One Week In The Can

SUCCESS! I MADE 4 HYDROGELS! AND I TOOK A DNA COUNT!

I finished my first week of the semester and it looks like it might not go that terrible afterall. Mrs. AdvisorLady is taking it easy on me, that or she doesn't expect all that much out of me. I don't even have to go back to the lab until Thursday because of this holiday weekend. Its upsetting because I really wanted to get back to work. Yesterday we spent the day mashing up our little pucks of cells and then taking the sonicator (I eventually got Rachael to call it a sonificator) and wonking the DNA right out of there.

The lab is great! I am just tickled pink about it. Everyone in The Mahoney Group has an excellent sense of humor and are very stressed out, which leads to much hillarity. Last time I was introduced to Captain Bucketleg - a grad student awaiting Melissa Mahoney's approval on a paper. Then there is The Human Vortex, a grad student bored with conventional means of mixing samples and resorting to shaking everything she can by hand. Then there is Targus! He and I have the same backpack, and he is new to the lab too. He got there a week before me, but like the others... he is a grad student. Next on the Grad Student list is Cast, who is currently on the injured roster, but still she manages to make small talk with me from the Bryant side of the lab and make a crap ton of noise banging things around. Seriously, I didn't know slamming things on a counter was a scientific technique until I spent time in this lab.

I think I'm learning pretty fast how to do all this stuff. Mrs. AdvisorLady was very pleased when we ran the DNA count and it turned out that my standard deviation in volume between all the sample as small. She said she couldn't have done better, but I think that she would have done it MUCH faster. But from the sound of it, they have had problems with undergrads not being so careful so they are okay with old Eeyore here.

Last, I think Rachael is gunna get me out of Gen Physics 3! WAHHOOO!