As I walked into Ma Tembo's office, it seems typical of what I have seen a researcher or lab managers office would look like, a pc and a laptop each on different desks with paperwork present on each desk, some molecular models, a bookshelf and filing cabinet, posters of intricate biochemical and genetic structures complimented with a few personal photos. But one thing that stood out to me was that there was also the presence of elephant imagery in her office. I mean, she had a few elephant figurines in one of her desks, a few pictures of elephants on the wall and even a quilt with the image of an elephant on it. Don't get me wrong, elephants are very interesting animals, but I have not seen that much imagery of elephants in one place in my life. But on the other hand, now is not the time to question about her personal habits because I have an interview to get through. Ma Tembo grabbed a folder with some paperwork in it and after she told me to take a seat, she began to reference to the paperwork at hand.

"Okay Edwin, it says here that you earned your undergraduate degree at DePauw University in 2013, double majoring in Biochemistry and Molecular/Cellular Biology, can you describe your research experiences during that time period?"

"Okay, so I have done on-campus research experiences every fall semester since my sophomore year, along with the spring semester of my senior year, the summer after my sophomore year and one off-campus internship in the summer of 2012 at UCLA's Torres Lab. The research I did during my sophomore year focused on how to improve chemistry and biochemistry education across college campuses, while the sophomore summer research focused on the influence of ecological conditions on inheritance patterns. My later undergrad research involved the investigation of the effects of environmental conditions on protein construction and genetic mutation prevalence. The summer experience at the Torres Lab involved an analysis of the molecular aspects of the evolution of different canary species compared to results from a prior experiment twenty years prior."

I felt exhausted after saying that, though I tried to maintain a neutral face during the interview.

"Okay, that research sounds very fascinating, I have always been a fan of how environmental factors impact the evolution of any organism's genetic footprint. Okay, I also see that you have recently earned your PhD in Biochemistry last year from the University of Chicago, and can you describe your research during and since that time?"

"Oh yeah, that was a unique period in my research, so during that time I began to research the correlations between pharmaceuticals and genetics. I remember this experience in which in which I had to research the long-term changes in the sequences of Asian Carp populations near former pharmaceutical dumping sites. That work correlating genetic sequencing with pharmaceuticals eventually lead me to work as a lab technician and eventual researcher at Genico Pharmaceuticals, where I have participated in research in the long-term impacts on certain pharmaceuticals on the rate of genetic mutations and the pharmaceutical applications of CRISPR-CAS9."

"Okay, interesting, and what was the reason why you left your previous employer?"

"I left Genico Pharmaceuticals because I honestly felt that the research environment there seemed to be more focused on research that will make large profits, and I felt that was not the type of environment in which I would want to do the research that I truly want to do. I also felt that the communication between me and my former colleagues leaves a lot to be desired, both inside and outside of work, and I thought that remaining at that type of environment would be detrimental to my focus in research. I am just fine working in competitive environments, I've done it since high school, it's just that many of my former colleagues seem to be more focus on 'winning the competition' rather than gaining a deeper understanding of the research."

"I see, well I can totally understand why you left then, intricate and multi-faceted research should be conducted in an environment that allows a scientist to nurture their inner curiosity in all facets of a particular discipline. You story kind of reminds me of how I navigated between research environments before coming here. So, how did you hear about us and what made you interested into applying here?"

"Well my grad school mentor from UChicago recommended me to apply here when hearing there was an opening here, from my reference contact information she is listed as Professor Padmini Dholia. She told me that she worked with a few researchers here on one of her previous projects and how she thought that doing research would be ideal for my background in genetics and biochemistry. I have decided to apply here because first of all, I have always had an interest in evolutionary genetics and second, I have been going to this museum several times since I was a child and it was one of the places that helped spark my early interests in the natural sciences and I felt that this museum and its laboratories will help me spark the same curiosity to aid me through my research. Also based on what Pr. Dholia told me, I heard that there is a good sense of communication and camaraderie between the researchers here and I thought that would be a much better environment to work in compared to the one I experienced in Genico."

