This is Science...and So Can You!

HYPOTHESIS
I think everyone should work at a research laboratory. Research laboratories give you money and a place to bring your latte when your morning conversation with the disgruntled Starbucks employee comes to a screeching halt while he bodily escorts the self-dubbed --and aptly named-- "Top-Tooth Timmers the Homeless Wonder" from the premises for rearranging the rolls of toilet paper in ladies' room according to his preferred sleeping position.
DISCUSSION
Fact: Research is fun. So, now that you're all excited to go out and apply for a job at a research laboratory, I'll take this time to crush your thinly woven dreams of Ivy league grandeur with the following four (4) poorly researched but correctly numbered steps to landing your dream job in a research laboratory:
1). When applying for various career-like opportunities available to you at a research laboratory, it is imperative to take the time to look up the use of smart sounding words like imperative before you use it in a sentence on your cover letter. Then: apply for it, nail the interview, and get hired in a research laboratory.
2). If you want to become a sleep deprived, self-absorbed twit, then you should be a scientist. Back in 1629 when the first scientist was discovered loitering near an old-timey microscope by a pack of dateless Mathletes, no one had even heard of science. But they did what anyone of us would have done and published a 1,732,684,351,867,530,932 page Nobel Prize-winning paper discussing the bejeezus out of the probability of securing a federal grant for the Society for the Continuation and Preservation and Encouragement of the Research for Left-handed Gnat Populations of New Guinea (SFTCAPAEOTRFLGPNG) --donations accepted--.

3). As a researcher, your job will be to run participants through studies and answer any questions they may have such as:
-What is this research study about?
-Are we done yet?
-Where's the bathroom? In between running participants through a study, your primary responsibility will be to fabricate scores and averages and type them into nauseating virtual towers of numbers called spreadsheets or typing TBD (To Be Determined) when you are unsure or are bored being in the lab and leave for a Starbucks run.
4). Please don't think that just because your superiors are "scientists" and not "bosses" that working at a research laboratory is easy. It's not! Unless, of course, your idea of easy includes making at least 17 (seventeen) trips to Starbucks within a 25.9 hour work week or learning to seamlessly toggle out of the eBay screen a millisecond before your crazy-eyed boss walks by and gives you what we here in Academia scientifically refer to as a "grumpy-face." Seriously, that takes, like, a freaking hour to get the hand movement down.

RESULTSTBD

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, if you are still reading this, then --CONGRATULATIONS!!!-- you are interested in working at a research laboratory! But maybe you're uneasy about where to start looking. No one
blames you for being worried! And, if it makes you feel any better, it's much easier now to find a job in a research laboratory than it was back in the Good Old Days (October 3rd & 4th, 1987) and here's why: Back then, I was approximately 64% creative and 37%mathematically inclined and had a very short attention span. But now I can watch three (3) back-to-back episodes of Law & Order without moving. And so can you! Just work at a research lab and have more time for doing the important things in life like reading poorly researched/caffeine-induced blog entries.

BLOGCATION NOTICE

TO: Everyone everyone@thewholeworld.com

FROM: The Guilt Fairy theguiltfairy@givegivegive.com

SUBJECT: Blogcation Notice

DEAR KIND READERS,

THIS IS THE GUILT FAIRY WRITING.

IT HAS RECENTLY COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT ERICA WAS, IN FACT, SERIOUS ABOUT MY SEVERANCE FROM HER EXISTENCE AS WAS CONVEYED TASTELESSLY IN AN POST EARLIER THIS YEAR. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.

AND I WOULD HAVE RESPONDED TO THIS MATTER SOONER, HOWEVER, I'VE BEEN ON A VOW OF POVERTY TO RAISE AWARENESS OF THE DIMINISHING ECUADORIAN AMISH COMMUNITY --MORE ON THAT IN A MOMENT.

HASN'T SHE ANY IDEA OF WHAT I GO THROUGH FOR HER? THE AMOUNT OF UNCOMMONLY SELFLESS GODDESS-LIKE SOCIAL PROWESSES I INJECT --RATHER FREQUENTLY- INTO HER ARTICULATION SO AS TO SPARE HER FROM OTHERWISE GALACTIC EMBARRASSMENTS? I SUPPOSE NOT, OTHERWISE SHE WOULD HAVE WRITTEN BACK WITH SOMETHING OTHER THAN A RESTRAINING ORDER IN MY ABSENCE.

