Urgh.

My life is swiftly becoming akin to a soap opera, fraught with reoccurring angst, never-ending cycles of crises, inner turmoils and frustrations, bad acting, and over-dramatized "happy moments". Just when we got the pump working again, it grinds down 2 days later leaving us waterless and groady. The best anyone can discern, the problem was just alignment, and a simple replacement of the key between motor and pump should solve the problem. Enter the USPS. Those keys were mailed out a week and a half ago, but we've seen nothing of them. Consequently last Tuesday all of Al's special experimental fish that he's raising for his doctoral research started dying and by last Friday I think only 1 remained. When the parts still hadn't showed by Thursday, we told them to overnight a new pump and key to us ASAP (which the company did) so we could try one last time to make it work.

Friday was interesting. My coworkers and I went over this whole purification system inch by inch and basically rebuilt the thing from the ground up. If "alignment" was the problem, it wasn't going to be this time. We turning things on and it ran great for 10 hours, when it was shut off by the control program. But just one day of success doesn't mean a victory, as my lab now knows all too well. Every day this weekend I had someone from the lab calling me to tell me if the system was still working or not. And until an hour ago, it was performing just like it was supposed to. But then....

So now nobody knows what to do. We'll probably have someone from the company come out here and work on it, though they are as confused as we are. Of course we're all worried that even if they do come out and fix it the same pattern will repeat and we'll be stuck 3 days later. Its amazing how much stress you can aquire when the mechanical systems you rely on no longer work for no good reason (even age!). Its a helpless feeling I'm really coming to despise, even if I can't help it.

In other news, I pulled a muscle in my back yesterday somehow, and even though I've made it into work it's taken all day to do it. The good news is I'm not in unbearable pain here. The bad news is that I'm going to be very very sore and stiff for at least 10 more days according to the nurse practitioner. My fellow technician Laura isn't doing so well either at the moment (she seems to be suffering from some sort of flu or something) so we're rather shorthanded doing the fish chores.

The car is fixed, for which I'm very grateful. But after all that I blew out a back tire two Mondays ago on the way to work, which made things interesting since I've never had a flat before. (For my first, it was rather glorious. I should of taken a picture.) I have been fairly successful at sticking with my experiments every week regardless of all that's going on, but in order to do it I've not been to class for 3 weeks now. Very bad. I'm now so behind I'm not sure its possible to catch up. If I were taking this class for credit in grad school, I would of dropped it way before now. That's not real encouraging to me, since its possible that I might need to work full-time and go to school as well.

Ah, I guess that's a good lead into some SOC (stands for "stream of consciousness", writing where you just say what comes to mind without concern for logical progress or structure). Grad School. I'm not giving up on it, no way in Hell. ('scuse the french.) So this semester I've been trying to push myself towards actually applying and whatnot to make it happen. My reasoning has basically been that getting accepted can take a year before you actually start, that since a doctorate takes several years its better to start sooner, and that if Jer and I do stay together the next few years we'll probably get married which means the possiblity of kids. And I don't want to worry about school and kids at the same time, I watched my mom do that and I don't think I could handle it like she had to. (Of course she didn't have any help from anyone else the whole time, so that will probably be different for me, but I still worry about it just the same.)

The interesting thing is that despite what's been going on at work for the past couple of months, I've been getting more research responsibilities and more time to work with my boss than anyone with just a BS could expect. There are so many opportunities and projects that have been given to me that the majority of my time is taken up with them. Because of that, I can see the gap between myself and my labmates clearer than ever, both in knowledge and experience. But that gap is something that the pursuit of a degree won't necessarily close. As it is right now I have access to any class I might need without paying for it because my work with Bill is opening contacts in the department. The practical experience I need I can gain by spending as much time working with and observing Bill as possible. When it comes right down to it, the one thing my heart wants to do right now is become the best I can be at my current job, especially because its taking everything I have right now to keep up with the chances I have. Maybe that's just because it's Bill's lab...in his lab, anyone can publish original research whether they have a grad degree or no. Its all about the quality of the work.

I used to think that the best way for me to get better at science was to take more classes. That was before I started working here and realizing how much good science is something that can't really be taught in a class. Right now I'm in a place where I can learn all the "good science" I can stand. Suddenly a Doctoral degree in Biology is more like a professional license for an engineer...you need it to give you a base to stand as an independent businessman in the field, but you don't need it to be an engineer. I'll need it eventually, but not because it is the path to becoming a scientist.

So right now, I'm not going to push it. Pushing something like that just because of "what could be" is actually kind of irresponsible, if it means disregarding what God has currently placed in your hands. If He chooses to give you something, and then takes it away Himself, that's fine. But I want to be very careful not to throw away something that I'm not supposed to let go of. I'll probably poke around at GRE material over Christmas, and I'll probably keep asking questions and stuff about the program and how to make it work and how I'll pay for it. But I think I'm going to stop telling myself it HAS to be next year or else.

Matt, in answer to your question I am beginning to believe that the public (and I) know very little about the actual science of evolution, and that the professionals quite possibly know very little about the philosophy of evolution. Consequently when the public makes a fuss about what's taught in schools, scientists generally wonder what the big deal is about, especially when religion gets throw in since more scientists think the theory of evolution really doesn't deal with that at all. In my opinion, everyone has a lot more to learn and a lot more to think than they currently are willing to do.