Nerdy biologist post

I met with my advisor today to discuss my data files and a funny exchange occurred. At least, I thought it was funny.

So she's talking about how I need to reformat the files and one of the things I need to do is sum some values and merge the multiple rows into one row. Now, my files are excel files and I guess the popular thing for professors is to not like excel. So she says something like, 'You can do this very easily in SAS' (SAS is statistical software). And I replied something like I can just as easily do it in excel. Not like that though, more along the lines that I know how to do it in excel, so it would take me just as long in excel as in SAS because I wouldn't have to learn a whole new program. Make sense?

So then she insists on showing me how quickly it can be done in SAS. Which wasn't quick at all. It took forever and then to top it all off she went on and on typing in all these weird codes that would be oh so easy for me to remember. *dripping with sarcasm* I just nodded and said, "Mmhmm." while secretly thinking, "I think I'll stick with excel." Oh! And to top it all off, it didn't even work! She had to go back and fix her codes several times. Crazy SAS lovers.

That's my nerdy story, I hope you enjoyed it.