Yay it's September

Moving a 15 year old lab and its assorted equipment, samples, and detritus when the lab is down to 2 grad students, 1 lab tech, and 1 undergrad had been most exciting. Of the variety that I shall add to the let's never do that again, ever, list.


Okay okay, it hasn't been that bad. By which I mean not that it wasn't stressful chaos full of bruises and broken equipment and unknown New Building Issues (oh yeah our new lab is in a shiny new lab building, never before tested for lab work), but I can, without trying, easily envision how it could be very much worse and am very grateful that it wasn't.

See: our biosafety cabinet that we need for tissue culture got the giant glass pane cracked in 3 places, and the air flow component is no longer working, thus effectively making it a not-biosafe cabinet. In addition apparently the metal tray in front where the switches to the UV and air flow lost 3 of the 4 attachment / bolts that was holding it in place, which the tech that we called in said basically meant that the giant metal thing could fall down on someone's head while they're doing tissue culture work at any moment. So you can say right now we have a bio-UN-safety cabinet. That's not to mention the fact that something sparked while we were looking at the metal thing so for a few hours the entire room smelled of burned things while, of course, the cabinet's already hooked up to the gas. Luckily no one tried to test that particular nozzle because otherwise we'd have a repeat of the Explosion Event From The Neighboring Lab from a few years ago and no amount of assigned lab coats or safety goggles can protect us from that.

By the way, for those who are following me on Facebook, this was the event the morning with the 6 techs and one me at 8 in the morning.

Our -80C freezer had to get moved, un-moved, then re-moved because someone forgot to install the right outlet for the space where it's supposed to go. At one point someone stole all of our lab stools. At another point I realized our shared lab kitchen had 4 coffee machines and no water, and that no one has remembered to move our trash bins from the old building so we have no place to put our (highly regulated, sorted, and tagged) lab waste should we start any experiments. Also the new building has "smart" window shades. Meaning the blinds are on the outside of the window and go up and down and turn based on the brightness (possibly to reduce overheating in lab and thus safe energy?)...which mostly means that every time a cloud passes the sun I'll hear a whirrling sound and the lighting at my bench will change drastically, as the new building does not quite have adequate lighting but is too bright for me to justify burning my personal lab-bench lamp at all hours. We often find ourselves enclosed within darkness at 5pm on some days but with evening sun glare (the window faces west) in our eyes in others and wish for blinds that are either smarter or stupider or at least willing to stop trying to be smart.

Like I said: exciting, but not something I want to deal with long term.

This week: I'm still exploring ragtime music and have been introduced to Ernest Hogan and Scott Joplin (Joplin is amazing and I want his "the Best Of" album). There's also a song about someone named Bonbon Buddy the Chocolate Drop which mostly makes me wish that he was part of the Willie Wonka storyline, because of the name. I have figured out nail polish! Or at least how to apply plain simple colors evenly. The ladies from my dojo have offered tips and spare polish so I am Experimenting. I still think it's too much hassle for me to do regularly but I look forward to figuring out how to do designs, which is even more hassle but would be a good way for me to try out some of the designs I'm putting together for the BT comic-verse. Have tried a new cupcake place called Babycakes but their frosting is a bit not to my taste (and I'm one of those people who scrape frosting off of cakes when I think there's too much), alas. Memorized the 31-jo kata from Aikido. Have tried white zinfindel wine but didn't like that either. Have finished up grammar editing on my dissertation and sent it in, so now I've time to write other stuff on my weekends, which is excellent. Have been reading an anthology of Native American folktales that I picked up from a library sale years ago. It's very obviously written in an earlier era, judging by how the term "Indians" is still used. (Also it's got a 4.66:1 male to female protagonist ratio. Have counted.) Am currently reading OE Butler's LILITH'S BROOD series, which is full of people being horrible to each other but am taking refuge in STAR TREK TOS which is fun and silly, so I haven't yet spiraled down into cynicism and despair. Also: SAILOR MOON, the original series -- have discovered that Zoisite is male, contrary to the dub, which takes his interaction with that other guy straight (heh) past the realm of homoerotic subtext into...well, just text, really. The "sub" part is now a vanishing point on the horizons and I'm equal parts amused and intrigued by the fact that his villainous superpower is ...swirling cherry blossom petals. It's kind of like having a villain whose powers are sunshine and rainbows. Though to be fair Strex from WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE apparently runs on sunshine and smiles and it's horrifying. 

Am caught up on laundry but not any of the other chores and am out of gum. Otherwise am sort of baffled by the amount of stuff that I now have time for but also? Very excited.