A Friday that was not meant to be...

I was looking forward to the weekend as Friday approaches, there was the promise of a great meal and most of all, Korean Fest! I get to indulge in a night of nothing but great looking Korean men and get to to know ALL about him or them hee....

But at work things seems to get out of my hands even if i tried to keep it within my control.

I was tasked to "mentor" a 3rd year student in the lab. A 3rd yr, your average joe kinda student, who had little training or experience in a real lab. You can imagine my pain. I dun think I can ever be mentally prepared enough to "mentor" undergraduates anymore. The lack of respect for other's workspace, safety, cleanliness and worst of all, the lack of the sense of responsibility pissed me off big time.

There were many occassions where my reminders and advises were turned as deaf ears and later on I get deemed as a "bad teacher" through my boss. How fair is that? Well, my boss did mentioned that "nothing is fair in this world". Perhaps this was an appropriate situation to remember that advise from my boss. Fine, I do not have to be a good teacher to everyone. But at least I get to chose which method I use for each 'student' under me.

So here I have an undergraduate who is over-laden with normal school work and trying to carry out a project which requires alot of planning and conscience thinking. Not only did I not see the plans (after many many reminders.... because we do have to SHARE our equipment....). So when I learnt that this fella wanted to conduct a new set of experiment, I gave specific instructions, defined conditions, even handed the equipment into the hands.... yet mistakes were made!!! I honestly do not know HOW to be a GOOD teacher to this "student".

For those who knew me..... i would have chopped the fella's head off for such kind of mistakes. But I took it in as I knew that it wasn't easy for a young person to step into the lab and live up to its expectations....(what expectations you may think, i wonder sometimes myself too!). So I took a deep breath and asked "How?". The response "just used the wrong one, sorry", I do not know to consider this dumb or brainless.

Then, the friend who kindly came along for the whole week to assist this fella placed the glove wearing hand with ethidium bromide on my writing desk! My eyeballs nearly jumped out! I pointed at the gloves and said "Please do not put any gloves on my table."

With a please in front, does one consider that as rude? ha ha ha....

I have a good mind to give this young fella a lab safety course. But i asked myself is there a point? Would it be heard? Would it be practised? I'm stil thinking about it.