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Aug. 4th, 2004 08:14 pmA couple of people in the last few weeks have told me I should write in my paper journal. I wrote in it last night for the first time in a couple of months, and I tried this time to just write, instead of doing what I've been doing every time I've written for the last two years--record. It's much easier to just write. Trying to record takes too much energy and time when you haven't written in several months. It felt good to just let the pen slide across the paper, letting the ink flow into whatever words I wanted to put down, instead of forcing them into what I wanted the future me to be able to read. I guess this is another way of confirming that I should put some thought into working a little less hard for the future and remember that the present is important, too. The future is going to be awfully bittersweet if I haven't enjoyed the journey to get there.
All day today I've had the urge to write. I guess putting pen to paper last night jogged my memory, and my mind and my hand now remember how cathartic and how joyous writing can be. I miss writing. I wish I had more time for it. I carried my journal around with me all day today and couldn't find a single moment to sit and write in it. I guess that's testament to how insane my days are.
Today was actually quite typical, actually. I spent the night at Leah's so we could study Genetics, so my morning was a little atypical--no bagel, no bike ride to the metro center, didn't get up until 7:35 (SO LATE!)--but once I got to school everything was extremely normal. Two hours of OChem lecture, a brief break to eat, seventy minutes of OChem lab lecture, off to Baskin Engineering to learn more about cell cultures (today Michelle let me split the cultures myself, which was extremely cool. more about that later), back to Science Hill to find Leah in the library so we could study.... And a few hours later, Genetics class. A very typical Wednesday.
The cell culture thing, as I mentioned, was incredible today. Last Wednesday was the first time I'd seen any of this, and I just watched then as Michelle split her cultures. Monday, again I just watched. Today, I did all the work, and Michelle instructed. It was so cool! I got to use the vaccuum to suck off the medium, I got to wash the cells with PBS, I got to vaccuum off the PBS, I got to add the trypsin to make the cells let go of the flask and each other... And then she let me put the flask under the microscope, so I could actually see the cells coming off the flask as the trypsin began to work. I love looking at that stage--the cells, in their little monolayer on the bottom, begin to ball up and pull into little spheres as the trypsin cuts their extracellular proteins. Under the microscope they become a thousand tiny, clear, shiny spheres, and if you shake the flask they all fly across the lens of the microscope, like rain on a windshield that's been coated in Rain-X. If you look at the flask without the microscope, when you add the trypsin and shake, sometimes you can see a sheet move across the bottom of the flask--that's the cells letting go. It's very, very cool. Once you get to that point, you suck the cells out of the flasks using a pipet. Then you stick, say, half in one flask and half in another (or, in my case today, 1/6 in each of 6 flasks). Then you add the medium back (the medium is cell food, containing fetal calf serum or something, along with amino acids and other things little cells need to grow up big and strong and divide. the medium also inhibits trypsin, so you have to get rid of it before you can put the trypsin on. and you have to put the medium back on before the trypsin works TOO well and chews up ALL the proteins, and the cells die), stick the flasks in the incubator, and wait a week. And voila! You have 6 times as many cells as you started with.
So... that's cell culture in a nutshell. I don't remember where I was originally going with this entry. It started out poetic and turned scientific somewhere in the middle. Which reminds me. Science can too be poetic, Zach! I'll come up with some specific examples for my next entry. ...Which may not be for a few days, because I have two major tests coming up, one right after the other, and I'm ready for neither. So if I'm still alive Friday after all the testing, I'll see if I can gather my strength to write a good entry.
For now... I'm off to study Genetics and Organic Chemistry. Or, the Organic Chemistry section of Genetics, which is the most productive thing I can think to do. Tautomeric mutations, here I come!
All day today I've had the urge to write. I guess putting pen to paper last night jogged my memory, and my mind and my hand now remember how cathartic and how joyous writing can be. I miss writing. I wish I had more time for it. I carried my journal around with me all day today and couldn't find a single moment to sit and write in it. I guess that's testament to how insane my days are.
Today was actually quite typical, actually. I spent the night at Leah's so we could study Genetics, so my morning was a little atypical--no bagel, no bike ride to the metro center, didn't get up until 7:35 (SO LATE!)--but once I got to school everything was extremely normal. Two hours of OChem lecture, a brief break to eat, seventy minutes of OChem lab lecture, off to Baskin Engineering to learn more about cell cultures (today Michelle let me split the cultures myself, which was extremely cool. more about that later), back to Science Hill to find Leah in the library so we could study.... And a few hours later, Genetics class. A very typical Wednesday.
The cell culture thing, as I mentioned, was incredible today. Last Wednesday was the first time I'd seen any of this, and I just watched then as Michelle split her cultures. Monday, again I just watched. Today, I did all the work, and Michelle instructed. It was so cool! I got to use the vaccuum to suck off the medium, I got to wash the cells with PBS, I got to vaccuum off the PBS, I got to add the trypsin to make the cells let go of the flask and each other... And then she let me put the flask under the microscope, so I could actually see the cells coming off the flask as the trypsin began to work. I love looking at that stage--the cells, in their little monolayer on the bottom, begin to ball up and pull into little spheres as the trypsin cuts their extracellular proteins. Under the microscope they become a thousand tiny, clear, shiny spheres, and if you shake the flask they all fly across the lens of the microscope, like rain on a windshield that's been coated in Rain-X. If you look at the flask without the microscope, when you add the trypsin and shake, sometimes you can see a sheet move across the bottom of the flask--that's the cells letting go. It's very, very cool. Once you get to that point, you suck the cells out of the flasks using a pipet. Then you stick, say, half in one flask and half in another (or, in my case today, 1/6 in each of 6 flasks). Then you add the medium back (the medium is cell food, containing fetal calf serum or something, along with amino acids and other things little cells need to grow up big and strong and divide. the medium also inhibits trypsin, so you have to get rid of it before you can put the trypsin on. and you have to put the medium back on before the trypsin works TOO well and chews up ALL the proteins, and the cells die), stick the flasks in the incubator, and wait a week. And voila! You have 6 times as many cells as you started with.
So... that's cell culture in a nutshell. I don't remember where I was originally going with this entry. It started out poetic and turned scientific somewhere in the middle. Which reminds me. Science can too be poetic, Zach! I'll come up with some specific examples for my next entry. ...Which may not be for a few days, because I have two major tests coming up, one right after the other, and I'm ready for neither. So if I'm still alive Friday after all the testing, I'll see if I can gather my strength to write a good entry.
For now... I'm off to study Genetics and Organic Chemistry. Or, the Organic Chemistry section of Genetics, which is the most productive thing I can think to do. Tautomeric mutations, here I come!
