Random thoughts
May. 25th, 2008 01:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirStanley Hall, on the Feast of Ste. Madeline Sophie Barat
Finished plating fifty plates about an hour ago. >_> Wow, that was stupid. Next time I decide to test several different protocol tweaks all at once, please remind me that efficiency starts decreasing sharply as the number of samples increases after a certain threshold.
On the other hand, practice really does make perfect. I have now mastered the fine art of tipping five to twelve glass beads onto a petri plate without spilling extra beads (or accidentally tipping my hand and adding an extra twenty). Let's not think about the number of beads I did spill in order to acquire this skill (fine motor control also decreases sharply as level of fatigue increases).
Yesterday was another comedy of errors in which I spattered myself with hot agarose, then spilled TAE on my jeans, followed by dropping two culture tubes. The combination of clumsiness and trying to finish quickly. It's hard sometimes to remember that experimentation requires a Zen-like state of mind: the more one hurries, the more mistakes one makes. It's only when you put aside the desire to finish and leave that you actually proceed swiftly. Kind of a mental muscle that I need to exercise: the sort of detachment that lends focus.
Spent a lot of money today. In the morning, I bought three plants at the farmers' market: Italian basil, orange mint, and Peacevine cherry tomatoes. In the afternoon, I went to Target with Songyee (the recently graduated undergraduate in our lab) and bought a vacuum, a rolling cart for the kitchen, a corner caddy for the bathroom, a shoe rack, three pots for my newly acquired plants, potting soil and some plant food. I plan on repotting as soon as I acquire some gravel for drainage (current plan is to steal some from the campus West Gate). I spent less money than I expected--I budgeted about $100 for the vacuum but only spent about $40--but I feel a little guilty about the sudden acquisition of new possessions. Oh well. I hope these plants survive.
My cell phone is out of batteries, so Mother just sent me an angry email asking where I am and why I'm not reachable by phone. >_> She writes, "If you had told me the reason why you're late, then I wouldn't have worried." -_- A part of me feels annoyed because, um, am I supposed to always be able to anticipate how long I'll take in lab and warn her in advance? Okay, so I probably should have anticipated taking a long time tonight, but I didn't, and when I'm running late, my top priority is to finish what I'm doing as quickly as possible, not inform my mother that I'm running late. A part of me feels guilty that I'm actually glad that my cell phone ran out of batteries when it did so I didn't have to deal with her calling me multiple times to ask me if I'm finished yet...and also guilty that I have honestly stopped caring how awful she feels when she works herself up into frenzied anxiety imagining all the worst possible scenarios. >_>
I think I've developed a lot of kneejerk reactions to my mother these days. ::sighs:: I think I'm going through some sort of delayed adolescent rebellion.
If none of these protocol tweaks work, then I'm going to try this transformation one more time and start thinking about another reporter to obtain some preliminary data at least on the parental strains.
Yours &c.
Post-script: So stuck in my own real-life happenings that I forgot to mention that I posted the reveal for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
blind_go. Didn't try guessing this time around because to be honest, I only read the fics for the theme challenge plus a few extra that caught my eye during posting. (I did recognize ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
harumi's on sight because she was the top choice for attempting a Mononoke crossover and pulling it off so well. I suspect I would have identified arboretum by her paragraph breaks, but I had prior knowledge of her fic to begin with.)
Finished plating fifty plates about an hour ago. >_> Wow, that was stupid. Next time I decide to test several different protocol tweaks all at once, please remind me that efficiency starts decreasing sharply as the number of samples increases after a certain threshold.
On the other hand, practice really does make perfect. I have now mastered the fine art of tipping five to twelve glass beads onto a petri plate without spilling extra beads (or accidentally tipping my hand and adding an extra twenty). Let's not think about the number of beads I did spill in order to acquire this skill (fine motor control also decreases sharply as level of fatigue increases).
Yesterday was another comedy of errors in which I spattered myself with hot agarose, then spilled TAE on my jeans, followed by dropping two culture tubes. The combination of clumsiness and trying to finish quickly. It's hard sometimes to remember that experimentation requires a Zen-like state of mind: the more one hurries, the more mistakes one makes. It's only when you put aside the desire to finish and leave that you actually proceed swiftly. Kind of a mental muscle that I need to exercise: the sort of detachment that lends focus.
Spent a lot of money today. In the morning, I bought three plants at the farmers' market: Italian basil, orange mint, and Peacevine cherry tomatoes. In the afternoon, I went to Target with Songyee (the recently graduated undergraduate in our lab) and bought a vacuum, a rolling cart for the kitchen, a corner caddy for the bathroom, a shoe rack, three pots for my newly acquired plants, potting soil and some plant food. I plan on repotting as soon as I acquire some gravel for drainage (current plan is to steal some from the campus West Gate). I spent less money than I expected--I budgeted about $100 for the vacuum but only spent about $40--but I feel a little guilty about the sudden acquisition of new possessions. Oh well. I hope these plants survive.
My cell phone is out of batteries, so Mother just sent me an angry email asking where I am and why I'm not reachable by phone. >_> She writes, "If you had told me the reason why you're late, then I wouldn't have worried." -_- A part of me feels annoyed because, um, am I supposed to always be able to anticipate how long I'll take in lab and warn her in advance? Okay, so I probably should have anticipated taking a long time tonight, but I didn't, and when I'm running late, my top priority is to finish what I'm doing as quickly as possible, not inform my mother that I'm running late. A part of me feels guilty that I'm actually glad that my cell phone ran out of batteries when it did so I didn't have to deal with her calling me multiple times to ask me if I'm finished yet...and also guilty that I have honestly stopped caring how awful she feels when she works herself up into frenzied anxiety imagining all the worst possible scenarios. >_>
I think I've developed a lot of kneejerk reactions to my mother these days. ::sighs:: I think I'm going through some sort of delayed adolescent rebellion.
If none of these protocol tweaks work, then I'm going to try this transformation one more time and start thinking about another reporter to obtain some preliminary data at least on the parental strains.
Yours &c.
Post-script: So stuck in my own real-life happenings that I forgot to mention that I posted the reveal for
blind_go. Didn't try guessing this time around because to be honest, I only read the fics for the theme challenge plus a few extra that caught my eye during posting. (I did recognize harumi's on sight because she was the top choice for attempting a Mononoke crossover and pulling it off so well. I suspect I would have identified arboretum by her paragraph breaks, but I had prior knowledge of her fic to begin with.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-25 09:49 am (UTC)...Better late than never? Okay, no, that's not really helpful, is it. Pretend I gave you comforting advice instead! :D
♥
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-25 09:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-25 03:03 pm (UTC)a vacuum, a rolling cart for the kitchen, a corner caddy for the bathroom, a shoe rack, three pots for my newly acquired plants, potting soil and some plant food.
o.0 You're ... such a real grown-up person! *bows in awe*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-25 09:58 pm (UTC)I've actually been fairly social this weekend (by my standards anyway)...hence the late nights in lab. ;_; I forgot the benefits of being a hermit.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-26 04:00 pm (UTC)Good luck with your experiments :)
(I'm really afraid that I've forgotten all my biology knowledge. Hahaha!)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-26 04:42 pm (UTC)I'm sure it'll all come back to you when you start taking classes. Ugh, I'm kind of worried about my genetics class; I did horribly on all the midterms and probably the final as well. >_> Was operating on the "well, I don't think they'd fail me as long as I look like I'm making a token effort" principle all semester but talking to classmates has officially made me paranoid that the professors could and would.
Edit: Okay, making this comment reminded me to check my grades and I did pass. Whew!