It’s very late. I’ve been up watching the tellybox, of all things! After a couple of episodes of The Killing, I’d been ready to turn in when I happened across a Big Bang Theory double bill on one of the 4s. I identify with Sheldon Cooper, or should I say, twenty year old Tina would identify with him. Back then, in the last century, I was pretty amazing academically, but my social skills left an awful lot to be desired. These days, I’m not amazing anymore.

During that period from studying for my A levels to my first degree, I was so intensely into every piece of knowledge on offer that ignored just about every other aspect of my development as a person. I was a geek when geeks weren’t cool, when cool wasn’t cool. I had a mental ability to shrink myself down and be part of mitochondria and nuclei – to be there in the rough endoplasmic reticulum as proteins were synthesised from mRNA. I was a ribosome and proud! The Krebs cycle was a dizzying roller coaster, but cyclic AMP always confused me.

But it was outside of the world of biochemical reactions that I felt most at home, chemistry was my thing, all those photons getting excited and throwing out all the delta G whatever. And then there were the electrons. People who haven’t studied chemistry much won’t realise that it is comprised of a multitude of disciplines. There’s physical chemistry that just makes normal people cry: anybody who’s studied chemistry as part of a biological sciences course will shrink in terror and rage at the mention of Chang. I am in my happy place, I am in my happy place. Then there are the much more elegant subjects of inorganic and organic chemistry, the latter being my absolute favourite.

It was while studying organic chemistry that I learned that electrons were red and that they danced a tango with others, being drawn this way and that, doing their thing. (I mentioned earlier that I’d lost all academic aptitude).

Then there were the practical classes: eugenol from cloves that left its aroma on labcoats for an entire semester; lignocaine that actually worked and deadened gums. The absolute ecstasy of getting a 99% yield and a high purity IR spec beat any joy that could be achieved from recreational drugs… I’d add, “or sex”, but it just wasn’t on my radar at the time.

I never thought the joy of learning and achieving would stop, but it did… when learning became hassle and the achievements were replaced by a constant struggle to get shit to work, just fucking work, while I was doing my PhD. I finally grew up too and noticed the world around me: “so what if this transcription factor is switched off in this tumour cell line? My dad’s been diagnosed with a hideous cancer and I’ve realised that I’m gay and I don’t know what to do about it”.

The world is made up of subatomic particles, doing their thing, but our lives are comprised of far more than this. You can’t fit family, feelings, relationships and love into an equation, but it’s always nice to be able to tell people that electrons are red.