Having eaten something containing those eggs mentioned yesterday and not experienced any symptoms of food poisoning or new-found super-mutant powers, I am forced to conclude that, perhaps, those eggs were "incredibly edible" after all.
Am running an experiment right now that'll go for at least another 15 minutes. Class at 10am, interview after that, class again after that, which means no time to stagger anything else with my current run. Which means I'm currently excavating my inbox (always fun).
...
Now it's 14:20. My last stats course is over, the final is take-home and due on Saturday. I would like to take the time to mention that I made another attempt to locate hand sanitizer yesterday at Longs Drugs, but couldn't find it. When I asked the staff I was told that the store was out. I blame the swine flu. (I also somehow suspect that no matter how many "antibiotics don't work against viruses" posters the MDs hang up, people are still going to think of antibiotics as the cure-all.)
...
Now it's 18:20. I'd like to say that the interview with my soon-to-be advisor went well. By "well" I mean "he spent an hour talking at me about potential projects and then said 'welcome back' and asked me what kind of pippets I like to use so the lab can set aside a set for me". He also managed to work in "a funny thing happened on the way to the forum" into one of his explanations, which I think Annie would appreciate.
I signed up for the summer reading program on campus, which goes from now till the end of July. I know we tried to do that reading thing together, Lucy, but it petered out after a while and, well, I think it will go better since I had to fill out paperwork for it. Meanwhile, I grabbed a copy of BELOVED from the library (oh yeah, that's the catch -- only the books from the campus library count) and managed to be completely distracted by it in the five minutes while I was at the bus stop (good and bad, I'll need to watch myself). My original pick was GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, but it's a bit long and I feel that I should refrain from picking up anything that's over 350 pages before spring quarter ends. (Summer, even if I don't get it off, at least will mean a lack of reading and papers from classes.)
Discovered today: carrot juice is bearable if there's enough stuff mixed with it that you can't tell there's carrot juice in the mix.
20090504
20090503
What the...?
Yahoo Music got changed. Now I'm not allowed to have my own customized station anymore and to play my favorite songs I need to download something called Rhapsody, which will not be free after the trial period is over.
Aaaagh.
Aaaagh.
Name inconsistency continues
It's confusing when the market insists on labeling a vegetable with its English name sometimes but labels it with its native name other times (even when there is a recognized English name for it) (e.g. I've seen spinach under very exotic names). And by "native name" I mean that they spell out the sounds using alphabets.
It gets even more confusing when you take into account that the native names come in Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Japanese. (That I've recognized, anyway. There may be more than that.)
There was gobo (burdock root) today, but I wasn't brave enough to try it, not to mention that I didn't know what the heck to do with it until I googled it just now.
Today also featured buying egg from a new brand that came styrofoam containers (haven't seen those type of egg cartons for a while) that proclaims "The Incredible Edible Egg!" The proclamation of edibility makes me suspicious, since you'd normally assume that the eggs you got from the supermarket are edible. The fact that the company felt the need to make an open declaration of this seems to imply that there is reason for doubt.
Or, you know, they were thinking of those plastic Easter eggs for some reason.
Or, simpler still, this is just another case of advertisement fail.
It gets even more confusing when you take into account that the native names come in Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Japanese. (That I've recognized, anyway. There may be more than that.)
There was gobo (burdock root) today, but I wasn't brave enough to try it, not to mention that I didn't know what the heck to do with it until I googled it just now.
Today also featured buying egg from a new brand that came styrofoam containers (haven't seen those type of egg cartons for a while) that proclaims "The Incredible Edible Egg!" The proclamation of edibility makes me suspicious, since you'd normally assume that the eggs you got from the supermarket are edible. The fact that the company felt the need to make an open declaration of this seems to imply that there is reason for doubt.
Or, you know, they were thinking of those plastic Easter eggs for some reason.
Or, simpler still, this is just another case of advertisement fail.
20090502
It's officially kitten season
One of the rooms in the back of the shelter (reserve rooms -- since it's a county shelter they are legally not allowed to turn animals away and so they have what I'd like to think of as "maximum capacity buffering" rooms) is already mostly filled with kitten. Litters and litters of kitties in all kinds of colors.
I also discovered that the soap used there gives me hives if I wash my hands too often (we're required to wash our hands between handling each cat, and I go through about 12 cats per shift). It goes down by itself after a while (it's gone already) but even so, it's unpleasant. It's now obvious why the person who trained me suggested that we bring our own hand sanitizer bottles with us and I resolved to get one, possibly something with aloe. Except when I went to Vons afterward (i.e. just now) I can't find any. Where are this kind of things usually kept? Next to the facial soaps and shampoo, right? (Speaking of which, why are there so many types of shampoo? It's a grocery store.)
Anyway. Have discovered that I quite like apricot Clif bars (which reminds me I need to get another box of cereal bars, lab life seems incomplete without it), and that pearl tea is quite as good without milk as it is with. Tried rosemary-chicken-white-bean soup recently and found it quite good -- a bit like a cross between chicken noodle soup and minestrone, but without either type of pasta (I put crackers in it instead because I need my carbs). Found out that I prefer my soups to come in those ceramic-mug-type-things instead of bowls. Not entirely sure why. Logically I know that being in a mug isn't supposed to make the soup tastier, but it seems that logic doesn't stand a chance in the face of the fact that there is a handle Then again, if left alone I tend to eat ice cream out of mugs, too, so maybe it's a mug thing and not a soup thing.
Did I mention how many kittens there are?
I also discovered that the soap used there gives me hives if I wash my hands too often (we're required to wash our hands between handling each cat, and I go through about 12 cats per shift). It goes down by itself after a while (it's gone already) but even so, it's unpleasant. It's now obvious why the person who trained me suggested that we bring our own hand sanitizer bottles with us and I resolved to get one, possibly something with aloe. Except when I went to Vons afterward (i.e. just now) I can't find any. Where are this kind of things usually kept? Next to the facial soaps and shampoo, right? (Speaking of which, why are there so many types of shampoo? It's a grocery store.)
Anyway. Have discovered that I quite like apricot Clif bars (which reminds me I need to get another box of cereal bars, lab life seems incomplete without it), and that pearl tea is quite as good without milk as it is with. Tried rosemary-chicken-white-bean soup recently and found it quite good -- a bit like a cross between chicken noodle soup and minestrone, but without either type of pasta (I put crackers in it instead because I need my carbs). Found out that I prefer my soups to come in those ceramic-mug-type-things instead of bowls. Not entirely sure why. Logically I know that being in a mug isn't supposed to make the soup tastier, but it seems that logic doesn't stand a chance in the face of the fact that there is a handle Then again, if left alone I tend to eat ice cream out of mugs, too, so maybe it's a mug thing and not a soup thing.
Did I mention how many kittens there are?
20090501
Virus buses and British cows
We had our virology seminar discussion today, which was sort of fitting given the swine flu is hitting a place about an hour south of here. If you squint and ignore the fact that we were covering positive strand RNA viruses, such as polio, and I'm not entirely sure if what we learned was applicable at all. However, in our discussion we did get into an interesting conversation about how viruses leave cell, which largely depends on the type of viruses. Based on Kirkgaard's (I may have butchered her lastname) research on cytoplasmic leakage, we were wondering whether or not it's possible for multiple viruses to be leaked out together at once, in a vesicle (like a sac where the sac is the plasmic membrane), which caused my classmates to coin the idea of the viruses "going green" and carpooling and therefore promptly made it impossible to continue the thread of conversation seriously. (I didn't mind.)
We also discussed FMDV. (Turned out we had someone who used to work on anti-virals in the industry before he came to grad school. Huh.) One of my classmates, who grew up in Britain, announced that given all evidences of the recent years clearly UK should just stop raising cattle.
While we're talking about contagious viruses, XKCD, as usual, has its own thoughts about it. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Laugh, because that is hilarious. Cry, because I can actually imagine people writing stuff like that. (Evidence? Youtube video comments. My hope for humanity dies a little every time I read them.)
We also discussed FMDV. (Turned out we had someone who used to work on anti-virals in the industry before he came to grad school. Huh.) One of my classmates, who grew up in Britain, announced that given all evidences of the recent years clearly UK should just stop raising cattle.
While we're talking about contagious viruses, XKCD, as usual, has its own thoughts about it. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Laugh, because that is hilarious. Cry, because I can actually imagine people writing stuff like that. (Evidence? Youtube video comments. My hope for humanity dies a little every time I read them.)
20090428
Melatonin, yum
Right now I've one reaction running in the machine which will take three hours, and my other reaction is waiting to go into one of those giant centrifuges (size of a laundry machine) which won't be free until 11:30. This means that I have about thirty minutes right now, presumably to read the paper that I've been handed and perhaps to get ahead on my project. ...Except I have no motivation of whatsoever to start that, since the project isn't due until the end of the quarter and I still haven't even gotten through half of the lectures yet, which are required for me to pick a topic on.
That, and the paper I have to read isn't that interesting.
I worked with radioactive materials for the first time yesterday! It was dyed a florescent green, possibly to remind us that it is radioactive (otherwise the liquid looks the same as water and dozens of other reagents in the lab). A labcoat was required in case of contamination -- and contamination did happen when we discovered that the outside of a container that was supposed to be "clean" was contaminated. Then followed a massive sweep to try to find the source of contamination (kind of sad, since I only used 0.1 mCi). For some reason we had one spot on the table cover that was very radioactive. I wonder how it got that way.
The radioactive freezer was kind of sucky. Okay, make that very sucky.
I had a lecture on antipsychotic drugs, antidepressant, and CNS depressants (sedatives and the like) today. It was supposed to give us an idea of the different mechanisms of drug action as well as the differences between the drugs. Aside from developing a new-fond respect for barbituates, the rest of it was a little disappointing.
Iwanttea.
That, and the paper I have to read isn't that interesting.
I worked with radioactive materials for the first time yesterday! It was dyed a florescent green, possibly to remind us that it is radioactive (otherwise the liquid looks the same as water and dozens of other reagents in the lab). A labcoat was required in case of contamination -- and contamination did happen when we discovered that the outside of a container that was supposed to be "clean" was contaminated. Then followed a massive sweep to try to find the source of contamination (kind of sad, since I only used 0.1 mCi). For some reason we had one spot on the table cover that was very radioactive. I wonder how it got that way.
The radioactive freezer was kind of sucky. Okay, make that very sucky.
I had a lecture on antipsychotic drugs, antidepressant, and CNS depressants (sedatives and the like) today. It was supposed to give us an idea of the different mechanisms of drug action as well as the differences between the drugs. Aside from developing a new-fond respect for barbituates, the rest of it was a little disappointing.
Iwanttea.
20090426
20090425
Mom's been at the sci-fi again
In case any of you out there is wondering, it is not possible for people (me or anyone else) to die / mutate from spilling DNA on themselves. We routinely handle and/or consume more DNA than what's concentrated in a tiny 1.5mL tube in lab. (Anything you eat/handle that has cells / had cells potentially has DNA.) (Which is why we go through all the trouble in labs with the 1.5mL tubes because we want our DNA and not the random stuff that's around, all over the place.) (Also we want just the DNA and not all the random cellular millieu that it usually comes with, but that's story for another day.)
It always makes me cringe when I talk to my mom and she says something along the lines of "Oh and I read this book, so now I understand a little bit about what you're doing now!"
Science fiction. Hello.
Poor mother. She tries so hard.
I wonder if it's possible to make casserole in a loaf pan.
It always makes me cringe when I talk to my mom and she says something along the lines of "Oh and I read this book, so now I understand a little bit about what you're doing now!"
Science fiction. Hello.
Poor mother. She tries so hard.
I wonder if it's possible to make casserole in a loaf pan.
20090423
Even if you can never prove a theory
Received in my email today from the shelter:
March at the county shelter:
Dog adoptions – 229
Cat adoptions – 167
Other adoptions (includes bunnies) – 36
Volunteer hours for March – 1230 Hours
March at the county shelter:
Dog adoptions – 229
Cat adoptions – 167
Other adoptions (includes bunnies) – 36
Volunteer hours for March – 1230 Hours
20090421
20090420
Did I miss the memo?
Summer has arrived.
I was out in a t-shirt at 8 in the morning (though of course the long sleeve has to come back on within 30 minutes of stepping inside a building, the genetics room required a sweater). The weather was gorgeous. The stats professor (who is actually a PI of the lab five aisles down from where I sit) remarked that it's a great beach day and then mock-apologized to us for keeping us in. He concluded the lecture with "And now you can go to the beach."
The guys behind me were discussing whether or not to wear wet suits, because they are apparently very uncomfortable when it's this sunny out. (I don't know. I know nothing about surfing.)
One of my classmate fractured one of her fingers over the weekend playing football. (Which was kind of funny in the beginning because she's British, so I couldn't figure out if she's talking about soccer or American football. It was American football.) The sport seems to be as violent as I remembered it from PE. Learning how to correctly catch the ball seemed more important than ever.
The current lab is trying rather hard to recruit me. It makes me suspicious.
I was out in a t-shirt at 8 in the morning (though of course the long sleeve has to come back on within 30 minutes of stepping inside a building, the genetics room required a sweater). The weather was gorgeous. The stats professor (who is actually a PI of the lab five aisles down from where I sit) remarked that it's a great beach day and then mock-apologized to us for keeping us in. He concluded the lecture with "And now you can go to the beach."
The guys behind me were discussing whether or not to wear wet suits, because they are apparently very uncomfortable when it's this sunny out. (I don't know. I know nothing about surfing.)
One of my classmate fractured one of her fingers over the weekend playing football. (Which was kind of funny in the beginning because she's British, so I couldn't figure out if she's talking about soccer or American football. It was American football.) The sport seems to be as violent as I remembered it from PE. Learning how to correctly catch the ball seemed more important than ever.
The current lab is trying rather hard to recruit me. It makes me suspicious.
20090415
Augh
Dear Diary,
Last night I could hear a loud humming sound in my bedroom, which was less noticeable in my living room and totally undetectable outside of my apartment. It sounded a little like the bathroom ventilation fan if you've ever listened to that sound with the bathroom door closed. However, it was more sporadic than continuous. In fact, it sounded like there was a giant angry bee hovering just outside of my bedroom window, trying to break in.
I had to move to the living room to sleep. The old decrepit fridge was quieter and more soothing than that humming.
I am currently tired and very cranky.
I could still hear the humming sound this morning.
Sincerely,
S
Last night I could hear a loud humming sound in my bedroom, which was less noticeable in my living room and totally undetectable outside of my apartment. It sounded a little like the bathroom ventilation fan if you've ever listened to that sound with the bathroom door closed. However, it was more sporadic than continuous. In fact, it sounded like there was a giant angry bee hovering just outside of my bedroom window, trying to break in.
I had to move to the living room to sleep. The old decrepit fridge was quieter and more soothing than that humming.
I am currently tired and very cranky.
I could still hear the humming sound this morning.
Sincerely,
S
20090414
In which sales lady was desperate, and I was amused
Went in for follow up today and purchased my contact lenses (and realized that I have different values for both axis and cylinder when they wrote up my prescription for the record...that's a lot of decimals....) Given the frequency that I will probably wear them, I now I have a supply that will last for over a year, which is pretty good for 15 dollars (there's a discount). Of course this means I have to a bit more careful about where I store them, but at least the expiration date is in two years.
On my way back I noticed that the so-called "farmer's market" is currently selling clothing and jewelry. There is something very odd about walking down library walk and seeing manikins. (Also? Gives me weird DR. WHO flashbacks.) Near the end of the booths I was waylaid by a very enthusiastic blonde lady who shoved a box into my hands, causing me to stop walking.
"You like makeup, right?" She asked.
"...." I said, wondering what on earth can lead her to that conclusion. Usually the way I dress is enough of label for most people, but I guess she was very determined.
"Right?"
