The Lab-or-atory

I always forget what the real world is like. You mean, people actually work from 9 to 5, all cramped up in little cubicals? Plastic wrapped sandwiches, salad with soggy leaves, prepacked cookie treats. Dear lord. Well, research is renowned for being the opposite of the standard desk job - meaning that you get to think creatively, set your own hours and really interact with your coworkers to design experiments. However, so far, my experiences in the lab have been mixed. A phone call at 9am woke me up this morning to ask me to come in to the lab. I was slightly disconcerted by the fact that the person on the other end of the phone did not seem to even consider the idea that I might have been sleeping. However, I put on my shorts and tee shirt (casual clothing is another plus of the research world) and headed over there. We began the morning by watering the baby plants. There are two treatments of seedlings - dry and wet. The dry ones are particularly important because we are basically holding them at the very edge of their ability to survive. If we missed more than one watering, they might die. (I found this out after I mistakenly missed one, and was appropriately reprimanded.) The rest of the day passed slowly as I washed dishes, watered more baby plants, and labeled tiny paper envelopes. I managed to escape for about an hour at lunch time to get a bit of grocery shopping in. However, the A&P didn't have my favorite salad dressing - Goddess, which thre my entire day off.

I have a confession for you all. When it comes to a summer job I have two sets of priorities. First, I want to learn something, develop useful skills, meet interesting people and think interesting thoughts. And Don't get me wrong, these objectives are very important to me. However, I also want to have time to drive up to Vermont with my boyfriend and go kayaking, or down to DC to see my little sister graduate from high school. I love cooking, and had bought a brand new cook book in order to try some new recipes. So you can imagine my alarm when the lab assistent tells me that my hours are 8am-6pm every day. Including weekends. It can also, she warns me, be much longer depending what is happening in the lab that day. This means that the cozy deal I thought I had gotten for the summer ($3700 for june-early august) is in fact, not nearly as cozy as it originally appeared. They want to make me earn as close to minimum wage as humanly possible.

Okay, okay. Things aren't that bad. The people in the lab are incredibly nice, and I don't have the nightmerish desk job scenario. A different grocery story will probably stock my favored brand of salad dressing. Plus, the first day back is always a little disconcerting. Still, makes me dread graduating next year. What in the world will I find to do that is the perfect mix of creativity, freedom and responsibility. Now, yours truly has got to get in bed. Getting up at 7:30am means going to bed muuuuuch earlier. I hope that everyone's summer has gotten off to a tremendous start.

- Emily