Tag Archives: time

“Time makes Fools of us All…”

Confessions of a Microbiologist, ,

April has been a difficult month, trying to find the time to fit everything in. With the move to Paris getting closer, organising flights, shipping, schools, accommodation, trans-global transfer of cats etc etc, has left little time to build the Microbiology Matters website. As a consequence the articles have been a little less frequent and a little more rushed than usual. The upside of this time pressure is that I now have a little queue of ideas in my head, waiting impatiently to get put onto “paper”.

Despite this the website continues to grow slowly but steadily, both in content and visitors, with the stats recording 3200 visitors and 21500 “page hits” over the month of April. My goal for May is to attract 1000 visitors a week to the website.

I have produced an “icon” in the laboratory for the website (see below). I just need to edit it now to a circular shape and get someone with HTML knowledge to position it on each screen. Hopefully in the next week or two.

"Looking at all things microbiological"
“Looking at all things microbiological”

I doubt the next couple of months will be any easier, what with time closing in. I do plan to introduce a new subset to the educational section, that of “Result Interpretation”, looking at different microbiological result scenarios and how best they might be interpreted.

I did wonder about getting professional help to make the website look more “polished” and also about getting some commercial sponsorship. However on reflection I quite like having an “independent”, non-commercial website. I will let it be my “point of difference”, for the moment anyway…

Michael

“Time”

Confessions of a Microbiologist,

I am generally not a big waster of time. However when I become wary of squandering away too much time I often remind myself of these Pink Floyd lyrics below. (not my favourite song but some of my favourite lyrics! Click here to listen to it)

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say

In clinical microbiology, time is incredibly important. From the moment the sample is taken from the patient, the clock is ticking in terms of getting a clinically meaningful report out to the clinician.

In microbiology, as in life, we sometimes let time run away from us, and before we know it, a significant amount of time has passed….

Michael

p.s. I have added some quick MCQs and short explanations on bacterial culture media to the website.