"...."
"A little makeup?" She asked, sounding a little desperate.
I felt bad - I really did - but there was something called "observation skills" and one ignores it at ones own peril.
...
During this morning's bus ride I realized that it been a while since I drew manga-styled characters. I use to try to do them fairly often in high school, and then it eventually petered off and I started doing comic-style (I dunno how I'd classify what I do...it' not entirely Western and not entirely Eastern and not traditional or anime, exactly) instead.
I should. Start drawing them again, I mean. There is just something about the implausibly skinny people with lethally pointy chins and gigantic eyes. They're also often very sparkly, even without their ruffly costumes. It's more than the fact that it's pretty. I think for me the fact that they're so implausible makes it easier for me to stick them in strange, dramatic postures and odd articles of clothing without it ever looking out of character. Also: excellent line practice. Especially with the art-nouveau style that some of them adopt. Or maybe I need to establish that fictional characters are firmly fictional and that I can do whatever with them that I like, including sticking them in strange clothing and strange postures.
I guess I'll start drawing and see what comes out.
(I suspect that I'll adapt the clothing style far more easily than the person style.)
(I also suspect that Mike will object to the sparkles and that Nick will not be able to hold a dramatic pose for longer than two minutes without cracking up. Zach? Zach will be hiding.)
On my way back I noticed that the so-called "farmer's market" is currently selling clothing and jewelry. There is something very odd about walking down library walk and seeing manikins. (Also? Gives me weird DR. WHO flashbacks.) Near the end of the booths I was waylaid by a very enthusiastic blonde lady who shoved a box into my hands, causing me to stop walking.
"You like makeup, right?" She asked.
"...." I said, wondering what on earth can lead her to that conclusion. Usually the way I dress is enough of label for most people, but I guess she was very determined.
"Right?"
"...."
"A little makeup?" She asked, sounding a little desperate.
I felt bad - I really did - but there was something called "observation skills" and one ignores it at ones own peril.
...
During this morning's bus ride I realized that it been a while since I drew manga-styled characters. I use to try to do them fairly often in high school, and then it eventually petered off and I started doing comic-style (I dunno how I'd classify what I do...it' not entirely Western and not entirely Eastern and not traditional or anime, exactly) instead.
I should. Start drawing them again, I mean. There is just something about the implausibly skinny people with lethally pointy chins and gigantic eyes. They're also often very sparkly, even without their ruffly costumes. It's more than the fact that it's pretty. I think for me the fact that they're so implausible makes it easier for me to stick them in strange, dramatic postures and odd articles of clothing without it ever looking out of character. Also: excellent line practice. Especially with the art-nouveau style that some of them adopt. Or maybe I need to establish that fictional characters are firmly fictional and that I can do whatever with them that I like, including sticking them in strange clothing and strange postures.
I guess I'll start drawing and see what comes out.
(I suspect that I'll adapt the clothing style far more easily than the person style.)
(I also suspect that Mike will object to the sparkles and that Nick will not be able to hold a dramatic pose for longer than two minutes without cracking up. Zach? Zach will be hiding.)
20090413
In which I miss my garden
Sent by mom.
Yes we do have a community garden nearby that I can rent a plot in, but as the place is hilly, the soil poor in nutrient, the ecology unnecessarily enriched in gophers (will require extensive amount of wrestling with wire-mesh), the cost of renting a plot doesn't seem all that plausible. Also, I'm more invested in the rent of my apartment.
My potted plants are doing well though.
(In case anyone's wondering, the collinsia I seeded last September, before I left for SD.
20090412
I plonked in my contacts again this morning, since I needed to wear them at least once before Tuesday for the follow up. The second time around was much easier. The new solution that they switched me to didn't sting and I managed to get both lenses in without poking myself in the eye in less time than it took me to get in one lens my first time around. Conclusion: there's hope for me yet.
Of course, as soon as they were in I noticed that the bathroom counter needed scrubbing, so that was what I did. Great way to start off a Sunday morning, right? (Which reminds me to note that the rent in our area is still going up steadily, as it has been for the past few years. If this keeps up in two years I'll definitely need to have a roommate in order to afford both rent and food in this area. Which brings up the question of just whom I can find from my department who'll put up with a roomie that needs quiet time to start at 10pm each night and clatters around the house at 8am on weekend mornings?) I think I shed more in the spring. Figures.
The church people should congregate soon. In the famed words of Christine, happy "Zombie Jesus Day"!
(I'm pretty sure it's today. Otherwise the guy in the bunny suit at the grocery store yesterday would be a lot harder to explain.)
Mom emailed me a box of food (such as pastries and chips) and in the odd spaces that were left she stuffed in Ramen. My reaction to receiving the entire thing yesterday was pretty much "lol mother". If anyone ever wondered if there's a genetic component to my need for efficiency, here is evidence.
I also squished a bug against the wall this morning, which left a very unattractive smear that I can't get off. Anyone know a trick for squished-bug-be-gone?
Of course, as soon as they were in I noticed that the bathroom counter needed scrubbing, so that was what I did. Great way to start off a Sunday morning, right? (Which reminds me to note that the rent in our area is still going up steadily, as it has been for the past few years. If this keeps up in two years I'll definitely need to have a roommate in order to afford both rent and food in this area. Which brings up the question of just whom I can find from my department who'll put up with a roomie that needs quiet time to start at 10pm each night and clatters around the house at 8am on weekend mornings?) I think I shed more in the spring. Figures.
The church people should congregate soon. In the famed words of Christine, happy "Zombie Jesus Day"!
(I'm pretty sure it's today. Otherwise the guy in the bunny suit at the grocery store yesterday would be a lot harder to explain.)
Mom emailed me a box of food (such as pastries and chips) and in the odd spaces that were left she stuffed in Ramen. My reaction to receiving the entire thing yesterday was pretty much "lol mother". If anyone ever wondered if there's a genetic component to my need for efficiency, here is evidence.
I also squished a bug against the wall this morning, which left a very unattractive smear that I can't get off. Anyone know a trick for squished-bug-be-gone?
20090411
In which math is an illusion, and there are muffins
The paper count for this week isn't too bad, and though I did have to go through 19 pages of DNA sequence in one day (at the insistence of the PI) the workload is fairly light, still. Which was why I was puzzled by my three day's worth of doom and gloom (and sleeping a lot) in the middle of everything. My view about life, the universe and everything (which naturally includes grad school and my classes) didn't change at all. I was no more and no less enthusiastic than before, but for a few days I found everything to be vaguely depressing. Or maybe "depressing" is too harsh a word. Cheerless? Less shiny.
Anyway. I felt much better yesterday for no discernible reason, despite of the sudden onset of stats homework. As predicted, our statistics course featured no math, really, but is program based. Our "homework" essentially consists of us analyzing sets of data (blood pressure, sleep cycle, etc.) using the program (i.e. clicking the buttons in the right sequence and selecting the right parameters) and then answering questions about what the analysis tells us about the patients, that kind of thing.
I didn't like stats the first time I did it, but even so, I wish, just a little, for a part where I actually get to handle the numbers and not the GUI.
Orientation today went well. The animal shelter is unusual in that it works in partnership with all the humane societies and kennels in the area (they swap animals around, apparently, in order to increase their chances at adoption). I think volunteering there will be really fun! I signed up for cats. We're not allowed to branch off into other species until we've worked there for a while, but I think I'll do rabbits too. (Speak of which, there's a bunny there named "Kari" that looks just like Lucy!) They do need more cat and rabbit people than they do dog people, which means that I do get to set my own schedule (yay). I had my picture taken for the ID tag today so as soon as I went through a round with my assigned mentor I'll be ready to start.
Then I went and did grocery shopping and got baked-goods. The pineapple-orange muffins beckoned. Life is good. There may be curry later.
Anyway. I felt much better yesterday for no discernible reason, despite of the sudden onset of stats homework. As predicted, our statistics course featured no math, really, but is program based. Our "homework" essentially consists of us analyzing sets of data (blood pressure, sleep cycle, etc.) using the program (i.e. clicking the buttons in the right sequence and selecting the right parameters) and then answering questions about what the analysis tells us about the patients, that kind of thing.
I didn't like stats the first time I did it, but even so, I wish, just a little, for a part where I actually get to handle the numbers and not the GUI.
Orientation today went well. The animal shelter is unusual in that it works in partnership with all the humane societies and kennels in the area (they swap animals around, apparently, in order to increase their chances at adoption). I think volunteering there will be really fun! I signed up for cats. We're not allowed to branch off into other species until we've worked there for a while, but I think I'll do rabbits too. (Speak of which, there's a bunny there named "Kari" that looks just like Lucy!) They do need more cat and rabbit people than they do dog people, which means that I do get to set my own schedule (yay). I had my picture taken for the ID tag today so as soon as I went through a round with my assigned mentor I'll be ready to start.
Then I went and did grocery shopping and got baked-goods. The pineapple-orange muffins beckoned. Life is good. There may be curry later.
20090407
Sequences, sequences
Presentation yesterday involved trying to talk over the extremely loud air conditioning (room v. cold, by the way). My voice was giving out near the end but luckily the class wasn't that large and so I think most people heard me. I did cave in and got a laser pointer (a cheap red one; I think when I graduate I'll celebrate by getting one of those nifty green ones) from the bookstore. Statistics continues to be very theory-based. I don't think math will be involved at all, since we're being taught how to use JMP instead, which does all the calculations so long as the right buttons are clicked. In other words, the class doesn't seem like it can get much more interesting.
Contact lens appointment was also yesterday. I was given two pairs in addition to the pair that I plonked in (they had to change the contact lens solution for me because the first one stung) and was told to wear the last pair during the follow up next week. (Was also ordered to wear them home to get used to them.) Going through campus without my glasses is very strange, since I always wear my glasses on campus. It's a little bit like going through campus without your backpack on a school day. I felt exposed and concluded that I will always prefer glasses over contacts, except for special instances where the benefits of not wearing glasses significantly greater than the reassurance of the familiar weight across the bridge of my nose.
(For the record: taking them out is harder than putting them in.)
Feeling tired today, not too sure why. Got only two papers to read before Thursday. Lab is...eh. I think one of my classmates is thinking of joining it. I also have to subtract a point, I think, for the fact that the PI is not that experienced as a thesis adviser.
Contact lens appointment was also yesterday. I was given two pairs in addition to the pair that I plonked in (they had to change the contact lens solution for me because the first one stung) and was told to wear the last pair during the follow up next week. (Was also ordered to wear them home to get used to them.) Going through campus without my glasses is very strange, since I always wear my glasses on campus. It's a little bit like going through campus without your backpack on a school day. I felt exposed and concluded that I will always prefer glasses over contacts, except for special instances where the benefits of not wearing glasses significantly greater than the reassurance of the familiar weight across the bridge of my nose.
(For the record: taking them out is harder than putting them in.)
Feeling tired today, not too sure why. Got only two papers to read before Thursday. Lab is...eh. I think one of my classmates is thinking of joining it. I also have to subtract a point, I think, for the fact that the PI is not that experienced as a thesis adviser.
20090406
It's sad
It's 8:20. Lab's empty. Meeting's in ten minutes. I had two separate dreams about being late for my presentation.
20090404
Random question
In the jump-rope game that starts with "Ice cream soda, cherry on top..." what happens if you get through the entire alphabet?
With regard to my shift this morning, I've had a lady asking me what to do after she finished going through all the booths. I don't think she fully grasped the concept of "fair".
With regard to my shift this morning, I've had a lady asking me what to do after she finished going through all the booths. I don't think she fully grasped the concept of "fair".
20090403
In which there are schedules
Okay so in a sudden fit of philanthropy, instead of just going to the SD science fair tomorrow I answered one of the desperate pleas for volunteers (the fact that I'm in BMS means that I get a LOT of those emails from the bio booths) and will be working somewhere for at least an hour tomorrow. Shouldn't be too bad, since I've been doing two hours shifts for both FFO and UCD Arboretum during the UCD picnic day for the past two years (and the Arboretum is REALLY popular. I learned to bring a bottle of water with me because I just end up talking that much). In any case, despite of the presentation on Monday (I'm going first this quarter, reverse alphabetical order is such fun), I intend to enjoy myself on Saturday.
Which reminds me to mention that I actually got a letter (well, it's a form letter, but whatever) back from the local animal shelter! After a three month wait. (Clearly expediency is not a concern here.) I've a orientation next weekend and, because I'll be working with either rabbits or cats (or both, they're not very clear on details) and apparently most people prefer to work with dogs so there's a shortage of people for the other animals, I'll get to set my own schedule, which will be awesome. (Because I like having my own schedule for practically everything.) I will therefore have something to do on weekends that will not be directly related to the academia. I wonder what orientation will be like.
Got email back on the May 13th department retreat also (everyone seems to be going -- all of our classes canceled lectures on that day), in which we're told to pick roommates for our stay at Arrowhead. (I keep typing -lake at the end. My brain defaults there now.) This may or may not be a problem, since given my previous experiences at any given social event I tend to end up in bed at least two hours before everyone else. Therefore if I'm lucky I'll be too deeply asleep to notice what's going on two hours in. Well, here's to hoping.
New lab tally so far:
-1 inability to have a conversation with labmate (yesterday's conversation involved hair styling, which apparently can cost up to 300 dollars, and I had nothing to contribute to the discussion)
+1 really good working environment (there's a window! And light!)
+1 really educational lab meetings, the PI is a GREAT teacher (I swear I learned more yesterday than in six weeks of my previous rotation)
+1 PI is a visual learner who likes diagrams(we ended up arguing over targeting vectors in front of a whiteboard using markers), which makes communicating ideas across so much easier. I'm thankful
? I felt smart after the discussion with the PI and the grad student (I'm trying to think of a nicer way to say "ditzy") (in reality she isn't that bad; it's just my standards have gotten higher since fall quarter). If I'm feeling smart, I'm probably not learning that much. On the other hand, constantly feeling stupid also gets old.
-1 the people I'm working with are NEVER HERE. I'm pretty much left on my own to figure out where everything is. There is not much communication between lab members, for such a small lab. Or maybe it's just me. (Actually it probably is just me.)
? I get to go home fairly early each day and don't have to come in on weekends, which is nice. On the other hand the lab pace is slow and it'll probably take waaaay longer for finish a degree here.
(Aaaah the scores are always so close)
I hear neurophysiology is painful. Anna, consider yourself warned for your future endeavors.
Which reminds me to mention that I actually got a letter (well, it's a form letter, but whatever) back from the local animal shelter! After a three month wait. (Clearly expediency is not a concern here.) I've a orientation next weekend and, because I'll be working with either rabbits or cats (or both, they're not very clear on details) and apparently most people prefer to work with dogs so there's a shortage of people for the other animals, I'll get to set my own schedule, which will be awesome. (Because I like having my own schedule for practically everything.) I will therefore have something to do on weekends that will not be directly related to the academia. I wonder what orientation will be like.
Got email back on the May 13th department retreat also (everyone seems to be going -- all of our classes canceled lectures on that day), in which we're told to pick roommates for our stay at Arrowhead. (I keep typing -lake at the end. My brain defaults there now.) This may or may not be a problem, since given my previous experiences at any given social event I tend to end up in bed at least two hours before everyone else. Therefore if I'm lucky I'll be too deeply asleep to notice what's going on two hours in. Well, here's to hoping.
New lab tally so far:
-1 inability to have a conversation with labmate (yesterday's conversation involved hair styling, which apparently can cost up to 300 dollars, and I had nothing to contribute to the discussion)
+1 really good working environment (there's a window! And light!)
