Today I have come to the realization that working in a research lab has forever ruined certain aspects of my life. Long gone are the days where I can watch a movie that includes any sort of laboratory or science related scene without vehemently criticizing the irregularities or unrealistic nature of the entire scene. I know it shouldn’t bother me that in the most recent Rise of the Planet of the Apes movie that the entire animal research facility is entirely composed of easily breakable glass, but after doing any kind of research I let things like that get the better of my cinema experience.
Notice all the glass that breaks very easily later in the movie....
This sort of, well I would call it obsession, extends into virtually every aspect of my everyday life. I can’t even take a shower without looking to see what chemicals are in my shampoo and determining whether or not we have any of them in our lab (EDTA seems to be in everything). I’m even so used to thoroughly washing glassware in the lab that I try to wash my dishes at home the same way, that is until my mom yells at me for using too much soap and wasting all the hot water. Somehow my lab-life and my normal life have morphed into some sort of hybrid that struggles distinguishing between the two. I had already accepted my fate long ago when I realized that I actually enjoyed listening to one of my friends talk about his woes with western blots. So I guess this will hold true for the rest of my life. I think I’m ok with that cause the honest truth is……… I kinda like it.
See I told you EDTA was in everything....
Don’t feel like you’re alone either.
I can easily discredit every lab setting I see in a film. Who would waste their money on such odd futuristic settings when most people already have enough trouble finding funding for their latest research (this is from an academic perspective though). Most places I have been to are just small corridors plastered with posters of research. Although admittedly where I am now contains a lot of glass in the offices (never in the labs).
These woe’s are only increased by living with a medic. It is near impossible to watch a film that contains either a lab or a hospital (why does everyone seem to be obsessively imaging people in hospital dramas?)…
By: ScienceDefined on January 29, 2012
at 3:50 pm
Ahahaha, obsessive imaging! I’m going through Random Medical Crap of Unknown Origin right now, and I haven’t been imaged once in like 9 months…
By: hematophage on February 1, 2012
at 1:07 pm