Slump Time

It's one of those times when I'm not feeling very motivated to do anything. This extends to my personal life as well as my work life and it's frustrating and demoralizing. I'm not sure why I so often seem to hit a lag spell in late spring, after more busy and productive winters (though a trend of unfortunate spring/summer romances could correlate). You'd think with all the busy photosynthesizing going on outside I'd be inspired.

The past couple of weeks I've simply been hauling myself to work and going through the motions. The high point of my day today is going to be a waltz lesson at 7 pm, because dancing always brightens my mood. But before that I have Apollo to walk and primers to design for a gene that we're going to be cloning. I also have to do mesocosm work, which isn't exactly inspiring or fun and RNA extractions for a very particular technician. Sundry and various miscellaneous tasks are also beginning to pile up. Let's have a resounding headdesk for my miserable lack of enthusiasm. I hate it when my life turns into shades of gray.

On the bright side, I do have a Brugmansia suaveolens seedling that finally germinated after almost a month. I planted about fifteen seeds and only had one pop up, but one plant is really quite enough anyway--the plants can get quite big. All the other seeds molded or were consumed by little larvae, perhaps partly because I kept the soil too moist. In any case, the germination was a victory for me and something small to be happy about. Maybe inspiration will hit tomorrow.

The Other Side of Eureka

I often wonder if blithe (sometimes blind) supporters of the rigid scientific method have any clue what they are talking about. Do they really have a conception of just how messy and heuristic real life research is? Would your average intellectual be half as supportive of our myriad colonies of labs if they grasped the number of dead ends and trivialities being patiently investigated? I do wonder.

I can't speak for physics and chemistry, but I know for a fact how much stumbling in the dark goes on in the biological sciences. I do a good bit of it myself. Months can go into simply figuring out how to keep the organism of study alive, not to mention developing or optimizing techniques that make studying the question possible. One of the technicians has a cartoon taped to her desk with a picture of a scientist surrounded by what looks like a failed chemistry experiment and the caption, "What's the opposite of 'Eureka?'" Indeed. What is the opposite of Eureka?

The most abundant opposite of Eureka I hear around the lab is something along the lines of (&*^$^##@$%^%&%$*((*(&^))*^%$%^#!!!!!!!!!! My current research mentor always gets mildly colorful when we inform him of a setback or failure. I had my most recent anti-Eureka moment this Friday, when I looked at my first Western blot and saw a whole lot of nothing. My phytochrome protein didn't transfer. It was not total shock and dismay because the incredibly kind and patient post-doc training me had not had any luck getting that protein to transfer either. I'd have loved to succeed at it. I literally woke up on Friday morning dreaming about washing my Western blot. It was very much on my mind, I felt responsible for it, and it ended up not working.

The opposite of Eureka:
"I have not found it!"
--"Keep searching."

That is the best opposite of Eureka I can come up with.