+1 really educational lab meetings, the PI is a GREAT teacher (I swear I learned more yesterday than in six weeks of my previous rotation)
+1 PI is a visual learner who likes diagrams(we ended up arguing over targeting vectors in front of a whiteboard using markers), which makes communicating ideas across so much easier. I'm thankful
? I felt smart after the discussion with the PI and the grad student (I'm trying to think of a nicer way to say "ditzy") (in reality she isn't that bad; it's just my standards have gotten higher since fall quarter). If I'm feeling smart, I'm probably not learning that much. On the other hand, constantly feeling stupid also gets old.
-1 the people I'm working with are NEVER HERE. I'm pretty much left on my own to figure out where everything is. There is not much communication between lab members, for such a small lab. Or maybe it's just me. (Actually it probably is just me.)
? I get to go home fairly early each day and don't have to come in on weekends, which is nice. On the other hand the lab pace is slow and it'll probably take waaaay longer for finish a degree here.
(Aaaah the scores are always so close)
I hear neurophysiology is painful. Anna, consider yourself warned for your future endeavors.
20090402
What echo?
Day 4: discovered that my first presentation is due next Monday. This will be a fun quarter.
20090401
It's not just Mike this time, either
A couple classmates and I are going to go see the Redbull Air Race when they come to town. It should be fun.
20090331
'Cause we got more bounce in California
PhD comic: what to call your professor?
Admittedly I went around calling them Dr.__ as an undergrad, and as that this was not that long ago, I tend to stutter a little when first calling someone by their first name (actually, how comfortable I am with a PI correlates with how many weeks it takes before I can comfortably address them by their first name). I have the strangest urge to call people by their first name but with "Doctor" tagged on in front. Except that sounds as awkward as you might imagine.
It's easier with PIs who joke with the students. It's also easier with younger PIs. Sometimes those two conflict and then I wait to see whether they're the type who mumble to themselves.
[edit 10:49]
Mom sent me a Picasa album called, translated "A Day of Tulips".
Here's the one called "8 in the morning":
Then there's "12 at noon":
In case you're wondering, my next class is at 11:30am.
Admittedly I went around calling them Dr.__ as an undergrad, and as that this was not that long ago, I tend to stutter a little when first calling someone by their first name (actually, how comfortable I am with a PI correlates with how many weeks it takes before I can comfortably address them by their first name). I have the strangest urge to call people by their first name but with "Doctor" tagged on in front. Except that sounds as awkward as you might imagine.
It's easier with PIs who joke with the students. It's also easier with younger PIs. Sometimes those two conflict and then I wait to see whether they're the type who mumble to themselves.
[edit 10:49]
Mom sent me a Picasa album called, translated "A Day of Tulips".
Here's the one called "8 in the morning":
Then there's "12 at noon":
In case you're wondering, my next class is at 11:30am.
20090330
On the tally
Student showed up, apologized very sincerely for being late because of traffic problems.
+1
PI didn't show up. No idea where he is. Doesn't seem to be the type that you can just drop in with a question.
-1
Has plenty of lab space. Good atmosphere.
+1
Very friendly lab members. One of the other grad students made cupcakes for everyone. With very sticky frosting.
+1
Uses kits.
+1 Lab is well funded.
-1 You don't learn as much by using kits.
Lab is VERY organized. Everything's labeled.
+1
Total so far: +1
+1
PI didn't show up. No idea where he is. Doesn't seem to be the type that you can just drop in with a question.
-1
Has plenty of lab space. Good atmosphere.
+1
Very friendly lab members. One of the other grad students made cupcakes for everyone. With very sticky frosting.
+1
Uses kits.
+1 Lab is well funded.
-1 You don't learn as much by using kits.
Lab is VERY organized. Everything's labeled.
+1
Total so far: +1
Another lab...sort of
Dear Diary,
Today I got to the lab too early (8:30am) and neither the PI nor the student I'll be working with are here. I am currently stuck reading papers in an empty seat that I've appropriated. Current lab score = -1, from the initial default value of 0.
Also,I got an email last night from a classmate which said:
Those people who make it seem like grad school will be more organized than undergrad are very misleading.
Sincerely,
-S
Today I got to the lab too early (8:30am) and neither the PI nor the student I'll be working with are here. I am currently stuck reading papers in an empty seat that I've appropriated. Current lab score = -1, from the initial default value of 0.
Also,I got an email last night from a classmate which said:
Does anyone know when or where our stats class is happening?
Those people who make it seem like grad school will be more organized than undergrad are very misleading.
Sincerely,
-S
20090329
In which there was finally ice cream
Lusine and I have successfully navigated through our first trip out together, without parental supervision (or interference), no less. Joshua Tree National Park is a bit far for a one day trip, but close enough that we could do it when I tacked on the two days to my weekend. Lucy came over on Thursday, when we went out to get food and gas, not to mention to pack everything we may need (proper preparation prevents poor performance, heh). I got Lucy introduced to OURAH HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB, which I have just recently discovered and is a bit like a FRUITS BASKET AU (except not) that makes fun of itself and is liberally sprinkled with sparkles. (I kid you not, the anime is ridiculously sparkly.) We boiled eggs (which we didn't really eat so hey, breakfast next week's done ahead of time) and made sandwiches with the flatbread that Lucy brought over (which is oval with weird edge pieces that resulted in a running commentary, given by Lucy, while I was attempting to roll my sandwiches). Introduced Lucy to new food: yes for pineapple-orange muffins, no for the shrimp-chips and the Pocky biscuits. We also watched a few episodes of DUE SOUTH, season three (because Lucy didn't care and I missed the rubber duckies). It all went well and fine until Lucy pointed out that Kowalski had very pointed features and is, actually, rather Mike-like. From that point everything he did become doubly hilarious as we tried to stick Mike in various situations and facial expressions. (Spiky.)
We switched off on driving on the way there and discovered that our height difference is enough for seat adjustments. There was snow on the mountains at one of the rest sites...and also horses, which distracted Lucy. We also swapped our music. A lot. I was introduced to Bon Jovi and got Lucy to listen to the entire RENT soundtrack. The rooms weren't ready for check in until later in the afternoon, so we went to the park (lovely roads weren't really marked, so navigation was super fun), where there was a visitor center with park rangers and an entrance booth that was empty. Given that the entrance booth was where we were supposed to pay our park fees we were slightly confused. Nevertheless we continued on until we started encountering Massive Piles of Rocks. And lots of "Exhibit Ahead" signs that are possibly a lot more useful as road markers than road signs, if we ever bothered to keep track of how many of those exhibit signs are between each hiking trail. As it was we pulled over next to a Massive Pile of Rocks and proceeded to climb around it, over it, etc. The sky was very, very blue. It was very, very windy. I discovered that the weird brown things that skitter around the windshield while driving were actually kamikaze moths, as evidenced by the number of death moths we encountered by the side of the road when we were returning from our hiking trails. (Hiking trails very nice. We do seem to go against the arrows a lot, though. It's mildly perplexing.)
Oh, and no matter what the signs tell you, there is no water in this season. The lake is a lie. The rocks were a lot more inspiring. The Joshua trees were very spiky. I think I'm developing a fondness for spiky things. Though admittedly it's mixed with a healthy dose of wary suspicion, since my sense of self-preservation hasn't completely deserted me.
We had lunch in the park. Dinner, however, took place as a local diner called Carousel Cafe. The place is, as you might've inferred from the name, carousel-themed with the main room being octagon in shape. It's a little shabby but very homey, and served food in very generous proportions. (As in, the dinner became lunch the next day and I just finished off the last of it today.) Lucy said that a lot of the day felt like something from the movie, with us driving in the car with the music blasting away and nothing but the desert on either side / us in the trail feeling that there's nothing around except for the rocks, local vegetation, and bottomless sky over us / eating dinner in a kitschy local diner that had red vinyl booths and served fries and fried chicken in a basket. Then she mentioned that in all the movies she could think of something horrible usually happens afterwards. Despite of that, we went for a walk after dinner and discussed the Lunatic Sims in detail. (Lucy wanted another baby. Because of the crib. It made sense at the time.)
I was planning to drag Lucy up early to see the sunrise in the park the next morning. However, our attempts to go to bed early were thwarted by misbehaving children that weren't even ours. They were next door and very LOUD. You could hear the thumping very clearly. After a much shorter night than we anticipated, we got up at around 5:30 the next morning, looked at each other, and decided that after sunrise we were coming back to the hotel for a nap. (It was either that or drive into a Joshua tree. Napping seemed safer, and less likely to end in fines for destruction of natural property.)
We saw still more rocks the second day and I discovered that the winding drive through the park (very large, something like 30 miles?) was actually very enjoyable with the music and scenery (the entire place was incredibly scenic in a stark, clean kind of way). We also saw a lot of bikers, which was a little alarming because--well, national park and biker parade just doesn't seem all that compatible somehow. During our hike in another trail (no water, no spring, despite of the name, but we did see five mile's worth of rocks and hills and plenty of wildflowers, which made me happy) we also saw a bunch of kids in bright orange shirt hiking with giant packs on their backs (some of the packs look larger than the kids, I swear). Lucy and I were both very glad that we never had to do something like that.
I made Lucy drive the entire way back, because I was lazy and unwilling to drive anymore than I have to. At least on roads where there are other cars and not nearly enough rocks & plants on either side.
(We also saw lots of lizards. No scorpions though. Nor tarantulas.)
When we got back we decided that we'll sleep in by Sunday morning, by which I mean that both of us were up by 8 in the morning and contemplating the merits of different types of cereal and geez...the quarter starts tomorrow, doesn't it.
...k then.
We switched off on driving on the way there and discovered that our height difference is enough for seat adjustments. There was snow on the mountains at one of the rest sites...and also horses, which distracted Lucy. We also swapped our music. A lot. I was introduced to Bon Jovi and got Lucy to listen to the entire RENT soundtrack. The rooms weren't ready for check in until later in the afternoon, so we went to the park (lovely roads weren't really marked, so navigation was super fun), where there was a visitor center with park rangers and an entrance booth that was empty. Given that the entrance booth was where we were supposed to pay our park fees we were slightly confused. Nevertheless we continued on until we started encountering Massive Piles of Rocks. And lots of "Exhibit Ahead" signs that are possibly a lot more useful as road markers than road signs, if we ever bothered to keep track of how many of those exhibit signs are between each hiking trail. As it was we pulled over next to a Massive Pile of Rocks and proceeded to climb around it, over it, etc. The sky was very, very blue. It was very, very windy. I discovered that the weird brown things that skitter around the windshield while driving were actually kamikaze moths, as evidenced by the number of death moths we encountered by the side of the road when we were returning from our hiking trails. (Hiking trails very nice. We do seem to go against the arrows a lot, though. It's mildly perplexing.)
Oh, and no matter what the signs tell you, there is no water in this season. The lake is a lie. The rocks were a lot more inspiring. The Joshua trees were very spiky. I think I'm developing a fondness for spiky things. Though admittedly it's mixed with a healthy dose of wary suspicion, since my sense of self-preservation hasn't completely deserted me.
We had lunch in the park. Dinner, however, took place as a local diner called Carousel Cafe. The place is, as you might've inferred from the name, carousel-themed with the main room being octagon in shape. It's a little shabby but very homey, and served food in very generous proportions. (As in, the dinner became lunch the next day and I just finished off the last of it today.) Lucy said that a lot of the day felt like something from the movie, with us driving in the car with the music blasting away and nothing but the desert on either side / us in the trail feeling that there's nothing around except for the rocks, local vegetation, and bottomless sky over us / eating dinner in a kitschy local diner that had red vinyl booths and served fries and fried chicken in a basket. Then she mentioned that in all the movies she could think of something horrible usually happens afterwards. Despite of that, we went for a walk after dinner and discussed the Lunatic Sims in detail. (Lucy wanted another baby. Because of the crib. It made sense at the time.)
I was planning to drag Lucy up early to see the sunrise in the park the next morning. However, our attempts to go to bed early were thwarted by misbehaving children that weren't even ours. They were next door and very LOUD. You could hear the thumping very clearly. After a much shorter night than we anticipated, we got up at around 5:30 the next morning, looked at each other, and decided that after sunrise we were coming back to the hotel for a nap. (It was either that or drive into a Joshua tree. Napping seemed safer, and less likely to end in fines for destruction of natural property.)
We saw still more rocks the second day and I discovered that the winding drive through the park (very large, something like 30 miles?) was actually very enjoyable with the music and scenery (the entire place was incredibly scenic in a stark, clean kind of way). We also saw a lot of bikers, which was a little alarming because--well, national park and biker parade just doesn't seem all that compatible somehow. During our hike in another trail (no water, no spring, despite of the name, but we did see five mile's worth of rocks and hills and plenty of wildflowers, which made me happy) we also saw a bunch of kids in bright orange shirt hiking with giant packs on their backs (some of the packs look larger than the kids, I swear). Lucy and I were both very glad that we never had to do something like that.
I made Lucy drive the entire way back, because I was lazy and unwilling to drive anymore than I have to. At least on roads where there are other cars and not nearly enough rocks & plants on either side.
(We also saw lots of lizards. No scorpions though. Nor tarantulas.)
When we got back we decided that we'll sleep in by Sunday morning, by which I mean that both of us were up by 8 in the morning and contemplating the merits of different types of cereal and geez...the quarter starts tomorrow, doesn't it.
...k then.
20090325
20090324
A squirrel is still a rodent
It's 9 in the morning and I'm hiding out the library again. Truth to be told, there aren't that many people in the lab (mostly empty). I just felt like being in the library, which is also mostly empty. I also have something that has to be incubated for two hours, cannot start another project because my last day in this lab is tomorrow, and the guy whom I'm doing site-directed mutagenesis with isn't here yet. (Maybe I'll try back in an hour? But if I get everything done by 2pm what am I going to do with myself for the rest of the day? Hang out in the library until 5 so I can go home? It's kind of ridiculous.)
Have emailed the person from the next lab for my background reading. So far have not heard back yet.
...
I've had a conversation with mom recently in which I warned her of my plans. I am going to, eventually, end up in bay area again, possibly SF since SD & SF are the two hot spots for bio-tech research (unless I can't afford the housing there, then I imagine I'll have to think up another plan) and SF is closer to where my parents are. Eventually I'll want to be somewhere where I can make a roundtrip to my parents' place and back in one day, if necessary, since we don't have any other relatives in the US besides my cousin in New Mexico whom no one's heard from in five years. (...yeah.) And there's heart disease from my dad's side of the family which I frankly try not to think too much about but dad's been watching his cholesterol intake very carefully so hopefully everything will be okay. But, in case, I want to be close. Which my mom appreciates and was okay when I frankly pointed out that just because I will be able to visit every weekend doesn't mean that I will. For which I'm thankful.
What is the best part of the conversation for me, though, is that I got the okay to do whatever I want to do with my life in the years between when I get out of grad school and before I turn thirty. (Compromise, you might say.) Specifically, by "whatever" I meant I got permission to go out of country to wherever I want to find whatever job I want, etc. Which is kind of awesome because, well, a chance to see the world and all before I have to settle down into a nice middle class job somewhere in the field of science and be mostly normal.
Which means, of course, that I get to remind my parents of this every year for the next five to seven years just to make sure they don't go back on the promise. (Sometimes it's necessary.)
Well, cheers.
Have emailed the person from the next lab for my background reading. So far have not heard back yet.
...
I've had a conversation with mom recently in which I warned her of my plans. I am going to, eventually, end up in bay area again, possibly SF since SD & SF are the two hot spots for bio-tech research (unless I can't afford the housing there, then I imagine I'll have to think up another plan) and SF is closer to where my parents are. Eventually I'll want to be somewhere where I can make a roundtrip to my parents' place and back in one day, if necessary, since we don't have any other relatives in the US besides my cousin in New Mexico whom no one's heard from in five years. (...yeah.) And there's heart disease from my dad's side of the family which I frankly try not to think too much about but dad's been watching his cholesterol intake very carefully so hopefully everything will be okay. But, in case, I want to be close. Which my mom appreciates and was okay when I frankly pointed out that just because I will be able to visit every weekend doesn't mean that I will. For which I'm thankful.
