The thought of me, a slightly reluctant laboratory scientist, posting on a blog with a historian and philosopher immediately brings to mind the Sesame Street song, "One of These Things is Not Like the Other." Be that as it may . . . I am at the lab late tonight compiling data in Excel spread sheets and find myself in desperate need of distraction . . . so that I can stay even later into the night compiling Excel spreadsheet.
On days like today, when the data is piling up . . . and time for properly recording has vaporized like ethanol on dry-ice . . . I usually follow a little routine for blowing off steam. I walk down several flights of stairs and leave behind the laboratory. In fact . . . I leave this part of the building entirely and allow myself the pleasure of strolling through the lobby of the adjacent hospital. Then I remind myself, that if I faithfully carry out my days in the lab . . . I may at some undetermined point in the future be able to do what I actually love -taking care of people.
However, I didn't follow that routine tonight.
Instead I vented my frustration in a fiscally irresponsible way and splurged on a t-shirt from my favorite coffee shop, sporting the molecular structure of caffeine on the left sleeve. I probably wouldn't have done it, but I was on the phone saying how much I liked the shirt and that I have wanted to buy one for years . . . and the voice on the other end said . . .
"So . . . what's holding you back?"
1 comment:
If there were one t-shirt with which I had to go through life, it would be one that had the molecular structure of caffeine somewhere on it.
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