I feel guilty that I've only had time to write once a week lately. This sentence implies so many pathologies I'm not even sure where to start with it. I guess the first assumption is that anyone still reads what I write - I mean, if you think about it, it seems pretty egotistical for me to assume that there are people out there in the "blogosphere" awaiting my next blog post with baited breath. Or any other kind of breath, for that matter. Another thing is why on earth do I feel guilty for not doing something as banal and nonessential as compiling a list of grievances? That's just dumb. I feel guilty for not writing a blog post as often as I think I should, but there's really no appreciable amount of guilt associated with not studying enough or not wanting to do any lab work or any one of the number of things that I really should be doing right now instead of this!!! I blame it on the extensive training I've had in Catholic guilt. Extraordinarily effective, those crazy-ass Catholic nuns are. They have the power to fuck with people's heads like nothing I've ever seen before. The government really should exploit this abundant untapped resource we have for counterintelligence. But I digress.
School is pretty [heavy sigh] "meh", as usual. I had a molecular biology exam yesterday evening that took me the entire 3 hours, from 4:00 to 7:00 pm. I'm not going to say how I think I did, because it doesn't seem to be a factor in how I actually do on exams. I've said in the past that I felt like I failed a test, then learned that I got one of the highest grades in the class. I've also said that I didn't think a test felt "too catastrophic" only to fail beyond even my worst expectations (which is pretty bad, because I really set my expectations low). So with that background, I can't honestly say that I have any idea how well or how poorly I did on this exam. What makes me nervous is that the exam was based on 20 hours of lecture material from 5 different faculty: 5 hours on DNA replication and repair, 4 hours on DNA recombination/chromosome structure, 4 hours on prokaryotic transcription, 5 hours on eukaryotic transcription (2 different profs split this 2:3), and finally, 2 hours on RNA processing. Sadly, only one of the instructors was any good and he only had 3 hours of lecture time. One thing I have learned is that I am terrible at designing assays to look for the evidence or existance of pretty much anything scientific. I think one reason for that is that the instructor didn't fucking teach us how to design any kind of assay!!! Helllloooo!!!!! I think once you reach a certain level of knowledge, and especially if your primary job/interest isn't teaching, you tend to forget just how difficult some things were for you in the beginning. It's not enough to briefly flash some overcrowded PowerPoint slides and say that some group decided to do A, B, and C, and from those experiments clearly deduced X. It may be clear as day to the guy putting this shit together as a presentation, simply because he's done these assays for years himself, but it is clear as fucking mud to the 1st-years. Or at least it is to me, which I find worrisome. [another sigh]
In the midst of all this turmoil, the powers that be want me to register for next semester's classes. I have to sign up for six classes this time, instead of the two that I'm taking now. I know, right?! I did neglect to say that it's the same number of credit hours that I have currently: 10. Five of the classes are required - Fundamentals of Immunology (2 cr.), Molecular Biology of Viruses (2 cr.), Molecular Mechanisms of Bacterial Pathogenesis (2 cr.), Research Conferences in Immunology and Microbiology (fancy name for "Journal Club"; 1 cr.), and Seminar (1 cr.). In addition to those, I need one 2-credit elective. I want to take Functional Genomics and Systems Biology because it sounds like a pretty relevant area of science, but it requires a co-requisite AND it's from like 6:00 to 8:00 pm. Two things immediately come to mind here: one is that I'm all about NOT taking more classes than I have to (I learned that lesson after finishing a 124-credit bachelor's degree with over 170 credits...), and the other thing is that it's dark and fairly deserted in Detroit at 8:00 pm. There have been several armed muggings in the area lately - exacerbated by the fact that many of the street lights don't work because they are on the oldest electrical circuits in the city (installed about the time my dad was born - 100 years ago!). There is something to be said for achieving your 15 minutes of fame, but I don't think being featured as an assault or homicide victim on the 10 o'clock news is the way to go about it. I guess this will have to be food for thought because it's now Sunday and I have officially spent WAY too much time on this. There goes another perfectly good Saturday night. Oh well. Until next time...
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