Life has been VERY hectic as of late. Yesterday, I worked from 8:45 am to 10:00 pm. Of course, working so late was unplanned so I did not pack dinner. I crawled home like a zombie, and stopped for food on my way back to the apartment. I think I actually fell asleep waiting for my food to be made at Legends Burgers. The place was very iconic of Route 66 and the 70's. I had a cheeseburger and a chocolate malt. I thought it tasted good, but what do I know, I was half asleep.
As I said, I have been working crazy hours, and very hard. I have gone through not one, not two, but five tip boxes.
This week, I worked on amplifying the one plasmid that had the GFP tag (a fluorescence) with my desired DNA sequence. Unfortunately, my other two plasmids that I mentioned on friday, were incorrect. I have now created my own ultra competent cells, which are E.Coli cells that can take up my plasmid and amplify it, in the hopes that I can isolate my other two plasmids. I am excited to have one plasmid that I can continue my experiments with. I reran my experiment with the last of the histones (histones are proteins that the DNA wraps around to condense it from 2 meters to 6 micrometers) I had, which was looking at if one of the histones was shortened; my results were not as good as I expected, however I have results. I do need some more information to finish my calculations and determine the actual amount of histones that I loaded before an accurate assessment of the experiment can be determined. In the mean time, I have started to isolate more nuclei (which contain the DNA and therefore the histones) and then the histones so that I can rerun the experiment if desired.
My lab mate was mating Tetrahymena cells this week, and I have a really cool picture and video that I wanted to share with you.
I cannot believe how fast time has passed. I just finished my 7th of 9 weeks for my internship this summer; I am sad that I cannot continue to work in the lab for the month of August. I am loving it, and am really interested to see what the results of my experiments are!
We created lab shirts, and wore them today to show lab spirit at laser tag today with Keck Science! They are so cool. The picture portrays a Tetrahymena cell. The quote is "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research."--Einstein (spelled Einsten as an inside lab joke)
Of course, none of us pictured above would be nerdy if we didn't make and own a shirt like the one below.
After laser tag, a few of us went out for dinner at Bua Thai, and then ice cream at 21 choices. I am currently in the process of eating the ice cream and may or may not have finished it by the time you read this. By the way, the ice cream is a medium/ large. It is oreo milkshake frozen yogurt with crushed oreos, cookie dough, and sprinkles, similar to Cold Stone.
Of course, my life would not be complete without me making FOOD! Most days, I enjoy being able to get creative with my dinners. While I would love to not eat alone, it is nice because I do not have to worry about the food tasting bad. Mainly, I eat chicken, zucchini, and sweet potatoes. I am proud to say that everything I have made has tasted good.
I also picked up a lot of good, and healthy, food from Trader Joes this week. I have been eating a salad everyday for lunch instead of a sandwich :) I am very proud of myself for that.
If you have read some of my previous blog posts, then you know how much I love to make popsicles. I have made a few lately, however I only have a picture of one of them. I have tried oreos, wafers, pretzels, butterscotch chips. and chocolate sprinkles (shown below). All have tasted pretty good; pretzels may have been my least favorite and chocolate sprinkles my favorite.
This weekend, I plan to finish writing my methods for my thesis for the experiments I have completed thus far, another draft of my introduction, and loads of GRE studying. My motivation is going to be seeing Cheryll, my dog, next weekend.
"Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose."--Zora Neale Hurston
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