Friday, June 13, 2008

"Poor Me" or "Why I Should Not Have a Venue for Complaining"

We were discussing yesterday how fighting off the constant onslaught of pathogens may be all a person can be expected to do in a day. So even though it seems like I'm not working, my immune system is going full speed ahead to keep potential invaders at bay. When I couple that with all the time I spend each day just repairing my DNA it's really amazing that I manage to get out of bed every morning.

Today, I especially wanted to spend some time doing routine maintenance in my cells. And while my DNA repair enzymes (10 points to anyone who can remember what they're called in mammalian systems) were excising thymine dimers, I figured my conscious mind could get a little sleep. But alas, it was not to be. The 4:30 am sunrise and the damn birds woke me as usual (although I stayed in bed until 6), only to pedal my bike uphill through the rain to arrive at the lab - wet, and seriously winded.

I usually think that by the third paragraph I should get to the point on a given blog posting, but since I don't really have one today, I'll just use it to transition to the conclusion paragraph. Be warned - if there's an award for the whiniest post ever I may win.

It's raining. I'm tired, wet, and cranky*. I fear that the opportunistic pathogens may be gaining an advantage over my beleaguered white blood cells. In 4 hours I'm going to be explaining COSY and HMQC to a group of students who may or may not be able to decipher my strange English dialect. In short, I want to go to bed. Instead I think I'll have another coffee.

*"Cranky" is not a term that many of the non-native English speakers I interact with on a daily basis know. If any of you read this, it means grumpy or irritable
.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh no, I can't remember the enzyme. I think that means I've been an engineer for too long now. Crap!

anaeromyxo said...

I can only be expected to know prokaryotic enzyme names...but I can't think of what the primary DNA repair enzyme is. I can think of DNA helicase...hold on (squinting in concentration)...nope.

Anonymous said...

I miss you, Emily. I'm in Michigan. I'm going to send you a postcard.