GAHHHH!

lab frustrations galore!

1) for the past month and a half, i've been trying to amplify an attachment sequence that refuses to cooperate. the gDNA is good as i can get the 5' site to amplify, thus proving the attachment is there. but the dratted 3' end is being a bear. we think it's buried in complex secondary structure. i spent a good couple of hours yesterday looking for restriction enzymes to excise the bugger, but so far no luck just a smallish migraine.

2) our old undergrad's project wasn't able to go past step 2 due to unforeseen PCR and cloning difficulties. in my hands, it's only gotten to step 1.5.

conclusions? A) the nasty PCR gremlin is back. B) spring's conflicting weather systems were nothing compared to early summer as far as headache production goes. C) i'm frustrated but i WILL get these to work. there's no logical reason why i shouldn't.

back to your regularly scheduled program.

i'm baaaaaack :)

i finished my last comps question at 11am this morning. sadly it's for my adviser who had surgery today so i'm not sure when i'll find out the results. keep your fingers crossed chickies!

note to all: it's a bad idea to drink wine the night before you actually finish. it led to my delivery of fresh pound cake to my upstairs neighbors after 11pm. yes, they were either out or in bed.

my google reader for my geek list is up to 123 as of now, so you've all been very productive. my goal is get that whittled down by monday....and to hit the ground running in lab :)


**edit**
just for fun i decided to see who had the top number of new science blogs in my google reader geek list. in order of most to least: mad scientist, jr. with 17, isis the scientist with 15, virology blog with 13 and femalescientistprofessor with 11. interestingly, the top 4 are all odd numbers (as is the total), 3 have prime numbers of unread blogs on my list, and the percentages are: 13.8%, 12.2%, 8.9% and the four totaled together comprise 45.5% of my unread blogs.

ok, enough numbers, time to run before the monsoons hit!

small break

after working for about 13 hours on my 1st comps question (it had a 24hr reply deadline), i caught a small break on my 2nd. i finished it in about 3 hours. i'm letting it sit til later tonight or tomorrow morning. this one has no deadline, but i'll send the answer along by 10am tomorrow morning. no need to hang on to it. i figured one question per day with a weekend break.

last night i was so worried about my question that i had crazy dreams about a haunted walk-in cold room set in an old bank vault and zombies. they had crazy pointy teeth and in the dream something was tapping my leg and warning me not to let the ghosts (haunting the walk-in) to touch me. even the zombies were frightened of them.

i have odd dreams.

hmmm, quiet and small break time means i get to go see coraline at the local historic theater tonight. that is today's second happy thought :)

pardon....

pardon my sudden disappearance. i have writtens next week and am trying to finish up some experiments before i am out of the lab for the exam.

i have been doing non-sciencey things, click here if you're interested....

random duo

1. movie discrepancies between self and spouse....

having watched penelope via instant movies on netflix, i was seeking a to buy it at ye old target yesterday. i came home with 5 (yes 5!) new movies. the list? penelope, the corpse bride, labyrinth, mona lisa smile, and lemony snicket's a tale of unfortunate events. the theme? crazy fairytales, one of my perennial faves.

(i would have picked up real genius, one of my top ten fave's but i already own it, bien sur!!)

the husband's comment: you got 5 movies and none of them are good?
my response: obviously i think all of them are good but you may disagree :)

2. thanks to my lovely friend tess for pointing out this evaluation of cool based on the rise and fall of trends....click here for the article from wired.

dratted dratty results!

ok mr. phage, let's get this straight: you will give me consistent results, they will be explainable and they will be reproducible. if you give me any more hinky data i will infect you with something else to recombine you!

/rant

obviously things in lab are normal. the phage does what i twants, willy nilly and i strive for good clean data. i have come to several conclusions now:

1. phage work is finicky, my master's stuff worked great no matter the conditions/my conditions/my cutting corners.... e.g. coming in to muck with experiments whilst hungover and feeling wretched did not affect my results, but come in slightly tired and my phage is having a good old time with my expectations

2. apparently i got results really easily in my master's; phage pay-backs for that are a bitch.

3. i need another notebook to log how i make more phage, when and the titer results. this should result in a cleaner, easier to read experimental notebook. adviser is fine with this as long as it is clear how and when i did things after i'm gone.

so off i go to read papers and plan how to become a more meticulous mad phage scientist. also am pondering accessory strategy: they like singing....what kind of songs do they prefer? hopefully the kind i keep on my ipod :)

quiet time

it's been raining for about a week or so now. last week, the pressure changes had a grand time triggering headaches, gotta love that. everyone on the hall had something that ached with the change. this week, it's fatigue. really, 60F degrees outside, grey and rainy, all i want is soup and fluffy comforter to curl up in while i read a book or four. this makes lab directed motivation a real problem. right now i want to be my cat :)

change snow to rain and you have an idea of what it looks like here.