"Oh yes, I actually worked with Padmini on an evolutionary genome project a few years ago. Lovely woman! I can guarantee that we do our best to nurture a sense of curiosity of camaraderie amongst each person in our department and even with people in other departments in the museum. I guess you can describe us as a kind of intricate balance of some sort. So the next thing I would like to ask you is if there has been a time where you had to work with someone you did not get along with and if so, how did you handle the situation?"

" Well there was this one time back at Genico like two years ago, where I worked with this other researcher on a project testing a new pharmaceutical product, and this person who I worked with was the type of person who wanted to rush on things and get them over with, so after finding that one of our newly synthesized products had a low mutation rate, this person thought that the drug would be safe to bring to the market after only two months of testing but I thought that additional testing needed to be done to see if there are any changes of function during prolonged exposure to specific climates. This caused us to have a heated discussion, in which we decided to discuss with our lab manager during this time and after we presented both sides of what we should do next, the lab manager and other researcher eventually agreed with me that additional testing would actually be necessary for the drug to study the correlation of environmental impact and the drug's function, as well as how to properly dispose the drug so that the distribution of this drug will not cause a detrimental environmental impact. After this discussion with the lab manager, I would say that the work relationship between me and this other researcher had improved for the remaining duration of this project."

"Okay, that is quite an interesting story, it kind of reminds me of this one time a while back in which some of the other leaders and I had to talk to the ki...Actually, I was thinking of something else outside of work but I can sympathise with you because over my experience in both research and colleagues, I have had my fair share of disagreements due to the debate of which method is better. Let's move on to the next question."

While she was turning the page in her folder, I was curious of why she suddenly refused to tell that story she was about to say. Kind of reminded me of Bupu during the phone interview after one of the questions. But I just brushed it aside for now.

"Okay Edwin, the researcher position will involve the occasional assistance of interns, especially the ones coming this summer, does this impose any types or challenges for you?"

"Oh I would not mind at all, I would be honored to help the interns out, I remembered a few times during my intern days in which I could have really used the help of a mentor. I feel that aiding and guiding today's interns is one of my responsibilities as a scientist to prepare such fields as biochemistry, genetics and other fields for the next generations."

"I am glad to hear your enthusiasm to help us out! While doing research if the event comes up in which you and another researcher had conflicting results after you both individually reproduced the same experiment, what would you do to resolve the situation?"

"If that ever came up, then I probably would suggest to the other researcher that we look at both of our experimental procedures to see if any part of out procedure cause the deviation in both of our results, and then we would both conduct the same experiment again to ensure that we will have more similar results for this particular experiment."

"Okay, and what would you do in the even when a piece of equipment becomes inoperable?"

" In that kind of scenario, that would depend on the piece of equipment because there are some pieces of equipment such as micropipettes and hot plates in which I actually have experience in repairing, but for most cases of broken equipment, I would report to either the supervisor, lab manager or equipment specialist so that the equipment can be fixed as soon as possible. If it involves equipment that I need to use for my research, then I would still notify an equipment specialist of the malfunctioning equipment but will also see ifa second piece of that equipment would be available for me to use for my research."

"Okay, how would you handle an accidental spill of potentially biohazardous material?"

"In the spill of any biohazardous material, I would perform the procedure that is listed for that substance and call the . If the material is of an unknown nature, then I would call the biohazards unit immediately to handle the spill, alert everyone else in the lab, and follow all other necessary safety precautions to deal with the spill."

"Okay, and one more question, since you said you had experience in researching the evolutionary genetics of canary species, how would you approach extracting a strand of DNA from a canary skeleton?"

I started to become a little nervous because I never thought that they would throw in a random question like that. But to be fair, Genico asked me how I was going to synthesize a hypothetical carbohydrate during my interview with them, so I was probably walking into a question like that.

