Atheist busses

Work is going a lot better now I've kicked myself up the ass. It's amazing what you can do if you get out of your chair and try.

Now, what I wanted to talk about, the atheist buses.

I live in England. The british humanist association ran a campaign at the end of last year for donations to get adverts on buses reading "There is probably no god, stop worrying and enjoy your life". Or something of the sort. These buses are now roaming the street creating all kinds of drama and censorship including other countries refusing to run the ads and a bus driver coming over all faint and refusing to drive the bus.

I love the atheist buses. I saw lots of them in town when I was there over the weekend and every single one brought a smile to my face. It's the acnowledgement that you exist, that the entire world isn't dominated by people who believe in a god. It's the feeling of having been part of something this big, this evident. It's the pride of not sitting back and being quiet but of having your opinions out there.

Though I did end up doing something I hate, which is debating religion with a strongly religious friend. See, I like to respect my friends, but debating religion is an easy way for me to loose respect for them. This particular friend, let's call them Bob, had already annoyed me by reading a page of comments for and against graduating in a cathederal, pointing out the one secular argument that refered to gods as an imaginary friend as dispicable and an attack on all christians and ignoring the three religious arguments on the page that openly attacked anyone who wanted a secular graduation. So, talking to Bob about religion is definetley a bad thing.

So the atheist buses came up. Bob doesn't like the message. Fair enough, you can't please everyone. Bob seems to think that the statement 'there is no probably no god' will cause everyone on the street to have a crisis of faith and therefore next telling them to stop worrying is strange. I presonally don't think it'll cause anyone a crisis of faith, it's a possitive message to non-believers and those who are already in a crisis of faith. Bob agrees with the bus driver, equating the statement to me refusing to drive a bus if it has, say, posters advocating violence against women (though i hardly thing "There's probably no god" and, say, "You should probably beat up your wife" are equatable). Bob also thinks that christianity isn't shoved in anyone's face, despite my evidence to the contrary.

Anyway, conversation moved on and I aired my complaints about the christian union at my undergrad university. My grievances, let me show them to you. The CU was everywhere. They had talks every week, covered the guild of students in posters, managed to get posters into every toilet I went into. They had advisers in the student halls and would occasionally stop people eating their dinner in the guild and try and talk to them about religion. It annoyed me. What annoyed me more was their targetting of vulnerable groups. I'm sorry but whatever your beliefe, going up to foreign students and first your students you find sitting alone (both of which the CU did) and offering them friendship and a support network on the basis that they come to your prayer meetings and worship your god is morally reprehensible. And bob defended these people. According to Bob, taking advantage of them when they're vulnerable to try and convert them to a different religion is fine because you're saving their immortal souls.

Bob then basically told me that worry about my immortal soul.

Well, you know what, screw you. Maybe, just maybe, my 'immortal soul' is nobody's buisness but my own. And, hell, maybe I'll end up being completely wrong and rotting in hell like bob thinks, but it's my 'soul' and therefore it's my choice to make. And, you know what, those poor kids without any friends or from different countries who's immortal souls you're so concerned about, they aren't your buisness either. You no more have the right to come up to me in the street and try and convince me to put my mortal soul in the hands of your diety then you do to come up to my in the street and try and talk me into, say, having liposuction for the good of my mortal body.

The only soul your need to worry about is your own. Keep your busy-body interfearing hands of mine.

If think if other people could just learn to let us know what's best for ourselves, body and soul, instead of being convinced they need to show us 'the right way', then the world would be a lot better place.

((As an afternote, I don't believe in a soul, but I have no secular alternative to the term to use and bob beleives I have one and it needs saving, so we have to use the term))

((Oh, second afternote, aren't people who say "Well, they're not real christians" fucking annoying? I don't go around telling other atheists that they're not really athiests. Own your own crazies, they're yours if you like them or not.))

A resolution

I have had a revelation, so far I've not been a phd student. No, seriously. I've been going in every day but not working, not thinking. I've been reading the minimum and avoiding any real work, that's not doing a phd.

