Anatomy of a Long Day of Science

7:05 am: Leave apartment, having awoken at 5:45 am.

7:37 am: Arrive in lab. Check experiment. See didn't work.

8:03 am: Count injected zebrafish embryos. See experiment didn't work. Begin cursing.

8:50 am: Go to gym. Shower. Feel happy once again.

10:05 am: Return to lab. Remake reagent to redo experiment that didn't work (see 7:37 am). Realize that Eric Whitacre CD has arrived from Amazon.com. Rip CD using iTunes. Happiness reigns.

11:43 am: Remember noon seminar. Realize this will delay remaking reagent. Curse some more. Walk to noon seminar for one hour presentation.

1:00 pm: Sit in seminar room waiting for talk to end at 1:00 as scheduled.

1:10 pm: Talk scheduled to end at 1:00 actually ends.

1:18 pm: Return to lab, reinvigorated to do science and talking about weird mouse described in talk that ended at 1:10.

1:22 pm: Purify reagent from first reaction, prepare for second reaction.

1:36 pm: Get interrupted, screw up second reaction. Curse some more.

2:01 pm: Try to recover screwed up reaction. Screw it up again. Cursing ad libitum.

3:04 pm: Finally recover screwed up reaction. Now nearly three hours behind schedule.

4:35 pm: Add final enzyme to reaction. During 1 hour incubation, walk to coffee shop and get coffee to stay awake for next 5 hours.

6:07 pm: Run reaction out on gel as first step in purification.

7:02 pm: Purify reaction from gel. Take spec reading. Reading falls below linear range of assay, indicating shitty recovery. Begin to re-evaluate having chosen a career in science.

7:03 pm: Take another spec reading with increased sample input. Receive acceptable (although shitty) reading.

7:15 pm: Set up new reaction with new reagent. Prepare to relax for an hour.

7:16 pm: Remember that fish must be crossed for experiment tomorrow morning.

7:17 pm: Walk to fish facility. Pull out tank marked to have 8 fish, contains only 3, all females, greatly diminishing probability of successful mating. Begin drinking.

7:26 pm: Drain hip flask. Buzzed, decide to steal 3 males from another tank. Set up crosses. Walk Stagger back to lab.

7:55 pm: Sit and wait another 20 minutes to do next step in experiment.

8:15 pm: Transform reaction into competent DH5α E. coli. Wait 20 minutes, then 10 minutes, then 30 minutes for reaction steps.

9:18 pm: Transfer bacteria to selection medium. Place in incubator. Walk to bus.

9:45 pm: Bus finally arrives, ride to train station.

10:09 pm: Train finally arrives, ride to the Cermak/Chinatown stop.

10:24 pm: Enter apartment. Feed cat. Eat dinner.

11:18 pm: Collapse into bed. Set alarm back to 5:30 am. Pray that Tuesday will be better than Monday. Accept that it won't be. Fall asleep bitter.