BostonBios - is this not America?

Paraphrasing David Bowie the day begins as the working week is ending. I start walking on Brighton Avenue with Beth Orton singing "Comfort of strangers", as I am still as much of a stranger as I feel strange after a whole month in the US. The streetcar slowly slides on Commonwealth on our way to Boston University, the sun is making its shy appearance behind New England's thin but almost permanent cloud layer. Boston University Central, I am starting to think about work and no comfort is to be found in any song. Over the past few days I have gone from worrying that work is not going well, through doubting about my aptness in it, to finally realizing that something is going wrong. Still hanging on through one of the, seldom, self-esteem panic attacks that took me over two days ago, I pump up the volume of the Rolling Stones as the streetcar approaches Blanford Station. "All down the line", this is where I get off.

As I sit myself at the desk, getting my laptop out of my backpack, I am still thinking. Is this what I was hoping for in the US? Tough call. A great city, some of the finest minds of science strolling on the same sidewalks, ambitious students trying to cope with inspiring professors, all seems to be here but something is still missing. Is it me that is not fit for this or am I still having trouble to conciliate with the nature of research? Is something really going wrong or have I just lost my calm, placid, philosophical approach to scientific work? And if it is so, what is wrong with me? Have I lost it?

I see all these people constantly talking about science, perpetually overwhelmed by their ideas or struck by the lack of them, astounded or frustrated by their results. Distraught in their small, isolated worlds, where a protein may be more important than summer coming, or a plot more meaningful that the full moon. It suddenly hits me. Where has the fun gone? I check my e-mails and amazingly feel homesick for a place, where I have only lived and worked for less than a year and a half. I watch the video of my colleagues back in Barcelona, celebrating the first anniversary of the new institute building and there I realize that fun somehow is an endemic species of the Mediterranean.

The day goes on, void of serious thoughts, with unimportant results filling the vacuum. Around five I am the only one left in the lab, alone in front of the screen with John Coltrane's sax and Eric Dolphy' s flute, keeping me the kind of company you can only appreciate when lonely. I am still having trouble believing how everybody is gone so early. I always had the idea that people in the US work crazy hours. But on second thought and given that I haven't heard a single joke (let alone a laughter) in the lab over these three weeks, I can understand why everyone is so eager to leave early. This is a strictly working place. We take positions early in the morning, make it through our shift with our headphones on and head on home with relief as soon as possible.

Gandhi once said that "what we do is not important, but it is important that we do it". I just hoped one of the things for which Gandhi died would be that some of us - maybe still a few but hopefully soon to be more - would also be able to enjoy part of what we are doing. If not, at least try to make it this way, mixing everyday work with the real life, the laughters, the irony, the feeling that you are sharing the desk with other people and not just "scientists", with whom you can also talk about football, rugby, women (or maybe men), music instead of just "false positive rates". Coming from a country that does not deserve any merit in science and research for the last two millenia, I find it hard to believe that I ended up even reminiscing my lab days in Greece, where we had no subscriptions to journals, fast internet or air-condition that actually worked. At least there, you would walk down the hall and people would say. There you would take your breaks talking about sports or politics to the people next door.

I shut down my computer, lock the door and make for the elevator. On my way I say "goodbye" to the cleaning-guy who looks surprised. He has still not been used to me being the only person on the floor talking to him. But then again, I still find it hard to see people looking the other way when I say "hi" upon meeting them on the corridor.

This is not me complaining. It's just me realizing.
Realizing that I have a great job and realizing that it is great not because of its nature but because me and my colleagues have fortunately decided it should be made in one specific way. That is the Mediterranean way, the fun way.