Frantic Lab Week, day 4
Wait, what happened to day 3?? Too frantic to write. I was the Sir Georg Solti of molecular systematics, conducting an orchestra of lab equipment and reactions and glassware in a harmonious symphony of productivity for nine straight hours. Followed by a mellow dinner of Quizno's and Dickens. Followed by seeing Flight of the Conchords at the Chicago Theatre. *love*

Day 4: Franticness is easing. I will do no more PCRs, no more exosaps, before my field trip. For all those samples that didn't amplify, I thumb my nose at you and leave you out of my study. And now I remember again why I oversample so much in the field.

Thinking about not sequencing tomorrow at all. These permits are not going to apply for themselves.

Am nibbling on Starbucks espresso truffles. Proof that money can indeed buy happiness--from Walgreens, no less.
- posted by Diane @ 1:55 PM | (0) Comments

 
Frantic lab week, Day 2
About half of my PCRs failed for whatever reason. Argh argh argh. Rerunning now, moving ahead with sequences on amplicons that did work. Also, somebody has been moving stuff in the lab, or not washing it properly, or using items for the wrong purpose. Since I'm alone in the lab these days, I can safely rant about it and nobody has to hear what a control freak I am. MY lab! Don't touch anything!! The floaty things for the water bath belong here, why are there crusties in the ethidium staining tray, and who used up my tape and put the empty roll back in my drawer? I feel myself going all Les Nessman sometimes. "These lines are where walls should be..."

It doesn't help that I have the song from the old Riunite wine commercial stuck in my head. "Riunite, it tastes so fine/Riunite, pure and natural wine/Riunite so nice, Riunite on ice/Riunite, Riunite!"

Somebody kill me.

It's not as bad as the commercial for the answering machine songs. The "Wait for the Beep" rap creeps up on me from time to time, even after more than 20 years. Here, share my pain:

- posted by Diane @ 5:07 PM | (0) Comments

 
Tuesday amusement


I've had the last line of the song stuck in my head for the past hour.

(ref. the bookshelves of doom blog)
- posted by Diane @ 10:17 AM | (0) Comments

 
Frantic lab week
I have set myself an ambitious schedule for getting my data for the Evolution meeting by the end of this week. I just put 60 PCRs in the thermal cycler; each successful PCR represents 3 sequencing reactions, and I can run 48 sequences at a time. Then I have to edit the data and analyze it so it makes some sense. My preliminary results were a bit nonsensical so this may take some creative story-telling. Fun!

I just finished two not very good books, impulse buys from the used book store. Both were mysteries; one was also a cheesy romance novel in which the heroine fell in love with the guy who acted like a jerk but was HOT so his personality could be overlooked. Both were badly written. One kept using the wrong words and making me question whether I actually knew what those words meant (I did, it turned out). The other read like the script for a TV movie. Anyway, the conclusion of this rambling story is that I started reading A Tale of Two Cities this morning. It's like eating a gourmet meal after days of snacking on doritos. It's like lying on a pillowtop mattress after a week of sleeping on rocks. I forget sometimes what really good writing feels like. I keep going back to reread sentences, not because I am confused but because I want to savor them again. I've missed you, Mr. Dickens.
- posted by Diane @ 11:46 AM | (1) Comments

 
Derivatives
I spend a lot of time on the 'L' or walking, mind wandering. As I reflected on my recent committee meetings and made plans for the next year, it occurred to me that I could conceptualize my whole project as a series of derivatives. For those of you who would like to know what it is that I'm doing (without me giving away any of the interesting results), here's an overview:

First derivative: Biome to forest
In which I go from this:


to this:


Second derivative: Forest to tree
In which I go from the above to this:


Third derivative: Tree to DNA
In which I go from the above to this:


Fourth derivative: DNA to amplicon
In which I go from the above to this:


So, the fourth derivative of the North American temperate forest biome is the little tubes of PCR products in my freezer. At each level, the complexity of the system gets reduced by one dimension and I am left with a simpler substance that describes the essence of the level above it. The information locked in the amplicon's sequence ultimately tells me what I want to know about the tree, the forest, the biome: where did it come from, how did it get here, and who are its relatives? I find the method moving in its elegance and simplicity.

Speaking of which, it's time for me to get back in the lab. There are fourth derivatives to be taken.
- posted by Diane @ 8:58 AM | (0) Comments

 
Apres exam, le deluge
Final exam scores are in. The professor is wisely leaving town for a week, but I don't have that luxury. The onslaught of email has already begun. "Can I come plead for extra points on the exam we took two months ago?" Everything is a negotiation these days. The students think they can talk their way into a higher grade, and it must work sometimes or else why would they keep trying it? Why, in my day, if we missed a grade by a couple of points, we kicked ourselves for making stupid mistakes and took our lumps. I find myself saying things like that a lot these days. "In my day, we didn't even have Powerpoint. We had to attend class and take notes... using actual pencils!"

I am so old.

Had my commitee meeting earlier this week, and met individually with the out-of-town member today. Hooray, administrative duties are done for another year! Everything went swimmingly. You can't imagine how happy I am right now. Or maybe you can. Now I have two weeks in which to plan my entire field trip and gather the rest of my poster data and do my annual volunteer assignment. No problem!!
- posted by Diane @ 4:26 PM | (0) Comments

 
Audacity

- posted by Diane @ 5:03 PM | (0) Comments

 
Spreading the word

- posted by Diane @ 11:08 AM | (0) Comments

 
Mayday randomity
1) Could it be?? Yes!! It's the Return of the Obvious Metaphor Anxiety Dream!! Last night's dream featured the storefront church I walk past every day. They had converted the front half of their space into a convenience store to help raise money. I went in to buy an ice cream bar, but I checked each of the dozens of racks of ice cream bars scattered around and discovered that everything was half melted. Every ice cream I picked up was sagging and falling off its stick, and I had to try to get it back on the stick and back on the rack without having to pay for destroying ice cream. Hubby says the dream means I am feeling conflicted about my religious choices (he was kidding).

2) Seven turkey vultures circled over UIC yesterday. Had they spotted an undergrad who succumbed to final exam pressures?

3) Today is the National Day of Prayer. Celebrate by doing something useful with your time instead of praying.

4) Today is my LAST DAY OF TEACHING FOR OVER A YEAR. Hell yeah! Join me in a prayer that I get an NSF grant so I don't have to teach the next year, either. (kidding!)
- posted by Diane @ 9:09 AM | (0) Comments