Work ethic

So, the last week or two I've talked to a couple of my friends from grad school who are doing really well. One just gave a talk at a huge meeting, and she said it went really well. One of the other onees is being wooed by all the big pharma companies, nationally and internationally, for jobs with many more digits of $$ than I'll ever be making.

What stands out to me about them is how hard they work, ALL THE TIME. They have this amazing work ethic. I used to have that, but I guess I've been influenced by a) the west coast attitude of, you have to live your life and be a person as well as a scientist, or you'll go nuts, and b) all the crap that has happened to me, reminding me that if you work your tail off and get screwed by some political thing, that is just 5 years of weekends you can't get back.

Anyway, in keeping with my renewed hope that the early bird chops up the worm and gets protein out of him, I am doing a little of everything today. I have a Q-PCR running now, as well as another attempt at that other PCR I've been fighting with (Attempt #5, here we go). I'm about to quantitate protein to run a western blot, and I'm going to stain some cells before I leave today. So I will be Ms. Efficient PhD, thank you very much, and hopefully have time to see one of my friends tonight (who really needs to vent about her father, who has Parkinson's, and the whole experience of realizing he needs to be in what they call "Assisted Living").

Having said that, I have 3 minutes until my timer beeps. I actually prefer days like this, even though I know I'm putting off working on my grant and will probably regret it later.

In other news, I found out today that when we go to Japan in a couple months, we've been invited to give talks at a couple of universities (even though the meeting we're attending only wants us to present posters). Not that we'll get job offers in Japan, and we wouldn't take them even if we did, but at least it helps us justify extending the trip. Hooray for my international career (hahaha).

Beep.