How many third chances does a person normally get?

I had strange dreams last night. I dreamt that I was some sort of (male) hero, running through a town under siege, just ahead of the frontlines. They were looking for me; I'd done some heroic thing that was punishable by death. I hid in a bathroom with a young woman, and when "they" finally found me and beat down the door, I grabbed her hand and together we ran through an empty hotel (mostly the lobby and dining rooms) until we burst outside into the middle of a crowded street/dinner party. I dropped her hand there and took a different turn... and suddenly I was female again, and I ran smack into Jamie. He grabbed my hand and we raced toward some sort of dorm together, where we tried to pack up and leave as quickly as possible. We only got a few suitcases packed before "they" showed up. I thanked him for giving me a third chance, and he said there should never have been any doubt that I'd get one. And then I woke up.

Not sure how I feel about that dream. The running was awfully stressful, and while the end was hopeful... it's exactly that sort of thing that I'm trying not to think about anymore.

So, off to lab, to run a gel of my minipreps to see if there's product in there, because when I digested them yesterday and then ran a gel I had no DNA. I guess I should set up new minipreps, too, just in case the gel shows nothing again. Damnit. I'll have to miniprep them this evening after ethics, because this is recruitment weekend and I can't go to lab tomorrow. Grrr.

In other news, the scarf I'm knitting for Shannon is getting really long now. I might have to buy some more yarn to get it up to a respectable length of 5 or 6', because I'm at the end of the second skein (I only bought three) and it's only 32" when I stretch it. It's only 23" unstretched. Grrr.

Anyway.

Lab complaints

Ugh. So I'm in lab. It's 6:40 and the new recruits are getting in tonight and everyone is going drinking and I'm in lab.

I was the first person here this morning. I got here at 9:20 and had the whole place to myself for fifteen minutes. Same thing happened Tuesday; I dunno how I managed that. I'm always so slow in the mornings. Maybe it's because of that shortcut I found; maybe I'm saving more time than I thought and am still leaving the house at an unnecessarily early time.

Anyway, I got here first and set up a gel. I started to set up minipreps, but the postdoc (well, the PI's wife, who is sort of a super-postdoc/third PI) I'm working with (who scares the living daylights out of me, by the way) stopped me and had me do this other insane PCR thing to verify my colonies. And she wanted me to check twenty from each plate. That meant sixty PCR reactions. SIXTY. I did more PCR reactions today than I've done in the rest of my life combined. I was nearly late to Euk because I was setting up a master mix and had to aliquot more primer because I needed 162 uL. That's a crapload of primer. Anyway. I sat through class and took awesome notes because one of my friends is out of town. The prof kept us five minutes after, so instead of taking five minutes to buy food, I dashed straight back to lab so I could finish setting up the PCR reactions. After a really rushed and frustrating hour, I tossed my samples in the PCR machine and RAN to my next class (without stopping to buy food). After sitting through that class (and drawing food in the margins instead of taking notes), I followed the rest of my classmates down to the shuttle stop, where someone finally gave me a Clif bar. I inhaled it and we went to our third class, down at the med school. I ate a cookie and then took the shuttle back up here to lab. Of course now all the carts are gone, so there's not even any food to be had, so although I've got 35 minutes whilst these two gels run, I still can't get myself any food. I'm starving. I literally have not eaten today, except for one cup of coffee, one Clif bar, one cookie, and one lemon bar. Aaaauuughh... And in an hour or two there will be drinking and revelry and food, and I'll still be here in lab, taking pictures of gels and setting up minipreps based on the gels and making whiny lj posts.

And the worst thing is that I don't have time to come into lab tomorrow, because I've been asked to host a recruit and I have to lead her around all day, so my postdoc is going to hate me even more when she gets here tomorrow and finds out I'm not coming in. I would have told her earlier, except for the whole mad-dash-to-class thing. Of course she's not still here in lab. I'm going to be the last person here today, I can tell. Anyway. I guess I shouldn't set up miniprep cultures if I can't actually miniprep tomorrow. Maybe I'll come in Saturday and Sunday to do it. Setting up cultures takes like half an hour, and actually miniprepping really takes only about an hour, depending on how many you have. I could do that. I haven't had to come in on the weekend since undergrad, so it's about time for me to start suffering like the rest of the scientific community.

Okay, done whining. I know everyone has long days in lab. It's just particularly painful because I'm RAVENOUS and there's nothing I can do about it.

On the other hand, maybe I could eat my gel after I take a picture of it.... Ethidium bromide is probably really nutritious....

Oooh, shiny. I want one!

Get your own valentinr