Things I have discovered upon returning from Peru:

1) The CO2 regulator was not replaced. The incubators are down. All of them. For the cells. 90% of my remaining work involves cells. (The regulator finally got replaced yesterday evening but one of the two incubators are still down and the working one still needs to be calibrated.)

2) There was some issue with temperature regulator in the vivarium last week. May be reason why I lost 2 mice. Does not excuse mistake make by staff where they accidentally switched the cage label so that a cage with four female mice got labeled as a breeder pair. The sex ID mistake I can understand but- did they not realize that the cage contained 4 mice instead of 2?

3) The fan for the camera for the microscope is officially out. As in the camera got shipped off for repair and won't be back for three weeks. There goes the schedule for the cell immunofluorescence experiments.

4) Apparently on Monday there was an issue where they tried to fix the emergency power supply and ended up blowing out the fuses to a bunch of -80C freezers (i.e. where all the bio labs keep their most expensive and delicate samples). Ours is okay. For now. The place is crawling over with electricians though.

5) I still don't know what is wrong with the ventilation in our building. Last week the air pressure got inverted. Starting yesterday it's operating at a dull roar so that I can barely hear my timer going off.

The consequences of which meant that at one point today I sat down on the floor in the mouse room and tried to come up with a new schedule for my experiments because as much effort as I am exerting, trying to graduate, it really does feel like fate is conspiring against me. So much for that nice little bubble of joy that I carried back with me from my vacation.

Friend of mine's gotten the okay from her committee to graduate in December! I'm torn between being deeply jealous (she'll be done!) and nonplussed (she doesn't have a job lined up and announced she's not going to finish her current set of experiments and apparently her committee was okay with it??) and sad (she'll leaving, both the school and from science -- she's going into teaching / writing). Also she will be having a baby soon which seems to me like a whole 'nother sort of stress. But on the other hand I'm also kind of happy for her because she was handling the near-graduation stress even worse than I am (save for July; July was the abyss from which I hope to never return) and was joking about quitting so she'll be done and free at last, free at last -- and I think she'll be happier once she's done.

So, complicated feelings tonight.

Also, I'm presenting in lab meeting tomorrow evening and flying out for Peru the day after all. Just FYI.

Trying to get my stuff approved by my committee as well as my PI and, eventually, peer reviewers. This can only end in tears.

Also, for reasons unknown, my neighbor's left his socks on the communal cacti.

Taxonomy is not for the common English language. For instance, Osteichthyes I'm pretty sure I can just type in as "fish", or possibly "bony fish" if I'm feeling particular -- but what on earth do I call lamprey? "Invertebrate chordate"? That's not exactly common speech....

Universal standard for application of common names fail UTTERLY once you reach the point that the things you're trying to name is no longer something people commonly encounter.

(Though I suspect that most people outside of my niche - most NORMAL people - just consider lamprey to be fish.)

(Yes I'm still working on this bit.)

(Did you know people use the term "worm" for earth worm, round worm, and polychaete worm when there's like more evolutionary divergence across those three categories than between us and like, sea urchins?)