Fulfillment - subconscious commitment
In what is a true - and inner peace -
For acceptance - for embroidery of oneself
In dark, almost frigidless - capability
And salvation - is no where to be found
Spit out the tongue - you almost ate it
Spit out the blood and bits - you chewed
Among the celestial thoughts of being
A timid and behaviourical brightness
In false full of 'less'-es and 'non'-s and 'in'-s
Words - neglect to be said - their weight
Is gone - with a passion - to thrive
But a lesser - is chosen - though - not you
Being the chosen one - but the vivid
Fragile and agonizing - white man's
Deals - quotes and problems - all from his head
Born from air and as chaotic

It’s Saturday morning at about 9am. I’m in the chemistry lab, a sterile looking room with 12 workstations that are like multi level kitchen islands with sinks and various lab gear. It’s the most fluorescently lit environment on earth and everything looks to be either white, stainless steel or glass.

I’m one of the two students in the lab this morning, so I’ve taken two stations at the far end of the room and I’m performing two experiments at once, I mean, why not get ahead?

Before I start a lab, I do a ‘cutsheet,’ It’s something I learned from my sister, Annick. The cutsheet lists every piece of equipment I’ll use (like a magnetic stirrer), every step I’ll perform (control the atmosphere), every safety measure I need to take (fume hoods), every chemical I will use (for instance alkyl halide in 0.1 concentration) and what my results should be. This is all more-or-less textbook - but I still hand-write it out myself.

It’s a quiet environment, I have my AirPods in and I’m listening to cello music - it’s relaxing. I’m performing two variations of nucleophilic substitution reactions - creating new carbon-carbon bonds. It’s Pretty standard stuff and I’m at the stage, in both experiments, where I combine reagents. When suddenly, a TA (teaching assistant) is stooping over my hunched, left shoulder.
“What do you have there?” He asked - let’s call him Lewis. I flinched. Ok, I jumped.

Lewis’ breaking the silence was sudden and intrusive. I hadn’t noticed him prowling about and for a moment I was flummoxed. I tapped my AirPods to stop the music.

This was irritating. See, anything I would say to him would sound like a child talking to an adult. He’s a doctoral student and to him what I’m doing is stupidly simple, like stacking blocks, but he’s put me in that position.

“I’m doing both variations of (problem set/homework) problem 5,” I motioned to the other station, “and I’m ready to introduce the Grignard reagent,” I couldn’t help a note of cringy defiance creeping into my tone, like a child expecting to be reprimanded.

“Are you..,” he started to say, I’m sure he didn’t mean for it to sound like an interrogation.
But I read his mind, adding, “I’m using anhydrous conditions and an ethereal solvent,” this time I said it like it should be obvious—and again I sounded childish and brittle (like an ignoramus)—to myself anyway—but I was at a loss. ‘God, I really need to be less defensive,’ I thought, mortified. I hate looking dumb.

He nodded his head, he’d been looking over my cutsheet. I gave him an upturned, sideways glance. Was he going to stand around observing or worse yet micro-manage me?
“Very good,” he pronounced, tapping my cutsheet lightly with an index finger, “carry on.”

He walked away, off to bother the other student, I hoped. Better him than me. I had work to do. I tapped my music back on, looking at my cutsheet.
Where was I?
.
.
Songs for this:
Havana by Brooklyn Duo
Carnival of the Animals: XIII. The Swan by Yo-Yo Ma & Kathryn Stott

There once was a woman from Norway
Who'd hang by her toes in the doorway:
     She went to her dude
     And his friends in the ****
And requested a fjordian fjour-way.

There was an Old Person of Crete,
Who walked on the ***** of his feet;
When they asked why it was, he responded, "Because,"
That taciturn Person of Crete.

There was an Old Person of Finland,
Whose cabin was upland and inland;
He lived in a region where fish spoke Norwegian,
That flapperous Person of Finland.