What is the best part of the conversation for me, though, is that I got the okay to do whatever I want to do with my life in the years between when I get out of grad school and before I turn thirty. (Compromise, you might say.) Specifically, by "whatever" I meant I got permission to go out of country to wherever I want to find whatever job I want, etc. Which is kind of awesome because, well, a chance to see the world and all before I have to settle down into a nice middle class job somewhere in the field of science and be mostly normal.
Which means, of course, that I get to remind my parents of this every year for the next five to seven years just to make sure they don't go back on the promise. (Sometimes it's necessary.)
Well, cheers.
20090321
And that spells DNA
Am in lab right now. It's very quiet and very empty, which I approve since it lessens the occurrence of headache which the later lab meeting will no doubt bring up. I've a draft of my final written project almost ready to go (feel twitchy, need to look over it again before I send it in) and then it's home free...until the next quarter.
I also need to finish registering for my classes. And house clean and buy food &c but that will have to wait. I think I will just go home after the meeting today, finish doing the math for the data that the machine'll spew out, and then take a nap. Despite of the knowledge that grades don't matter in grad school (I mean, most people will not be applying to another school afterwards, yeah?) and that the 3.0 minimum GPA (scary, isn't it? If it drops any lower you get kicked out of the program) is well known amount the PIs and mostly they well interfere before we get to that point, I was still found finals week to be deeply stressful. I simply can't not take classes seriously and not go through the "OMG am I doing this right?" cycle. On one hand, it means that I'll try to do my best regardless of whether the project matters or not, which is kind of a good trait. On the other hand: stress & exhaustion! (Did not sleep well last night and felt a sudden urge to re-do the formatting for the citations!)
Nap. There needs to be a nap in the near future.
Oh and while I was sticking my plate in the qPCR machine the DNA song came up on my mp3 player (another good thing about empty lab morning on weekends -- mp3 player! Because there's no one around to talk to you) and I grinned, because perfect timing -- nothing is quite like having someone singing about guanine and cytosine to you while you're qPCRing.
I also noticed that I've developed a strange fondness of adding "ing" to whatever reactions that I'm doing to make it into a verb, despite of the fact that I know what the abbreviations stand for and adding "ing" makes no grammatical sense of whatsoever to the majority. It gives me a perverse sort of pleasure to mangle the grammar in the sciences even more.
Somewhere, out there, a grammar nazi experienced a sudden chill.
[edit 9:34]
The inevitable truth of grad school (am filling out course evaluation forms online right now, in case you're wondering what brought this one) is that the more organized courses (as in came with website and non-faculty organizers) are often less educational.
I also need to finish registering for my classes. And house clean and buy food &c but that will have to wait. I think I will just go home after the meeting today, finish doing the math for the data that the machine'll spew out, and then take a nap. Despite of the knowledge that grades don't matter in grad school (I mean, most people will not be applying to another school afterwards, yeah?) and that the 3.0 minimum GPA (scary, isn't it? If it drops any lower you get kicked out of the program) is well known amount the PIs and mostly they well interfere before we get to that point, I was still found finals week to be deeply stressful. I simply can't not take classes seriously and not go through the "OMG am I doing this right?" cycle. On one hand, it means that I'll try to do my best regardless of whether the project matters or not, which is kind of a good trait. On the other hand: stress & exhaustion! (Did not sleep well last night and felt a sudden urge to re-do the formatting for the citations!)
Nap. There needs to be a nap in the near future.
Oh and while I was sticking my plate in the qPCR machine the DNA song came up on my mp3 player (another good thing about empty lab morning on weekends -- mp3 player! Because there's no one around to talk to you) and I grinned, because perfect timing -- nothing is quite like having someone singing about guanine and cytosine to you while you're qPCRing.
I also noticed that I've developed a strange fondness of adding "ing" to whatever reactions that I'm doing to make it into a verb, despite of the fact that I know what the abbreviations stand for and adding "ing" makes no grammatical sense of whatsoever to the majority. It gives me a perverse sort of pleasure to mangle the grammar in the sciences even more.
Somewhere, out there, a grammar nazi experienced a sudden chill.
[edit 9:34]
The inevitable truth of grad school (am filling out course evaluation forms online right now, in case you're wondering what brought this one) is that the more organized courses (as in came with website and non-faculty organizers) are often less educational.
20090318
Spoke too soon
Dear diary,
This morning I received an email sent at around 4pm yesterday afternoon requesting that we send in a hard copy of the proposal to the PI. I turned in my proposal electronically at around 10am yesterday. I just went in to turn in my paper copy, and the person who is supposed to receive this wasn't there. I hope nothing goes wrong in the transfer of papers & explanations from the person that I left my papers with to the person who is supposed to be receiving the papers.
Which is to say, that I'm experiencing some anxiety and trying very hard not to think about Shakespeare. Or Stardust, the movie version. (At least no one will die here, right? Right?)
(Also, anxiety works better than caffeine.)
Yours,
S
[EDIT 10:45]
Have returned from appointment with optometrist. Did you know that sucky depth perception after dark is apparently a common trait for people with astigmatism? (Eye pressure is still fine, despite of my DNA, thank goodness.)
Still working on the cancer paper but want to whine about the fact that when I woke up today I discovered that today's the monthly Pain Day.
Wednesdays. Why is it always Wednesday?
This morning I received an email sent at around 4pm yesterday afternoon requesting that we send in a hard copy of the proposal to the PI. I turned in my proposal electronically at around 10am yesterday. I just went in to turn in my paper copy, and the person who is supposed to receive this wasn't there. I hope nothing goes wrong in the transfer of papers & explanations from the person that I left my papers with to the person who is supposed to be receiving the papers.
Which is to say, that I'm experiencing some anxiety and trying very hard not to think about Shakespeare. Or Stardust, the movie version. (At least no one will die here, right? Right?)
(Also, anxiety works better than caffeine.)
Yours,
S
[EDIT 10:45]
Have returned from appointment with optometrist. Did you know that sucky depth perception after dark is apparently a common trait for people with astigmatism? (Eye pressure is still fine, despite of my DNA, thank goodness.)
Still working on the cancer paper but want to whine about the fact that when I woke up today I discovered that today's the monthly Pain Day.
Wednesdays. Why is it always Wednesday?
20090317
Hard questions to answer
Example: proposing a new therapy for cancer (one that is not currently used or in clinical trials).
Note: there are many, many different types of cancer, and subtypes. There are many,many types of treatments out right now and many more in the pipeline (what pharm people call the series of trials to approve a drug for usage). There are research being done on many, many pathways.
I hope the PIs aren't really expecting something noteworthy out of us first years here. Like the next imatinib.
(I skipped the question about the upstream and downstream pathways. People spent 30 years studying one pathway in cancer. I have no idea how to even begin to describe the masses of pathways that are involved.)
(Thank you, Anna. I had chocolate. It did indeed improve my mood somewhat.)
Note: there are many, many different types of cancer, and subtypes. There are many,many types of treatments out right now and many more in the pipeline (what pharm people call the series of trials to approve a drug for usage). There are research being done on many, many pathways.
I hope the PIs aren't really expecting something noteworthy out of us first years here. Like the next imatinib.
(I skipped the question about the upstream and downstream pathways. People spent 30 years studying one pathway in cancer. I have no idea how to even begin to describe the masses of pathways that are involved.)
(Thank you, Anna. I had chocolate. It did indeed improve my mood somewhat.)
20090316
Finals week has begun
I went in to have my access card reset today. It turns out that somehow the card had defaulted back to its previous value, so that when you enter its ID number it shows that I belong to previous lab and not the lab I'm currently in. The person in charge was as bemused as I was.
Is it a sign? Hmm.
... ...
In other news, given that it is Monday and I have, by 1pm, not heard back from the PI about my proposal yet, I went over (while my experiment was at the "plug it in to electricity and wait" stage) to check, just to see what on earth happened and whether or not I should be waiting for an email at 3 in the morning tonight. Er. Tomorrow morning. When I went in the PI looked mildly surprised and mentioned that yes, she got the emails from me (yes, note the plural) and inquired as to whether or not I've attached my proposal to them. I informed her, very politely, that yes I did in fact attach my proposal. I attached it to all the emails I've sent to her. She said, mildly, "Okay, let me take a look then," went to her inbox, and there the emails were, with the attachments.
She decided to take a look at them while I was right there. (To save me the pain of staying up all night anxiously waiting for an email, but mostly just to get rid of me, I suspect.) Which is, to say, she skimmed over them, noted that I have more details than I need for the literature review (which I don't really consider a fault) and had me re-organize the entire experimental methods section because my aims needs to be numbered. She didn't actually comment at all about my experimental design, approach, or limitations. After she made sure I know how to re-organize the second half of my proposal (and part of the first half too, apparently background and literature review were supposed to be together for this proposal, and the sample proposal that I followed was for another type of proposal, nevermind that we weren't really told what type of research proposals we were doing to start with), she sent me on my way (no, literally, she said "Bye" to me). She was nice enough, I suppose. And technically helpful, since she gave me advice that I will take (she IS one of the graders for the proposal, after all). Mostly, though, I'm fuming slightly, because I sent that thing to her last Wednesday. For this.
Well, at least when I turn it in tomorrow it'll be over and done with. Good riddance. (For a 2 unit class too. ...If it weren't for the fact that I thought learning how to write a proposal was so important....)
Is it a sign? Hmm.
... ...
In other news, given that it is Monday and I have, by 1pm, not heard back from the PI about my proposal yet, I went over (while my experiment was at the "plug it in to electricity and wait" stage) to check, just to see what on earth happened and whether or not I should be waiting for an email at 3 in the morning tonight. Er. Tomorrow morning. When I went in the PI looked mildly surprised and mentioned that yes, she got the emails from me (yes, note the plural) and inquired as to whether or not I've attached my proposal to them. I informed her, very politely, that yes I did in fact attach my proposal. I attached it to all the emails I've sent to her. She said, mildly, "Okay, let me take a look then," went to her inbox, and there the emails were, with the attachments.
She decided to take a look at them while I was right there. (To save me the pain of staying up all night anxiously waiting for an email, but mostly just to get rid of me, I suspect.) Which is, to say, she skimmed over them, noted that I have more details than I need for the literature review (which I don't really consider a fault) and had me re-organize the entire experimental methods section because my aims needs to be numbered. She didn't actually comment at all about my experimental design, approach, or limitations. After she made sure I know how to re-organize the second half of my proposal (and part of the first half too, apparently background and literature review were supposed to be together for this proposal, and the sample proposal that I followed was for another type of proposal, nevermind that we weren't really told what type of research proposals we were doing to start with), she sent me on my way (no, literally, she said "Bye" to me). She was nice enough, I suppose. And technically helpful, since she gave me advice that I will take (she IS one of the graders for the proposal, after all). Mostly, though, I'm fuming slightly, because I sent that thing to her last Wednesday. For this.
Well, at least when I turn it in tomorrow it'll be over and done with. Good riddance. (For a 2 unit class too. ...If it weren't for the fact that I thought learning how to write a proposal was so important....)
20090315
Hit the pause button
It is Sunday morning. I am sitting on the living room floor, wrapped in a blanket, with two laptops and a bag of potato chips, writing about early onset type 2 diabetes. It is nice to write about something where 90% of people don't die from it in less than five years. At the very least, there's less of the "why the heck am I writing this stupid thing about changes in cell phenotype instead of doing experiments that's actually relevant to figuring out the disease?" mindset, which makes it easier to stand back, breathe, and say "Okay, this is not my area of interest, I need to know the general pathways to get through this course, but this will be someone else's project, not mine."
(Still no sign from the PI looking over the Alzheimer's proposal, by the way. Should I be giving up all hopes by this point?)
I am going through tea at an alarming rate. Though usually after the second cup I'll start switching to non-caffeinated types so I don't end up awake at 3 in the morning. No one feels good at 4 in the morning, but 3 honestly isn't that much better.
My upstairs neighbor is unusually noisy this weekend. Given the nature of the noises I try very hard not to think too much about it.
I realized I also haven't written anything particularly insightful here in a while. Is it simply because the classes and research have eaten my brain? Possible, but a large part of me is always lingering on the academic stuff. Maybe it's just because I got lazy and kept finding excuses to put it off. This weekend my excuse is the finals projects. Or maybe I'm just getting so tied down to the mundane things like remembering to buy eggs at the grocery store and turn in my papers on time that I don't bother with trying to find something insightful anymore. It's hard to know, right now, with little bits of my idealism bleeding into all my proposed experiments and a lot of emotions and philosophies bleeding into my stories and my pragmatism (is that what it is? This here's what I did today and here's what I'll need to do tomorrow?) dumped here. Whatever's left is dealt with by attacking a paper with crayons, apparently. There is no insight. Somehow I've gone from "why're things the way they are" to "that's the way things are, c'est la vie".
Except no, that's not really true either. I think I may have gotten sneakier when I'm not paying attention. Or maybe I've just stopped paying attention.
Curiosity lives on, though. It does that.
(Still no sign from the PI looking over the Alzheimer's proposal, by the way. Should I be giving up all hopes by this point?)
I am going through tea at an alarming rate. Though usually after the second cup I'll start switching to non-caffeinated types so I don't end up awake at 3 in the morning. No one feels good at 4 in the morning, but 3 honestly isn't that much better.
My upstairs neighbor is unusually noisy this weekend. Given the nature of the noises I try very hard not to think too much about it.
I realized I also haven't written anything particularly insightful here in a while. Is it simply because the classes and research have eaten my brain? Possible, but a large part of me is always lingering on the academic stuff. Maybe it's just because I got lazy and kept finding excuses to put it off. This weekend my excuse is the finals projects. Or maybe I'm just getting so tied down to the mundane things like remembering to buy eggs at the grocery store and turn in my papers on time that I don't bother with trying to find something insightful anymore. It's hard to know, right now, with little bits of my idealism bleeding into all my proposed experiments and a lot of emotions and philosophies bleeding into my stories and my pragmatism (is that what it is? This here's what I did today and here's what I'll need to do tomorrow?) dumped here. Whatever's left is dealt with by attacking a paper with crayons, apparently. There is no insight. Somehow I've gone from "why're things the way they are" to "that's the way things are, c'est la vie".
Except no, that's not really true either. I think I may have gotten sneakier when I'm not paying attention. Or maybe I've just stopped paying attention.
Curiosity lives on, though. It does that.
20090314
Status report
Did managed to flag someone down at 1:30ish in the afternoon and harvest my cells.
Did not hear by from the PI who is supposed to be looking over my proposal (3 days left and counting).
On the plus side,one of the postdoc from my previous lab saw me while I was leaving and was very nice to me. As was the Russian girl who is in my lab (though I guess sympathetic is a more accurate term). So, you know, it didn't end up with me sulking by myself in the tissue culture room, which made my day that much better.
Onward to salvage my day. And finish the thing on dust mites.
Did not hear by from the PI who is supposed to be looking over my proposal (3 days left and counting).
On the plus side,one of the postdoc from my previous lab saw me while I was leaving and was very nice to me. As was the Russian girl who is in my lab (though I guess sympathetic is a more accurate term). So, you know, it didn't end up with me sulking by myself in the tissue culture room, which made my day that much better.
Onward to salvage my day. And finish the thing on dust mites.
Planning. FAIL.
I have some cells I need to harvest today so I thought that I might go in early, when it's nice and quiet and no one's using the equipments except for me, get it done, and get on with my day.
FAIL.
