Quality Craftsmanship

As we move ever closer to finishing up in the lab and sending everything away, I can't help but notice that there are many things here that are, in fact, falling apart.  I'm not sure what this is a reflection of, be it the somewhat sad state of the lab after contracting several times for other students from different labs to move in, or simply a reflection of the fact that we're not really getting anything new in anticipation of the lab moving, but what it has turned into is a somewhat panicked state of trying to keep everything together while we try to finish up.

In the past few weeks, a number of pieces of equipment have fizzled out.  Granted, some were quite old (the oven that started shooting off sparks apparently dated back to 1959), but others suffered from some malady or another that made them inactive and made us question whether it was worthwhile to fix them.  A broken centrifuge that's technically property of the department, for example, gets attention eventually... that pair of gloves for taking hot glassware from the (now broken) oven, not so much.

This is also why I burned myself taking glassware out of the (currently working) oven this morning.

I find it interesting to be in this state, this "fugue" of sorts where we sort of have to keep working, keep pushing, without really having an end goal other than "this is when you have to move out".  We've been informed that we're probably going to have contract even more if we're still here in July.  Hopefully that won't be the case (both that we'll have to contract, and that we'll still be active in the lab in July), but it's a somber thought because it means that we're gradually becoming more and more insignificant in the department.

Don't tell anyone I said that, though.

The other thing that I wanted to get to about quality craftsmanship (or lack thereof) is my teeth.  In particular, one of those little guys popped out today, less than a year after being put in there.

I should clarify - I have two fake teeth (both of my maxillary lateral incisors, in case you care), the result of them simply not being there as an adult.  Since 2000 I have had fake teeth attached to the surrounding teeth by use of dental bridges, which were not supposed to be permanent solutions but are suitable substitutes for surgical implants, which I currently can't afford.  And, since 2000, the left bridge has been in place, no problems.  The right bridge has been replaced perhaps 4 times since then.

Last March was one of those times... and it came out again.  Today.

So, I have an appointment in the morning to (hopefully) keep myself from falling apart further. *UPDATE* Fixed up, free of charge!  They felt really bad about it, too.  Turns out that they used a type of dental bonding that uses blue light to cure the adhesive, but for whatever reason it didn't stick to my teeth!  This time they used a combination of light and chemical bonding that should keep it in place this time.  Time will tell...

Let's just hope we can keep it together (literally) for finishing up grad school this spring.