A Blog:

This is a blog which features a cast of characters who I could only wish weren’t real. Unfortunately they are, so here we all are.

Entry 1:

Satan has returned from wherever Satan holidays (perhaps in a burning sea of flames and fire) and has made sure that everyone knows that her reign of terror for the year is resuming. It is not just Australia that is on fire, ladies and gentlemen, it is this laboratory too. Her absence from the laboratory for a few weeks has allowed some of us lowly PhD and MSc students, who currently do not ceremonially lick Satan’s sacred arsehole and have thus not been inducted into the secret circle of favourite demons, to get on with some much-needed work.

This period of peace and tranquillity was short-lived, as my phone buzzed with the notorious Whatsapp notification, from lab group, it signalled. Upon seeing the sender, Satan, my heart rate immediately increased while my finger shook as I opened the message complaining about the state of the labs, I knew that it was, as these public shaming’s on the lab group are aimed at me and my fellow cast offs. The group of us non-rim job givers. As I sat in my living room, I could picture Satan as she strolled through the labs, her burning eyes scanning every surface looking for something that was out of place. Never mind that the labs had been dirty before she and her circle of demons had decided to take their holiday, the truth does not matter in this version of hell I am in.

Sometimes I wonder what I did to end up in a modern, Indie version of Dante’s Inferno, and if I was a religious person perhaps, I would blame the usual culprits: evil, karma, curses etc, however I am not and can only hope that I am stuck in some sort of simulation (as Elon Musk so greatly believes) and I can only think that the entity controlling my Sim is some sort of sadist. Once upon a time, as most fairy tales begin (disclaimer, this not a fairy tale) I was once a promising young PhD candidate who had just graduated cum laude from a MSc. After four years of scraping the proverbial barrel, I am a shadow of my former self. Chronically tired, anxious, depressed, overworked, underpaid (from this year I have no income at all so let’s change that to unpaid), and nearing 30 with a slight case of alcoholism. I wake up every morning and question my life choices and decisions and wonder how that promising 23-year-old was so blind that he made the worst decision of his life, to pursue a PhD, in hells very own biochemistry research lab.

You see at the time I did not know all of this. The lab is headed by Florence Nightingale, who upon first appearances is a kindly, middle-aged lady who anyone would want as their PI (The head of the lab). Hell, I even felt lucky. Looking back at myself, and how innocent I was, I laugh, because if I don’t laugh, I would cry and drive myself off a bridge.

 Satan at that time also appeared nice, as the Devil is often perceived to be. I quote American Horror Story –“The devil I real. And he’s not a little red man with horns and a tail. He can be beautiful. Because he’s a fallen angel and he used to be God’s favorite.”  Hell, I was even inducted into the circle of favourites and performed the ceremonial arse-licking and routine rim jobs as much as I am ashamed to admit. But you see, demons are not supposed to think for themselves. Their job is to carry out Satan’s task with a smile. Their job is to make sure that Satan’s tea is never cold, because Satan likes Earl Grey with a slice of your soul. Their job is be agents in Satan’s manipulative plans and schemes against lab members Satan doesn’t like. Once you stop brown nosing and start thinking and acting according to your own conscience, then Satan discards you. If something goes wrong, you are blamed. You see, the truth is not the currency in hell and Florence Nightingale listens only to Satan. Satan has been around doing her post-doc for ten years  (how that is even possible without tenure I do not know, I have wondered myself how she has managed to cling on to her throne, most probably because of all the rim jobs she gives Florence Nightingale while Satan makes Florence Nightingale a cup of tea every morning).

 When I first entered the lab there were red flags that I admit I missed. Ignorance is bliss, or so they say, and those first few years for the best of my life. For example, Mary Shelley who sat in the corner seat, hunched over to make herself as small as possible. Satan told me that Mary Shelley was an unproductive PhD student and association with her was to be grouped in the undesirable category. Mary Shelley had been busy with her PhD for seven years now (I will definitely shoot myself before I get to that point)  and had been solely responsible for many lab disasters – the liquid nitrogen cannister going down with everyone’s cells (Mary Shelley had forgot to check), numerous equipment breakages (Mary Shelley was clumsy) as well as a host of other problems. I proceeded to avoid Mary Shelley like the plague, but as time passed, I observed. I saw that Mary Shelley was kind. That Mary Shelley would help me whenever and whatever I needed without complaint (I was a bumbling honours student at the time scared of most of the equipment. I’m not proud to admit it but I used to run away from the centrifuge), that she would offer me invaluable advice and short cuts that only a well-established researcher would know. As my eyes began to open, as I stood by while I witnessed unfair punishment, I started to slowly untangle myself from the manipulative web Satan had cocooned me in. I graduated with my master’s degree, having earned a cum laude. I was an excellent student and Florence Nightingale just had words of kindness and praise for me. Like a horse with blinders on, I only saw in front of me. I explained it away when I was given reagents to further my studies that others did not have access to. I also explained it away when Satan helped me and protected me, while others were thrown to the mercy of Florence Nightingale and labelled undesirables. Mary Shelley was accused of being wasteful in lab meetings. I saw how they tore her apart in front of all of us. They humiliated her week after week. They gave her a duty, and when she inevitably messed it up in some small way, they would fire her. I began to feel sorry for her and I started to spend more time with her. I stopped making Satan tea and buying her lunch. Satan observed and slowly stopped helping me with reagents. She began to tell Florence Nightingale that I was indeed wasteful myself. The year I began my PhD, Mary Shelly left with hers (that is another shocking story that I will elaborate on further in another post), and before I knew it, I was the new Mary Shelley.