The access card for the building, despite of being just fine yesterday, refused to let me into the lab. I went around and tried every single door that can potentially give me access and it failed each time, with the little security light by the door blinking green and red at me, balefully. In a fit of pique, I tried the card on the door downstairs. It opened. Now I have access to the tissue culture room, except it was the wrong tissue culture room. I have access to my previous lab. It appeared that somehow my card had defaulted back to its previous value. (The other two cards worked just fine for access to the other buildings though, I tried.) (Yes each floor has a different access code for the card, don't ask me why.)
Not helpful.
The downstairs and the upstairs are not connected by internal stairs. (Yes Kate, this is the really weird building I was complaining to you about, a while back.) You have to exit the doors, climb the staircase outside of the building, and then re-enter. Hence, access to the downstairs lab did me no good at all. To be sure I looked around for people, with the vague hope that some of the people from my current lab, who work downstairs, might have upstairs access. Failed. Then I tried to find a PI, hoping PIs get building-wide access. Given that it was 9 to 9:30 on a Saturday morning, there was no one there.
Further more, due to the fact that the PI of my current lab will be gone until next week, the chances that someone from my current lab will come in over the weekend is much, much lower than normal.
After flailing around in frustration for a few minutes (didn't solve anything, of course it didn't solve anything), I went grocery shopping. And got myself more chocolate. I'm going in later today again to see if anyone's there (unlike my previous lab, I don't have the phone number of anyone in the lab either, and I only have the email of one postdoc who will not be in until Monday). If not, I'm leaving the entire thing until Monday. If the cells start dying or the protein expression changes -- well, I'm a rotation student and I've darn well tried my best.
Oh my God. Fail. I don't think flailing adequately expresses my frustration anymore. I mean, how often do student want to go in on weekends and can't?
FAIL.
The access card for the building, despite of being just fine yesterday, refused to let me into the lab. I went around and tried every single door that can potentially give me access and it failed each time, with the little security light by the door blinking green and red at me, balefully. In a fit of pique, I tried the card on the door downstairs. It opened. Now I have access to the tissue culture room, except it was the wrong tissue culture room. I have access to my previous lab. It appeared that somehow my card had defaulted back to its previous value. (The other two cards worked just fine for access to the other buildings though, I tried.) (Yes each floor has a different access code for the card, don't ask me why.)
Not helpful.
The downstairs and the upstairs are not connected by internal stairs. (Yes Kate, this is the really weird building I was complaining to you about, a while back.) You have to exit the doors, climb the staircase outside of the building, and then re-enter. Hence, access to the downstairs lab did me no good at all. To be sure I looked around for people, with the vague hope that some of the people from my current lab, who work downstairs, might have upstairs access. Failed. Then I tried to find a PI, hoping PIs get building-wide access. Given that it was 9 to 9:30 on a Saturday morning, there was no one there.
Further more, due to the fact that the PI of my current lab will be gone until next week, the chances that someone from my current lab will come in over the weekend is much, much lower than normal.
After flailing around in frustration for a few minutes (didn't solve anything, of course it didn't solve anything), I went grocery shopping. And got myself more chocolate. I'm going in later today again to see if anyone's there (unlike my previous lab, I don't have the phone number of anyone in the lab either, and I only have the email of one postdoc who will not be in until Monday). If not, I'm leaving the entire thing until Monday. If the cells start dying or the protein expression changes -- well, I'm a rotation student and I've darn well tried my best.
Oh my God. Fail. I don't think flailing adequately expresses my frustration anymore. I mean, how often do student want to go in on weekends and can't?
20090313
I need a life
What Susan does on Friday night is, apparently, filing out her tax forms.
And vacuuming. And dishes.
Because she is taking a break from working on her paper.
And vacuuming. And dishes.
Because she is taking a break from working on her paper.
Planning fail
I sent in my proposal early (Wednesday) because one of the PIs offered to look over it for us if we sent it in early, and also because I don't want to cluster it with the other two projects that are due next week if I do end up having to re-write half of it. I didn't hear back all of yesterday. Just now I got an email that, in summary, said "Oh sure. Did you attach your file?"
Well, at this rate, I probably won't get the feedback until Tuesday, which is when the proposal is actually due, so therefore the entire OMG-hafta-finish-early-so-I-can-get-useful-feedback will not be panning out.
Cheers.
More PI lolz for the biologists out there:
"Gastrulation, it's the most important event in your life ...though you probably don't remember it."
Well, at this rate, I probably won't get the feedback until Tuesday, which is when the proposal is actually due, so therefore the entire OMG-hafta-finish-early-so-I-can-get-useful-feedback will not be panning out.
Cheers.
More PI lolz for the biologists out there:
"Gastrulation, it's the most important event in your life ...though you probably don't remember it."
20090311
Geography fail
Today our lab received a package that's addressed to Athens, Ohio.
We are not in Ohio.
Someone was napping during those high school geography lessons.
We are not in Ohio.
Someone was napping during those high school geography lessons.
20090310
PI lolz
"Then kinase inhibitors took over the world!"
|:O
It's even better than the "Lungs are seats to the soul" one, I swear.
...
In other news, it is apparently cancer metastasis week. All week.
|:O
It's even better than the "Lungs are seats to the soul" one, I swear.
...
In other news, it is apparently cancer metastasis week. All week.
In which subconscious geek strikes again, and boundaries are useful
I dreamed last night and I've forgotten most of it. I do, however, remember the part where I was playing chess with someone in the park and at the same time was trying to explain why the clinical trials of cancer therapy via folate receptors is plausible to a third person who showed up and wanted to know about it. Because he came from the hospital and the doctor mentioned something about it.
Then (still in the dream) I had to go and take an exam on California florists in which, I now realized, I did get the name of the bush poppy right, Greek and all. I mixed up the name of the evening rose genus with the other genus of the poppy family though, and I don't know whether or not I should be saddened by this, or by the fact that I can give out the name to members of the family Papaveraceae in my sleep.
I also got the folate receptor information right, except I did neglect to mention that they target a specific receptor but, again, in my sleep.
I'm beginning to suspect that reading those papers right before I go to sleep is not healthy for my state of mind.
...
My parents sent over photos of the Yard, where the tulips I'd planted have germinated. Yes those are ropes. I did rope off the area where I planted things. It's basically to remind my parents that I planted things there and that they should weed, but very carefully.
It turned out pretty well, don't you think? (The plethora of weeds aside.) Can't wait until they bloom. (I got the red kind.)
Then (still in the dream) I had to go and take an exam on California florists in which, I now realized, I did get the name of the bush poppy right, Greek and all. I mixed up the name of the evening rose genus with the other genus of the poppy family though, and I don't know whether or not I should be saddened by this, or by the fact that I can give out the name to members of the family Papaveraceae in my sleep.
I also got the folate receptor information right, except I did neglect to mention that they target a specific receptor but, again, in my sleep.
I'm beginning to suspect that reading those papers right before I go to sleep is not healthy for my state of mind.
...
My parents sent over photos of the Yard, where the tulips I'd planted have germinated. Yes those are ropes. I did rope off the area where I planted things. It's basically to remind my parents that I planted things there and that they should weed, but very carefully.
It turned out pretty well, don't you think? (The plethora of weeds aside.) Can't wait until they bloom. (I got the red kind.)
20090308
Why hello there
There is a ladybug in my spinach. This is why I wash my vegetables super carefully.
Okay the ladybug has been carried out to the balcony on my finger.
And now the balance has been restored to nature. (lol MERLIN)
(Yes it was still alive. I checked. It crawled up my finger.)
Okay the ladybug has been carried out to the balcony on my finger.
And now the balance has been restored to nature. (lol MERLIN)
(Yes it was still alive. I checked. It crawled up my finger.)
Chieves, anyone?
Today I noticed that 99 Ranch (had to go today because of lab thing yesterday) misspell their vegetables. It's a little alarming, since I've always taken the English names that they present for vegetables that I grew up with as the correct name. Apparently not. Unless there's a very, very close relative of chives named "chieves" that I'm not aware of.
I now have a sudden urge to go and google the name of every vegetable label that I've seen there, especially when you get to weird names like chayote (click here if you're not sure what it looks like). Though I'm fairly confident with the names like daikon, and garlic, so maybe not every label.
I also had an urge for pineapple today. Then I took one look at the pineapples on the stand, all of them being, on average, roughly the size of my head, thought about how much work it'd be to dissect one, and lost my urge.
The tea urge continues though. It usually does.
I am now up to the part in my proposal where I'm describing the methods and wondering whether or not saying "I think there're things in the basement I can use to see that" would be considered unprofessional.
I now have a sudden urge to go and google the name of every vegetable label that I've seen there, especially when you get to weird names like chayote (click here if you're not sure what it looks like). Though I'm fairly confident with the names like daikon, and garlic, so maybe not every label.
I also had an urge for pineapple today. Then I took one look at the pineapples on the stand, all of them being, on average, roughly the size of my head, thought about how much work it'd be to dissect one, and lost my urge.
The tea urge continues though. It usually does.
I am now up to the part in my proposal where I'm describing the methods and wondering whether or not saying "I think there're things in the basement I can use to see that" would be considered unprofessional.
20090307
Ha
I've gone around the room during break and reorganized and so there are now ONLY FIVE PILES OF PAPER in my flat, total.
Also I may have had too much tea, if anyone can ever be said to have had too much tea.
Also I may have had too much tea, if anyone can ever be said to have had too much tea.
Random
There is supposedly a movie/documentary made about the discovery of Gleevec and struggle of the scientist against Genentech. The PI has admitted that it was a little over-dramatized but nevertheless pointed it to us as an example of the odds we have to work against if we happen to discover a compound that might be used as drug therapy, if we were lucky, since apparently the odds are usually more against us than that.
Now I really want to see that movie/documentary. Think of it morbid curiosity.
Saw a giant crow on campus today. It is bigger than Kate's rabbit and slightly smaller than Anna's cat, very glossy, and totally unafraid of humans. In fact it reminds me eerily of every single fairytale/folk lore in which the bird that stares unblinkingly back at you isn't usually a bird.
Also saw a dragonfly, but I guess that isn't as interesting, aside from the fact that it seems to be very, very far from home given that there was no bodies of freshwater near where I found it. Do dragonflies migrate?
Now I really want to see that movie/documentary. Think of it morbid curiosity.
Saw a giant crow on campus today. It is bigger than Kate's rabbit and slightly smaller than Anna's cat, very glossy, and totally unafraid of humans. In fact it reminds me eerily of every single fairytale/folk lore in which the bird that stares unblinkingly back at you isn't usually a bird.
Also saw a dragonfly, but I guess that isn't as interesting, aside from the fact that it seems to be very, very far from home given that there was no bodies of freshwater near where I found it. Do dragonflies migrate?
20090305
My fingers have their own minds
After some more googling, I've concluded that I got the "introduction" section of my proposal mixed up with the "literature review" section and have thus effectively thwarted my own attempt to write the entire thing in order. (It's more logical to my brain and will speed up the experimental design process that way-- or that was the plan, anyway.)
It's always a little discouraging, when you've managed to thwart yourself without even trying.
In addition, much to my own bemusement (or is it amusement? Anyway, by now it's definitely amusement), I kept typing "dopaminergic" when I meant to type "cholinergic". Clearly my mind is hung up on Parkinson's and very reluctant to switch over to Alzheimer's, despite of the fact that I just read three papers on Alzheimer's -- okay, they're all focused on golgi fragmentation but the idea is there. (The proposal will be on the role of golgi fragmentation as cause / indicator for neurodegeneration; it's based on a 2008 paper on Cdk5 and golgi fragmentation in Alzheimer's, if anyone's interested.) (Presentation today on the mechanisms of cancer cell metastasis went v. well, by the way.)
One of my classmates who rotated in my current lab fall quarter is thinking of joining my current lab. He pointed out that this is one of the most well-funded labs, which is true. He will never have to worry about the PI running out of funding to support the grad students. It does not, however, make my current experience any more pleasant. I think I'll take my risks and learn to write really good research proposals. That way I can try for my own training grant (NIH and NSF are surprisingly grad student friendly, all things considered) and it should decrease the lab-funding-risk worse case scenario, should everything go pear shaped three years down the road. (Which has happened to other students before.) (You hear horror stories from the upperclassmen.)
Conclusion? My current proposal-assignment is therefore very useful. Very annoying, but very useful.
My living room looks like a file cabinet has regurgitated on the floor. There are four stacks of paper that I can see without moving from my current spot. I no longer know which stack contains what. There is at least another stack in my bedroom, not counting the stuff that I've filed on the bookshelf.
I still want a cat, but moments like these that make me thankful that I don't have one. Otherwise there's a very high chance that I'll return from my nightly coma tomorrow morning and find that half of my review article's been chewed off and that someone's gnawed through the wire to my laptop. That'd make me sad. And the cat will probably have a bad case of food poisoning. As the saying goes, food for thought requires a mind with teeth, and thoughts for food requires...a stomach that can handle copious amounts of printer paper, plastic, colored ink, and possibly staples. (Note: colored ink from printers may contain heavy chemicals.)
...Maybe I'm thinking of a goat, and not a cat, after all.
I think I've reached that stage of the day when I'm very confused and probably shouldn't be allowed to wander around by myself. Well then. Good night.
It's always a little discouraging, when you've managed to thwart yourself without even trying.
In addition, much to my own bemusement (or is it amusement? Anyway, by now it's definitely amusement), I kept typing "dopaminergic" when I meant to type "cholinergic". Clearly my mind is hung up on Parkinson's and very reluctant to switch over to Alzheimer's, despite of the fact that I just read three papers on Alzheimer's -- okay, they're all focused on golgi fragmentation but the idea is there. (The proposal will be on the role of golgi fragmentation as cause / indicator for neurodegeneration; it's based on a 2008 paper on Cdk5 and golgi fragmentation in Alzheimer's, if anyone's interested.) (Presentation today on the mechanisms of cancer cell metastasis went v. well, by the way.)
One of my classmates who rotated in my current lab fall quarter is thinking of joining my current lab. He pointed out that this is one of the most well-funded labs, which is true. He will never have to worry about the PI running out of funding to support the grad students. It does not, however, make my current experience any more pleasant. I think I'll take my risks and learn to write really good research proposals. That way I can try for my own training grant (NIH and NSF are surprisingly grad student friendly, all things considered) and it should decrease the lab-funding-risk worse case scenario, should everything go pear shaped three years down the road. (Which has happened to other students before.) (You hear horror stories from the upperclassmen.)
Conclusion? My current proposal-assignment is therefore very useful. Very annoying, but very useful.
My living room looks like a file cabinet has regurgitated on the floor. There are four stacks of paper that I can see without moving from my current spot. I no longer know which stack contains what. There is at least another stack in my bedroom, not counting the stuff that I've filed on the bookshelf.
I still want a cat, but moments like these that make me thankful that I don't have one. Otherwise there's a very high chance that I'll return from my nightly coma tomorrow morning and find that half of my review article's been chewed off and that someone's gnawed through the wire to my laptop. That'd make me sad. And the cat will probably have a bad case of food poisoning. As the saying goes, food for thought requires a mind with teeth, and thoughts for food requires...a stomach that can handle copious amounts of printer paper, plastic, colored ink, and possibly staples. (Note: colored ink from printers may contain heavy chemicals.)
...Maybe I'm thinking of a goat, and not a cat, after all.
I think I've reached that stage of the day when I'm very confused and probably shouldn't be allowed to wander around by myself. Well then. Good night.
20090304
Desperation much?
One of the PIs has, apparently, gotten someone to sent out a mass email to all first years with a list of potential rotation projects.
(Usually WE pick a PI we like and go ask THEM for rotations.)
(Usually WE pick a PI we like and go ask THEM for rotations.)
20090303
Just the messenger
Though it does sound fun and I'd go these next two weekends if I'm not under the pain of having lobotomy performed on me with a knitting needle if I don't attend my lab meetings on Sat. and finishing my mini research proposal.
Lucy, if our schedules work out, I'm dragging you to this with me:
I spy a chance to geek out totally. Science Festival. How awesome.
