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Bleh, I was hoping to update more this week, but things just got INSANE.
Monday I spoke with an advisor, and then with a new lab, and then came home to contemplate my decision. The next day I suffered through class, still largely undecided ("but I'll hurt his feelings..."), then made my decision and marched (okay, skulked is a closer description) into my PI's office to tell him what the deal was. (He's a younger Asian guy, and he talks really fast, so keep that in mind as you read this.)
Me: "Hi, I wanted to talk to you for a second... I just wanted to let you know I've decided to end my rotation early--"
PI: "Right, right, okay that's fine, yeah, yeah."
Me: "...Um... Okay. Well, tell Daria it was good to work with her, and--"
PI: "Right, okay that's fine, that's good, yeah, okay."
Me: "Um, right. Bye then!" *runs away*
Luckily I never have to go back there, so I never have to determine why he blew me off as I was attempting to explain to him why I was leaving. Perhaps he expected me to switch labs, perhaps he just didn't care. At any rate, that was Tuesday afternoon. After that I went to class and then retreated home to recover.
Wednesday I attempted to read a couple of papers in the morning, but had a really hard time getting through them. So I went to class having read only the first one thoroughly, and of course was called on (by my new PI, of course, who is teaching the RNA seminar) to present a figure in the second paper. Needless to say, it didn't go well. I did slightly redeem myself ten minutes or so later, when he asked the class a question and I jumped at the answer and got an excited, "YES!"
Thursday was my first day in the new lab. The Dellaporta lab, which is an MCDB (Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology) lab, collaborates heavily with the Buss lab, an Ecology and Evolutionary Biology lab. There are a couple of model organisms between the two labs, but the one I'll be working on is called Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus. They're related to Hydra and they're terribly cute. They're microscopic and colonial, and the two labs have discovered some really neat properties of how they interact with each other. For instance, if you stick two genetically identical colonies next to one another, they'll fuse. If you stick two genetically different colonies next to each other, they'll sting each other until one of them dies. They have these little stinging cells they stick out that are filled with a barb attached to some sort of long threadlike structure, and they shoot the barbs at each other, and the thread is filled with a toxin that then gets injected into the enemy. Neat, huh?
So my job in this lab is going to be developing some of the molecular biology for this organism, because no one has really done that. So, you know, tagging proteins with GFP and that sort of thing. Maybe finding a ligand for the protein they're interested in (not that I really want to do more yeast two-hybrid screens, at least not as a rotation project, but they do yield such awesome results...). On Thursday they put me straight to work and had me run a gel and set up a digest and run another gel and purify some PCR products and then run another gel Friday morning.... It was nice to have something to do. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed research, but when they put a pipetman in my hand Thursday morning it occurred to me that I hadn't done any research since before Christmas, and that it felt good to be back at the bench.
Thursday evening something came over me, and, completely unplanned, I started making a collage. I have about eighteen issues of Real Simple, and a couple each of Coastal Living and Sunset (yeah, I subscribe to those for homesickness/nostalgia purposes), so I went through them all to pick out pictures and words I liked, and glued everything onto a large piece of cardboard. The resulting collage is probably the best one I've made since freshman year of high school. For a few years I tried to make one every year, but my junior year one was terrible, and I just never found the time after my college freshman one, so I haven't made one in about three years. This one is really good though. I'm quite pleased with it. It felt good to be creative, too.
Anyway. So yesterday was a fairly lazy day, except for the running back and forth between the med school and science hill for meetings. Around 4:00 I gave up on being in lab and went back to the med school to hang out with my old lab. My grad student gave me a ride to a friend's house after she beat me horribly at Candy Crisis about seven times.
A bunch of us went and saw Children of Men last night. That movie is... intense. Amazing. So incredibly well-done. It's been a long time since I've seen a movie, but it's also been a long time since something has made me feel that much. It was... wow. That's all I've got.
After that we ate pizza and talked, and I got home for the first time yesterday (does it even count as yesterday?) around 1:30 am. I still had my backpack with me.
Today, a bunch of girls from my program are going to go see Catch & Release. Possibly get sushi beforehand, but since not a single one of them has responded to my email... Guh. I'm gonna have to call them all.
Okay, I'm off to take a shower.
Oh yeah, and P.S. here are the results of the quizzy thingy you guys filled out. Thank you! (I know it's all kind words, so I won't thank you for them, but I do thank you for taking the time to click on them. :-P )
Monday I spoke with an advisor, and then with a new lab, and then came home to contemplate my decision. The next day I suffered through class, still largely undecided ("but I'll hurt his feelings..."), then made my decision and marched (okay, skulked is a closer description) into my PI's office to tell him what the deal was. (He's a younger Asian guy, and he talks really fast, so keep that in mind as you read this.)
Me: "Hi, I wanted to talk to you for a second... I just wanted to let you know I've decided to end my rotation early--"
PI: "Right, right, okay that's fine, yeah, yeah."
Me: "...Um... Okay. Well, tell Daria it was good to work with her, and--"
PI: "Right, okay that's fine, that's good, yeah, okay."
Me: "Um, right. Bye then!" *runs away*
Luckily I never have to go back there, so I never have to determine why he blew me off as I was attempting to explain to him why I was leaving. Perhaps he expected me to switch labs, perhaps he just didn't care. At any rate, that was Tuesday afternoon. After that I went to class and then retreated home to recover.
Wednesday I attempted to read a couple of papers in the morning, but had a really hard time getting through them. So I went to class having read only the first one thoroughly, and of course was called on (by my new PI, of course, who is teaching the RNA seminar) to present a figure in the second paper. Needless to say, it didn't go well. I did slightly redeem myself ten minutes or so later, when he asked the class a question and I jumped at the answer and got an excited, "YES!"
