A meditation on dishes

It is a well known fact that any new scientist spends an awful lot of time washing glassware. Indeed, "washing glassware" is a catch-all term to describe the work assigned to the newest person in the lab -- boring, repetitive, generally unattractive, and most importantly, very difficult to screw up. At this stage, the newbie spends a lot of time watching everyone else in the lab with varying degrees of envy, looking forward to the day when their competence will be recognized and they can move up to spawning urchins/counting glumes/keying insects and leave the sink far behind. 

I spent an hour and a half washing glassware today, and spent a lot of it wondering how in hell I'd managed to escape the task this long. It was all glassware that I'd produced, too, so there was a sort of poetic justice to it. 

Which was when I found that I couldn't turn the sink off. 

I did the big girl thing: I went and found my advisor and asked for help. The sink was fixed. 

As soon as my advisor was gone, it started gushing rusty water. Fortunately, we have a spigot with DI water, so that was not too much of a problem but I think the reader now has something of an idea of why I was so relieved when my friend called me up and suggested a picnic. 

Unfortunately, I have no pictures of said picnic, but it was glorious. We ate sandwiches with honey mustard, cheese, turkey and avocado and drank sparkling apple cider out of plastic champagne flutes on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. I may have a slight sunburn. 

There are a number of reasons that I'm going to find it difficult to leave this city for grad school. More glassware and fewer picnics... but I daresay I'll find a replacement!