Totally will try to go on April 4th, regardless of whether or not I'm going before then.
Lucy, if our schedules work out, I'm dragging you to this with me:
From Larry Brock:
...
For the past year I have been working on organizing the San Diego Science Festival - a major FUN, entertaining, educational and FREE event geared toward reinvigorating the interest of Americans in the Sciences. I have put as much energy and imagination and effort into this as any of the companies I started. And now I need your help
getting the word out.
Why is this important?
In a nutshell:
-- according to Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley, by the year 2010 (just 1 year from now) 90% of the world's scientists and engineers will live in Asia.
-- 85% of people being trained in the advanced physical sciences in the United States are from abroad.
-- because the opportunities are now greater abroad, we are no longer retaining them in the USA.
-- If we do not turn this trend around SOON, we will have outsourced innovation.
... ...
The Festival kicked off yesterday and will run through the month of March, offering over 500 FREE events for the public geared toward sparking an interest in Science. I have pulled together a grassroots effort of over 350 companies, universities, research labs and over 150 of San Diego's leading scientists and Nobel Laureates.
You can find out all the details at: http://www.sdsciencefestival.org
Click on the calendar to see dates, times and descriptions of all the fascinating events and opportunities.
The grand finale will be an all-day EXPO in Balboa Park on Saturday, April 4th, 2009 --- over 500 fun, hands-on interactive activities for all ages. There will be stuff for the mildly curious to the science professional. Balboa Park will be transformed into a series of pavilions: YOUR BODY, YOUR ARTS, YOUR SPORTS, YOUR HERROS, YOUR
PLANET and YOUR FUTURE. You can learn about fun topics like the science of the magic of Harry Potter, the mathematics of juggling, the physics of skateboarding, the science of chocolate, the physics of golf, trends in Global Warming, renewable energy sources of the future .... Plus the some of the major museums will be open to the public for free. (This is a completely non-profit, non-commercial
initiative.)
You can operate state-of-the-art robots, learn how scientists uncovered great artwork under the original Da Vinci canvases, laugh with science comedians, be mesmerized by science magicians and mathemagicians, fly a fighter jet simulator, enter a virtual reality environment, be a CSI agent, make a virus out of marshmallows and toothpicks, try your hand at using a surgical robot, discover ways of measuring global warming, learnt how to transform your car so it can run off a cusinart ....
And --- while having fun, you can leave with information about science scholarships, internships, mentorship programs, jobs and much more.
So, why should you forward this message?
You could be the one who passes it on to the student (or their parent or teacher) who is inspired and excited enough by the science they see to eventually cure AIDS or cancer, reduce Global Warming, invent the next source of renewable energy, discover how to extend life or solve world hunger...
Please consider sending this to your employees, colleagues, friends, teachers, teachers....
... ...
I spy a chance to geek out totally. Science Festival. How awesome.
Totally will try to go on April 4th, regardless of whether or not I'm going before then.
20090302
51327496810
The unfortunate thing about working with a postdoc is that usually postdocs, like most other people of my acquaintances, turn to be Not Morning People. Therefore, despite of the fact that I purposefully stayed in for 30 minutes this morning I still had to wait for about an hour before the postdoc came and showed me where the qPCR reagents are. (Attempts to attain information about the whereabouts of reagents before I actually need them are usually met with abysmal failure, as postdoc does not seem to trust me to do the experiment on my own without her being there to show me where the stuff is and give me a perfect walk-through.) (Although this is understandable, currently the only mistakes I've made are the ones that the walk-throughs wouldn't have helped with and everything else just resulted in unnecessary amounts of waiting.) Then again, I've suddenly realized, now I have a valid excuse to not have conclusive data by the end of my rotation.
Am currently sitting outside again. Postdocs have taken over the area where I usually work and the PI is having a Meeting With People in the area where I usually stay, when I'm not working.
Our final assignments were assigned today. I was made aware that I have to write two papers and take one take-home exam. I'm more worried about the papers than the exam, since one of them is supposed to be a mini research proposal. I've never actually done a serious research proposals (by which I mean more prose-like and less...uh...bullet points or anecdotal). I expect there will be a lot of reading involved (well the number is currently at six papers and counting) on top of my class papers. And the presentations.
Have made banana bread over the weekend, as bananas from last week have acquired too many brown spots and are not looking very appetizing anymore. Banana bread very good though. Attempt to bake chicken has failed. Kate's given me some tips though, so there may be hope yet for the future. Of chicken baking. Or something.
I've moved my pot of narcissi out, since the light deprivation indoors has given it a serious case of plant starvation and it's looking sickly. Aloe needs to be transplanted into a larger pot. I have no larger pot. This is probably going to get tacked on to the end of my "to-do" list which will, in reality, not get resolved until summer.
The wireless is particularly sucky at the library today (finals are starting, med students have trooped in to cram for last midterm / early finals with their laptops). I want tea. I also need to vacuum my place this weekend.
Am currently sitting outside again. Postdocs have taken over the area where I usually work and the PI is having a Meeting With People in the area where I usually stay, when I'm not working.
Our final assignments were assigned today. I was made aware that I have to write two papers and take one take-home exam. I'm more worried about the papers than the exam, since one of them is supposed to be a mini research proposal. I've never actually done a serious research proposals (by which I mean more prose-like and less...uh...bullet points or anecdotal). I expect there will be a lot of reading involved (well the number is currently at six papers and counting) on top of my class papers. And the presentations.
Have made banana bread over the weekend, as bananas from last week have acquired too many brown spots and are not looking very appetizing anymore. Banana bread very good though. Attempt to bake chicken has failed. Kate's given me some tips though, so there may be hope yet for the future. Of chicken baking. Or something.
I've moved my pot of narcissi out, since the light deprivation indoors has given it a serious case of plant starvation and it's looking sickly. Aloe needs to be transplanted into a larger pot. I have no larger pot. This is probably going to get tacked on to the end of my "to-do" list which will, in reality, not get resolved until summer.
The wireless is particularly sucky at the library today (finals are starting, med students have trooped in to cram for last midterm / early finals with their laptops). I want tea. I also need to vacuum my place this weekend.
20090227
Odd
I'm feeling no less strange or awkward and my mom still doesn't quite think I'm smart enough for grad school, but in spite of all this I'm feeling happy. By which I mean I have this constant low buzz of contentment and life is good.
I haven't even had tea yet, today.
The med-into-grad applications (it's pretty much what it sounds like) got mailed out today. I'm not participating. I could say I'm not philanthropic enough to want to deal with the patients except that...no, you know what? I'm not philanthropic enough to deal with people. It's a very valid reason.
I haven't even had tea yet, today.
The med-into-grad applications (it's pretty much what it sounds like) got mailed out today. I'm not participating. I could say I'm not philanthropic enough to want to deal with the patients except that...no, you know what? I'm not philanthropic enough to deal with people. It's a very valid reason.
20090226
So, basically
Have gone through five papers today. Conclusion? That pulmonary hypertension is veeeeerry deadly and phosphorylated tyrosine blots are cool, but doesn't really pertain to anything I'm interested in.
The paper I have to present made me lol by including a paragraph explaining that, originally, they named the protein Fish, but naming it Fish made it really hard to work with in databases and search terms so they had to change the name back to Tks5, which was a clone name.
Creative naming fail.
Have also concluded that it's entirely possible to like someone as a scientists and not like her as a person. Have concluded that the current lab has far too many meetings (four per week, if I'm interested, which thanks, but no thanks, since I don't want to be in the lab on both Saturday and Sunday). Also that the tissue culture room is no longer a safe haven because once the clock hits 10:30 am and people all arrive, there is only one microscope and something like eight incubators, all stuffed in a room with five laminar flow hoods in a configuration that possibly violates six different safety codes and it gets crowded. At the risk of sounding anti-social, I just want to be left myself somewhere without having to move aside and make room for other people every five minutes.
Not to mention I don't get my own pipetmans, and that makes me sad.
Have cells, will induce genes tomorrow and harvest on Sat. May do qPCR tomorrow too, but we'll see. Have constant urges to draw things today but do not have sketch book on hand. Will settle for sketching them out in my head.
The paper I have to present made me lol by including a paragraph explaining that, originally, they named the protein Fish, but naming it Fish made it really hard to work with in databases and search terms so they had to change the name back to Tks5, which was a clone name.
Creative naming fail.
Have also concluded that it's entirely possible to like someone as a scientists and not like her as a person. Have concluded that the current lab has far too many meetings (four per week, if I'm interested, which thanks, but no thanks, since I don't want to be in the lab on both Saturday and Sunday). Also that the tissue culture room is no longer a safe haven because once the clock hits 10:30 am and people all arrive, there is only one microscope and something like eight incubators, all stuffed in a room with five laminar flow hoods in a configuration that possibly violates six different safety codes and it gets crowded. At the risk of sounding anti-social, I just want to be left myself somewhere without having to move aside and make room for other people every five minutes.
Not to mention I don't get my own pipetmans, and that makes me sad.
Have cells, will induce genes tomorrow and harvest on Sat. May do qPCR tomorrow too, but we'll see. Have constant urges to draw things today but do not have sketch book on hand. Will settle for sketching them out in my head.
20090224
I remember this from somewhere
I had been hungry all the years;
My noon had come, to dine;
I, trembling, drew the table near,
And touched the curious wine.
'T was this on tables I had seen,
When turning, hungry, lone,
I looked in windows, for the wealth
I could not hope to own.
I did not know the ample bread,
'T was so unlike the crumb
The birds and I had often shared
In Nature's dining-room.
The plenty hurt me, 't was so new,
Myself felt ill and odd,
As berry of a mountain bush
Transplanted to the road.
Nor was I hungry; so I found
That hunger was a way
Of persons outside windows,
The entering takes away.
Hmm
My current lab names its incubators (e.g. "Keith"). I think it's my favorite thing about this lab so far.
[edit 15:04]
The lack of a desk has given me, in addition to a truly awful crick in my neck (which, now that I've thought about it, would explain the slight headache), a constant feeling of disturbance as people go in and out of the lobby. Since the postdoc who's in charge of my project can't be found and no one else aside from the PI (who's busy) and another grad student (who's in class) ever notices whether I'm there or not and I can't do any experiment today, I've fled to the library.
I've never appreciated a desk and a chair more. Truly.
[edit 15:04]
The lack of a desk has given me, in addition to a truly awful crick in my neck (which, now that I've thought about it, would explain the slight headache), a constant feeling of disturbance as people go in and out of the lobby. Since the postdoc who's in charge of my project can't be found and no one else aside from the PI (who's busy) and another grad student (who's in class) ever notices whether I'm there or not and I can't do any experiment today, I've fled to the library.
I've never appreciated a desk and a chair more. Truly.
20090223
Here comes the sun
I expected it to rain yesterday except it never did and now we're in the 70s. It does not feel like February.
Tried several new things this weekend as well: liked dolma (courtesy of Lucy), liked the lemon-ginger infusion thing from Tazo (tasted like the herbal tea thing they have of the same name), didn't like the TeaZazz thing (it's supposed to be carbonated mint green-tea, yet somehow the mixture of my favorite things was ...rather terrible, really, given that I had to dilute it with juice to drink it). The peanut butter with celery combination, at the suggestion of the girl from the grocery store, was interesting. If I took it with enough peanut butter it's not bad, but it does defeat the purpose of eating celery as a healthy snack. I think I still prefer it cooked.
I went to the Getty Villa with Lucy & her family (well, minus her dad) this weekend! The gardens are pretty neat and I kept getting distracted by the carvings on the ceiling and tile-work on the floor etc, while most people are photographing the statues. Annie, you would've really loved the place. In their signet ring collection there're stuff with the profiles of people you know, such as Octavian. (Yes I typed "people you know" on purpose.) We also finished watching Merlin, which was very shiny (or as Lucy said, "lighting-y"). There's no redeeming value, but it was entertaining. I like it.
Lucy's grandpa is vaguely intimidating. Due to a mistake in communication Lucy was dragged out of bed at a quarter to nine on a Sunday. I felt bad, except for the part where I mostly didn't because it meant we could go wandering around outside.
Coraline is creepy. I think I find cutesy things creepier than blood and gore, actually, though this may be a beneficial side-effect of physio (or just, you know, the fact that I have to read so many biomed papers with cadaveric animal parts). The 3D was much better than I expected. I miss having cats.
Will start transfection in lab this week. Hopefully. Currently still have no spot to stay in lab, but at least I will have cell lines?
Tried several new things this weekend as well: liked dolma (courtesy of Lucy), liked the lemon-ginger infusion thing from Tazo (tasted like the herbal tea thing they have of the same name), didn't like the TeaZazz thing (it's supposed to be carbonated mint green-tea, yet somehow the mixture of my favorite things was ...rather terrible, really, given that I had to dilute it with juice to drink it). The peanut butter with celery combination, at the suggestion of the girl from the grocery store, was interesting. If I took it with enough peanut butter it's not bad, but it does defeat the purpose of eating celery as a healthy snack. I think I still prefer it cooked.
I went to the Getty Villa with Lucy & her family (well, minus her dad) this weekend! The gardens are pretty neat and I kept getting distracted by the carvings on the ceiling and tile-work on the floor etc, while most people are photographing the statues. Annie, you would've really loved the place. In their signet ring collection there're stuff with the profiles of people you know, such as Octavian. (Yes I typed "people you know" on purpose.) We also finished watching Merlin, which was very shiny (or as Lucy said, "lighting-y"). There's no redeeming value, but it was entertaining. I like it.
Lucy's grandpa is vaguely intimidating. Due to a mistake in communication Lucy was dragged out of bed at a quarter to nine on a Sunday. I felt bad, except for the part where I mostly didn't because it meant we could go wandering around outside.
Coraline is creepy. I think I find cutesy things creepier than blood and gore, actually, though this may be a beneficial side-effect of physio (or just, you know, the fact that I have to read so many biomed papers with cadaveric animal parts). The 3D was much better than I expected. I miss having cats.
Will start transfection in lab this week. Hopefully. Currently still have no spot to stay in lab, but at least I will have cell lines?
20090220
And Poe had his cadaveric heart
I many times thought peace had come,
When peace was far away;
As wrecked men deem they sight the land
At center of the sea,
And struggle slacker, but to prove,
As hopelessly as I,
How many the fictitious shore
Before the harbor lie.
-Dickinson
When peace was far away;
As wrecked men deem they sight the land
At center of the sea,
And struggle slacker, but to prove,
As hopelessly as I,
How many the fictitious shore
Before the harbor lie.
-Dickinson
20090219
Dear Diary,
Today I was called "Bessie" by someone in my new lab. I have never been associated with that particular name before. It was interesting. The other rotation student, Tom, laughed so hard that his whole face turned red.
Yours,
S
......
Kate said that we're not, in fact, doomed. We will suffer, but we are not doomed.
Cheers.
Today I was called "Bessie" by someone in my new lab. I have never been associated with that particular name before. It was interesting. The other rotation student, Tom, laughed so hard that his whole face turned red.
Yours,
S
......
Kate said that we're not, in fact, doomed. We will suffer, but we are not doomed.
Cheers.
20090218
Put your neurosis to constructive use
I went to Roger Tsien's presentation (he gave the nobel-laureate presentation on campus today), and that was one of the pieces of advise he gave to future scientists (read: students). There were loads of people there and I didn't get out of lab early enough to get a seat, and so had to stand (with loads of other people -- we were a mob, albeit mostly a very organized, geeky mob) for the entire hour. Roger, being Roger, looked around and wryly commented that he didn't expect this many people to come since this was almost exactly the same lecture he gave every year to about 20 grad students in the florescent protein class, but now that some "Swede had sprinkled fairy dust" on him, it seems to be much more popular.
