Embedded on a chair behind a laptop, with no access to the university labs in the foreseeable future and hands-on research activities stalling, Felicia resides ensconced:
I need to access my lab to do my research, but I am not allowed to go. What can I do?
Dear Felicia,
Not very much by the looks of it. I suggest: take a load off and get some sleep. Wean yourself off of that 12-16 hours a day routine, and relax for once in your life. It’s the golden age of television. Or streaming (with lower bit rates nowadays…). Make use of that. With news coverage almost exclusively delivering stills of (mostly) empty streets and declining stock markets, there’s no point in considering impending recessions or looming hermit life; those people in charge have got it. The politicians were well prepared and saw all of this coming well in advance. You just sit tight and relax. Of course, there’s no sports program or channel worth mentioning; otherwise several hours per day should be dedicated to snooker. Who doesn’t like a good clean-up? Those kitten videos are not going to watch themselves though. This is time to catch up. Make one of those memes the kids are talking about. Maybe there’s some money in it for you too; this is the time to acquire a contingent of followers on the social media platform of your choice (except for this magnificent blog of course, that’s ours). Don’t you have some golf clubs laying around; your toilet paper roll fortress is not going to defend itself. And you’re lady Craps-a-lot. Pro Deo, Domo, Patria, I would say.
I put it to you; with so many people attached to their screens, why would you not board that brimful bandwagon? Especially now that your daytime job is proving unfruitful. Are you going to break into your university lab to wash your rock samples as fiercely as you’re washing your hands? Will you leg it in there for a fibered hardline into the university’s network, transfer some gigabytes of data and vamoose again? With the unavoidable consequence of a repeat skedaddle in a couple of days time. There’s no doubt that you could compound your agitations with a swift submergence into the quagmire of scientific literature and fight against it, mired in erudite quicksand. Resistance is futile; just take a breather and loosen up a little.
Of course, you could follow these cogent suggestions propounded by some of our colleagues, but where’s the fun in that? Granted, the only proper suggestion in there is the option of writing a guest post for this blog. That is the only lucid recourse worth mentioning.
Yours truly,
The Sassy Scientist
PS: This post was written as an exercise in relaxing. Do you feel as relaxed as I do?
