Pure Pedantry : How to waste time at work? Step 1: Read your friend's blog

Reality is always more complicated than you think.

Profile

Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine focusing in Neuroscience. He is due to graduate in 2032. He received a BS and a MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University -- where he spent most of his time drinking heavily and building vegetable catapults instead of learning information that would now be eminently useful. When he is not failing terrifically to perform his sworn duties, he enjoys watching bad movies, ethnic food, and running.

Pure Pedantry is a blog about science -- social sciences and otherwise -- as well as academic and scientific culture. No one can live on science alone, so I also like to dwell on pop culture, periodically explore the humanities, and indulge in other types of geeky goodness.

Jake is joined periodically by two wonderful guest bloggers: Kara Contreary and Kate Seip. See the About Page.

DISCLAIMERS: 1) Jake Young is not a licensed physician (yet). He is merely a medical student. The information published on this site is not intended for use in medical decision making. Please seek advice from a licensed, medical professional before making any health decisions. 2) The opinions expressed are my own or those of my co-bloggers. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments we currently attend.

Search this blog

How to waste time at work? Step 1: Read your friend's blog

Category: Haha, a funny
Posted on: December 11, 2007 5:13 PM, by Jake Young

What does Jake do when he has nothing to do? (Actually Jake has quite a bit to do, but he is desperately avoiding writing a manual for the use of MATLAB for his labmates, and for this purpose nearly anything short of dental surgery will do.)

Choice #1: Read his friend's blogs. Why not? It is not like any of us have more productive things to do than inspect the inane details of our friend's work lives.

Usually pretty dry, but every so often you are rewarded with comic gold. For example, this choice comment from Jess Wade, my friend who works at Penguin publishing in the fantasy and scifi division, is intriguing:

Had a fifteen minute discussion with Anne Sowards about which adjective to use in copy describing a vampire. The options were gorgeous, notorious, infamous, or no adjective at all. By the end of these discussions it's hard not to get a little loopy. The insouciant vampire! The punctilious vampire! The short but commanding vampire! The chaste but hopeful vampire! But clearer heads prevailed and I believe Anne went with gorgeous.

How about bloodsucking? Although I imagine that would get old after a while... We are dealing with sexy, scantily clad vampires, and the demographic of individuals who find the descriptor "bloodsucking" attractive is thankfully limited.

I really, really need to get back to work before I spend the next hour contemplating this.

Comments

Tch tch tch. "Bloodsucking vampire" is redundant. Perhaps you can claim that as evidence that your writing glands need to be invigorated, possibly with adult beverages, before you can efficiently generate that manual.

Posted by: jen_m | December 11, 2007 5:43 PM