Here’s a wonderful post from Abbie Smith, AKA ERV. You probably need to be a working scientist to appreciate it fully, but Abbie gives a great description of her working day as a grad student down in the pits of bench science, where everything is easy but even the easy things are difficult.

Incidentally, don’t let Abbie’s LOLcat prose turn you off. It’s just how she writes blog entries, with various affectations such as refusing to use apostrophes in contractions. I’m not sure why she does that. When we exchange email, she writes fluent and literate English prose. Perhaps it’s because Abbie likes to be underestimated by creationists and other anti-science folks. When they do that, which they do regularly, they are making a serious mistake. Abbie has a first-rate brain and the heart of a pit bull.