Needless to say, he was quite an engaging speaker (and also responsible for the glowy protein that I imaged this morning, in addition to naming the other glowy proteins "mCherry" and "mTangerine" &c instead of something like ASDF651389) (he claimed to have gotten the color-name inspirations from Crayola).
(It's also hard to get the "zmg nobel-prize winner" attitude when the guy's just the crazy PI from the lab next door.) (Literally -- my current lab is next door to his.)
I also saw the people from my previous lab rotation there (who also came too late for a seat, so we stood together), which was nice. My new lab still appears to be organized chaos to me. To the best of my knowledge, no one there went to the event.
The boot lace from my favorite pairs of boots broke. I think this may be the first time, for me, when the shoes lasted longer than the laces. I need to get new shoe laces. I wonder if they sell that separately?
Needless to say, he was quite an engaging speaker (and also responsible for the glowy protein that I imaged this morning, in addition to naming the other glowy proteins "mCherry" and "mTangerine" &c instead of something like ASDF651389) (he claimed to have gotten the color-name inspirations from Crayola).
(It's also hard to get the "zmg nobel-prize winner" attitude when the guy's just the crazy PI from the lab next door.) (Literally -- my current lab is next door to his.)
I also saw the people from my previous lab rotation there (who also came too late for a seat, so we stood together), which was nice. My new lab still appears to be organized chaos to me. To the best of my knowledge, no one there went to the event.
The boot lace from my favorite pairs of boots broke. I think this may be the first time, for me, when the shoes lasted longer than the laces. I need to get new shoe laces. I wonder if they sell that separately?
20090217
Maybe, next time
Okay so, I have decided to do four lab rotations. I have picked out my fourth lab. I have interviewed for my fourth lab and I will be ready to switch into it at the start of next quarter.
In the meantime, I'm 90% sure I will NOT be joining the lab that I just started at today.
Meanwhile, if I understood Kate's explanation of the economy-stimulus-bill-thing correctly, we are all doomed. Doomed. The weather's lovely, however.
[edit 20:53]
I should add that I did, in fact, gain a greater appreciation of cell morphology, especially those of fish karyocytes. (And possibly those of kangaroo rats?)
In the meantime, I'm 90% sure I will NOT be joining the lab that I just started at today.
Meanwhile, if I understood Kate's explanation of the economy-stimulus-bill-thing correctly, we are all doomed. Doomed. The weather's lovely, however.
[edit 20:53]
I should add that I did, in fact, gain a greater appreciation of cell morphology, especially those of fish karyocytes. (And possibly those of kangaroo rats?)
20090216
It went a little something like this
My parents, after reaching here on Saturday, checked the weather forecast and decided that the weather will be (and it is) really awful on Monday, so they're going to drive back on Sunday. Therefore, yesterday morning, after some more nagging ("Be safe and take care of yourself." "Yes mom." "Do you have a boyfriend yet?" "No mom." "Remember to eat all the food in your fridge, don't forget." "Yes mom."), they left. I was returned to the middle of my living room, feeling slightly shell-shocked because in less than 24 hours (courtesy of LA traffic on their way down) my domicile went from one person to three person to one person again. Except for the refuse around the place and the vast quantities of food in the fridge it might've been a dream.
(I also noted that I've apparently grown very territorial of my kitchen, given that I spent five minutes trying to convince mom to stop putting things away when she's done with them because she's putting them into the wrong spots.)
(It's a rather sad kitchen to be territorial of. As Lucy can attest.)
Also, I introduced mom to BPAL (Black Phoenix &c) and she snagged "Ultraviolet", so that one's out of circulation, folks. Her ability to tell what is what, however, is worse than mine, since for almost all of the bottles she can only describe it as "something plant-like." (I can ID the more obvious things such as juniper, mint, eucalyptus, and citrus. And some commonly used lab chemicals, though I suppose that doesn't count in this particular context.)
I've gone through five papers about actin polymerization this weekend, and pages of photos of cells. I know nothing of cell morphology (and they vary based on cell type, too!), most of them just look like cells (vaguely fibroblast-like things) with cobwebs to me. I expect I will gain a greater appreciation for them by 12pm tomorrow, or just end up banging my head against the desk a lot.
...
Microscope scheduling continues to fail, along with my attempts to do volunteer work. I seriously miss Davis, when I just email someone, say I'm interested in volunteering, and I get some sort of message back in a week at the most and at the end of the month at the most I'd usually be doing something. (Usually it's more informal than that: I just get a "you might be interested in this" email and show up to the event, then I sign up for the more registered thing on the spot and start working right away.) Currently, at SD, I've contacted six different organizations, received an initial email back from four of them, averaging at around two weeks, have to fill out a bunch of forms ahead of time indicating my volunteering history and whether or not my act of volunteering is required by school or court order (funny how those got grouped together in most forms) (my God how I despise paperwork), mail them back to pend for approval and then never hear from them again.
Er. Sorry about the italics abuse. I felt they were called for.
Clearly something is failing. It could be me & my "volunteering history", but I'm more inclined to blame it on the system right now (the four page form I had to fill out for the last one had not helped). There's one that turned out to be a "show up as you are" event, except I missed yesterday's due to parents and the people only meet twice a month. (But it's to plant things, kind of like the Central Park Project I was in, so that's nice.)
For the record: I did look up this sort of things via campus-related means; most of the student organizations for this sort of thing are run by undergrads, and have meeting times I cannot attend to, being now a paid lab minion and all. The grad organizations do have cool out-of-country trips, except I can't afford them and they take time away from my research for week(s) at a time and, in a time when I occasionally have to show up on the weekends (not this weekend, though, but last weekend? Yes) to wrap up experiments, this is perhaps not a good idea. (Read: spectacularly bad idea.)
There you have it.
...
Lucy said she'd met someone who looked like Mike but had a more Nick-like personality, and trying to imagine that is like getting lost in an Escher drawing. In my brain.
I suppose if they both had babies and ended up baby-sitting for each other a lot one of Mike's offspring might turn out like that. Though currently the idea of Mike's offspring (my God, baby-proofing the entire house might not be enough) had gone off on a Mobius strip and I don't know how that's going to end up. I suspect he'd be rather horrified at the thought if he were still infecting my brain, especially since the infecting-the-brain voice is still at the 20ish age range.
(I also noted that I've apparently grown very territorial of my kitchen, given that I spent five minutes trying to convince mom to stop putting things away when she's done with them because she's putting them into the wrong spots.)
(It's a rather sad kitchen to be territorial of. As Lucy can attest.)
Also, I introduced mom to BPAL (Black Phoenix &c) and she snagged "Ultraviolet", so that one's out of circulation, folks. Her ability to tell what is what, however, is worse than mine, since for almost all of the bottles she can only describe it as "something plant-like." (I can ID the more obvious things such as juniper, mint, eucalyptus, and citrus. And some commonly used lab chemicals, though I suppose that doesn't count in this particular context.)
I've gone through five papers about actin polymerization this weekend, and pages of photos of cells. I know nothing of cell morphology (and they vary based on cell type, too!), most of them just look like cells (vaguely fibroblast-like things) with cobwebs to me. I expect I will gain a greater appreciation for them by 12pm tomorrow, or just end up banging my head against the desk a lot.
...
Microscope scheduling continues to fail, along with my attempts to do volunteer work. I seriously miss Davis, when I just email someone, say I'm interested in volunteering, and I get some sort of message back in a week at the most and at the end of the month at the most I'd usually be doing something. (Usually it's more informal than that: I just get a "you might be interested in this" email and show up to the event, then I sign up for the more registered thing on the spot and start working right away.) Currently, at SD, I've contacted six different organizations, received an initial email back from four of them, averaging at around two weeks, have to fill out a bunch of forms ahead of time indicating my volunteering history and whether or not my act of volunteering is required by school or court order (funny how those got grouped together in most forms) (my God how I despise paperwork), mail them back to pend for approval and then never hear from them again.
Er. Sorry about the italics abuse. I felt they were called for.
Clearly something is failing. It could be me & my "volunteering history", but I'm more inclined to blame it on the system right now (the four page form I had to fill out for the last one had not helped). There's one that turned out to be a "show up as you are" event, except I missed yesterday's due to parents and the people only meet twice a month. (But it's to plant things, kind of like the Central Park Project I was in, so that's nice.)
For the record: I did look up this sort of things via campus-related means; most of the student organizations for this sort of thing are run by undergrads, and have meeting times I cannot attend to, being now a paid lab minion and all. The grad organizations do have cool out-of-country trips, except I can't afford them and they take time away from my research for week(s) at a time and, in a time when I occasionally have to show up on the weekends (not this weekend, though, but last weekend? Yes) to wrap up experiments, this is perhaps not a good idea. (Read: spectacularly bad idea.)
There you have it.
...
Lucy said she'd met someone who looked like Mike but had a more Nick-like personality, and trying to imagine that is like getting lost in an Escher drawing. In my brain.
I suppose if they both had babies and ended up baby-sitting for each other a lot one of Mike's offspring might turn out like that. Though currently the idea of Mike's offspring (my God, baby-proofing the entire house might not be enough) had gone off on a Mobius strip and I don't know how that's going to end up. I suspect he'd be rather horrified at the thought if he were still infecting my brain, especially since the infecting-the-brain voice is still at the 20ish age range.
20090214
20090213
In which there should be more tea
Today is a very sci-fi sort of day.
I made the bullets for the gene gun this morning, the actual practice of which is nowhere near as cool as it sounds, though it did involve giant tanks of compressed nitrogen and desiccant pellets. Then for our discussion (which was supposed to be Monday and so got moved to today, all hail the mighty power of the instructor) we went to a classroom in the pharmaceutical sciences building (PSB -- we also have a BSB and a NSB; occasionally us first years get a little confused in the conversations). It has a special projector. We got to use uber-cool 3-D glasses, of the sort that came with a tiny chip in the frame that you use to calibrate to the projected image at the beginning of class, so that the structures you see will be 3-D while everything else remained firmly 2-D without any sort of weird overlay.
There was a weird moment while the instructor was showing us the structure of a protein where it looked like we were going to get brained by an alpha helix. Slightly nervous giggling ensued. (None of us are actual structural biologists -- if we were, we would be majoring in pharmaceutical sciences and not biomedical sciences-- so death by secondary protein structure struck us as being slightly hysterical.)
(It was a G-protein coupled receptor, if you must know. 50% of the drugs on the market target some form of that, so it's not just this random unrelated thing we have to do each week.) (Though I wouldn't mind playing with those glasses even if it's unrelated.)
(Did I mention that it was awesome? Even though I despise structural biology?)
Tossing away all my cells today made me sad, but I had to do it since no one else would take care of them otherwise and then they'd die and possibly cause contamination and then the world would end. (All the cell culture people firmly believe that contamination == end of the world.) Waiting by the bus stop in the dark and the rain was very lonely, and then I ran out of the un-caffeinated lemon tea but there was chocolate, so all was well at the end.
I'm taking the opportunity, while switching labs, to have Monday off. Parents are coming over to visit this weekend to prove, as my mom put it just now, "that we still care about you."
Cheers.
[edit 21:43]
You can apparently light nail polish on fire. Have checked.
I made the bullets for the gene gun this morning, the actual practice of which is nowhere near as cool as it sounds, though it did involve giant tanks of compressed nitrogen and desiccant pellets. Then for our discussion (which was supposed to be Monday and so got moved to today, all hail the mighty power of the instructor) we went to a classroom in the pharmaceutical sciences building (PSB -- we also have a BSB and a NSB; occasionally us first years get a little confused in the conversations). It has a special projector. We got to use uber-cool 3-D glasses, of the sort that came with a tiny chip in the frame that you use to calibrate to the projected image at the beginning of class, so that the structures you see will be 3-D while everything else remained firmly 2-D without any sort of weird overlay.
There was a weird moment while the instructor was showing us the structure of a protein where it looked like we were going to get brained by an alpha helix. Slightly nervous giggling ensued. (None of us are actual structural biologists -- if we were, we would be majoring in pharmaceutical sciences and not biomedical sciences-- so death by secondary protein structure struck us as being slightly hysterical.)
(It was a G-protein coupled receptor, if you must know. 50% of the drugs on the market target some form of that, so it's not just this random unrelated thing we have to do each week.) (Though I wouldn't mind playing with those glasses even if it's unrelated.)
(Did I mention that it was awesome? Even though I despise structural biology?)
Tossing away all my cells today made me sad, but I had to do it since no one else would take care of them otherwise and then they'd die and possibly cause contamination and then the world would end. (All the cell culture people firmly believe that contamination == end of the world.) Waiting by the bus stop in the dark and the rain was very lonely, and then I ran out of the un-caffeinated lemon tea but there was chocolate, so all was well at the end.
I'm taking the opportunity, while switching labs, to have Monday off. Parents are coming over to visit this weekend to prove, as my mom put it just now, "that we still care about you."
Cheers.
[edit 21:43]
You can apparently light nail polish on fire. Have checked.
20090212
If you were a tumor...
It is probably a sign of mental instability that when I first heard that today I felt an almost irrepressible urge to laugh, and when I looked around me, I saw that all my classmates (all fourteen of them) were completely dead-pan.
The key question, of course, is whose sanity is in question.
I have a new-found respect for nail polish. You can use it to make slides for prokaryotes AND eukaryotes, apparently. (And I got to play with paraformaldehyde, which was, sadly, not as exciting as I'd hoped.) Watching the post-doc painstakingly dab at it is funny though, because he's in his thirties and has to sit down in order to look through the microscope in the culture room since otherwise he'd have to kneel on the floor to get his eyes on the same level -- and it's such a dainty tiny bottle of polish. (Kate, I think the top of your head may just about clear his shoulders.) (Yes he really is that tall.)
(Also: has anyone ever seen nail polish catch on fire before? Purely scientific interest. Or at least, purely curious as to why it'd say "FLAMMABLE" on the back when things that I know are flammable in the lab have often more innocuous looking warning labels.)
In other news:
From Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab I have "Ultraviolet", "Crossroads", "Tiger Lily" and "Shanghai" up for grabs for anyone interested. If you really want to I can be persuaded to give up "Dance of Death" and "Loup Garou" too, though the latter is currently gracing the scent of my linens.
First come, first serve. Will mail, unless you're Lucy, in which case we'll do an item trade of some sort next time we see each other.
The key question, of course, is whose sanity is in question.
I have a new-found respect for nail polish. You can use it to make slides for prokaryotes AND eukaryotes, apparently. (And I got to play with paraformaldehyde, which was, sadly, not as exciting as I'd hoped.) Watching the post-doc painstakingly dab at it is funny though, because he's in his thirties and has to sit down in order to look through the microscope in the culture room since otherwise he'd have to kneel on the floor to get his eyes on the same level -- and it's such a dainty tiny bottle of polish. (Kate, I think the top of your head may just about clear his shoulders.) (Yes he really is that tall.)
(Also: has anyone ever seen nail polish catch on fire before? Purely scientific interest. Or at least, purely curious as to why it'd say "FLAMMABLE" on the back when things that I know are flammable in the lab have often more innocuous looking warning labels.)
In other news:
From Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab I have "Ultraviolet", "Crossroads", "Tiger Lily" and "Shanghai" up for grabs for anyone interested. If you really want to I can be persuaded to give up "Dance of Death" and "Loup Garou" too, though the latter is currently gracing the scent of my linens.
First come, first serve. Will mail, unless you're Lucy, in which case we'll do an item trade of some sort next time we see each other.
20090211
Lolz
Dickinson's awesome:
Speaking of which, I've a date with the microscopy core on Friday to make the bullets for the gene gun. You may now cue the sci-fi themed music.
Faith is a fine invention
For gentlemen who see;
But microscopes are prudent
In an emergency!
Speaking of which, I've a date with the microscopy core on Friday to make the bullets for the gene gun. You may now cue the sci-fi themed music.
