Week 15 is dedicated to my favourite topic: Things that make me laugh. I think everyone who knows me well knows that it is fairly easy to make me laugh. Well timed jokes, locking the car door as someone tries to open it, cat videos….all of these things make me laugh.

And if ever someone needed a laugh right now, it is me.

This week the one thing that has really been making me laugh is inappropriate workplace conversations. The department that I am based out of just recently hired a new research assistant, and while trying to get to know him, we were all talking about ourselves and a little bit of our background. In the course of that conversation, it came up that when I got hired on, the rest of the team who is close to my age Googled me to see what they could learn about me.

Fun fact: if you Google me, the first thing that comes up is a porn illustrator.

Yep. You read that correctly: A PORN ILLUSTRATOR!  The office wondered if my supervisor had lost his marbles, and at one point I got an email from the admin assistant asking me if I liked to draw. I of course had no idea why she would ask me such a thing, and it wasn’t until I had been in the post for several months that they filled me about what happens when you Google my name. I decided to share that story with the new guy….he wasn’t impressed. Everyone in the office had a good chuckle though. I like to think that it lightened the mood.

Professionally, things have been picking up with my data collection. I was really afraid that sending out an online survey would not net me any responses, but I have been pleasantly surprised  about the response rate in the last three days. I may have just figured out this whole PhD student thing.