Clockwise from top left: Goldfinger, Oddjob, Scaramanga and Dr No
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It Just. Won’t. End.

It’s like the villain in a James Bond movie who keeps getting up after being subjected to every evil and force known to man, or those little weighted dolls that pop right back after being pushed to the ground. Yep, that’s grad school.

I had my box checked in May. Why, do you ask, am I still here, five months later? You don’t know? That makes two of us.

That’s not entirely true. I know exactly why I am still here, but I can hardly believe it. I was permitted to write my thesis and defend contingent upon the completion of one seemingly innocent task: introduce a mutation into the HSV-1 genome and begin testing the mutant. I have now been attempting to make this stupid (pardon the emotion) mutant for about 8 months. I have not been successful, to put it mildly.

There are many reasons for why I am having so much trouble, not the least of which is that I am working with the most complicated stretch of HSV-1 sequence in the entire genome (how does about 85% GC sound for a nightmare?), which effectively rules out every PCR-based mutagenesis approach I have tried, half the non PCR-based ones, as well as a handful of magic spells and hexes. I may soon move on to a full-blown curse. I am currently in the middle of the most involved cloning strategy known to man, which has a probability of success only slightly higher than my becoming an astronaut.

My advisor, as well as my surrogate advisor, have been deaf to my pleas for mercy and won’t budge (this is extra irritating considering that I don’t believe that this mutant will add any worthwhile information to my thesis). Needless to say, I am quickly approaching the end of my rope. At this rate, I may be in grad school forever.