In with the New

With today being Veteran's DAy in the US (I guess the equivalent of Rememberance Sunday back home), MUSC employees are, apaprently, entitled to a day off - although typically this doesn't seem to have reached the scientists yet - both most of our lab and others on campus all seem to be in as usual. Still, no rest for the wicked i guess. Anyway, in addition to remembering the war veterans, today is somewhat of a special day for me in that the lab are officially recognising the arrival of a postdoc from Japan (yet another!) to join the lab - in typical fashion by going out for a meal. The chosen restaurant - The Red Orchid (have i mentioned this before?), generally considered by Japanese and Chinese post docs as the best American-style Chinese restaurant in Charleston. So why is this important to me, i hear you ask?

Well, it's now official - i'm no longer "The New Guy". After 137 days of being in the lab, I can now, no longer, use the excuse that i'm new to hide behind when it comes to generally looking lost, messing up other people's experiments, accidentally pouring the wrong chemical down the wrong sink ("But I had no idea! I didn't see that large label in front of me!"), and other general mishaps. The baton of being new passes on and, i think, will stay with our new guy a bit longer (his English leaves a little to be desired and the fact he is living with our two other Japanese post docs means, i suspect, that it won't be getting much practice OUT of the lab). Interestingly enough, this is also a landmark in that it's my 101st post on here. Inwardly, i'm amazed that i managed to keep people reading even past post number 20, let alone this far.