OK - so I'm a graduate student. I'm in my fifth year, studying genetics. (five loooooong years...).

So when I'm at a party, or some other social gathering situation, and I'm having a conversation with someone I just met, it goes something like this:

"so what do you do?"

"I'm a graduate student."

"really? what do you study?"

"genetics..."

at which point, one of two things happen:

1. the person's eyes get real big, and they say something like, "wow, you must be really smart." and then "I'm going to refill my drink/find the bathroom/wash my hair."

then they flee like a frightened chipmunk.

OR

2 "wow! I think genetics is fascinating! What do you think about cloning? I saw this thing on the news blah blah blah stem cells blah blah blah diseases blah blah blah amazing discovery blah blah blah save the world. So what do you study?"

And here's where I'm supposed to say: "I study DNA repair in yeast"

"bread yeast, or the icky kind?

"bread yeast."

"oh..."

And they too, flee like frightened chipmunks.

So, instead of the boring truth, when approaced with the "what do you do" question, I say that I clone headless babies and harvest their organs.

I'm pretty sure that deep down inside, that's what most people believe that geneticists do, anyway, and that even though they may act horrified to hear it out loud, they are secretly saying to themselves "i thought so!"

Plus it's REALLY fun to see that expression on their faces - horror, disbelief, and awe.

doesn't change the fact that I still have to go into the lab on monday and attempt to continue my 2D gel project.

the headless baby thing might be getting a little old, though. I wonder if there's any other horrific genetics experiments I could fake doing...

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