There was an Old Man of Geneva,
Who had an encounter with Shiva;
They patty-cake played in a hornet-loud glade,
Shiva and the Man of Geneva.

There was a Young Lady of Paris,
Whom ****** couldn't embarrass;
She wandered the city with ***** and *****
Exposed to the city of Paris.

There was an Old Husband of Arles,
Whose wife had a passion for quarrels;
All day and all night she'd invite him to fight,
That exhausted Old Husband of Arles.

There was an Old Man of Kyoto,
Who mastered supremely the koto;
His tea was the greenest, his dragon the meanest,
His koto the best in Kyoto.

There was an Old Man of Algiers,
Who listened with elephant ears
To streams and to trees and to birds and to bees
That delighted the Man of Algiers.

There was a Young Lady of Arles,
Who married a ****** named Charles;
When they asked, "Does it fit?" she replied, "Not a bit!"
That unsatisfied Lady of Arles.

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Whose ****** expressions were weird;
He'd grimace when glad and he'd twinkle when sad,
That curious Old Man with a beard.

There was an Old Man
Of Japan,
Whose limericks would never
Ever
Scan, that instupendious Old Man of Japan.

I was thinking that If we create an all-knowing, all-wise and all powerful AI, we should probably pay someone to sit next to its electrical plug.

There’s a lot of heat when all eight
of us suite-mates get together.
I might have mentioned it somewhere.
We’re like surround sound,
eight car alarms going off together,
it’s jabberwocky by an established team.

It can get frantic and maybe frightening
for the uninitiated or inhibited.
Some of us are pretty boy-crazy
and there’s a mix-in of twinkling girl-crazy too.
We’re basey, bugzee, spaceheads and freaks,
yeah, we're the whole emotional spice rack.

“She’s a good person to **** time with,”
is pretty high praise around here
because we have so little free time.
But these are good people to **** time with.

And we’re portable, we travel, we invade,
we’re crazy young women who’ve got it made.
So if you’re coming at us, trying to enter our enclave,
you better be brave or a situational upgrade.
.
.
Songs for this:
No New Friends (feat. Sia, Diplo & Labrinth) by LSD
Lysergic Bliss by of Montreal
Freedom Is Free by Chicano Batman
.
.
slang…
basey = a cool loser, nice but a bit odd, a ****** with style
bugzee = slightly crazy
spaceheads = people who talk about weird things

There once was a man with a flu
Who ran in the night to the loo:
     He stubbed all his toes
     In consecutive rows
While filling his knickers with poo.

There’s an old joke, “Procrastinate NOW, because
the sooner you fall behind, the longer you’ll have to catch up.”
Ha ha.

While a lot of students around here, even the good ones,  
are procrastinators, I’m a diagnosed pre-crastinator.
I obsess over syllabuses and start things immediately.
I've got rough drafts of things due three months from now.
I’m a planner. Leisure time makes me itch.

I say that to say this, I’m reaping my rewards.
There’s a palpable layer of fret in the air.
Everyone's (the seniors) talking about their theses,
and how they need to start it—first thing yesterday.
I just listen, playing Flappy Bird on my phone, because I’m done.

When my professor handed my thesis paper back the other day,
he said, “This is good.” At first, I was delighted, quietly rocking it inside.
Then I floundered, becoming somewhat indignant. Why’d he sound surprised? Because I handed it in a little (80 days) early?
But soon enough, I was back to happiness.
I’ll have to defend it one day, but I’ll go first, wait and see.

Shall we wax poetic?

I’m like the sea, always restless
and I enjoy the flavor of honest effort.
I dub snark, and the little, jealous glances,
I blunt them with chey smiles, while thinking,
‘I’ll row my boat, and you row yours—just a little slower.’

Let them whisper me freakish
though I win a thousand crowns,
the real pleasure lies in my gun slinger’s sang-froid,
to finish the commission first and be the best.
.
.
Songs for this:
Let Me Down Easy by Gang of Youths
Let Me Go by CAKE