met up with twins silvanus and linus on thurs night for dinner.
was great fun :)
they are hilarious!
we must meet up again before u guys fly off!
finally got a photo with the both of u. mwhaha.


met up with oiying to watch La Vie En Rose on sat- her idea!
a biography of the singer edith piaf. the songs were lovely!
i loved the parts of the movie that were set in early twentieth century paris, but i found the plot rather confusing. cos they kept jumping between her last days, her prime and her childhood. was a bit lost. was an enjoyable movie overall, though i really can't identify with the protagonist- i find her rather eccentric.


met up with jizheng today!
for dinner and a catching up session.
suddenly hit me that all the guys have finished NS.
so fast.
seems like not long ago that they just went in.



spent all of thurs on an experiment.
which i completed at 5 pm. that is, i got the samples ready to be analysed at 5 pm.
i informed my supervisor, who told me that she would be ready to analyse the samples in a while.
so i waited. and waited. and discovered that she was in the PI's office discussing stuff.
so i waited. till 545 pm.
then i decided to wrap up the samples and store them in the cold room for analysis the next day cos i had to rush off to meet the twins.
but just as i was wrapping hte second tube, by supervisor appeared.
so we went to analyse the samples.
that took ages, fiddling with the machine (it was new to her) loading and reloading the wells, optimising the conditions etc.
and finally at 630 pm the graph appeared for our last sample.
and we waited with bated breath as it slowly appeared....
... forming a horseshoe shape.
"did u see that?!" she said.
of course i did.
"finally!!" i said.
and so we got the ideal result. sort of. the horseshoe was a bit squashed, but the shape was there.
so we were v pleased.
i was v pleased cos i screwed up that expt last week and so i had to repeat. and it worked!
at last.
:)

but i was also unbelievably late meeting the twins, who took the opportunity to look for a suitable place for dinner while waiting.
so they walked from city hall mrt to citylink to marina square to past suntec to millenia walk to the furthest restuarant in some obscure corner of millenia walk.
and happily informed me that i was to meet them there.
thanks guys.
so i had rush there all the way from city hall mrt. to the furthest possible restaurant from the station it seems.
boo.
:P

today has been a crap day.
ARGH.

had to run 3 experiments today.
which is fine.
i scheduled my time, sort of, so that i could leave by 6pm.

i woke up extra early this morning to harvest my cells, which were drugged yesterday and have to be harvested after exactly 16 hours.
so i was in the lab by 830 am.
but my supervisor wasn't.
i knew that might happen, so i smsed her yesterday to email me the protocol for harvesting cells.
but she didn't.
so i didn't know wat to do.
i've done this before, but in another lab using an entirely different method. so i couldn't start without her.
so i waited till 930 am when she arrived before starting.
i was like wattheheck.
but nvm.
she gave me the instructions and i harvested the cells.

then i needed to extract the proteins.
but i didn't have the protocol for that either!
and it turned out that we needed NP40 buffer, which was all used up.
so she asked some guy for some, and asked me to make the buffer.
so i made the buffer.
and went on to my 2nd expt.
and midway through it she came into the tissue culture room and asked me about the protein extraction.
i told her it was on hold cos i didn't have the protocol for protein extraction.
and she said that that step had to be carried out immediately after harvesting- the proteins would be degraded if we waited too long.
so i had to repeat the entire experiment.
i was fuming.
not cos i had to repeat.
but cos i had to repeat due to the fact that she didn't give me the protocol and i didn't know that the extraction step had to be carried out immediately after the harvesting.

and i went to the tissue culture room late cos i had to wait for her demonstrate how to pour LB agar for bacterial plates.
apparently there was some special thing to do to ensure that there won't be any bubbles.
so i didn't pour it myself.
had to wait 40 mins for her to finish demonstrating some procedure to a lab tech before she could demonstrate how to pour the plates.
and in the end there wasn't anything special that she did.
like wattheheck.

