Everyone loves to work on Saturdays

If you are thinking about going to grad school, think carefully. Now, listen (read) carefully to what I am about to tell you. You start off thinking you are going to contribute to the world. I use to tell my mom that I would cut off my leg for a Noble Prize. A few years later, you tell yourself you are doing this for the edification of yourself. Nice one. Then you get to a point. A break down. Eventually you pick yourself up and get back into it only to hit a wall again and find yourself at that "point of no return." The point of no return is when you decided there is no way you can do bench work again. Or write grants. Or be a PI. You can't because your experience as an underling has made you angry, bitter, tired and worst of all things, disenchanted with your choice for the past 5 years. At least you could make yourself feel better knowing you were learning so much at such an excellent institution. How wonderful it all is. I am so lucky. False hope always seems better than no hope. But like all things, this too is ephemeral and POOF! even your disillusionments fail you. And now what have you to show for the past 5 years?
1. I am very good with PCs and Macs
2. I can work just about every Adobe program out there.
3. I know a lot of about mice and how to tell if they are pregnant.
4. I know how to eat lunch on a tight budget.
5. I am excellent at surfing the web and making playlists on my iPod.

Ok, so obviously I have had a bad day. In fact, it was a long 15 hour day in lab. The worst part is that while this is a long day, it's not unusual to work 12hour day on a regular basis (in fact, I did it yesterday and the day before). That's right, I'm complaining. So if you're considering going to grad school, make sure you want to feel over used, violated and under appreciated. It does have it's benefits, but I can't think of any right now. Right now my right eye is twitching from lack of sleep. So to all of you who say that I'm lucky to have school paid for, I say "Phhhhhhh! (blowing raspberries)" Sure I'm kind of lucky, but it's taking years out of my life.

The best part is that I have at least another year because my stupid animals died.
Man, it's been a rough week and another one is about to start. And I think I would cut off my right leg for a long vacation.