The Roller Coaster of Life!!

Since Friday I have had some serious ups and downs.

It started on Friday with quite alot of stress at work. I had a lot to accomplish and I did manage it, however both my bosses were going to be on holiday until today (Wednesday) and that we had some 200 urgent samples that needed doing and the data had to be checked and out by (this) Friday. So without going to in depth into what I have to do for my job, I had to do about 4 hours work on Friday (not in total! just on one thing) then one of my friends was going to come in on Sunday and put it on an instrument (mass spec if you care). I was told before my bosses disappeared that it had to work! So that put on quite a bit of pressure.... This was trough one!

Then I hit a peak. I went away to Otford manor in Kent. It's in a beautiful part of the country and the weather was magnificent. I was there to help out around the place as the had a (50 strong!!) worship group from one of the churches in London staying. So lunch needed preparing, as did dinner and breakfast (probably not in that order!), toilets needed cleaning. The place just needed to keep ticking over! It was wonderful to be part of a good team. A Christian team. Everyone helped out with a smile on their face which was great! I got some time to chill out and had a wander around the grounds. Anyway, this was fantastic. I then headed back into London on Sunday and chilled out with my brother which was amazing (I love hanging out with my family) we had out usual just me and him chat about all things technological and film where I often ask a question that he starts answering then I ask another and so it goes on till we have entirely forgotten the original question! Anyway so this was great. Peak One.

Then I got into work on Monday, to find that the stuff that "had" to work didn't. This was a pain. So there were three of us (a senior scientist, a scientist and me a student scientist) trying to figure out what to do. Which we proceeded to do. Fortunately the scientist (we shall call her Barry) redid all my Friday work and ran that over night. While me and the senior scientist (we'll call her Victor) planned the next few days (still with the intention of trying to get all 200 samples done before one of my bosses came back on Wednesday (today). This was stressful. Trough 2.

Tuesday got better. The work that Barry did passed. So we decided to do all three batches (including the 200 samples) on Tuesday. All three of us worked pretty hard and well as a team. But this is what made it fantastic: Barry and I often have chats about religion. I'm a Christian and she's a Sikh. We often ask questions about each others religions. Also recently we've been talking about music. These two topics came into a collision! We were both waiting for something and when we got what we were waiting for she said Hallelujah. This made her start singing Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen/Jeff Buckley/Rufus Wainwright/Alexandra Burke/Kate Voegele (Pick your favourite!) Anyway we started discussing the lyrics and all she could remember was "She tied you to a kitchen chair!" So she was asking what Hallelujah has to do with BDSM! Anyway! I explained to her how the song chatted about a number of bible characters. In that case Samson ("She tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne and she cut your hair"). So I explained the story of Samson to her (and the surrounding people who were working around us in our lab). It then led on to David ("I've heard there was a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord" and " Your faith was strong but you needed proof, you saw her bathing on the roof.." And so I explained the story of David. However it made me realise how I "know" but don't know in depth the story of David. Where he came from, where Goliath fits in his story, when did he start playing the harp for Saul, where does Jonathon come in, etc! After going through that she said "Who was the guy with the lions?" So we went on to chatting about Daniel. Again I asked myself the same questions. I don't really know the order of Daniels life, where were the lions, where do rack, shack and benny fit in (check out vegetales!). All these questions flooded into my head! But all the time I was thinking what a blessing it was to be asked about the bible! I didn't know all the answers, but that's ok! Hopefully something of my explanations of God's role in all of these stories made have sunk in. Who knows! Peak 2

Then I got in for work this morning. Found out that because of (we think) a small error I made, all the three batches we did (15 hours work in total between 3 of us) failed. This was not good. I make alot of mistakes at work and each of them I take pretty hard. Also Barry doesn't really let me forget that I make mistakes. She's often reminding me to be careful and that I'm untrustworthy with things. Sometimes it's fine. Other times it can really get to me. We had to redo all the work again today. I'm exhausted. I'm stressed. and I have very little food in the house! But I don't want to shop until after the weekend (am heading to London again, dead excited (again!))
The stresses of this week have been piling up. I don't know if I'm going to make it to Friday! I can't believe it's only Wednesday! Trough 3

All is not lost though.
God is faithful and he will keep me going through. He gives me strength. I was on facebook before I wrote this and a friend's status said this: 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me' (even if it is through gritted teeth!). I found it strangely apt!

The photos are from my lovely walk in Otford.

Done for now.