Nervous twitch

Its official. I've developed a nervous twitch. My left cheek twitches, and I'm not entirely sure why. I've been trying to postulate a list of reasons:

1. Working long hours for little pay in a reasonably unsafe environment at the graduate school. For example, I work 50 - 60 hours per week and my salary is right around the poverty line. My professor owns all of my intellectual property (which means, even my thoughts aren't mine). However, I think I'm getting the better end of the bargain here, since as a rule, I just kind of screw things up and do "stupid chemistry." When I'm not actively destroying weeks and months of labor, it generally means I'm eating lunch. This is done about 10 feet from a bucket of chlorinated waste and 15 feet from a bucket of dry waste, which has a propensity to spontaneously ignite, as it did about 2 months ago.

2. Sam, the post-doc I work with, who is slightly unconventional. For example, when the aforementioned dry waste canister lit on fire and shot flames out of the top, rather than utilize the fire extinguisher, the bucket of sand to the immediate right of the fire, or the leather glove (to cover the opening and smother the flames), he chose instead to put a cardboard box over the inferno. Now really, WHAT PART OF THAT MAKES SENSE?! What is more alarming is that it worked...

3. The Marines. More specifically, being held responsible for other peoples irresponsible tendencies and communication failures. Improvising, adapting, and overcoming challenges to benefit the institution as a whole, when in almost every circumstance, the institution is what is causing the challenge which I am called upon to improvise, adapt, and overcome. For example, knowing that I am supposed to give a class on something tonight, but also knowing that I haven't been officially informed of this as of yet. Moreover, how I cannot prepare in advance because 1. We are no longer allowed to utilize flash-drives in government computers, as we can e-mail all documents to one another, and 2. I don't have a government e-mail account, meaning I cannot access anything I might care to e-mail to myself because 3. we aren't allowed to access civilian e-mail accounts from government computers. Yet, if I fail to get said task accomplished, I am severely reprimanded. But really... why should I feel bitter?

Really... I'm beginning to feel as though I'm consistently up against the impossible. Its as though so much is intentionally set against a person, it is ludicrous to even dream of success. All I get is a general angst in my stomach, which is either due to too much coffee (a function of not getting enough sleep) or the development of ulcers (which may be related to the stress and excessive coffee).

Perhaps the nervous twitch is the least of my problems.