Last I checked, of the teams that I drew the lots for, only Chile remains on the short list. There is now a bag of chocolate for second place as well as for first place in the shelves next to our lab tech's desk.
We got another undergrad in our lab recently and both Wendy and I, along with a post-doc, were asked if we'd have the time for an undergrad. The main issue Wendy and I had with this applicant was that he was planning to only work here for the summer, which wasn't enough time, in a biology lab and especially not for a genetics lab that works with mice, to both teach a student the techniques, have them master them, and get usable results. (A general rule of thumb from my undergrad days is, if you want to be more involved in a lab than just washing glassware, you need to pledge more than one quarter. That rule still seems to apply.) (If no one wants to take on an undergrad we just don't accept the applicant, since my PI's of the opinion that it's rude to accept an undergrad into the lab if there's no one who can make the time to deal with him / her.) As a result, the post-doc got the undergrad (who is thankfully more experienced than our current undergrad, in the sense that he knew how to make dilutions and buffers and basic safety rules). Unfortunately, this is the post-doc with the somewhat...unstable schedule, so within the past week there have been many times where no one can track down the post-doc for the poor undergrad and he ended up just kind of lingering around, waiting. And generally making me twitchy since I am in the midst of in situ hybridization, northern blot, and western blot as well as occasional mice, which apparently looks very impressive. Or something. I have no other explanation for why I'd return to find him lingering over my bench, staring at the mess of experiments there. Oh well, whenever there's someone new it's always a group effort, in my current lab, to help out anyway, since we've all got expertise in different areas...and keeps track of different stock reagents in lab.
Speaking of lab: there was one day last week when I looked up at an odd scraping sound and saw my PI pushing this large box toward the lobby (by large I mean he'd fit in it, easily, multiples of him, even). We caught each other's eye, and then he went back to box-pushing. (Yes Kate, this is one of my boring stories, where I ask no questions.) PIs are very strange. I have no idea where that box came from. We have no room in any part of our lab space or his office for something that size. Or what he was doing with it. It was like that time when Wendy spotted him cutting strips of carpet (which later turned out was because he was experimenting with...never mind). Tiffany, a former tech in our lab and now a grad student, had once wondered if the PIs knew that we observe them like they're animals in the zoo. I'm pretty sure mine does. He's self-aware to a degree that occasionally leaves my lab mates unsettled. (After that time where I heard someone from a neighboring lab describe him as "young and neurotic"...I mostly try not to remember that comment when I'm talking to him, especially not in conjunction with his somewhat self-deprecating sense of humor, so I can keep a straight face.)
There was one thing that I was a bit upset about last week, and that was finding out that our campus is getting rid of free parking on weekends and nights. Supposedly this is because of shortage of campus funds. What it means is that for all the grad students who have seven-day-long experiments or need to come in for a few hours on the weekends to get a result sooner, we'd have to pay fifty dollars for a permit. Now, since I tend to avoid going to lab on the weekends whenever possible, I don't go in enough times to make that fee worth my while. Nor am I inclined to go in on weekends anymore than I absolutely have to: there are plenty of burned out grad students, I do not intend to become one of them. All of this means that I either need to brave the two hours of public transit on the weekends, which is unacceptable, or that I'll take my car to the nearest mall shopping center and take the bus / walk to campus from there (so an hour round trip at the most instead of two, but at least if I walk I'll get some sun and exercise). Some of my classmates have time point experiments which means they have to come back to something every six hours or every twelve hours. Before, after dark, they'd just take their car to campus so they can still grab a few hours of sleep at home in between. Now I think there're plans of camping out in the student lounge and in the lobbies of the lab buildings, where the couches are. Thankfully the only time point I have to do right now is long enough that I can just stay later the night before and arrive earlier the next morning, and I'd be fine. The generally feeling, however, is that if there's a petition to repeal this, we'd sign it.
The new rules are effective as of July 1st, 2010. I think it's an absolutely dismal way to start July. I wonder what all the PIs will say when they realize this will decrease the data output in their labs because now, rather than starting something that'll require two hours on the weekend, but will allow the next step to be performed as early as the next Monday, we are more likely to not start the experiment and just wait until Monday, and damn the delay.
Have ordered plane tickets. Will be in bay area Jul. 29 afternoon and leaving Aug. 1st in the morning. My parents are still coming next week. I think.
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