Tuesday....another busy day....

Boy, there has been a LOT to do today in the lab. I've been up and at it for a while, and I'm so busy. For instance, Mark and I were doing PCR and trying to figure out a plan that I'll have to do while Mark is gone to D.C., which is in about two weeks. I guess graduate students do need a vacation, because they have lives too. I'm also working on my lecture, which is just basically trying to organize what I want to tell the other interns. On top of that, my brain is sending me urgent rest telegrams despite the fact that I actually took a nap as soon as I got home and slept at midnight. Boy, my brain can be awfully strange at times. It's better than what happens with me and coffee. I get so hyper and poorly focused during the day, and not exactly at my best at night. Yikes...anyway....Sophia came by today, which was rather interesting. She and Mark went off to McDonald's. Mark's pretty lethargic from the fatty foods that come from that multinational greasy spoon. Oh well...I bought from there, too. It's pretty good, but kind of hard to swallow. I don’t know why. Anyway, I’m currently waiting for the results from the gel electrophoresis. The samples already went through the thermocycler and took about two hours just to actually work. Fortunately, it wouldn’t be four hours due to the fact that there are two thermocycler heads attached to the machine.

Currently, Mark and I think that we should continue with our idea that we should do a second trial of the immunoassays, so that we could perfect it and try not to be careless when we actually perform the procedure. It’s a pretty good idea. I know I’ve written about this several times, but I guess it’s important that we chronicle every moment of my daily lab experience. We’ve modified the protocol a few times, and actually got really promising results, despite the multiple changes that occurred during the experiment. Today, I think Mark and I will choose out some slides before we leave so I can perform the experiment as soon as I come in tomorrow. We really need to get this done quickly. I’ll prepare most of the materials, and clean out most of the stuff as soon as I come in so we can try to eliminate as much contaminants as I can.

Afterwards, Dr. Camenisch and the other graduate students brought in four mice that have been injected with ketamine. Dr. Camenisch is currently studying the effects of mutant DNA and recombinant DNA in mice pigments. He injected them into the ears of the mice and observed them, with one ear being tested and the other being the control. I thought that was pretty interesting. They're probably awake by now, as the ketamine's effects are diminishing, but it's interesting how the graduate students and I can observe their physical traits.

Alex…..