The spy

My guide’s gone out of town. So I had to split not just my cells, but her cells as well today. I followed the protocol correctly for the most part, but I may just have messed up splitting her cells. I think I added too many cells to her plate while splitting them. As usual, I’ll know only two days later when I change the medium.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a biologist. Back when I was picking a college to join, a lot of people expected me to take up medicine. That’s how it works in India. If you’re good in bio, you’re expected to become a doctor. If you’re good in math or physics, you’re expected to become an engineer. If you’re good with people and talk well, you’re expected to become a lawyer. And if you do none of these, you’re expected to do an MBA and get into management. Thankfully, attitudes are changing now.

I don’t think I would’ve been happy as a doctor. I’m using a very crude analogy here, and I don’t mean to offend anyone, but a doctor is a little like a car mechanic. He doesn’t have to be involved in the design side of things. He needs to know how to patch things up. As a doctor, most of your day is spent looking at things that aren’t working right.

I’m not saying I’m on the design side. No sir! We’re nowhere near design, as far as life is concerned. No, I’m kinda like the industrial spies car companies employ to find out how a rival’s new thingamajig works. And when your rival car company is natural selection (which produced you in the first place), boy, do you have a lot of spying and analysis ahead of you!

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about the car analogies, I’m a car nut. I have a soft spot for Italian and German cars. And I think most American cars are just a waste of money and metal.