New Deal

So the lab is once again full with four, count em...four new undergraduate peons...I mean students. WPI requires each graduating senior to do a senior project, their MQP, which typically focus on some form of original research. I now have two of these MQP students working directly beneath me. In addition, two more undergrads doing an independant study under me in plant tissue culture. They all work half days but, unfortunately, more often then not they work the same half days. Questions abound and I'm starting to think that I should get one of those big red deli ticket dispenser machines for the lab. That way each could take a number and I could answer questions when i was ready to do so and in turn...first come first served. They are actually making some significant progress which makes up for the slow down in my own work when they show up. In something almost unrelated, the WBDC is razing a building across the street that used to be part of Worcester Voke. In short, it is soooo cool. All the big machines I would see as a kid and want desperately to drive around and demolish things are now right next door. Huge arms painted in caterpillar/tonka colors ripping apart bricks, mortar, I-beams, and concrete. Once again, even at 24 I want to be down there maneuvering in and out of piles of rubble ripping a perfectly good building to shreds in the name of progress and reinvigorating a community. There is a certain purity in working with your hands and creating (or destroying) something physical and real and outside of intellectual pursuits. I often wonder what my life would be like now if I devoted my time to some other more concrete vocation. Could I be a welder? A carpenter? A mechanic? Maybe some day when i retire or sell my first company I will find a new life as a tradesmen...doesn't seem half bad. I'm sure they look up here from time to time and think the same...the grass is always greener. Patrick OUT!