I’m scanning 9 microarray slides. I put a slide on the scanner, hit “prescan†and read a crazyguyonabike journal for about a minute. When the prescan is done, I adjust the area and hit “scanâ€. I set my timer for 3 minutes and go down 2 flights to my office to get real work done. When my timer goes off I trudge 2 flights upstairs, which takes me longer today because I messed up my back.
I load the data file and tell it to align the spots. I read another 60 to 90 seconds of crazyguyonabike journal while it does that. I tell it to adjust the laser intensities (at least I think that’s what I’m telling it) so that the red and green are roughly equal. I set my timer for 10 minutes and head back downstairs for some more real work. When my timer goes off, I go back upstairs, analyze the results and read another 60-90 seconds of crazyguyonabike journal, save the results, and put the next slide in.
After a few slides, I stay upstairs for the 3 min (actually 5 min but it takes a while to get up the stairs) bits and I reduce the 10 min bit to a 9 min bit because it takes me so long to get up the stairs.
In addition to reading crazyguyonabike journals I contemplate what food I’ll eat during my 9 minutes in my office while doing real work. Or pretending to do real work. It is not surprise that after several days coke-free I succumb and get a coke and a candy bar from the machine. But boy howdy are they freaking delicious after all that anticipation.
What is a surprise is that I reconcile my records with the quarterly grant report, I send a few important emails, and I finish and submit my ACUC 3-year renewal application with attachments.
I’ve been at this for hours.