What They Should Have Told You when You Signed Up for Microbiology

Want to become a Microbiologist, eh? Before you answer that question, think carefully what you know about this subject. The study of germs? Getting totally grossed out by a million different microbes that cause a million horrible diseases? Heh heh. Well, let me tell you something, people. It's nothing like what they say in those booklets, nothing at all like what your seniors have told you. Being a Microbiologist takes a lot of patients, a lot of guts... and some degree of insanity is required. I have taken it upon myself, therefore, to draw up a list of things that you will learn about as you go along (I'm telling you now so that the future shock won't kill you). And for those of you who are no longer freshies, this list serves as a "You know you're a real microbiologist when..." checklist. Here goes:

• You are required to learn 1,000,001 names of microorganisms, all of which are in Latin and make no sense. Then again, you are better off not knowing what they mean, especially when Haemophilus translates to 'bloodlust' in English.
• You will turn into a paranoid freak who lives in constant fear of catching dangerous diseases from your environment.
• You will become a social disaster, since all of your conversations will revolve around germs, germs and more germs, where they can be found and how they can enter your body and do horrible things to it.
• Face it - you'll be single for the rest of your life! As soon as those potential suitors hear that you're an expert on bugs, they'll run away screaming bloody murder.
• You are doomed to eternally smell of latex gloves and Savlon disinfectant. If you are allergic to latex gloves - tough luck!
• You will be working with real, live germs in the lab - most of which are perfectly capable of killing you.
• You will be required to inspect shit sooner or later. If that's not bad enough, you also have to take them apart to look for bacterial samples. Ugh!
• At some point or the other, for the sake of experiment, a large quantity of blood will be drained out of you by an incompetent doctor, using a big fat syringe.
• You are also expected to be brave enough to puncture your flesh and take your own blood using a nasty little metal device called the lancet. Try not to scream when you do this.
• You get to go to the beach, supposedly to collect sand and water samples, but basically it's the perfect excuse to hit the beach, prepare food unhygienically and go kayaking in the open sea. Whoo!
• It's supposedly against the rules for microbiology students to get First Class in their exams. A rule that the members of S.A.E.C. have repeatedly broken, however :)
• You will learn how to prepare really cool food in the lab. Actually summoning enough courage to eat them is a different matter entirely.
• You will spend most of your time picking dining outlets apart for their disregard for hygiene.
• Either that or you will rebel against your microbiology training and constantly dine in outlets where sanitation is a total joke.
• At some point or the other, you will start reciting Bergey's Manual in your sleep. You will dream of nothing but microbes.
• It's very easy to set fire to things in the lab, especially if you are Tycho Celchu and playing with spirit and fire.
• Forgetting to bring your lab coat means a mandatory death sentence, especially if it's for Virology lab.
• If you neglect to wash your hands after carrying out an experiment, don't try to put the blame on others when you come down with something horrible, say candidiasis or typhoid fever.
• Lab reports are approximately 30 pages long. Longer if they have anything to do with biochemistry.
• You will spend days memorizing painfully complex biochemical pathways for your physiology exam - only to discover that something mundane like phoosynthesis has been chosen instead
• You will develop an obsession for photostating every little bit of information that comes your way, none of which will ever be read once they are spat out from the photocopier.
• You will develop an obsession for washing hands vigorously with soap.
• Every time you see an air-conditioning unit or shower head, you will instinctively cry out, "Legionella! Legionella!"
• Before long, you will start talking to your germs. Tycho is living proof of this.
• You will be compelled to strike people in the nose when they refer to microbes as "evil disease-causing germs".
• Because of this, you will someday find yourself a spokesperson for the Microbial Rights Movement.
• Temporary insanity or not, you will found a society for appreciating microbes.
• There will come a time when you see a patient with a terrible disease, and you are more in awe of what the microbes can do rather than feel sorry for the victim. Or maybe I'm exceptionally cold-hearted.
• You will actually come to think of microbes as "pretty".
• When you fall down a muddy slope, you will be infinitely more worried about what microbes you might catch rather than just how you'll wash those mud stains out of your clothes.
• You will start thinking about how you can make musical instruments out of lab equipment.
• The microbes get better food than you do. Worse still, you have to play cook to these microbes.
• You will actually get to play around with multi-million-dollar high-tech space-age equipment - and not have to pay a single dime!
• "Clean", to you, means "disinfected, uv-radiated and autoclaved".
• Murphy's Law of Microbiology states that no matter how hard you try, anaerobic bacteria will never grow in the wonderfully anoxic, low redox homes you have created for them.
• You will no longer be sane by the time you hit third year. Red Flight† is the perfect evidence for this.

† Red Flight was the name of Farlander's clique in class, and in the Society for the Appreciation for E. coli, the unofficial microbiology department club. Farlander led the clique under the grandiose title General Wedge Antilles. Go figure.