Friday night and my head is empty. Been on the road again for about 18 hours this week to work 4 days in Suzhou. Achieved nice things with my intern Kelly, made a start on setting up a calibration curve in buffer Y (our “own” buffer for the E. coli we have growing in the lab) in milk. Furthermore: I have been ampicillin growth curves; filling modules; testing new 3D printed cassettes; analyzing modules. And also: did a health check for my working permit, wrote a patent; customized a 3D design; looked for investments; customized slide decks; and wrote new internship projects.
All small nudges in the project that I have christened SquaredAnt. Sometimes I twitch in fear when I suddenly, in a flash, feel that I’ve headed in a completely wrong direction. Am I getting out of myself what I have? Or, perhaps the question should be: do I have what I need to succeed?
One small success of the week is a new bacterial line. It doesn’t grow very fast, but it seems sensitive. Let me call this one Sam.
The train races through the evening, heading to Shanghai in one go. The dark sky is reflected in the water next to us. A little further away lies an illuminated highway, fairly deserted. Chinese New Year is coming. Most people are already on their way home, to faraway cities in the west, but apparently not via this highway.
The perfectly straight lines that connect Chinese cities come from the same rigid planning system to which the people here also owe their daily existence. When Chinese New Year arrives, the country turns its back on this system for a while. It leaves behind the concrete paradise, where the cameras are aimed at, and returns to the cosy, spontaneous, family-oriented, nourishing family home, and awakens from a hibernation that has again lasted another year.
Written on January 18, 2019