressure and engagement.
When I come home early from lab I feel lazy and unfulfilling. When I sit around with nothing to do I get disgusted with myself. I find some kind of solace in dealing with any problem in my head while working diligently on mixing reagents, running absorbances, whatever--you name it.
Thus, to my real epiphany that I fully uncovered today. I am built for the graduate student life. The stories and stereotypes of grad students staying in lab from 8am to 9pm are not false. They are absolutely true and absolutely ubiquitous. Working weekends are true. It is all true. Grad students work nearly as much as budding doctors, and get less than the credit they deserve. They must grapple with the mindset of undergraduate philosophies that is now meant to think outside of the box completely. Thinking that transcends problem solving--more importantly problem-identifying. There are a million and one ways to ask any question to some far-off answer. Likely there are equal correct ways about doing something, yet it is something wholeheartedly different identifying the best path to answer those questions.
Thus I realized that no matter where I end up in life, I must have pressure, responsibility and expectations piling up at my feet. Otherwise I will live a very unhappy, unfulfilling life.
Now, just can't wait for the beach.
