Another Day at Work

So I felt the need to talk about my day at work today.
I have been having a hard time at work.  I've felt frustrated, tired, stepped on, and pushed around.  Today started out no different.  As I trudged through the forest, I tried to shake the sleepy from my eyes, and get over my small frustrations.  I was a little snippy as well.  Now was the time for solitary.
The work pounded into me a sense of being, and calm. This is where I lived, making sense of something small, losing myself in science.
Just before lunch, the gel we were working on was ready to look at.  The samples we were trying to isolate DNA had been sitting in the stomach of a shark, where is fell prey to digestion and could potentially be heavily degraded.  If they were degraded, we wouldn't be able to get usable genetic information from the shark's last meal. 
I had slaved a little over these samples, being meticulous and careful with the DNA I knew would be hard to extract.  Today, the results of running them on an eletrophoresis gel would tell me if my efforts were fruitless or not.
In an amazing stroke of fate, about half my 19 samples had visible bands, with about 7 being very visible.  It was odd how something could make me so happy, but I suppose that's why I was in science.  It was the little things, there was where we found joy.
I prepared my proudly visible samples for PCR, and stuck them in the machine.  I was elated. I felt the work I put into them, the care come to fruition. I felt belonging and sense of place.  I felt science.
The walk home alone differed greatly from the first.  The tracks of the day were John Mayer, and I looked at the forest in the afternoon light with a special, happy Sara glow.  I felt accomplished.

The evening held grocery shopping and chats with Steven in his car, and all felt right, all felt calm.  Now to see what new days would bring.