"Well after extracting a small piece of the bone, freeze the piece in liquid nitrogen, and grind the piece into a fine powder. Then I would use place the bone powder in an extraction buffer, preferably 0.5 M EDTA and proteinase K at a 5:2 ratio. After that, I will concentrate the solution using a centrifuge and then filter the solution with a centrifugal filter in order to purify any strands of DNA from the sample. After extracting the sample of DNA, I would use PCR to copy the strand, so that it can be sequenced and then analyzed with gel electrophoresis to be compared with the patterns of other organisms within the laboratory database."

"Okay, interesting, interesting.." while Ma Tembo continued to write stuff on her notepad. "Okay, Edwin, do you have anymore questions or anything else that you want to tell me about yourself?"

"Well this is not related to my research background, but I am also fluent in French and I am a very organized and fastidious person who works well with people."

"Okay, well it has been a pleasure to speak with you and you will hear from us within three or five days with our response."

"Thank you, I've enjoyed talking to you too and I hope that I will hear from you soon."

"Gladly, I hope to speak with you too. I hope you have a good day."

"You too." I just firmly shook her hand, and she flashed a friendly smile. I then walked out the door and I placed my papers back in my bag as I got back out to the main hallway.

As I got back to the main hallway, it was now 1:30 in the afternoon and the area became slightly more crowded. While walking towards the stairwell, I bumped into the security guard from earlier and he seemed to have noticed me and began to approach me.

"Hey Edward, how did your interview go?"

"Oh hey, my name is actually Edwin, and the interview was actually better than I expected thanks for asking, how has your day been?"

"It's been fine, though I basically had to tell kids not to touch the artifacts or tap the glass like twelve times today times today."

"Oh I totally understand, kids are extremely curious, and sometimes they can be mischievous in the process"

"I know, but even how annoying it can be sometimes, it is a delight to see children so curious about the world around them."

"Yeah, kind of reminds me of when I was a kid, I used to come to this museum at least once or twice a year. I used to beg my parents for a membership to the museum, but we couldn't afford it at the time."

"That's too bad, hopefully, if you get the job here, you could come here for free everyday."

"Hopefully, if only my seven-year old self could hear that, I would have probably moved into the museum somehow."

We both shared a laugh and then I realized that I never asked for his name.

"Oh, I am sorry for not asking you this earlier, but I didn't catch your name."

"Oh it's no problem, my name's Beshte by the way, it has been nice meeting you, and I hope you get that researcher position, I really would like to get to know you more."

"Thanks, I hope so too, see you later Beshte."

"See ya Edwin"

I continued to walk towards the stairwell and along the way, I noticed a woman passing by me and suddenly I felt this sense of allure thrust upon me. She was quite attractive and one thing that I seemed to notice was that she had streaks in her hair that almost seem like an indigo-purplish color. She then turned around and I tried to compose myself to try to not make a fool of myself by just looking at my surroundings while giving her a gentle nod from like ten feet away. She just smiled, nodded in return, and went back to her path. The strangest thing about that encounter was that I thought that I saw that she had purple eyes. It's probably just the lighting of the area made them look purple when they're might actually be blue. At least I didn't make a fool of myself tod...THUD

I turned back to the path I was going and I accidentally bumped into this old lady's walker and then the lady yelled

"Hey! Watch where you are going young man? Can't you see that we were walking in front of you?!"

"Oh I am so sorry ma'am, I guess I got a little distracted."

"Just watch where you're going next time, and get a haircut! were you raised in a barn?"

Okay, putting that moment aside, I thought that my day went slightly better than expected. I went down the stairs, exited the building and got in my car in the parking lot. I started my drive back home initially without a hitch, but that changed when I approached Lake Shore Drive and I accidentally entered one of the biggest traffic jams that I have seen this year. I then waited and inched for the time being. With irritation, I thought to myself,

This is why I take public transportation most of the time