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Jun. 29th, 2010 10:25 pm Oh. My.
Today. was. amazing.
Yesterday was my first day at my new job. I got acquainted with almost all of the lab members, learned my way around the building, met the mice, attended a lab meeting, got my own desk and lab bench... it was busy. The people are great. I love them. The lab meeting was a little over my head; I've clearly got some work to do to get back up to speed scientifically. And I never was very good about remembering details, so I think I'm going to compile a list of key terms and genes and concepts I need to know, and just keep it somewhere.
Today I had new employee orientation at 7:30 am. This was a bit ridiculous considering my commute is more than 45 minutes. Oh well. It was a beautiful morning, and I'm so excited about this job it wasn't too hard to get up. The orientation itself was actually really useful; I learned all about the benefits package available to me, which is substantial. I learned about parking and the shuttle system. That's going to take some time to get familiar with. I don't have the advantage of walking all over campus to classes to get familiar with the buildings, roads, and shuttle routes, so figuring out where my shuttle goes and where it stops was a little confusing today.
The lab went out to lunch today to say goodbye to a recent graduate. It was a great lunch. This lab is full of incredible people. I feel incredibly lucky to have been given this job and to be able to be back in a scientific environment with such bright, energetic people.
I actually got to do some bench research this afternoon. I learned a bit of the basics of how to work with and dissect mice (I'll leave the specifics of what we did today to my paper journal, for those of faint stomachs...) and teeeeeny tiny forceps. What the lab does actually has to be done under a microscope. After all that time with yeast and cell culture, I thought mice were big, but no. :-P
All in all I was "at work" for almost 11 hours today. It flew by. I'm exhausted, but I was never once bored, and never once did I look at the clock wondering when I could go home.
I feel so, so, so incredibly lucky to have been given this second chance to get back into science. I don't think I fully understood when I left Yale how hard it would be to come back (well, granted, I also didn't know the economy was about to collapse). I'm grateful for the time I spent out in "the real world", because now I realize how much I belong in the lab. The contrast was sharp going in both directions (both leaving Yale and getting this job) and it's quite clear to me now that I am a scientist, all the way through, and always will be. I still, good grief, have no idea what I want to make of that with the rest of my life, but I know now at least that I belong in a lab.
I belong in a lab!
Today. was. amazing.
Yesterday was my first day at my new job. I got acquainted with almost all of the lab members, learned my way around the building, met the mice, attended a lab meeting, got my own desk and lab bench... it was busy. The people are great. I love them. The lab meeting was a little over my head; I've clearly got some work to do to get back up to speed scientifically. And I never was very good about remembering details, so I think I'm going to compile a list of key terms and genes and concepts I need to know, and just keep it somewhere.
Today I had new employee orientation at 7:30 am. This was a bit ridiculous considering my commute is more than 45 minutes. Oh well. It was a beautiful morning, and I'm so excited about this job it wasn't too hard to get up. The orientation itself was actually really useful; I learned all about the benefits package available to me, which is substantial. I learned about parking and the shuttle system. That's going to take some time to get familiar with. I don't have the advantage of walking all over campus to classes to get familiar with the buildings, roads, and shuttle routes, so figuring out where my shuttle goes and where it stops was a little confusing today.
The lab went out to lunch today to say goodbye to a recent graduate. It was a great lunch. This lab is full of incredible people. I feel incredibly lucky to have been given this job and to be able to be back in a scientific environment with such bright, energetic people.
I actually got to do some bench research this afternoon. I learned a bit of the basics of how to work with and dissect mice (I'll leave the specifics of what we did today to my paper journal, for those of faint stomachs...) and teeeeeny tiny forceps. What the lab does actually has to be done under a microscope. After all that time with yeast and cell culture, I thought mice were big, but no. :-P
All in all I was "at work" for almost 11 hours today. It flew by. I'm exhausted, but I was never once bored, and never once did I look at the clock wondering when I could go home.
I feel so, so, so incredibly lucky to have been given this second chance to get back into science. I don't think I fully understood when I left Yale how hard it would be to come back (well, granted, I also didn't know the economy was about to collapse). I'm grateful for the time I spent out in "the real world", because now I realize how much I belong in the lab. The contrast was sharp going in both directions (both leaving Yale and getting this job) and it's quite clear to me now that I am a scientist, all the way through, and always will be. I still, good grief, have no idea what I want to make of that with the rest of my life, but I know now at least that I belong in a lab.
I belong in a lab!
