It appears that life has a sense of humor.
As I sit here, frantically preparing for my defense in three weeks on the topic of HSV-1 stress-induced gene expression, I have… Yes, I have a cold sore. It’s almost poetic, really.
On a side note, this defense is messing up not only my body, but also my apartment.
Yes, those are beer bottles on the coffee table. What of it?
I can’t wait to be done!
I feel your ironic pain. My dissertation was on molecular mechanisms of stress. Best of luck to you.
I didn’t have a couch. I used to work on my bed, papers, books and notepads distributed in and around it. Good luck with everything,
B.
Good luck Anna! Tolkien, after spending the day tidying up his study, wrote to his son that an untidy office is the sign of ‘literary or philological preoccupation’. So you’re in good company.
If your cold sore stays with you for the defence, show it to the examiners. They’ll be impressed with how far you’ve gone in pursuit of your research.
Debra – That’s priceless. Priceless.
Sabine – No couch? That would be difficult. It’s my new office. It has a dent in the cushions, remarkably similar in shape t my bum. I haven’t moved in a few days, actually.
Henry – I only hope that “preoccupation” is some sign of intelligence or ability. I am starting to doubt it.
Bob – Ha! Don’t think I won’t. I am seriously considering making it one of my intro slides to, you know, drive the point home, as it were.
That’s not ‘irony’, Anna. It would be ironic if you were working on an HSV-1 vaccination, maybe.
Yea, I was afraid of that. I hate that word.
The lack of a couch is one reason why I wrote most of my dissertation at work. The exercise (30 minute cycle ride each way) and retention of my sanity by having regular coffee and lunch breaks with my friends were the other reasons.
Cath – I would have so liked to write it at work, but I was booted out of my (second) lab… given 3 days to clear out, in fact. Gotta love science. That’s a blog post waiting to happen. I don’t go outside very often any more… I think I am paler than most Boston-dwellers at this point, which is terrifying.
Richard – By the way, I wasn’t working on a vaccine. I was working on HSV-1 reactivation. I thought that qualified as irony.
That’s harsh. I used the library, which was almost entirely deserted except from the librarian, who was lovely and made me a cup of tea when I had a fight with my supervisor in there. A laptop was an undreamed of luxury, so I made notes on paper and typed up my day’s work when I got home to my cranky old desktop. It was a surprisingly effective way to do it – I finished way ahead of most of my peers!
Anna, naw: You’re working on reactivation and it (re)activated in you. Many people say that’s ironic, but it’s not. What happened to you is not ‘expected’, but not surprising.
Irony implies the opposite of what is expected:
Richard
Where’s Alanis Morisette when you need her?
You oughta know.
That (crappy) Alanis song is one of the main reasons I swore never to use the word “irony” again. I never get it right. Is that ironic? No? Go figure.
Life’s sense of humor. Hard not to take these things personally and anthropomorphize to boot. One of my bosses, who is chief of service in cytogenetics, AND a doctor in his service, both had children with undiagnosed trisomy 21. I have been working on neural crest cell development for some years now, and had a child with a malformation due to defective neural crest cell development.
Talk about sympathizing with patients. It’s a great motivator in biomedical research, though. Ever cross paths with Doug Melton?
Anna – maybe it’s time to change the name of your blog. Couch Life has a nice ring to it.
I had heard from many that the PhD Viva could have been a stressful experience. Mine was a terrific experience. My examiners had very much appreciated the thesis and had plenty of very insightful questions. the UCL internal examiner was the former editor-in-chief of a journal on which I had published, as part of my PhD work, and the external examiner was one of the best world experts in the field.
I think it could have hardly been better than that!
Good luck with yours, and…I hope you will enjoy it!
Anna, the best definition I’ve ever heard of irony came from my husband. He was hanging out with some drunk British girls in Mexico (before he met me I hasten to add) and they accused all North Americans of not understanding irony.
Husband: “Gee, you’re right, I’ve never really understood the concept. Please could you explain it to me?”
Drunk Brit: “Well, it’s sarcasm”
H: “No, it’s not the same thing”
DB: “Yes it is”
H: “No, they’re different”
DB: “Well what’s the difference?”
H: “Sarcasm was me pretending not to know what irony is. Irony is you actually not knowing what irony is”.
I honestly don’t know if you could call it serendipity or a kind of biomedical pathetic fallacy. the ‘stress-induced expression’ bit is pure poetry though. don’t knock the couch, though. everyone should have a couch. ;p