I finished the first year of my diploma program, and I'm still waiting on grades from two of the courses. Nothing to worry about there; I've been consistent.

I started my summer job on Monday. It's not what I expected, and I'm becoming frustrated with it already. I thrive when I'm actually doing something, and I don't find interacting with customers fun at all. I mean, I'll get through this summer ok, but I can't say that I'll be applying for any more regional district or municipal works jobs. I think a stint in a posh, hectic structural engineering firm should shake all of the biology cobwebs from my resume.

So, my summer job. Bios0lids. Ever heard of them? Well, I have to spend the summer convincing a community that they are "safe" for land application. I have read many, many articles on the subject - the same articles my boss has read - and we seem to read opposite information. There's nothing particularly wrong with bi0solids application when you look at the benefits to the environment. There is nothing wrong with the trace element content or the viral/microbiological content. The problem is the organics. The thing is, these things are spread around anyhow, by everything, and it's not that bios0lids are particularly concentrated in them, it's just that it's another way to spread the stuff around more... There's all sorts of crap in the land from using pesticides and commercial fertilizer products anyhow, so what's the big deal.

It's this sort of thing that I've had trouble with in past jobs - something with borderline ethics.

Take the Canc3r Agency. I was working to find The Cure, right? That's got to be good. Well, after killing hundreds of mice, I decided that something wasn't quite right about this all. Plus, the construction of a state-of-the-art research facility got me going on the whole Big Business of Canc3r Research.

The job before was a similar position at UBC; however, the research going on there was even more borderline, and after having to monitor the health of two mice that were stitched together (unsurprisingly, they died) I decided to leave that job.

OK, so before that, I had the internship at the wildlife rehab center. Save the seals! Good, right? Not good. Nursing baby seals that have been abandoned by their mothers because they were weak, only to have these poorly-gened seals return to the wild and produce more weak seal pups? Unsurprisingly, the center gets more and more abandoned pups each year...

OK, so before that, I worked for a biotech company called St3mCell. Enough said.

OK, so before that, I was a caretaker on a farm. There were sheep. The lambs were used at the teaching hospital so surgeons-in-training could learn how to do heart transplants. UGH! Totally borderline.

OK, so before that... I worked for Revenue Canada.

I could go on...

I cannot wait for this time next year, when I will get the job of my dreams with a company that in now way is borderline ethical.

Oh, I nearly forgot about my most recent borderline ethical job. Driving horse-drawn carriages last summer. There were animal rights protesters.