wide awake

Its 6am in the morning and I had yet to catch a wink. The sleeping is comfy, the room is warm and toasty, eyes is tired, and body deserve the rest from standing and walking. So why is my brain still not willing to stop crunching? - killed the first mice today. A mice that has JUST been weaned (definitely less than a week). It was by carbon dioxide euthanasia (thank God it is not by cervical dislocation or I would still be stunned now). It took less than 5 minutes for them to finish gasping and die. But being the one who initiated the kill, it felt like it was 5 hours instead of 5 minutes. A thermoflask (those that we usually fill up with cold drinks when going for picnics) filled halfway with deionized water was connected to a tupperware. A few cubes of dry ice were then placed into the sealed flask, and the mice was immediately transferred from its cage into the tupperware. I then had to hold the lid tight (to make sure that the building up pressure cause by the carbon dioxide realeased does not opens up the lid and allow the mice to jump out - that would have been a disaster!!!) while the mice walk around a little bit, then it became unstable as you can see the head start to go round while it tries to walk (like a drunk person trying to walk in a straight line but fail to do so) and then it collapse onto the surface of the tupperware when it could no longer stand up. It would start to gasp, which was really obvious because it is so tiny then when it tries to breathe in, its whole rib cage would be sucked in and then released deeply. After what seems like million times of gasping, it would just stay still and when you shake the tupperware, you'll realize that it is dead, with its fur all frosted because of the carbon dioxide.

With that first experience, I have just broken the first precept of Panca Sila. I've sinned - it wasn't just killing for our safety (ie. killing white ants to prevent destruction of wood) because it was killing for fundamental science. It is not like I've never killed before - cockroaches, lizards, ants, flies - they were still a living being but I only kill them when they are harmful to us. In fact, when I find cockroaches at home and they are not anywhere near my food stuff, I usually remove them with a paper and bring it outside the house. This is killing an innocent life! I feel like I am a murderer now. Why did I still do it? Maybe I could have said something but what other ways are available for us to study the gut microbiota other than to euthanize them? Do I want to stay in this project? Definitely not! Do I have a choice? This project is definitely applicable in Malaysia since nobody in Malaysia would sponsor a research that studies the ribosome fall off rate in copiotrophs and oligotrophs (my second choice). Maybe I should just talk to Dr. Young again and focus on the antibiotic-associated diarrhea project. That would definitely be applicable and NO killing mice. The only challenge is the limited amount of samples that we would get as Lansing is not an entirely large area and not everyone gets diarrhea everyday. Where do I see myself in the future? The ribosome project would be a great project to work on if I decided to stay in US because nobody has looked at it before and the prelimary data that I've got is promising. But I don't want to stay in US forever. Maybe I should think big and bring such science to the Malaysian community and wake everyone up from the traditional view of science. But I don't want to be so up front. Let the science stream politicians deal with that. Gosh, now I am even more confused than before.

Still wide awake. I am so sorry.