Meeting with the Boss

I finally mustered up the courage to set an appointment with him about an idea for a project. Too bad that the night before I discovered that Hoffman has been working on it since the early '90's.

I had nothing to talk about except how I had thought it would be a good project until I saw all the work that had been done in Drosophila. I thought that instead of approaching it from an interspecific point of view we could look at intraspecific differences in respiration pattern due to loss of water or changes in amount of oxygen. We could also look at behavior, etc.....and tie it all up with some genetics.

He said: "Well, we're not looking to win the Nobel prize with your first project, but we should try to find an interesting question".

I think that means he didn't like it. I thought it was interesting. He said he wasn't trying to be insulting, but that a lot of people where already looking at that sort of stuff. And I completly agreed, even before we started talking.

My major goal was just to go in there and talk to him. I haven't been able to do that. That was accomplished. I am happy with that.