in one word describe your day

pub

Did you get the shift?

The day began at 8am sharp, as the alarm in my phone blared to life at the far side of my room. "Curses", I thought to myself as I got up and crossed to the window where lay the offensive interruption to my dreams of being in an african-american sitcom. With the deftness of a muscle-memory trained over many months, I disabled the alarm and unlocked the phone, connecting it to the wireless network and going online to check my overnight emails without conscious effort. I stared at my inbox for a minute or two, willing myself to become more awake. A few emails from my thesis supervisor, one about a committee meeting for an event in October, and some spam. Nothing requiring my immediate attention. Grabbing a towel, I headed downstairs to the bathroom.

I emerged from the shower feeling refreshed, but still sleepy. Perhaps I shouldn't have watched episodes from season 3 of The Thick Of It until 1am. Still, they had been terrifically amusing, and in any case it was too late to do anything about it now. As I was getting dressed I heard a commotion at the front door and the unmistakable sound of mail landing on the floor. My parents had mentioned a day or two ago that they had sent me an interesting article from the Irish Medical Times, so I was pleased to see a letter addressed to me amongst the usual bills and chinese take-away menus. I tossed it casually into my bag, meaning to read it at work, and began working on breakfast.

As someone had been possessed of enough foresight to buy milk the night before, there were ample materials available for a bowl of corn flakes sprinkled with sugar, and a couple of biscuits. I looked at the time as I ate, and decided that there was no time for boiling a kettle, and so at about ten minutes to nine I headed out the door and into the world.

The long walk to my office desk was dull and uneventful, save for a number of adorable dogs being taken for a morning walk. Even that early it was rather warm and humid, which did not bode well for a relatively unventilated office space. Still, I took comfort in the fact that a vending machine downstairs had been recently restocked, so ice-cold soft drinks would be only a stroll away.

Work proved slightly frustrating. It would seem that my genomic mining efforts had gotten lucky early on, as no new gene clusters emerged from my sifting through a chromosome of over 8 million base pairs. Perhaps tomorrow will bring something new. In the meantime, what few gaps remained in the clusters already found were identified, and potential PCR primers await design.

Lunch was a pleasant surprise. When I opened my letter to read the contents, it would seem that my ever-generous parents had also enclosed a small sum of money. Perhaps they miss me, living on the other side of the country. I sent a quick thank-you text message, and decided to go to a little cafe and spend some of my new-found wealth. A short walk, and I was soon drinking coffee while eating a delightful chicken sandwich, with a slice of delicious lemon cake for dessert. My spirits picked up, and I returned to work eager to continue my investigations.

I shall leave work soon. I will likely do some work from home, as all that is really required is an internet connection. There will also be grocery shopping for the rest of the week, and perhaps I shall watch more episodes of The Thick Of It later. I will make special effort to remember not to do so until the small hours of the morning, I have another day at work to prepare for, after all.

Outrageous.

Sarky - your job sounds terrible, no offense. Genes and chromosomes?? Biology?! Noes.

Waxing intimate parts of ladies is going pretty well.

All 5'2 of me trying to do a full body deep tissue massage on an overweight Indian man with exceptionally hairy legs however, not so good.

Relaxing

starting