HOWEVER, AMONG MY TRAVELS IN THE AMISH COMMUNITY, I CAME ACROSS AN EXTRAORDINARILY RARE SPECIES OF ANIMAL. WHILE INTERACTING WITH THESE CREATURES, I BEGAN TO SEE HOW THEY WOULD BE JUST THE THING TO IMPRESS UPON OUR DEAREST ERICA THE IMPORTANCE OF A HUMBLE, MORE ME-LIKE EXISTENCE. SO, KIND, SENSIBLE READERS, I GIVE YOU: THE HOWLING ECUADORIAN GUILT MONKEYS (Guiltius, schreechius).

THE ECUADORIAN GUILT MONKEY CAN BEEN TRACED BACK THOUSANDS OF YEARS PROTECTING AND GUIDING THE AMISH TRIBES. IT'S QUITE SOMETHING REALLY, ALL THEIR LITTLE EYES WIDE OPEN, MOUTH AGAPE, IN DISBELIEF WHEN THEY SENSE GUILT OR BAD KARMA.

PERHAPS MOST EXTRAORDINARY ARE THEIR BUILT-IN HOMING DEVICES, PROGRAMED BY SCENT, IN MUCH THE SAME WAY A BABY CHICK WILL "IMPRINT" UPON THE FIRST CREATURE THEY SEE.

FORTUNATELY FOR ERICA, MY HORDE OF HOWLING ECUADORIAN GUILT MONKEYS WERE NOT MATURE UNTIL THIS MORNING, WHEN, UPON HATCHING IN A DARK CORNER OF ERICA'S BEDROOM, THEY WERE, UNSURPRISINGLY, FACE-TO-FACE WITH --AND THUS ENSUED ROLLING IN-- HER DIRTY LAUNDRY.

WHICH IS IN NO SHORT SUPPLY.

SELFLESSLY, I'VE ARRANGED A BRIEF INTERVIEW WITH THE ALPHA MALE, KANGORA --PICTURED ABOVE-- WHO SHOULD BE HERE SHORTLY.

WHILE WE WAIT, I THOUGHT I'D TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO BRING TO LIGHT A FEW 'LEARNING MOMENTS' THAT WOULD OTHERWISE HAVE BEEN WASTED IN ERICA'S LESS-THAN-IMPRESSIVE SHORT-TERM MEMORY ABILITIES. TAKEN PRIMARILY FROM A CANDID OBSERVATION YESTERDAY, I CALL THIS NEW BLOG SEGMENT: "TOP TEN THINGS NOT TO DO AT A YALE STAFF MEETING---

==INCOMING MESSAGE==

___________________________
TO: Everyone everyone@thewholeworld.com
FROM: thedavisgirl@guiltfree.com

SUBJECT: at Starbucks

________________________

Anyone happen to know why there is currently a swarm of midget chimps screeching at my latte?

-Erica

That WAS easy.

So, guess where I'm writing from? MY PAJAMAS. And that's because I went to Staples last week, dropped of my laptop at Laptop Camp...and seven days later my laptop was FIXED and now it's home and I'm blogging in my pajamas on my laptop which is now "online". And an hour ago, I came across a website. A website is one of many different and interesting things you can find "online." So, here's what I made:

You can make some too. Here's the website: http://diy.despair.com/motivator.php

More later,

Erica

Dear Staples,

FROM: TheDavisGirl@inmypajamas.com

TO: StaplesPresident@StaplesOfficeSupplyStores.com

SUBJECT: Hey, that was easy.

Dear Staples,

I am writing to congratulate you on your success as a kick-arse Store. I've had this laptop since 2004. It came with wireless network, which worked perfectly, once at a Borders bookstore in California. Never since. Which was all very well, since I've somehow managed to convince friends and loved ones alike that I didn't need the internet, because:

-"It would interfere with my writing..."

-"It costs too much..."

-"I have it at work..."

All of which, I now realize, are moot. I am currently writing you this email from my very own writing chair in my bedroom and, more importantly, in my pajamas. Do you know how great this is? I can't tell you how many odd looks I've gotten when asked "what's my aim?" and I say "best-selling author." BUT I GET IT NOW! They meant the 'Americans Instant Messanger!' Did you know you can even buy things? I'm not kidding! I was just looking at the fruit juicer which only cost $37.78! I know!

-