I just sent my lab supervisor an email with an attachment named “chicken limb spreadsheet.xls”

What is even the deal with my life nowadays

I hate molecular biology so much

There is very little I would prefer to not having to memorize anything let alone evrything about glycolysis??? Please just let me go back to reading about crocodiles

pleeeez

“Galeomorpha: bigass sharks and stuff, anal fin present, sharky heterocercal tails, shark shark big sharky shark”

I’m gonna be the best zoologist ever :’)

So I didn’t get my dream job as a prep tech at the Tyrrell Museum. It’s a shame. I was sort of fantasizing about living in Drumheller - not just working on dinosaur fossils all day at the museum but also just hanging out in the badlands on my days off. I was imagining biking off down the highway with my violin, a book, and lunch, and spending the day alone basking in the arid heat of that incredibly beautiful place.

But I didn’t get it. So I’ve been looking at the coming year in light of that, and a couple things are offering themselves up as options. There’s a work-study program in the Fussmann lab as a lab tech - looking after tropical fish and some basic experiment prep and data collection. I think my lab experience and general research interests makes me a pretty good fit since it’s an ecology and evolution lab.

There’s also a vertebrate paleontology field course that I’m dying to take in August, which as far as Hans has explained sounds like just two and a half weeks of going camping, hiking, canoeing, and prospecting for and digging up fossils along the South Saskatchewan river with a bunch of other paleontology geeks. I haven’t gone hiking for a couple years now and I really miss it! Of course discovering dinosaurs or other fossils would be really amazing too, and Hans thinks southern Saskatchewan is the next Dinosaur National Park as far as fossil richness goes.

I’m also looking at some boring non-science-related work for part of the summer, which would make going home for a visit much easier. And I’m probably going to be a lab rat throughout the summer again, for extra pocket money. Nothing’s quite for sure yet but I’ve got a couple options and we’ll see what pans out!

Summary

Nematoda: roundworms
Tardigrada; MOSS PIGLETS
Onychophora: velvet worms
Isopoda: woodlice, pillbugs
Ostracoda: seed shrimp
Chelicerata: fucking eww.
Myriapoda: ewwwwwwwwwwwwww
Decapoda: crabs n’ shit
Sipunculida: peanut worms
Rotifera: rotifers
Chaetognatha: arrow worms
Cirripedia: barrrrrrrrrnacles
Gastrotricha: small things

FALL
BIOL 304 - Evolution
BIOL 306 - Neural Basis of Behaviour
BIOL 308 - Ecological Dynamics
PHIL 341 - Philosophy of Science 1
GERM 202D1 - German Language, Beginners’

WINTER
BIOL 301 - Cell and Molecular Laboratory
BIOL 303 - Developmental Biology
BIOL 352 - Vertebrate Evolution
GERM 202D2 - German Language, Beginners’
HIST 215 - Modern European History
or
ENGL 228 - Canadian Literature 1

—

Wow actual ELECTIVES what a strange and mysterious idea. It’s going to be a little weird not working in my lab whenever I have a free afternoon, and not doing all science all day everyday.

Today I was in my lab and I looked over at our tech who was doing something with something dangerous I guess so he was wearing a lab coat and glasses, which he doesn’t normally do, and the following thought literally formed and ran through my head: Wow, hey, he looks pretty hot in that.

And then I thought

OH FUCK god no jesus why did I think that