Well, that was an unexpected amount of foresight
I just got a bunch of "Forever" stamps the other weekend.
Presenting at lab meeting today. Have 4 more papers this week and 11 for next week. Grad school and having a life clearly are meant to be mutually exclusive concepts.
Presenting at lab meeting today. Have 4 more papers this week and 11 for next week. Grad school and having a life clearly are meant to be mutually exclusive concepts.
20090209
A little wistful now
Wait, Sims 3 got delayed?
...which is probably a good thing since I do not have time for it right now. Huh. Think I'll have time in the summer? Assuming I'm not taking classes then?
I really, really feel like writing something now except I'm just getting a bunch of scenes, personalities and emotions and no way to put them together into something that makes sense. It's like white noise in my brain. I still want to write something that does not contain words like "signaling pathway" and "regulatory function".
...which is probably a good thing since I do not have time for it right now. Huh. Think I'll have time in the summer? Assuming I'm not taking classes then?
I really, really feel like writing something now except I'm just getting a bunch of scenes, personalities and emotions and no way to put them together into something that makes sense. It's like white noise in my brain. I still want to write something that does not contain words like "signaling pathway" and "regulatory function".
It got a little hazy after the tenth plate
I have somehow accumulated many, many plates of cell cultures. Currently this is not a good thing. I wonder if I should be freezing down a sample of each plate when I leave, just because when you passage cells too many time they tend to become strange and disinclined to die when they're supposed to.
Today alternated between periods of downpour, where it is in fact accurate to use the word "downpour", and periods when it's sunny and massive fleets of clouds go sailing by overhead (way cool to watch if you've got the time -- for me it's mostly limited to glimpses between class and lab). The wind made me gasp, mostly because it's there and there was an unexpectedly lot of it. The presence of weather is almost soothing after the days in 80s. This could be why I'm having another good day today, despite of the fact that my troubleshoot experiment has failed. Or you know, I could just like being a lab minion / geek that much.
I got "I'm Feeling You" stuck in my head this afternoon, which is strange since I'm pretty sure I haven't heard that song in a very very long time. It's not even the entire song, just the part of the chorus that goes "I'm riding the highs / I'm digging the lows / cause at least I feel alive" ending right before the "I'm feeling you" part. I didn't know the lyrics until I looked it up just now. It has probably something to do with the rhythm of things, like the "The Hurlers", except I actually like "The Hurlers" and I'm not entirely sure I like the other song. (Oh and Annie, I recommend Seth Lakeman to you, his style a little bit like Leahy and...well...just look him up on youTube or something.)
Speaking of multimedia type things. I had an extra hour last night and so went to look up Pushing Daisies. Except I can't find season two on the abc site anymore. Lucy, is this because I was just browsing the wrong abc part or did they took it down?
I've structural biology papers. They are confusing. I mean I know those bits are hydrophobic, but so what?
Today alternated between periods of downpour, where it is in fact accurate to use the word "downpour", and periods when it's sunny and massive fleets of clouds go sailing by overhead (way cool to watch if you've got the time -- for me it's mostly limited to glimpses between class and lab). The wind made me gasp, mostly because it's there and there was an unexpectedly lot of it. The presence of weather is almost soothing after the days in 80s. This could be why I'm having another good day today, despite of the fact that my troubleshoot experiment has failed. Or you know, I could just like being a lab minion / geek that much.
I got "I'm Feeling You" stuck in my head this afternoon, which is strange since I'm pretty sure I haven't heard that song in a very very long time. It's not even the entire song, just the part of the chorus that goes "I'm riding the highs / I'm digging the lows / cause at least I feel alive" ending right before the "I'm feeling you" part. I didn't know the lyrics until I looked it up just now. It has probably something to do with the rhythm of things, like the "The Hurlers", except I actually like "The Hurlers" and I'm not entirely sure I like the other song. (Oh and Annie, I recommend Seth Lakeman to you, his style a little bit like Leahy and...well...just look him up on youTube or something.)
Speaking of multimedia type things. I had an extra hour last night and so went to look up Pushing Daisies. Except I can't find season two on the abc site anymore. Lucy, is this because I was just browsing the wrong abc part or did they took it down?
I've structural biology papers. They are confusing. I mean I know those bits are hydrophobic, but so what?
20090208
Ergo
25 things meme is done over at lj. Meanwhile I've finally given in and ordered a set of imp-ears from Black Phoenix Alchemy lab (sorry Annie, let me know if you want to order together still and we can try the next time you remember). They came and I had some fun trying out the scents because, wonder of wonders, they are not the overly-sweet / musky stuff you'd find in the stores that'd make me sneeze. My favorite scent so far is "Shattered", which is a kind of mint + citrus type thing and smells fresh and not at all over-powering, like most of the smells that involve citrus I've run across. Unfortunately it doesn't last on my skin at all. The runner up is "Undertow", which (and I've tried again last night after my shower just to confirm), seems to actually make me sleep better. By which I meant I felt so well rested that I woke up at 7:07 on a Sunday morning with no alarm clock and felt ready to go out and face the day (it was almost the same the first time I tried it, too). Just for this I think it might be worth the investment.
I liked how "Loup Garou" smelled in the bottle better than "Undertow", but it does something on my skin that I'm not entirely sure about and ends up smelling almost acrid, so now I keep it tucked in the bag with my spare linens because the smell reminds me of every single hiking trip that I've ever enjoyed. (Considering that my scent association outside of chemical labs is usually pretty bad, this is fairly impressive.)
Oh and the Black Phoenix people did two random swaps for my order, and I got "Dance of Death", which I liked more than I thought I would and will most likely end up being the scent I wear on dates, should I ever go on dates (dunno, it's that kind of smell, I can't really explain it). The other one is Tiger Lily, which is far girlier than anything I'd ever pick for myself, but there's something very sweet and innocent about it that makes me think of sunshine and puppies. I put one dab on in the morning before my two hour discussion the day after I first tried it because I want the sunshine and puppies kind of feeling. Though I probably should never try to describe myself as sweet or innocent, in scents or otherwise.
That sums up my excitement of the week. Lab proceeds as usual, ditto for the papers. (OMG the load of papers.) My lab rotation ends next week and I have to give a talk on Wednesday in between the papers and there is so much stuff that I need to do next weekend that I've actually managed to convince my parents to not come and visit that weekend. I may need more chocolate.
Cheers.
I liked how "Loup Garou" smelled in the bottle better than "Undertow", but it does something on my skin that I'm not entirely sure about and ends up smelling almost acrid, so now I keep it tucked in the bag with my spare linens because the smell reminds me of every single hiking trip that I've ever enjoyed. (Considering that my scent association outside of chemical labs is usually pretty bad, this is fairly impressive.)
Oh and the Black Phoenix people did two random swaps for my order, and I got "Dance of Death", which I liked more than I thought I would and will most likely end up being the scent I wear on dates, should I ever go on dates (dunno, it's that kind of smell, I can't really explain it). The other one is Tiger Lily, which is far girlier than anything I'd ever pick for myself, but there's something very sweet and innocent about it that makes me think of sunshine and puppies. I put one dab on in the morning before my two hour discussion the day after I first tried it because I want the sunshine and puppies kind of feeling. Though I probably should never try to describe myself as sweet or innocent, in scents or otherwise.
That sums up my excitement of the week. Lab proceeds as usual, ditto for the papers. (OMG the load of papers.) My lab rotation ends next week and I have to give a talk on Wednesday in between the papers and there is so much stuff that I need to do next weekend that I've actually managed to convince my parents to not come and visit that weekend. I may need more chocolate.
Cheers.
20090205
So
Result of being tagged by Victoria's over at my lj.
Learned why diabetics (mostly type II) tend to have heart problems. It's like watching a train wreck happen.
Learned why diabetics (mostly type II) tend to have heart problems. It's like watching a train wreck happen.
20090204
Peach jam
Did a transfection the yesterday. The results so far are not too promising. The fusion protein construct that I put in refused to light up but I've still 24 hours left to check, so here's to hoping.
In other news: my rotation in this lab ends at the end of next week, and I went to Pt Loma last Sunday morning and saw a maroon-colored crab with white spots on its back. It was still alive, too. I found out by accident. I also found out that lichen-covered rocks are slippery and that perhaps having my camera out was a bad idea, since I dropped the camera pouch into a tide-puddle (not deep enough to be called a pool).
Despite of how a lot of things could've gone better this week, I am feeling oddly content.
In other news: my rotation in this lab ends at the end of next week, and I went to Pt Loma last Sunday morning and saw a maroon-colored crab with white spots on its back. It was still alive, too. I found out by accident. I also found out that lichen-covered rocks are slippery and that perhaps having my camera out was a bad idea, since I dropped the camera pouch into a tide-puddle (not deep enough to be called a pool).
Despite of how a lot of things could've gone better this week, I am feeling oddly content.
20090201
Upon reflection, it's really a new kind of pathetic
Sometime around 2am I woke up half way, thought about my reaction mix for an experiment I have to do on Monday, and calculated 18.5*33 in my head. Then in the morning I woke up, remembered that thought, laughed at myself, and checked and I've actually done it correctly.
On one hand: cool, I can apparently do two digit multiplications even half asleep.
On the other hand: my God I need to find something occupy my brain that's not school related.
Maybe Mike'd find this more impressive. Except for where he wouldn't because he can probably tell you the answer to 12! off of the top of his head at 6 in the morning with no caffeine.
Sometimes it's very awkward to write people who are smarter than you are. Especially if they happen to be the mouthy type of person.
Also I just realized that today, for the first time ever, I can't tell you right away where my sketchbook/notebook is. Remember high school? I used to carry that thing with me all the time. And throughout most of college too. This is the sad state of things.
On one hand: cool, I can apparently do two digit multiplications even half asleep.
On the other hand: my God I need to find something occupy my brain that's not school related.
Maybe Mike'd find this more impressive. Except for where he wouldn't because he can probably tell you the answer to 12! off of the top of his head at 6 in the morning with no caffeine.
Sometimes it's very awkward to write people who are smarter than you are. Especially if they happen to be the mouthy type of person.
Also I just realized that today, for the first time ever, I can't tell you right away where my sketchbook/notebook is. Remember high school? I used to carry that thing with me all the time. And throughout most of college too. This is the sad state of things.
20090131
Untitled
Sometimes I forget how dull plain USA grocery stores can be. I've had this point covered in class even, multiple times (agriculture & ecology, floristics, in case you're wondering). Somehow the colors and shapes can still distract me enough that occasionally I forget 90% of the stuff you'd find in your local equivalent of Safeway is derived from something like only seven ancestral species (e.g. cauliflower, radish, mustard greens of any kind, broccoli, all Crussiferae). Then I'd go to a different grocer's which, in my case, is frequently Asian, and I'd get things like taro and caltrop. I dithered for about five minutes in front of the tray this morning, because although I like to eat them but I'm pretty sure that I don't have the time to eat them right now(the shell requires both fingers and teeth and will likely result in smudges on my homework if I try to do both at the same time -- not as multitask-friendly as carrot sticks). The same thing did happen the other time I got taro. I ended up having to throw them away. It was very sad.
I did finish both papers I have to read for Monday, with the sheets perfectly clean. I'm not entirely sure I understood the bit on chemical engineering (they all have guanines, all the R groups are hydrophobic, I can't tell what other electrostatic what-ever-you-cal-its are important) but that's the way it goes. One of my classes is going to start the unit on heart diseases next week, so hopefully that'll be interesting (and will no doubt involve NFkB, because it is everywhere and involved in everything).
I also (finally) finished season one of Due South today, bring me to: 1) ouch...I mean, nice, but the progression to darker themes is apparently not a linear, but exponential scale and 2) this show's got the most awesome soundtrack ever. The fact that I know who Ray Kowalski is shows up at odd moments, when I'd wonder what he'd do in such and such scenario. Mostly I just feel bad for Ray Vecchio. A lot. And then spend half an hour mulling over Truepenny's analysis of the episodes (that's her lj username, google it and read her meta under "due south" tags if you haven't already, Lucy) which continues to be insightful without being dense. I feel like it rounds up my Due South experience very nicely.
Next up? Pushing Daisies. Going to get caught up on that.
Starting next weekend.
I did finish both papers I have to read for Monday, with the sheets perfectly clean. I'm not entirely sure I understood the bit on chemical engineering (they all have guanines, all the R groups are hydrophobic, I can't tell what other electrostatic what-ever-you-cal-its are important) but that's the way it goes. One of my classes is going to start the unit on heart diseases next week, so hopefully that'll be interesting (and will no doubt involve NFkB, because it is everywhere and involved in everything).
I also (finally) finished season one of Due South today, bring me to: 1) ouch...I mean, nice, but the progression to darker themes is apparently not a linear, but exponential scale and 2) this show's got the most awesome soundtrack ever. The fact that I know who Ray Kowalski is shows up at odd moments, when I'd wonder what he'd do in such and such scenario. Mostly I just feel bad for Ray Vecchio. A lot. And then spend half an hour mulling over Truepenny's analysis of the episodes (that's her lj username, google it and read her meta under "due south" tags if you haven't already, Lucy) which continues to be insightful without being dense. I feel like it rounds up my Due South experience very nicely.
Next up? Pushing Daisies. Going to get caught up on that.
Starting next weekend.
20090129
Lucky break
New moderator today. He was a more talkative individual, and between him and the course instructor (who did not appear to suffer afflictions of psychological origins today) the class was kept well entertained and I was saved from having to talk too much.
In fact, they took up so much time that I was a little behind on time and was ordered to rush through two of the figures in my paper. I did get picked on for my summary slide, where I wrote "complex forms" instead of "complex is activated" since based on the paper it's not possible to know whether or not the protein complex does form or not, only that it's activated at the time point of interest (it could be still in a complex, just inactive the rest of the time). All in all though, I got off fairly lightly. My presentation is over and I say thank goodness and good riddance.
My cells are growing very slowly. If they don't grow faster I'd be going through my entire rotation without accomplishing anything except getting the sequence for part of a protein.
I got a new USB stick today, since my mp3 player is still out and my other USB drive that I tend to carry around with me is only half Gb and has lost three gel electrophoresis photos in as many days. The campus bookstore happened to have a sale on Kingston datatraveler today and so I got a 4 Gb one. (They didn't have many types -- it was either that or a white and pink one / white & greyish one. So I got a dark blue & silver one that looks like the one in the photo. Zach's favorite colors!) It is shiny.
Learning to use the new camera on the microscope tomorrow! Also up: more cells.
(What's the temperature like where you guys are? It's insanely warm today here. I'd given up on my sweater by lunch time and was wandering around in my shirtsleeves.)
In fact, they took up so much time that I was a little behind on time and was ordered to rush through two of the figures in my paper. I did get picked on for my summary slide, where I wrote "complex forms" instead of "complex is activated" since based on the paper it's not possible to know whether or not the protein complex does form or not, only that it's activated at the time point of interest (it could be still in a complex, just inactive the rest of the time). All in all though, I got off fairly lightly. My presentation is over and I say thank goodness and good riddance.
My cells are growing very slowly. If they don't grow faster I'd be going through my entire rotation without accomplishing anything except getting the sequence for part of a protein.
I got a new USB stick today, since my mp3 player is still out and my other USB drive that I tend to carry around with me is only half Gb and has lost three gel electrophoresis photos in as many days. The campus bookstore happened to have a sale on Kingston datatraveler today and so I got a 4 Gb one. (They didn't have many types -- it was either that or a white and pink one / white & greyish one. So I got a dark blue & silver one that looks like the one in the photo. Zach's favorite colors!) It is shiny.
Learning to use the new camera on the microscope tomorrow! Also up: more cells.
(What's the temperature like where you guys are? It's insanely warm today here. I'd given up on my sweater by lunch time and was wandering around in my shirtsleeves.)
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