it's saturday and i'm the only one in my lab. the only thing keeping me company is my Beta Band disc -- their most awesome Three EPs. it's perfect in this completely dark setting.

i should have given more credence to my gut instinct when i first visited this lab before i started working here. it was eerily lifeless, and there was no music -- only intensely serious-looking graduate students focused on their work.

physics is their life.

...it isn't mine.

lab life has improved dramatically since i moved a computer with a sound card into the laser lab, but the fact is that i'm still not where i belong.

my supervisor and i have polar opposite personalities, not to mention priorities. i can't really talk to him about anything other than work. we're not friends -- something i'm not all that used to in a supervisor. when i did research in my undergrad, all of my supervisors were my friends. we'd shoot the shit and hang out together.

i'm happiest now when i'm with the campus newspaper kids and insulated in their shortlived bubble of idealism. for the past seven months, i've been doing the layout for the newspaper (something that my supervisor can certainly NOT know about), and the staff is amazing. they're all so genuine -- i couldn't have asked for better co-workers, really. the year's coming to an end and i know i'm going to miss them a shitload of a lot. i also know that, as much as we'll try, most of us won't be able to keep in touch.

they've all got shit going on, and i'm happy for them. one of them is interning at TIME magazine, for crap's sake. one of them recently got elected the regional bureau chief of CUP, the national student press co-operative, another got an internship at his home paper (after only his first year of student journalism -- a pretty incredible accomplishment that i know many people would have liked for themselves), and one of the news editors recently got hired to work at an equestrian magazine down in virginia. one of my best friends back home managed to hook himself up with another year in the bubble by getting elected as the incoming editor-in-chief. he's also responsible for planning the national CUP conference that happens each year in january. he's got his hands full, but he sounds awfully happy to be where he is.

it seems i'm the only one left wringing my hands. i've applied to a master of publishing program at simon fraser university -- it's got an amazing reputation and it only accepts 18 people a year. i haven't heard anything from them at all, and the application deadline was months ago. i'm more than a little frustrated that they didn't even do me the courtesy of acknowledging receipt of my application package or letting me know when i'd actually find out whether i've been accepted.

i'd call them and ask, but the lady advising for the program sounds pretty disorganized and generally useless. she sent a book i'd ordered from her to the wrong address, and sent me an application package covered in coffee stains. funny how i still desperately want to be accepted, even as much as they've jerked me around.