Question: what type of scientist r u?

You know what? That’s an interesting question. My answer would be to say that I’m a scientist. I’d then say that I’m also a chemist, and if you pushed me I’d say I’m an organic chemist.

The reason it’s an interesting question is that science is the really wonderful thing – asking questions and working things out about the world. Which particular bit of science you do is not as important. It’s still important, but not as important as being in science.

So the thing I like doing is asking questions about stuff I don’t understand and designing experiments to get answers about how the universe is. It turns out I like asking things about what molecules are doing, partly because molecules are beautiful, but also because it’s kind of weird never to see one – you have to *deduce* a bunch of stuff about what’s going on.

And to be more specific, I think the molecules of nature (which is organic chemistry) are just… well.. Life itself is a collection of organic molecules, working together. It’s like an orchestra – lots of individual instruments that individually don’t amaze you, but when they play together – holy moly. The organic chemistry that’s going on in each of your cells right now is just nuts in its complexity and speed. So I find that great too.

BUT the reason your question is good is that I also find a bunch of other stuff interesting too, and I like reading about what other scientists are doing in those fields. Astronomy, particle physics, bioinformatics – other fields of science that I don’t do, but I can see that there are really great things happening. That makes me a scientist first, and an organic chemist second, I think.

When you arrive in a new country at the airport, sometimes you have to write down what your job is, and I used to write “scientist” but I got all these complicated questions because they thought “maybe this guy is into secret weapons” or something, so now I write “University Lecturer” and I get through customs a lot faster.