Busy, busy day

I was all over the place at work today. I learned to do the cryofills for the NMR superconducting magnets, a job that requires some dexterity and hands of steel if you don’t wear gloves. The man who trained me how to do this didn’t wear gloves, and he never does, and he’s one of the safety officers in the department. Do what I do, not as I say. Cryofills aren’t a big deal, and I’ve certainly handled lots of liquid nitrogen before, but the ladder-climbing and the burning cold and the mild danger of the job make it more interesting that your everyday ordinary cryo maneuver.

After that I trained someone how to use our “starter magnet”, someone who is a former graduate student in our department but who doesn’t know the new software. She also doesn’t understand why we have so many safety rules now, and she made as many attempts as anyone could to find out if she could get around them. The answer to all of her questions was no, but after a while even I can get worn down by a fast-talking postdoc and I think I might have caved on one small thing. I made up for it by being militant about something else so it balanced out.

Then it was down to the X-ray lab for a bit to chat with the boss and take a look at the sample I had on the diffractometer, which turned out to be what it was supposed to be. Woohoo. Not quite finished collecting data so I went and ate some fruit and salad in the hope that the sudden appearance of the “summer belly” … you know, the one you get from sitting around drinking too many wine spritzers and eating chips and ice cream and not gardening enough or riding the bike enough or doing enough situps (gawd how I loathe situps, they are so stupid), that one? well, I’m hoping that its disappearance will be as sudden as its appearance, because I am just not prepared to be middle-aged with its accompanying spread, thank you.

Okay, back to the day. More training, but this time with two new graduate students. One was great, one was agh, from the U of T and wearing his attitude plastered all over himself. Darling, until you’re doing my job, don’t ask dopey questions. If you don’t exactly know how the NMR experiment works, this is not my fault. You’re the one who went to U of T, didn’t anyone teach you how NMR works there, at that fine, fine institution?

Later, one of my colleagues commented that we’d better get Mr. U of T his login info as soon as possible so that we’re not standing in the way of his pending Nobel prize. I want a share in that million, buddy.

It’s a tough go, working in two facilities. No matter where I am, I feel like I should be somewhere else. It argues against my philosophy of being in the moment, existing fully within every experience lest I lose my concentration and perhaps get hit by a blast of liquid nitrogen. Not that I’m constantly threatened by liquefied gases or X-ray beams, or crazy egotistical students (the U of T man wasn’t my only experience today) who are, by the way, legion this term, but you never know what can happen to you if your mind is wandering.

On the bright side, I got news from FFS that he received an unexpected but very welcome award yesterday from his current department. It’s great to be reminded that you’ve done something right in trying to convince someone to do research, especially when you know full well that they’re suited to it.