Friday, July 27, 2012

Working Conditions?

I've noticed I seem to have a lot of habits and demands of my workspace while I'm in the lab, some of which make a lot of sense, and some of which make none at all.
For one, I'm fixated on having a clean work area. I like having what tools I'm using organized, I hate it when dust piles up.
I also really hate it when the lab in general is messy, and I'll usually try to clean it before I even start working on my own project if it's at the point where it distracts.
I have a couple dental tools that I almost have to have every time I work, because they're new and wonderful and get stuff done.
Lately, whenever I work on cleaning my Green River fish, I tend to have headphones on, playing music. Oftentimes this is to counteract the sound of an air scribe or just keep me entertained during the interludes between groups of visitors who stop to ask questions (beyond an inquiry for the restrooms). I slide the headphones off whenever visitors come up to the windows, but when I've got nowhere to focus my attentions but my fish, the headphones are on and playing loudly.
I've discovered that it's way too much fun to listen to soundtrack music while cleaning my specimen, because it's very hard to not feel incredibly cool when you've got music from Inception or Lord of the Rings playing as you work away at a slab of fossilized bone and limestone under the microscope. At least it makes every little bit of dust scraped away by the dental tools actually seem significant. Everything is significant to soundtrack music.

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