This morning was like alot of mornings recently. I needed to wake up at 8. I ended up going to bed at 1:30 and finally fell asleep at 4. Like alot of mornings, I was woken up by some ridiculous shit.

It was funny ridiculous shit, though. At 7am (in Gran's house) I heard a metal banging to and fro against the hallway. Somehow Gran had been seduced by (what sounded like) the step-ladder. She was driven to a crime of Obsessive-Compulsive passion by how it swooned against a wall, completely out of anyone's way. It was her duty to set it where it belonged. And so--after her inanimate object re-enactment of "Free Willy"--she rode off into dawn. There's nothing that woman does that surprises me anymore.

It was finally my first day of volunteering in the Dr. Zivago's lab at Mt. University.

Mom was perky; I was dressed all in dark colors (in this case black) with a trenchcoat; we ate Jack in the Box breakfast sandwiches like pro's at 65mph. We need traditions like these to make mornings anywhere near doable.

When we hit the freeway/motorway, we had an hour left to get to Mt. University on time. Traffic was constipated so we decided to whip out the Thomas Guide and navigate along the surface streets. Despite getting lost at first, we made it through downtown traffic and got to the campus early.

All this morning I mostly felt fine, kinda nervous and groggy but in a prepared way. I went to the right floor of the psychology building, ambling into what I thought was the office in that first day as a freshman way. In the side experiment room I saw a group of five undergrad students were attentively listening to Grettle, Dr. Ziv's only grad. student. She saw me and smiled, waving me over to see her demonstrate how to inject rats.

So for the next 40 minutes I mostly stayed quiet except to demonstrate a different injection technique, ask a few general questions. I tried to be casually nervous instead of all-knowing. After all, I didn't want to seem like I was showing Grettle up. I think she appreciated the input, though. The undergrads weren't saying much and she spent most of the thinking out loud about what they should do.

Finally she gave up for the day and most of the students left. The remainder then all ambled into this side office and chilled there. It was more like a cocktail lounge than an office for lab meetings. I decided to stand outside and wait for Dr. Zivago, all the while reading one of those oversized "Look! I actually published this thing and my graphs are in color!" science posters. After about ten minutes I hear from down the hall this jovial voice snidely commenting, "Aww, have you been bad? Did they send you out?" I guess you had to be there to really appreciate it.

So while I was prep'ed this whole time to get into the thick of things, all of us started getting side-tracked about Bush, his policies (or lack thereof), interest rates, credit cards, how to stay out of debt, etc. There was a small island of time, though, where just he and I discussed the hardcore theory behind the experiment we were starting (which I'll explain in a later post). He also started telling me about new developments in Neuroscience that completely blew my mind. I found out alot of what I'd learned as an undergrad was either flat-out wrong or inaccurate. In the literal sense, the man was awesome...when he wanted to be.

Other than that episode and getting keys, though, everything was very informal, very casual. At one point Dr. Ziv introduced me to my new office in some obscure section of the building. The far half was already Grettle's, while I got the table and floor space nearest to the door and this portable microwave-freezer-fridge thing. That's alot of floor space. Floor space is key for properly organizing reference books and manilla folders.

Dr. Zivago heaved himself into this comfy old-style armchair complete with separate footrest. Grettle eventually came by and we sprittered an hour away talking about general stuff. It was such an oddball contrast for me. I'm used to science professors largely being these gruff, authoritative things that let an inkling of personality ooze out sometimes. Here, Grettle was groaning about Dr. Ziv being "an oversized child" while he whimpered and kicked away at this electric blanket cord. They made these side comments like they were friends. For me as a scientist, the closest I can describe it for you is when you first learn that your parents still have sex.

I love this place so far. Dr. Zivago and Grettle make me feel as though I can really make a difference in the course of the lab, rather than just being another warm body. The whole environment has this quiet but energetic feel to it. I can't say I care for the people outside of the psych. building, but then I'm used to a private school of around 3,000 people, not 50,000+.

I'm going back on Friday at 10am to meet with the undergrads working for us and learn from Gretel how to "score" rats as they float or swim around in a huge tub of water. Dr. Zivago is also going to start teaching me the little odds and ends working around the lab.

It really feels good to be doing research again. After all these months I have a real purpose. Getting a job set up around that 'real purpose' would be nice, but I'm patient.

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