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Panic attack
Aug. 13th, 2005 11:20 amSherman Fairchild, on the Feast of St. John Berchmans
My nerves are a wreck, a wreck. I have to run ten 96-well PCR plates by Tuesday, and that in itself isn't so difficult but I need to make up primers to the right working concentration, and that means 419 primer sets. I have ten 96-well plates of forward and reverse primers in their stock solution, and I've already given up on labeling 419 tubes all at once because I don't even have enough racks for them at the moment. (If I could label them something simple, like 1, 2, 3, etc., I wouldn't have so much trouble, but they have these stupid long names like INS101425939. Argh! Do you know how much I hate this nomenclature?! Hate, hate, hate it!) What is making me panic is that I have to do the PCRs in a certain order because our product sizes vary from 250 to 7000 bp, and the configuration of the plates in which I run the PCRs do not match up at all to the configuration that the primer plates are in. Furthermore, the primer plates aren't even labeled properly, so I'm making up the primers to working concentrations while referring to a printout of an Excel sheet in 8 pt font. I've already made a mistake once while transferring from the plate to the Eppendorf tubes, and I'm in constant fear of making a mistake again. My nerves can't take this. I keep measuring and re-measuring the volume left in the original plates to check that I didn't accidentally take from the same well twice. I think I'm going to go insane at this rate. I keep telling myself to go slowly, but I really am going to end up here all day. Plus, I need to do this for four more sets of 96 once I finish this one. Why oh why, didn't I have the foresight to sort the order form by the PCR product size before sending it in?! Then I won't be having this problem.
If you don't hear from me again, it's because I drove myself insane while making up primer solutions. But I will finish four PCR plates today. Even if I have to stay here until midnight. I will, I will, I will. (Ugh, I hope I remember to eat dinner. Actually screw dinner, I hope I eat lunch. Self-revelation: I am really prone to self-neglect when stressed. I knew this before, but I had some amount of self-discipline to fight it. At the moment, all my self-discipline is being expended on not mixing up these primers. And argh, what am I doing here posting in LJ when I should be making up primers? I've only done a fifth of the first 96!)
Yours &c.
My nerves are a wreck, a wreck. I have to run ten 96-well PCR plates by Tuesday, and that in itself isn't so difficult but I need to make up primers to the right working concentration, and that means 419 primer sets. I have ten 96-well plates of forward and reverse primers in their stock solution, and I've already given up on labeling 419 tubes all at once because I don't even have enough racks for them at the moment. (If I could label them something simple, like 1, 2, 3, etc., I wouldn't have so much trouble, but they have these stupid long names like INS101425939. Argh! Do you know how much I hate this nomenclature?! Hate, hate, hate it!) What is making me panic is that I have to do the PCRs in a certain order because our product sizes vary from 250 to 7000 bp, and the configuration of the plates in which I run the PCRs do not match up at all to the configuration that the primer plates are in. Furthermore, the primer plates aren't even labeled properly, so I'm making up the primers to working concentrations while referring to a printout of an Excel sheet in 8 pt font. I've already made a mistake once while transferring from the plate to the Eppendorf tubes, and I'm in constant fear of making a mistake again. My nerves can't take this. I keep measuring and re-measuring the volume left in the original plates to check that I didn't accidentally take from the same well twice. I think I'm going to go insane at this rate. I keep telling myself to go slowly, but I really am going to end up here all day. Plus, I need to do this for four more sets of 96 once I finish this one. Why oh why, didn't I have the foresight to sort the order form by the PCR product size before sending it in?! Then I won't be having this problem.
If you don't hear from me again, it's because I drove myself insane while making up primer solutions. But I will finish four PCR plates today. Even if I have to stay here until midnight. I will, I will, I will. (Ugh, I hope I remember to eat dinner. Actually screw dinner, I hope I eat lunch. Self-revelation: I am really prone to self-neglect when stressed. I knew this before, but I had some amount of self-discipline to fight it. At the moment, all my self-discipline is being expended on not mixing up these primers. And argh, what am I doing here posting in LJ when I should be making up primers? I've only done a fifth of the first 96!)
Yours &c.
