Blathering on, Waiting Around I don't really have anything to talk about. I am in the lab, waiting for a spectrophotometer lamp to warm up. I should have been done with this experiment a long fucking time ago, but the machine is having issues. Now I'm 45 minutes late to group meeting, but I need to get this data today. I'm in the middle of preparing this presentation for my boss to use during our grant review next week. I'm standing right next to this huge dewar. (It's a big metal can, essentially, that stores very cold liquids.) This one is for liquid nitrogen. And yesterday, I was standing right next to it when I hear this loud pop, like an explosion, and hissing noise. It is really fucking loud. I scream, and run away, and it stops. I start bawling my eyes out from the fright. I sat down, crying, feeling stupid for screaming and crying, and not knowing what to do next. I was too scared to go back over to the dewar. Finally someone else comes into the lab, notices me, and asks what's wrong. I tell him, and then he explains that is is just relieving pressure. I have never seen a dewar do this before. He agrees that is is scary and loud, and proceeds to tell me all the stories of the first time it's happened to all of these people. Now I'm scared that it will go off again, but I have science to do. Science will prevail. Ah shit, I just autozeroed with my sample in. This day is going to kill me. This keyboard is on the edge of the bench, so there is no wrist support, and I am against bad ergonomics. I'm out. |