Recently, an alumni from my lab visited us and gave a (very nice, I must say) talk about his work, which was followed by a discussion session between him and us students.

There was a rather unreal moment during which he, born and raised in Southern California and having never left it before eight months ago, advocated for traveling and exploring new locations in front of a room full of expatriates and people having moved from various places in the US to join our university. But that's not what I wanted to talk about.

This guy has always been passionate about science. I actually don't think I've ever met anybody who was as excited by new ideas and results as him. So that was a recurring theme in his speech; how a PhD was the opportunity of falling in love with science; how academia would not let you down if you really loved science.

Which led me to wonder.

Do I love science?

I like it. I like it a lot. There are times when it makes me prance around high-fiving my labmates, but there are also times when it makes me cry, and, more to the point, times when I'm just, meh, beautiful day isn't it, seen any good movie recently?

I get passionate about it, certainly. But do I get passionate enough? Isn't science less of the love of my life and more of a booty call? Picture me in my lab's corridor, yelling at a labmate: "but what if science is just a fucking buddy? Shall I still go for it?" Yes, the guys are considering keeping a bottle of cognac in the lab to help deal with my last year — I'm not quite sure whether they plan to make me drink to calm me down, or drink themselves to bear with me. Probably both.

So I'm having this stupid argument with science, trying to figure out how much exactly I love it, in the best "it's not you, it's me" tradition. Except that science doesn't even talk back.

Bitch.