The bureacracy is driving me insane!

I've been trying to get swipe access to an animal facility.

I emphasize 'trying' because so far, I've been unsuccessful in doing so, even though it's been a couple of days. In theory, it was an easy enough task: get a form signed and handed in, get my card programed, and voìla! Access to the facility.

In practice, it hasn't been so easy. Handing in the form was straight-forward, but because I had other stuff programmed onto my card, I couldn't get it re-programmed without wiping out the other information. Thus began my long journey into the maze that we know as the University Bureacracy.

I first started with the office in my department. I had been told that they had a file with some sort of ID that we could transfer onto the animal faciity system, but when we tried getting that ID, the secretary had no idea what we were talking about. I then went on a wild goose chase, phoning up people 'in-the-know" only to get forwarded to other people. I was even given the wrong number for one individual, and I'm sure I made a new enemy in that process, since I accidentally called that person twice, to his obvious frustration.

Finally, I got directed BACK to the office in my department, where the same secretary NOW knew what ID number I was talking about (go figure!) and gave it to me in a matter of 5 minutes. I'm still, however, waiting for my card to be activated, because it turns out that the original office where I handed in my access form hadn't sent it to the appropriate destination (which apparently is only two steps away from that office). It kind of makes you wonder how fast everything would have been if they centralized some of this stuff so it wouldn't be so inefficient. I know it wouldn't have taken longer than 2 days for something as simple as this!

Ah well. I was somewhat cheered up when I was eating a popsicle and saw the following warning on the package: "Notice: This product, when extremely cold, may stick to warm lips or tongue. Allow to warm slightly before eating". For some reason, the fact that something like that should be so obvious to most of us cracked me up. I guess there's some people who stick their tongues onto poles in the winter, but most of those people wouldn't read a warning like that anyways.

Contact lenses more inconvenient than glasses?

I finally broke down and joined the contact lens bandwagon (kind of like how everyone's joining the Oilers bandwagon). Most people tend to get contacts, though, because they don't like the glasses look. Me? I rather like my glasses, but I decided I needed contacts for sports. I had enough with dealing with my glasses slipping down my nose while I was running around, rendering me more useless than normal.

The only problem is that I'm finding my contacts to be a lot more inconvenient than my glasses ever were. Not only does it take me forever to put them on (my first time trying took me over half an hour, and even now, I'm rather slow!), but they aren't perfectly fitted yet, so I temporarily lose my vision every so often. And the list goes on: my eyes get sore/red really quickly; I can't sleep in them (BIG problem); I have to always carry around my glasses; they're a pain in the ass to clean, yada yada. I mean, who would have thought there was so much responsibility involved with those teeny pieces of plastic (or whatever they're made of)?!?

Anyways, hopefully, things will get better once I find the 'perfect fit' - although, that may never happen, because my astigmatism is so bad - but I think I will always prefer my glasses over contacts.

As a side note, classes are finally done for me (they've been done for about a week now). Outside of work, the rest of my time shall be filled with sleep, rollerblading, biking, and reading. I'm going to enjoy these next three months as much as I can before it's back to the grind.

Putting my Skillz to Good Use

Alright, so maybe I only have one real 'skill', and some of you think it's really not something I should talk about. But for once, my ability to get free stuff has been used for the greater good.

Every year, there's a science trade show held at the university, where companies advertise their products to the labs. There's lots of free items handed out, anywhere from the ubiqutous free pen, to the ever-so-rare travel mug or other doo-dads. I've been going to this trade show ever since I started working in a laboratory since undergrad, and I have quite the collection.

This summer, however, I will be helping to run a series of student lunch seminars at the medical sciences building, so I thought it would be nice if there were prizes for draws. So instead of going to this trade show for the free stuff, I SACRIFICED my time to approach each of the 100 display booths, asking for donations from the companies. Two and a half hours later (plus the time it took me to print off letters to give to each of these booths), I managed to get 40 business cards from people interested in helping out, and even some prizes from other groups. I still have to follow up on these prizes, but I'm quite pleased with what I accomplished today (excluding the fact that I haven't really studied for my exam yet =P ).

Of course, I also scored some nice free gifts for myself (although not as much if I hadn't been looking for those prizes). The highlights of the trade show: some very nifty looking lab glasses and a Telus t-shirt. The coolest prize, however, goes to Invitrogen, for their fluorescence calendar, which allows you to see fluorescent cells in 3-D! Yup, life is good.