Lab Work
When people hear the words "lab," especially with respect to the sciences, images of beakers, fume hoods, and glassware strewn about often come to mind. I always found it pretty weird that we called our lab, (ICICS/CS 308) a lab. Looking up the definition of a lab, however, it makes perfect sense:
laboratory
lab·o·ra·to·ry /ˈlabrəˌtôrē/
noun
a room or building equipped for scientific experiments, research, or teaching, or for the manufacture of drugs or chemicals.
We don't manufacture drugs or chemicals, but we do conduct research and run experiments.
For the past 2 weeks or so, I've been going to the lab to work. I still work for Twitter, but one of the advantages of remote work is that I have the agency to really work anywhere I want. I could very well be working from home, but I feel like I get a better separation between work and life when I have a place for work, and a place for not work. It also helps that a few others have been coming in as well. Braxton has been coming for the past week, along with Katherine. Just having a dedicated space where other people are also working does a lot to keep me focused.
Sharing a lunch break also helps to keep me accountable as well. When I worked from home, I would often just skip lunch, or grab something quickly from the fridge and just sit down in front of my machine again. Not ideal.
I've generally just missed going to the lab and spending time with my labmates. I'd be lying if I said that they didn't have a sizeable influence on my decision to stay at UBC for grad school instead of going East. Hopefully I'll be able to continue doing this, but who knows what the world will look like a few months from now, or next week.