Early morning

I'm awake before 10 a.m.!!! And not just before... waaaaaaaaaaaay before. So this is what it feels like. (Streeeeeeeeettttttch). Usually when I'm up at this time, its the end of my day, I'm in the lab finishing an experiment, trying to wrap up and go home. Time to fill in the gaps of what was an exciting week.

I'm not sure whats more thrilling, seeing your hypothesis proved right or seeing it proved wrong. Working in science is the pursuit of truth and satisfying your ego. A simple exercise of "I think that it works this way" followed by "look I was right, aren't I smart and sexy?" Its fun when things work out, but I think its funner, when you predict something and you don't see it happen. Sure its a "Oh great, now what did I miss?" moment but nevertheless, life and fundamental biological processes are probably more dynamic and complicated than we'd like to think.

Here's the result that smacked me out of my smugness. Thats a protein stain on the left and the autoradiography of the same sample on the right. Lanes marked by arrows are NOT supposed to have a signal.


But they do. Ugh! Time to put on the old thinking cap. I was mistaken, but that could be a good thing (in this case).

This was followed by a meeting with my boss, I showed him the result but he yawned like 3 gazillion times. Obviously, he's not as excited as I am. (I was proven wrong about this as well, but that was later). I feel bad for the guy, he's worked up and probably still dealing with the fallout from the earlier mess. Tant pis!

This is sort of how it went. If you've heard me speak, you know that I can get hyperexcited and talk really fast (the Indian Express as I was called at school), waving my hands all over, in a high pitch voice, like a six year old who's just found out they're handing out free candy.

Me: ISN'T THIS INTERESTING? I MEAN, WE THOUGHT THAT BLA BLA BLA LEADS TO BLA OTHER BLA.

Boss: Hmm.

Me: I MEAN, THIS COULD MEAN THAT EITHER BLA BLA DOES BLA BLA, OR THAT IT DOES BLA DE BLA DE BLA.

Boss: Hmm (Yawns)

Me: WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Boss: Hmm. (Leans back, plucks out eyebrow.) I think you're overinterpreting this.

Me: HOW SO? LOOK, THE HYPOTHESIS WAS THAT BLA DOES BLA, RIGHT? IF THAT IS TRUE THEN BLA SHOULD NOT BE PHOSPHORYLATED HERE. BUT IT IS!!! THAT MEANS THAT BLA CANNOT BE TRUE! THERE HAS TO BE ANOTHER MECHANISM!

Boss: Hmm. Well. Hmm. (Yawns)

Me: BUT THEN I WAS THINKING ABOUT IT, AND IT MAY NOT BE WRONG. BLA COULD STILL BE PHOSPHORYLATED, THEN BLA COULD HAPPEN, THEN BLA BLA COULD HAPPEN AS A CONSEQUENCE, THEN BLA WOULD BE HYPER-PHOSPHORYLATED. I MEAN, WE'RE ONLY LOOKING AT THE END RESULT. IT MAY BE DYNAMIC. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Boss: Hmm (Yawns)

ME: I THINK I'M GOING TO TEST THIS IDEA. I'M GOING TO DO BLA, THEN BLA THEN BLA BLA DE BLA. WE SHOULD TALK AGAIN WHEN I HAVE THOSE RESULTS.

Boss: Hmm. (Yawns). Hmm. Yes, you should (yawns) do that.

Sometimes, I wonder if he does that just to annoy me. Actually, I was so pumped up on adrenaline, I didn't care. I had enough enthusiasm for both of us. (I found out later that he'd been working long hours, hence the yawning, and he must have absorbed the data and processed it later that night, because he rose to the occasion the next day.)

I got out of his office, I was celebrating my birthday with O-san and the guys by watching 30 days of Night. Now, there are vampire movies and there are vampire movies. This one was really good. I don't know why I watch horror flicks, I can't sleep very well at nights, after. I have a very vivid imagination and it doesn't help to have these images in my head. We all talked about how much we miss Jannic and how he would have loved this movie then headed home.

The next day, I presented lab meeting and there was much discussion about an unexpected result (see above). This was also accompanied by a lot of drama on a different topic but I won't bore you with those details. Let me just say right here that I'm getting to that point where I will open my "third eye of Shiva" if I need to get rid of the idiots that surround me. But more on that in a separate post. Ommmmm.....

A shout out to May, who turns 21 (again) yesterday/today. ;)