…we pooled together our vegetables and had an unspoken…

For some people, the idea of sitting in a lab nonstop, pipetting, massing, boiling, freezing, and thawing isn't a dream job.  Lucky for me, though, my days are filled with much more than that.

My desk, complete with brand new computer,
snacks, a roll of toilet paper, and new school supplies.

I would say that the majority of my time is spent in the lab, but by no means the vast majority.  I have been doing a lot of reading the past two months; I am a mini-expert on white storks, and I am working on learning a bit about other birds too.  I also do my fare share of tiyuling (tripping, hiking, etc.); I am temporarily supervising a project in the Golan (in Hebrew) while the full-time supervisor is in Germany doing research; I am preparing for field work and feather collection in the Golan next month (I have to take a heights course so I can go up in the cherry-picker lift thingy); I attend random meetings (I shook the hand of the Minister President of Brandenburg Germany last week, there are articles here and here); and I am the resident English speaker.  Whether it's translating a word in a lunch conversation (the lab is majority Israeli with a postdoc from Spain and me, so when the postdoc is with us we speak English and when he's not we speak Hebrew) or proof reading a grant proposal, I get to do my fair share of editing and writing, which I have always enjoyed.  And in the lab I'm having a blast. 

I barely had any lab experience before starting here, and now I'm running my own trials with pretty good results.  My skill set and confidence are growing rapidly.  I feel settled into the lab, and I feel comfortable with my peers.  Even though we are working on a range of projects, some with no overlap whatsoever, we have a really strong dynamic; we all bounce ideas off each other, joke around, and eat lunch together in a circle in the grass every day.  It is so Israeli when we pool together our vegetables and have an unspoken chopping competition to see who can most efficiently cut miniscule pieces for our communal salad as we wait for our turn at the microwave.  My lab experience has been great so far, and I am looking forward to the next few years here!