Ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? - 幸运

The analysts in America have announced 600,000 jobs were just lost in the month of January alone. While the government try desperately to inject the umpteenth hundred billion dollar bailout rescue package into the economy, the world crumbles before us into apocalypse.

But seriously, it's not all doom and gloom, there must be some winners. Who are they? Well, academics for a start. Those who have just graduated fresh out of university in the embryonic stages of career are facing the worst employment climate ever, so naturally, they are stampeding back into the classroom. Those who were on Wall Street earning millions and now out of the job ie former Lehman Brothers, Meryll Lynch, Deutsche Bank, RBS employees are returning back to their Ivy towers of learning - mostly back to economics and law of course. Interestingly, women are now also big gainers. I won't be surprised if by the end of next decade, most of the jobs in the city and in the power houses of governments are predominantly ruled by women, swaggering around in their custom-fit power suits and inch high leather business shoes, Hillary Clinton-permitting.


Then there are the lucky few like me, who have always been on the fringes of society, in academic science research and have not ever left research yet. Believe me, I've contemplated about it, like every other graduate student in their deepest, darkest hours spent in the abyss of hair-tearing experiment failures / thesis writing. I'm still contemplating about leaving right now! But then, I've never been on the dole, never gone to a job centre (to actually search for a job) and never faced a situation where I have to ask "what the hell do I do now I that I can't afford to pay for my next meal?" I guess sometimes it pays to be NOT good at Maths-Physics-hardcore male dominated subjects in school and not get into a finance / mega corporation city job. Besides, at the end of the day, medical research is a very worthy cause and you're trying to improve human life instead of JUST making money for yourself. I speak with glee and a self-righteous laugh when I say, I am well set to weather the economic storm - at least until my contract runs out at the end of next year, by which time I will crawl down to the job centre queue for the first time in my life and beg for mercy.

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This week, Lost in Americana runs off into the freshly fallen Philadelphia virgin snow and jumps around like a crazy Homer Simpson-type monkey making footprints while taking pictures to save later for laughing at himself. All this is done during the work day because he returns home early, comfortable in the knowledge that being a scientist without animals to work with and with no after work social network means you can skip home early to make a fool of yourself. It's almost like being unemployed, except you are being paid just about enough to cover your ass and feel just enough pride to keep going. Skipping home early this week also serves a dual purpose in order to avoid the suddenly depressing hush hush atmosphere in the lab brought on by that F.O.B. argument described in the previous blog. I feel sorry for one of those postdocs. Having stayed in America for nearly a year, not managing to publish any papers, to then deal with "I think you are stupid" accusation by another foreigner will probably put her off coming to the US (or at least to this university) ever again. It's not like they even have a bar to go drinking in / people to talk to after work in order to drown their sorrows like the "real" Americans.