scientists continue to amaze me

the boss just came to talk to me about an “exciting” project to test a drug in mice. i kindly replied that i’m never, ever, going to do animal experiments, as i have previously made clear, many times actually.

“but for this study, you only have to give them the drug, ’sacrifice’ them, and cut out their organs.  you don’t have to do the rest, we can send the organs to a histology lab to cut them up.”

yes, that’s the only part i was worried about, the cutting fucking organs into tiny pieces part.  not the drugging, killing, cutting open and ripping out the organs part.

chinese hamster ovary cells

Maybe it will pass… Maybe I’m just tired from being out until 2 am at the Rye Rye show last night.  But I am writing my first blog totally out of anger and disillusionment (probably not a good way to start blogging but whatever).  So, I’m a scientist.  I’m a pretty good scientist, actually.  Went all the way for the big PHD (I know, so what, me and a gazillion other people these days).  Too bad I wasn’t paying attention to the dozens of articles out there, like this one or this one, clearly explaining the dreary realities of this career, including low pay, terrible job prospects, blah blah blah.  I could have avoided the daily awkward interactions with my awkward coworkers (I know I just said awkward twice), feeling like a failure for even thinking about leaving academia, and trying to forget that even though I’ve invested 10+ years of my life so far, I’m still considered inexperienced.  Instead I’m sitting here next to a radioactive waste container trying desperately to care about continuing my quest to find out if that protein really does get into the mitochondria of chinese hamster ovary cells. Yay.

first timer

I’m finding ways to hang onto a few bucks this tax season while my husband makes me a blog. This system is f***ed, why is it that you only ever remember what you got back, rather than how much these bastards took from you?