Sure, there's been plenty of..let's be charitable and say unfortunate misunderstandings to deal with. Now, for obvious entertainment purposes, describing my experiments would be like watching cow dung petrify for most of you. I don't deny I have a peculiar fetish for my work. I also don't deny that for most it beats the fuck out of NyQuil and takes its lunch money.

All that said, I was a very puzzled person late wednesday morning as I was prep'ing for the experiment. Dr. C asked me if I was going to be observing the monkeys. I said yeah, I'm gonna go see them. It took me a few ticks, but I realized he wanted me to record their behavior twenty and four hours after the 1st monkey's experiment phase ended on tuesday. I was dumbfounded. We'd agreed way long ago to look at physiological parameters at that time point--but this was the first time anything about a behavioral assessment was mentioned.

Suffice it to say, after I agreed to do what he wanted (since he's my boss), I was ragingly pissed off. Let me emphasize: I hate changing shit about my experiments that seems superfluous, especially at the last second, especially when that change was never discussed. I saw the use of what he wanted to do after a little while, I admit..and I won't deny it'll be useful to tell Annoying Asshole X, "No, nothing happens the next day; you're a fool; read the human and rat literature. Next question". Regardless, sudden changes like that should never happen. Thankfully it only adds 12 more hours of work over the next 6 or so weeks.

Another thing that pissed me off today was the behavior of a colleague of mine. I can respect not wanting to disturb one's monkeys in order to get a good, normal indication of how they function physiologically. What I fail to understand is why she emphatically told me to not return my own monkeys, to leave it for tomorrow. I was finished at 12:30pm. Her thing was at 3:00pm on the same floor. So are you telling me in all seriousness that my putting monkeys back into their home room THAT far beforehand is going to compromise your data? I found it utterly preposterous and rather far-fetched, and not a little grating considering noone had told me about this sudden block of time where I couldn't do my job. Her attitude was also uncharacteristic in its condescension. For no particular reason, for instance, she asked me to move a large, unwieldy table from the experiment room I was using. I try to stay strictly professional at work, but her attitude was uncalled for.

So after exploring my options with getting building staff to return my animals either today or tomorrow (friday), and being accused of going against my colleague's wishes (i.e. "overriding" them) by the building manager until I went through a lengthy explanation of why I was exploring said options...I finally made arrangements for the monkeys to be returned tomorrow. A friend on the staff can handle it. That's what had been suggested in the first place, but the staff coordinator thought I could just do it that afternoon. It was before 4pm, so I thought so too.

The whole thing immensely irritates me, and I still feel the accusation was unnecessary and had a bit too much of a 'I don't like you and I want to find a way to trip you up' tone. You know, when the other person kinda smiles but they do the lower eyelids thing? Yeah, I got that for no good fucking reason. To my mind, if I could work it, I wanted to get my monkeys back with the rest of their peers a day earlier.

I'd also tried to plan things so that I wouldn't have to go into the lab tomorrow. Apparently, however, I need to come in to view my monkeys, to make sure they're ok. This is absurd. I will tell you why. I made arrangements to have my monkeys put back--and as is customary when building staff are cleaning on the top floor, they keep an ear and eye out for the monkeys. My presence there is superfluous, but I assume this is some sort of socio-political symbolism, some Aryan Uber Male Phallic Zeitgeist concept I have to fulfill to satisfy things lurking in the unconscious folds of an inanimate building. Or it could just be a misunderstanding. Today had alot of those, if you can tell.

But despite a few misunderstandings, I'm happy to be there and doing work that I feel is worthwhile, that gives me purpose. Although I can't find the 'what will I do after college?' entry that involved my old psych building and an ivy-covered terrace, this entry gives you a thought of how bleak things seemed near graduation. I had no idea what to do. Some leads for labs I almost got into, but even then I had no concrete goals. And for two years I wandered the deserts, growing despondent and more fat than I wanted, though randomly stumbling on photography because I wanted to web-cam for a girl was pretty cool.

And so now I feel like I've found purpose--and hey, my bosses don't threaten me or treat me like shit like Dr. Zhivago did. They're even the kind and helpful sort.

Really, my only trouble nowadays is the same one I've had for several years now. Incidentally, I'm not playing the violin or jolting a plastic cup while expecting pity handouts. Fuck that.

For good or bad I've become a recluse and, for the most part, enjoy my own company. Being out in public upsets me. I feel old and as though the only space I fit in is the one carved up in my head. People are loud, obnoxious, and everyone seems too damn happy or content. Doubtlessly other people, maybe even most other people, might feel like this. I have an online social network..and I suppose two friends here if I ever made the effort to contact them to hang out.

But therein is the development of the last few months: finding friends here, or conversing about personal stuff with people in the physical world, is too burdensome. I never understood how one meets new people, and I haven't the energy or the care to try. I'm content to come home, read political articles, play a game perhaps, write, maybe occasionally hike to the nearby forest..but that's all I want to do.

And I'm glad for all the free time I have. It's forced me to realize and accept the fact that I shun human company nowadays. Not here online, no, that's familiar enough, I know the people, and I can control how often or how much I talk.

So yeah, there's some fear of not knowing the first thing about meeting people, but mostly I'm apathetic about the process. 'Why bother?' comes to mind, or 'What could this person do for me?'

I still try to go to open-mic on Wednesdays to drink with some other grad students, but the place is a swarming ant's nest. Half of this town must hang out there, and I couldn't find anyone yesterday.

This whole entry is far more bitchy and sad-sounding than I intended it to be. I'm going to dungeon crawl in I_Dale now.

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