1 post tagged “career”

This thought occurred to me this afternoon after a little event in my Microbiology lab.

I was looking through a microscope at some pond scum (it was the basic "let's get everyone familiar with the microscopes" introduction).  At first I just saw these tiny rod-shaped bacteria squiggling around quite rapidly, and random bits of trash (dead plant matter, perhaps?).  Then I saw this object that was roughly ovular, with one end slightly pointed, and the other end had a very distinctive cap.  I get really excited and proclaim that I found an egg for a parasitic worm in my slide.  Then I had to put myself through the mental exercise of remembering what kind of parasitic worm it came from.  Clonorchis?  No, that can't be it.  Then the words japonicum and mansoni sprung to mind.  A schistosome, perhaps?

Of course, as soon as class gets out, I have to immediately look up these parasitic worms to figure out what it was...it was definitely something I saw in my Parasitology lab two years ago.  It turns out that it was Paragonimus westermani (I knew it was some kind of flatworm!).

Anyway, I go off to lunch, and on my way back, I reach an epiphany of sorts.  I got that excited over identifying . . . the . . . egg . . . of . . . a . . . parasitic . . . worm?  Perhaps I am on the right track after all, if I got excited over something like that.  Or if it wasn't that, maybe I was just excited that my brain hasn't turned to complete mush in the past two years.  I may just make it after all.