Sure, the field days sound exciting and magical, don't they? So, of course, it's hard not to want to paint the picture that that is what it's like to be a marine biologist. But I don't get to do that kind of work often. Here's an average day in my life, a work day, is like:
5:30 am Wake up. Roll over, look at the clock, curse loudly. Try to sleep a little longer.
6:00 am Alarm goes off. More cursing.
6:15 am Manage to stumble out of bed, clean myself up, and get dressed.
7:00 am First, read e-mail. Second, check facebook. Third, check comments and such on ScienceBlogs. Fourth, read the several hundred items in my Google Reader. Fifth, hit up Twitter. Curse the fact that there are too many damned things I need to keep up with on the internet.
8:00 am Prepare for the day, usually entailing planning lab work, getting together anything I need for errands, writing a to-do list, etc. E-mail a few people begging for tissue samples. Deal with financial crap. And, if I have to call someone on the mainland, now is the time... curse time differences.
9:00 am Head to the lab. This involves a nice long ride across the island, then a short boat ride (seriously - a boat ride, every day) to another island.
10:00 am Labwork. Lots of playing with pipettes (PCR, DNA extractions...). I know, I'm a marine biologist, but here's a little secret - I spend far more time indoors than in the water.
12:00 pm Lunch! Yes, I do eat. You might have noticed I skipped breakfast. Right about now, I realize that, too. Damn, I really meant to have breakfast. Tomorrow - tomorrow I will remember to have breakfast.
12:30 pm More pipetting. Throw some stuff in machines and let them do the work, after some kind words to appease the PCR gods. Sit down at my computer, and try really, really hard to work on grant proposals and data analysis, with limited success. Spend 25% of the time playing around with how best to organize my data (like changing the length of sample names, or adding columns in my Microsoft Access Database), and another 25% on Facebook. Curse Facebook.
5:00 pm Back across the water and the island. Probably drop something off to get sequenced. Curse Honolulu traffic.
6:30 pm Catch up on all that internet stuff again. If I can (I never do).
7:00 pm Realize I should probably eat something, seeing as I'm starving. Check the cabinet. Curse being a graduate student.
7:05 pm Eat ramen. Or canned something-or-other. Probably followed with something entirely healthy like Cookie Dough.
7:15 pm Force myself to actually do some reading and writing - sometimes blogging, sometimes grants. Supposed to be grants. Curse grant agencies, just for good measure.
9:15 pm Decide I've been being a good girl, so I get to watch a TV show or something. Relax.
10:15 pm Decide it's getting late, and I should probably get some sleep.
10:20 pm Write a blog post instead.
12:00 am Ok, now I really need to get some sleep. Set blog post to post in the morning, and head to bed.
5:30 am Wake up, roll over, and curse loudly. Though, I think, at least it's not a field day... I mean, I did get more than four hours of sleep.
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Sounds about right, though I usually check e-mail and blog stuff before getting out of bed. Just wait until you reach the 0600 - 2100: write page of thesis, delete said page, point
Man, you're graduate existence seems much more strenuous than mine (granted, I just started). Maybe it's because I'm on the mainland, but I'd trade Wisconsin for Hawaii in a heartbeat!
I think pipetting can be fun too...find joy in everything, I always say.
That doesn't sound bad at all. I have a 1hr commute to work and a 1.5hr commute back. And at work, I can't even access facebook! Now, I work in small biotech(They're slave drivers!!!), but I think pipetting is ok!...unless you have a bajillion samples!
I was a grad student before there were computers. Delete all the computer stuff out of your day. Put in typewriter, reading hard copy, and communication by snailmail letter and land lines instead. (Mail was delivered twice a day back then.) Writing for reprints I needed, etc.