There's been a very good reason, you see. For those of you who are unfamiliar with my grad school program, I only have four months of classes, whereas I believe most programs have between 1-2 years of classes. The logic is fairly good--I'm not going to be done learning forever once classes are finished here in grad school, at this point the premium is on knowing how to learn new things rather than polishing a few last details before I let my grad school knowledge get fossilized over time. Affectionately, this part of the program has been called a proving ground. Less affectionately, we may call it boot camp. In our darkest moments, which sadly can be fairly frequent, it seems like hell. Needless to say, it's not easy.
The past few weeks have been focused on neuroscience. "Neuroscience" is a very broad field encompassing topics like electric circuits, cell biology, cell signaling, physiology, systems biology, genetics and something some people like to call "neuroeconomics", among others. I didn't know it was a word either. Suffice it to say, my head's been in a lot of places. I've cursed the school, the class, the homework, the teachers and almost anything else (except of course, R) all under my breath. I've also learned to reserve judgment now more than ever. Because at the end, I actually think I understood a lot of the class. And enough to pass as well.
One of the things you get to see a lot of in classes here is what I'd like to call "science personalities". There are plenty of us grad students, post docs and professors (our numbers dwindle as you climb the ladder though I think) who are fairly normal. Then there are others. I like to think their "quirks" stem from having been the smart kid all through school, always having the right answers in class, getting good grades throughout school and generally cruising, because let's face it, they're brilliant. I exclude myself from their company because in my honest opinion, there have been times and there will always be times when I will be way off, from college math and physics to who knows what in the future. These people are in fact nice people, good people, but might have very different values than me. I recall one professor who described his good days as: "You come in, you kill an animal, let it sit (or whatever it is you do to a rat before you harvest its brains), go to lunch, get your slices, kill another one and do some tests". He thought it was great. I have nightmare visions of poor mice being chained to walls in dark dungeons with no food or water (this sometimes is actually the case) and then being killed while no one looks on. Think of Russian gulags. Again, these people aren't bad people, not mean-spirited or anything. They just think of things differently than I (and others like me) might. So I'm happy I got to think about it, learned to appreciate the professors for who they are and what they do, learned to separate the person from the (sometimes anti-social) attitude and got to learn about brains in the mean time. Braaaaaaains!
This is also the time of year when I have to start thinking about which labs to rotate through as I get to the research part of grad school. If you haven't guessed from the above paragraph, my interest in performing research on animals is precisely none. Which is why in writing to my adviser to discuss mentors, I had this paragraph:
. . . I'm realizing that I don't feel comfortable with the idea of using animal models for research. While that doesn't mean I won't work in a lab that uses animal models, I'd want to have some certainty that the models are used sparsely and with high confidence of getting good results.Also, not mentioned explicitly, is that I will never be the one dissecting, killing or generally coming near them. I want to keep my distance. I've talked to people about how they cope with handling animals in research (including a vegetarian who works in a mouse lab) and it seems to me like the people who are bothered by sacrificing an animal for research do find solace either in the fact that these mice are bred for research purposes and for the fact that this is in fact for a greater good. The research they do now on mice could lead to untold scientific advances that help humanity, the earth, other animals, and hopefully mice too.
I completely understand the value and applaud the people who do this research responsibly. But I'm a kid who used to cry when my parents killed a mosquito or a moth or an ant. I cringe when I see road kill. Papers that talk about killing mice or flies make me cringe. A week ago, I was reading a neuroscience paper and I glossed over a sentence talking about how a mouse was killed for some experiment. When you gloss over a death, you've crossed a line. I chose to step back. In my mind, you have to be damn sure when you're sacrificing a living animal for research. Damn sure. And IF I ever reach that point, I'm going to use those animal models carefully and sparsely. So this is why I'm a computers type of guy when it comes to biology. I certainly see my horizons expanding and I definitely do want to be able to carry hypotheses from the computer to a practical application, but it's gonna be a long and winding road. And hopefully one that doesn't involve any killing of anything.
In lighter news, R and I went to a cousin's wedding this weekend. It was a pretty calm affair, morning wedding, good food, plenty of family and of course, time with the loveliest woman I know. R got to meet more of the family, she likes them, they like her, so all is good. My aunt told my parents that she's a keeper. While I value my aunt's opinion (she happens to be very smart), this is not news to me. We're visiting her parents for Thanksgiving, so hopefully the good news can be reciprocated.
After the wedding, we drove my brother and his wife back to the heights, went back to R's hood (which is awesome), got a lap desk to keep my lap from burning when I sit the computer on it, got a Steinbeck to keep my brain from overflowing with scientific jargon, and watched The Office on R's Tivo. Okay, her roomie's Tivo, but still. It's way better than Hulu. I'd been kicking around the idea of going into plant biology for a while, when it occurred to R and I (okay, really it occurred to R, who then told me . . . she is my second and better brain) that we'd like to have a good life and I have what is considered a "shit ton" of student loans (that is the term I believe), so I'd better make sure that whatever I'm getting myself into, it doesn't pay too badly. Of course, R's plans involve me and a successful and rewarding career in law, so who knows, maybe I get a sugar momma. And the thought of a real honest to god herb garden is damn tempting.
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