In my school, the working day immediately following the diwali holidays was the "civil dress" day. Simply put, we could wear our street clothes instead of uniforms! Almost everyone used to look forward to that coz it was such an occasion to see so many colours in the corridors as opposed to the green and white (my school uniform colours). I loved that day of the year!
Then I came to university and everyday became like that! I was pretty happy. Until it got a tad bit boring and pretty much a pain in the neck (literally!) to look around the closet to decide what to wear. Uniforms seemed so much simpler! But the feeeling that spread so infectiously around the school disappeared since I came here to NUS.
Until I found it again recently!
Hi! My name is MG and I am a student in the Undergraduate Research program. I go to lab every single day to slog away and try to obtain impossible results. My lab coat is over-used and might just fall apart any day now.
That's pretty much been my life since I joined the program. Everyday I walk into an environment which looks (mind you... it only looks) absolutely sterile and white. Annoyingly so. I drop my bag and wear my white lab coat, put on white gloves, take white tissue and wipe my white workstation clean then sit on my black chair. Then I take white tubes and white pipettes (which need white tips most of the time) and start my work. I look around and find my supervisor who also wears a white labcoat whether or not he is working in the lab coz its too cold to sit without one also sitting on a black chair. There are 7 people in my lab and all of us are white all day. Its a black and white world for atleast 10 hours (if I am lucky! Could be 16!) each day.
Then I discovered colour! After wearing a labcoat for 5-6 hours at a stretch, when it is time to leave the lab (for lunch, lectures or just to go back home), I discover colour! The colour of my T-shirt! It is such a glorious moment to take the labcoat off and spot a bit of colour. What a relief to the eyes. Old school memories come flooding back! Now I can fully appreciate CS's old post on colours :)
Life has become pretty much sucky in this black and white world of mine. But I am pleased to know that there exists simple pleasures in discovering colours each day!
(I could apply the same for music... The lab is not just white, its also damn quiet! In fact, the lab phone's ring has become music to my ears :-/ Sad life)
Note: While this post is pretty boring and extremely pointless, its been such a relief to just see the blogger page and type a thing or two! I don't care. I am just going to write the most random and pointless posts.
Today's lab result/discovery: Blogging in lab about the most random things in the world is therapeutic. Everyone must try it :P
4 comments:
Yay for random posts! :)
I sometimes forget what the hell I'm wearing these days, because of the sheer amount of time we wear those darn lab coats. I agree - it's a nice change to see colour after all that annoying whiteness. Maybe we should dye our lab coats pink, just for the heck of it. *ponders*
Colours and blogging! Beautiful things haha. I just finished packing so I just wanna leave a comment before I go off hehe. I'll miss you! Blog more about random stuff!
Ringing telephones turning music to ears, that is sad. One could play radio in low decibels in the lab as a background music. Most labs do. The occassional unexpected playing of the song that you love very much by the radio station, that hear after a long time cheers you up and puts tapping foot and humming lips on you. Simple pleasures, not expensive, goes a long way in making a mundane lab day into a cheerful work station. Most labs that I worked had a radio playing all the time. I used to pump up the volume during the playing of that song that I like the most and go crazy!!! One such song used to the "Thank you India" by none other than you know who and "Crush" by Jennifer, not the Lopez!!! As for the white lab coat, why follow tradition, you can always get a saffron lab stitched or even a tricolor lab coat, the tricolor as vertical stripes. Think about it.
Aaaah the colours thing! Yes I totally understand since I've written about it.. but I never experienced it! Haha.. Now I know why you have those colourful birds hanging in one corner of your room ;)
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