but, obviously, smaller. She had it done yesterday, but had subsequently realized that it looked unprofessional and had watched endless YouTube videos until about 3 am until she figured out how to flip the ring up inside her nose. Though piercings, tattoos, and other forms of body art are incredibly (and surprisingly, for me) common in the city, our lab was buzzing about it all day. It got me thinking about the piercings that I've seen. I think the strangest one was a guy who had the skin between his eyebrows pierced. A lot of the piercings are so unexpected you doubt yourself at first and have to do a double-take "yep that actually happened" glance.
Since the lab was in a chatty mood, we also covered how old people were. As usual in a lab, people were way older than me. The next youngest was Sergio, at 24, but most of the rest were in the 28-early 30s region. It's funny because they act like children! For example, Sergio was so upset at how old the discussion made him feel that he created a water bottle-and-folder barricade between us. He's hilarious.
The rest of my morning was spent finishing up my literature reading, which has been pretty darn extensive. I think I've read between 50 and 60 articles at this point. I even got one that I've been failing to find sent to me by Momma Yale. I'm having a bit too much fun with online resources. The slightly disturbing trends that I've noticed is all the strange places that people attach second hearts on lab animals (usually rats) when they are testing graft rejection. Sites have ranged from femur to cervical spine (aka your neck) to the groin area. Just seems a bit strange to me.
The day ended as it began - with piercings. While on the subway home with Mireia, another coworker, a homeless man with rollerblades (very popular exercise here) laced through a broken skateboard slumped through cars asking for money. He leaned down over me and spoke with a slurred accent I couldn't really understand, but anyway all that I could look at were his piercings. He had several in his nose, but instead of rings or bars or studs or any of the seemingly normal things, he used safety pins. I'm really glad Nadia didn't opt for one of those.
Spotted: the boss of the cardiovascular department's obsession with the United States. He even asked me to lunch next week so we can discuss US politics, my hometown, and the country in general. He was practically hopping up and down in the lab just thinking about it. I have no idea what this lunch is going to be like.
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