Life things: A day in life of a chemist

A lot of times when I meet people for the first time, they ask me "hey what do you do!" and I reply with a very exasperated face, "I'm a chemistry strident. So I work in a lab." 99% of the time people go like, "oh my god that is so freakin' cool!" and in my brain I'm just thinking "ya right". So let me just walk you through it.

My day begins with waking up at 6:45. I mean, I set my alarm at that time and snooze it all the way to approximately 7:15. I wake up hating my life a lot. Why, you ask? Well unlike most office going people I know I'm not going to be sitting on a desk all day. Oh hell no! I know I have to stand a good 6 hours in front of my hood, a glass protected area on a wall where you work, in case something explodes and you start looking like that nun from The Conjuring -- That bitch haunts my dreams. Okay.

So I wake up, pack my shit real quick along with all the thousand papers from my research that I did the previous night till 2 in the morning. I never, ever, ever eat breakfast because I'm always late, considering I have to travel almost an hour to get to the end of nowhere, where my lab exists.

My train ride is unlike anyone else's. I choose that time to indulge myself in a little game called what would life be like if instead of a chemist I was a full time writer/traveller, and spend that one good hour imagining myself in different locations. My few favorite ones are:

• Rome, Italy: In this particular fantasy, I tend to see myself sitting in a small but beautiful café, with an outdoor sitting. Bit of an antique place, with its withered mahogany wood and metal chairs, each one telling their own story of hosting some or the other wanderer. Maybe a hopeless romantic who first saw his/ her love for the first time sitting across him/her reading a book. It was a book he/she so dearly liked and then suddenly they share a look, although a stranger, it instantly felt like they saw each other in themselves, and so their story began. Or maybe those sunkissed chairs which speak about a family that no longer meets together, but many moons ago would sit around those tables and chairs and shared many lazy Sunday afternoons giggles. I tend to see myself enjoying an espresso, reading one of my favorite novels, having an opinion about shit and just being in that moment.

• Literally any beach, literally any country but India -- not because I hate India, I mean, I am Indian, but sense of privacy is lost on those people and I can't have my mood ruined by ogling creatures. So, I see myself laying on a giant towel under my shitty big umbrella thingy called a parasol. This fantasy is now brighter than the others because recently I actually got to experience it on Ibiza with @sjennon and I wrote at length about it in my post: Tales of Cala Vadella, Ibiza.

• Hogwarts: Don't even get me started on this one. While a lot many people found Snape's class dungeon like and cold, I personally could ask for nothing better. Dark, with a tinge of yellow lighting just warming the ambience enough to feel like something magical is bound to become of your potion. Technically I am a potion student, only I can't make no dead man walk, so, meh.

Coming back to the subject, after I come to the lab and start working, it's not all mixing shit and chilling. You have to be beyond cautious. One wrong move can blow up the whole department and you don't want that kind of karma on yourself. We work with very dangerous things. We always have to wear gloves, a lab coat and those giant goggles (which every time you put your head down would fall into the full-of-poision beaker that you'd be holding. The gloves make you slowly start to sweat in your palms and those latex bitches start to annoy you like an Indian wife on a shopping day.

Oh, and the worst of all? Needles. Precision is the key to being a good chemist. One drop extra could turn something really nice into a nightmare. This is where needles come in. Now, I personally loathe those bastards but I work with them almost all the time. Story time! Once upon a day, I was working in my usual radioactive lab, chillin' with uranium, handling mah needles with caution, thinking God I hope I don't poke myself, that'd hurt like a bitch. Three minutes later, my reaction vessel sort of exploded all over me. Even though, it didn't have a very strong radioactive compound in it, or at least I thought.. Whatever it was, it would have been present in a very small amount, but people went nuts. I was made to take off some of my clothing and put it in the washing machine, several detectors had to detecting me if I went radioactive, and just when I thought it was over, a lady walked over to me and said stick your palm out, we need a blood sample. All blood left my palm and my face in that moment. She took her needle out, and poked very awesomely into the skin of my index finger. Boy, did that hurt. True story.

You can never ever ignore being poked by needles when you're working there, like ever. Atleast once in a lifetime, one way or the other, it's going to happen. After I finish the lab work I come home, I eat my food with @sjennon while we watch something and then we either carry on being useless on till 12 or I work.

And then, repeaaaaat.

Ain't nothing cool about this shit. I mean, of course we are the main people behind curing any of your shitty diseases and we are nothing short of alchemy. Yes, mixing stuff feels cool and you feel almighty, but other than that. Pretty mundane bruh.

Mona out.

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^{Written by @things, 2017. Edited by @sjennon. All rights reserved.}