I've been working here at the Office of Naval research for almost two and a half years. Throughout that time I've seen some pretty wacky proposals cross my desk, things that sometimes baffled me and made little sense. But I could always recognize some part of what we were trying to do with our research without having to go look it up. I've raised my eyebrows at times, such as when we were funding a team building study by watching people play Age of Empires III (a video game). I've questioned the value of our work sometimes, such as when I found out we were paying to find out the inner workings of marine mammals skulls. But I've always at least understood in some small part what it is we were trying to accomplish.
Today that changed. I have a document sitting on my desk that is so far over my head that I have no idea what it is about. It contains words like "Polydimethylsiloxane systems" and "proeinaceous glue". Neither of which I have ever seen or used in a sentence myself, "Hey Mike, I fixed my shoes using this proeinaceous glue, that stuff was great! I'm sure glad I had the Polydimethylsiloxane system to help me..." What we are doing with this money is far beyond my simpleton understanding, I think it has something to do with the environment, but don't quote me on that. I'm fully in awe of this project, and I wish very much to learn to drop these terms in casual conversation.
People ask me what I do all the time, and very rarely do I get to drop words like "Polydimethylsiloxane" or "barnacle glue protein chemistry" or even "biocides". How cool would it be if someone asked me what I did and I got to say, "Oh me? I help facilitate funds for the research of biocides, yeah no big deal, we're just doing comparisons between normal (`hard?) and gummy (`compliant?) baseplate adhesive phenotype barnacles using micro-Raman spectroscopy. No big deal."
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