Just like Halowee'en, the festivities are starting a few days early, so people got dressed up today for work. James' labmate, Sigi, had a small idea a few weeks back to dress up like a lab mouse for Purim. Then she suggested it to someone else, and then the whole thing got completely out of control. Over forty people from the chemistry department were dressed up like lab mice, including some distinguished professors.
My lab was not so cool as to all dress up like lab mice. I gave group meeting this morning and presented my research from the last year and a half. After it was done, instead of putting up the traditional acknowledgements page with the way-out-of-date group photo, I popped up a slide with the word "smile" and took their photo.
See? Don't they look happy that my boring chemistry talk is finally over?
Because it was only to my labmates, I did not mince words in my talk about the six months of straight failure I had over last summer. I tried to do it with levity, but with some thoroughness since there truly is a lot to be learned from failure and these things almost never end up in papers. After the talk was over, the boss used me as an example saying something about perseverance, yada yada yada. "And she always kept her spirits up!" he said.
I just smiled on the outside, but inside my head, I thought about the hugs of encouragement I got from James thrice daily: before work, at lunch and after work. And I thought about the chocolate bars and icecream that David and Costi have fed me when they noticed I was about to explode. They only way I "kept my spirits up" was because I had friends and family to keep them up.
But what the boss doesn't know, won't hurt him.
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