The problem is, I've not been sure I want it. I kind of defaulted into a phd. I finished uni, I didn't want to go home, a phd seemed like the logical next step. After all, phds are what you do after an undergrad and I had everything I needed to get a good phd. So I did. But, for the last few months, there's been this voice in my head asking me if this was really what I wanted, if this is really what I think I should do with the rest of my life. I was enabled in this by the fact that the project was a little stalled, and the things I could do weren't so vital either. I told myself there was no need to push.

In my lab meeting on Monday my supervisor turned around to me and told me I need to start taking control of the project, start making it my project. At that point, what I knew all along came into focus. So far, I've been failing. I've been coasting along on the bare minimum work and that is failing.

So, there was the choice. Start looking for a job or pull my act together.

I'm going to get my act together.

I've thought long and hard about it and I WANT this PhD. Not just in a vague way to give me some income and time to stall but I WANT a PhD. I want to be a PhD student, and then I want to go into research. I want this to be my life. This isn't some kind of half-assed declaration, it's like a switch was flicked and now I realise what I've got to do. I want the passion for science I had a few years ago, before being in a lab where I was ignored and achieved nothing crushed my hope. I want to think about what I'm going to do that day on the way into work. I want to find things out and enjoy it. I want to think all day and byh busy doing research. I want to design experiments and perform experiments and I want to really make this project into my own project. I want to live it and be it.

I'm aware that this is going to require determination and sacrifices, but I think I'm ready now for that. I think this is the time when I need to step back and realise that I can't get a PhD like this, and getting a PhD is what's important.

I guess I've not been paying attention to Avenue Q for all these years, for some reason I thought the hard part was over. Now I realise it's only just begining. It's going to be a fight from here on it, but it's a fight I'm willing to take part in. It's a fight for something I want, something I need. I won't give up, I won't fail. I will give everything I've got to this project and I WILL suceed.

That's all.

And so it begins...

For weeks I've been reading. I've been sat here on my hands reading papers and making notes and reading more papers and making more notes. Nothing to do, waiting for sequence, waiting for sectioning. Then, suddenly, at my last supervisory meeting before christmas? The one where I only have two and a half more days to work (and am going to spend half of one at the christmas party and was hoping to find a little time to nip into town because my parents are requesting things at the last minute). Suddenly there's a whole list of new things for me to do before I go away for christmas. I've got reading, bioinformatics, some plant measuring and spraying. Why couldn't I have had all this last week when I was bored, not this week when I just want to go home?

Oh well, at least things are moving forward. That's always a good thing.

Hello

So sick of reading papers, short break.

The thing is, at the moment, my project is all waiting for other people to be ready to teach me to do things or to sequence for me...so I'm reading. Lots and lots of reading. I'm so sick of it. There are so many papers, I swear I'm dying XD My plants are looking good though. That's good at least. Need to go do some more crossing later this week.

The office is now festive. There's tinsel around the door, it's nice. I think that means that this weekend I'm going to have to go into town and not come back until I've got cards for people. Which reminds me, via phyrangula, these are amazing. If I hadn't already spent money on expensive cards I'd buy some...also they probably won't be here in time for chritmas if I order them now. If I run out of the nice ones I bought I might make me some like that.

Life is a lot about christmas at the moment. I have more christmas parties coming up then I can think about, and three secret santa's! My department (someone I've never met), my house (someone who already owns everything in the world) and my society (someone I don't like very much). So I'll be going into town on the weekend XD

So, that's my life. Back to papers.

Trouble in the lab

Ok, I'm going foroward with all my strength with this new "show them your good face" thing. Right now I'm meant to be running a gel. I can run gels. I spent a year running gels. I can mix agarose, I can make a loading buffer, I can visualise my gel.

But I'm not psychic.

