This pretty much sums up how I feel after my requisite daily sessions of hovering over my cute little friends with a syringe.
My mice hate me.
Of course, I would hate, as well, anyone who belonged to a giant hand that picked me up by the tail two to three times a day only to slap me onto a cage lid, press me down flat, pinch my ears, squeeze my scruff, and turn me practically upside-down to shove a gavage down my throat and inject exactly 0.2 mL of sterile water deep into my esophagus. Especially if that someone had shaky hands and large fingers that often grasped my ears too hard or my tail too hesitantly, whipped me around the hard metal bars more than a few times to adjust her angle of clumsy attack, and poked unsteadily around in my throat for a while before finally figuring out the crucial difference between my digestive tract and my windpipe.
Two summers of toxicology reviews, a few months of human dexterity testing, and nearly four years of computerized cognitive batteries and polysomnography wiring. Three more years of language study and a desk job in translation and market research. I’ve definitely evolved into a dry-lab scientist. I have a lot of work to do before I can make any meaningful mark in this wonderfully exciting and challenging field of neuropharmacology.
But, in the meantime, it seems that my mice will hate me.
I love this page I am sure the mice don’t hate you. It sounds as though you are doing very interesting work though. Great website. Thank you for sharing it with me.