Thursday was my first day in the new lab. The Dellaporta lab, which is an MCDB (Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology) lab, collaborates heavily with the Buss lab, an Ecology and Evolutionary Biology lab. There are a couple of model organisms between the two labs, but the one I'll be working on is called Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus. They're related to Hydra and they're terribly cute. They're microscopic and colonial, and the two labs have discovered some really neat properties of how they interact with each other. For instance, if you stick two genetically identical colonies next to one another, they'll fuse. If you stick two genetically different colonies next to each other, they'll sting each other until one of them dies. They have these little stinging cells they stick out that are filled with a barb attached to some sort of long threadlike structure, and they shoot the barbs at each other, and the thread is filled with a toxin that then gets injected into the enemy. Neat, huh?
So my job in this lab is going to be developing some of the molecular biology for this organism, because no one has really done that. So, you know, tagging proteins with GFP and that sort of thing. Maybe finding a ligand for the protein they're interested in (not that I really want to do more yeast two-hybrid screens, at least not as a rotation project, but they do yield such awesome results...). On Thursday they put me straight to work and had me run a gel and set up a digest and run another gel and purify some PCR products and then run another gel Friday morning.... It was nice to have something to do. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed research, but when they put a pipetman in my hand Thursday morning it occurred to me that I hadn't done any research since before Christmas, and that it felt good to be back at the bench.
Thursday evening something came over me, and, completely unplanned, I started making a collage. I have about eighteen issues of Real Simple, and a couple each of Coastal Living and Sunset (yeah, I subscribe to those for homesickness/nostalgia purposes), so I went through them all to pick out pictures and words I liked, and glued everything onto a large piece of cardboard. The resulting collage is probably the best one I've made since freshman year of high school. For a few years I tried to make one every year, but my junior year one was terrible, and I just never found the time after my college freshman one, so I haven't made one in about three years. This one is really good though. I'm quite pleased with it. It felt good to be creative, too.
Anyway. So yesterday was a fairly lazy day, except for the running back and forth between the med school and science hill for meetings. Around 4:00 I gave up on being in lab and went back to the med school to hang out with my old lab. My grad student gave me a ride to a friend's house after she beat me horribly at Candy Crisis about seven times.
A bunch of us went and saw Children of Men last night. That movie is... intense. Amazing. So incredibly well-done. It's been a long time since I've seen a movie, but it's also been a long time since something has made me feel that much. It was... wow. That's all I've got.
After that we ate pizza and talked, and I got home for the first time yesterday (does it even count as yesterday?) around 1:30 am. I still had my backpack with me.
Today, a bunch of girls from my program are going to go see Catch & Release. Possibly get sushi beforehand, but since not a single one of them has responded to my email... Guh. I'm gonna have to call them all.
Okay, I'm off to take a shower.
Oh yeah, and P.S. here are the results of the quizzy thingy you guys filled out. Thank you! (I know it's all kind words, so I won't thank you for them, but I do thank you for taking the time to click on them. :-P )
Arena(known to self and others) friendly, intelligent, loving, mature | Blind Spot(known only to others) adaptable, brave, caring, complex, confident, giving, independent, ingenious, logical, observant, reflective, searching, self-conscious, sentimental, silly, sympathetic, tense, trustworthy |
Façade(known only to self) accepting, idealistic | Unknown(known to nobody) able, bold, calm, cheerful, clever, dependable, dignified, energetic, extroverted, happy, helpful, introverted, kind, knowledgeable, modest, nervous, organised, patient, powerful, proud, quiet, relaxed, religious, responsive, self-assertive, sensible, shy, spontaneous, warm, wise, witty |
Dominant Traits
100% of people agree that oceantheorem is intelligent
All Percentages
able (0%) accepting (0%) adaptable (33%) bold (0%) brave (33%) calm (0%) caring (33%) cheerful (0%) clever (0%) complex (16%) confident (16%) dependable (0%) dignified (0%) energetic (0%) extroverted (0%) friendly (33%) giving (16%) happy (0%) helpful (0%) idealistic (0%) independent (16%) ingenious (16%) intelligent (100%) introverted (0%) kind (0%) knowledgeable (0%) logical (16%) loving (33%) mature (16%) modest (0%) nervous (0%) observant (16%) organised (0%) patient (0%) powerful (0%) proud (0%) quiet (0%) reflective (16%) relaxed (0%) religious (0%) responsive (0%) searching (16%) self-assertive (0%) self-conscious (33%) sensible (0%) sentimental (33%) shy (0%) silly (16%) spontaneous (0%) sympathetic (16%) tense (16%) trustworthy (16%) warm (0%) wise (0%) witty (0%)
Created by the Interactive Johari Window on 27.1.2007, using data from 6 respondents.
You can make your own Johari Window, or view oceantheorem's full data.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 10:59 pm (UTC)From:2) One of my buddies saw Chidren of Man and said it was the best movie he had seen in a long long time. I will definitely check it out now that the good reviews are pourin' in.
3) Cool entry. Thanks for giving me something fun and meaty to chew on (k...that came out wrong...but you know what I mean :) ).
-E
no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 11:06 pm (UTC)From:2) Children of Men. Oh my god. I ran out of adjectives that can accurately describe it. One of my favorite things about it is how much it leaves out--you don't know what the Human Project is, you don't know what caused mass infertility (well, neither do the characters), you don't know so many other little things. But you don't need to--the movie is about hope, not about babies. It's fantastic. It's about finding a reason to live.
3) Thanks! Glad to hear my entries are tasty. :-P
:)
Date: 2007-01-28 06:23 am (UTC)From:2) I saw Children of Men today. It was definitely a really interesting movie.
3) Indeed they are ;)
-E