I don't know where things are without being told. Some things I can guess, but there are a lot of things in our fridge and I can't go through them all, I have oher things to do today too. The visualiser, it could be ANYWHERE. Seriously. I've done gels before, but I don't know this lab. Leaving me with a protocol and a note telling me I'll have to make up some loading buffer won't help me if I don't know where the bits to make the loading buffer are.

So now I'm sat here feeling useless and like a burden on everyone because I'm not psychic when it comes to the locations of lab equiptment.

Week 6, where does the time go?

It's now week 6 of this thing. I seem to have lost a week somewhere but, never mind.

Anyway, I'm back doing work in the lab now. My DNA extractions are sat in the freezer being extracted and my shelf on my bench is filling up nicely with neatly labeled bottles of stuff.

See, the big thing that's different between this lab and my old lab is that, in this lab, science doesn't come in a box. The lab I did my placement, we were very 'high tech'. You didn't mix up a extraction buffer, the extraction buffer came in a bottle in a box, you just mixed. It's kind of like ready made cake mix only ready made science. It's kind of nice doing it the 'old fashioned' way of making everything up myself. It's nice to actually do some science.

However, I'm not been having that good a time in the lab and I blame this on negative attitude. I'm not showing them my good face right now, and I've decided to change that. If I role out of bed every day convinced it's going to be a bad day becasue of silly little unrelated issues then it will be a bad day. If I get up every day with a smile and try my best then everything will be better. Half of the battle in ejoying a situation is to convince yourself to enjoy it. I've been so concerned with getting everything right and getting it right the first time that I haven't tried anything...you have to try it if you want to suceed at it!

Anyway, that's my new attitude. We'll see how it goes.

The other thing is, while I'm ejoying this student social life and all, you don't know how much I need to day to go into town and pick up essentials. I don't have any hair ties and it's getting to be a problem. It seems like every weekend I have a social event and every weekday I'm working and there's no time to take care of the basics.

Hopefully I'm going into town on Saturday to buy me some stuff...if I have time around my other commitments...

Supervisor meetings

How long does it take before routine supervisor meetings stop being scary? When I did my placement and my undergrad the PL's avoided me, I'm not used to having all this contact time XD I'm sure I'll get used to it soon, it's definetley a good move. I know for a fact that it's so easy to get lost in a lab, coming into this I knew one of the main things I wanted was a supervisor with time for me, and I've got it. I'm sure soon I'll get used to all of this people paying attention to what I'm doing buisness.

I really need to start commenting on blogs rather then just reading them.

Edit - Also, I'm finally going to do some lab work this week! Only took 5 weeks of being here. My little plants are all grown up and ready to go!

Bleurgh

I've been ill for a week. It's quite annoying. See, I'm not ill enough to warrant curling up in bed under a duvet with a hot drink and giving up on the day, but I'm not well enough to be able to really concentrate on something as complex as a paper, so the result is that I've spent a good portion of the week sat staring at a paper reading the abstract over and over as if it might give up it's secrets if only I can read it often enough.

Needless to say, week 5 of the PhD thing hasn't been so productive. Will have to do better next week. I have the entire weekend to rest up, in theory. The problem with being a postgrad and hanging out with mostly undergrads is they don't have to get up every morning and you do. We're meant to be off to the pub again tonight, I might fall asleep in a corner if I go.

Anyway, just to prove I haven't been completely out of it this week, some relevant news.

The HFEA bill has been passed. A nice step forward, I like to think. Particularly since most of the arguments against are petty scaremongering. Nobody likes scaremongering. Though I am disapointed on a feminist note that none of the liberalisations of the abortion law that were on the HFE bill were voted in. Asking women to get two doctors approval for abortion is demeaning at best. I wrote an impassioned letter to my MP about it and get a stock reply from his office manager so I'm feeling disilusioned at the moment.

Yeah, that's all I've got. Going to go back to staring at papers and hoping they start to make sense.

Edit - Forgot about this one - How Vampire's learnt to feed on blood alone. Quite interesting :) And, of course, date appropriate.