since i only booked the use of the hood in the tissue culture room for 2 hours, and i was late for 40 mins, i only had 1h 20 mins left.
which would have been enough, if not for the fact that there weren't enought pipetteaids.
there were 3 to be shared between 4 ppl.
and the 3 ppl in the room, when i entered, already had a pipetteaid each.
so i didn't have one.
and without the pipetteaid i couldn't start the expt.
so i had to beg one of them to lend it to me for a while so i could pipette 2 solutions and get the expt going.
then she took it back.
and when i had to use it again i had to beg someone else for it.
why can't the stupid lab just get 4 pipetteaids since 4 ppl are usually in the tissue culture room at once?!
and the 3 ppl who had the pipetteaids first were so unwilling to part with them although they clearly weren't using them all the time.
i just felt so.... unwelcome. like i'm so extra. and i felt so powerless too. like some irritant there to compete with them for instruments.
and when i was in the culture room my supervisor came in to talk abt the protein extraction, so that took up time. and i was like 10 seconds too late- someone else put her tubes in the centrifuge first and spun for 10 mins- so i had to sit there for 10 mins and wait for her tubes to be done so i could use the machine.
so as a result i overshot my timeslot. and the person after me came in to remind me that i overshot. at least he was nice abt it. but still.
ARGH.
i had more than enough time booked- if not for all the delays and annoyances.



and then after that i had to transform bacteria and plate them out to culture overnight.
sounds simple, right?
wrong.
i did electroporation before in my previous attachment, followed by the plating out.
but that was with my supervisor, who demonstrated first so i knew exactly wat to do.



this time, my supervisor said "these are the plasmids, 2 with AmpR markers and 4 with KanR markers. transform dh5a cells using heat shock, then plate them out. ask huiching for the cells and plates- she did the transformations recently."
THATS IT.

so i had to embark on a treasure hunt to find all the materials.
and bother huiching to show me where the cells were and tell me what volumes to use.
but i still didn't have the protocol, so i asked my supervisor for it, and she asked me to search online.
so i found it, but it wasn't that easy to follow somehow.
fortunately kristal was around, and she helped me with it. and since she did it in school before, she had quite a good idea of what to do.
so between the both of us we managed to do everything.
really thank God for her!
and by the time i finished the transformation, it was 645pm, and i had missed the shines class at xen, which started at 615.
ARGH.



the problem is that my supervisor is so incredibly busy running her own expts with the aid of her own lab biologist.
so the 2 of them are always working tgt doing some expt.
so i feel bad interrupting them to ask stupid questions like "do u have any EDTA?" or "what is the protocol?" or "how much do i add?"
and its annoying cos i know what i need to do, why i'm doing it, a rough idea of the reagents required and why they are required, and the theoretical steps that are required.
but i have no idea where the reagents are kept, and the exact steps that required "how much? how long? wat temperature? what speed?"- v impt questions that can be answered if i had the protocol.

so i end up feeling frustrated. but cannot show.
need to just ask ppl "have u seen the sodium azide?" "where is the kanamycin? what is the working concentration?" and things like that. and everyone is busy so i feel bad interrupting them too.


so i just feel.. extra.
like i'm not contributing much.
when i know that i can.
like at least do sth useful.
its sickening.
will have a lot to say when we have the next scholars-meet-chairman session.




the bright bit of today was meeting enlin.
who decided to go to xen :)
think the poor dear is a bit traumatised by the onslaught of info thrown at her.
but i'm glad u decided to continue! :)
was so nice talking to u. we need to catch up soon.

red eye!
woke up with a red eye today. could barely open it.
been waking up with red eyes every single morning since i came back to sg.
so i changed the sheets, pillowcase, blanket, and even got the air-con washed.
but to no avail- i still had a sore eye today.
went to church with a half-closed eye.
after service my dad suggested that i went to see the doctor- so i did!
rushed off to the clinic so didn't get to talk to xiaoen and xinyi- ladies we need to meet up!

the doctor gave me eye drops and some ointment to put on my eye.
putting ointment on the eye is not fun.
kept tearing.
and it felt like there was stuff stuck on my eye so i had to resist the urge to wipe it off the entire day.
argh!
should have asked for mc then wouldn't have to go to work tmr hahaha.
but cannot. need to check on my dear cells. think they should be really crowded and hungry by now.

i'm home!
been home for 2 weeks.
been too busy to blog.

spent the first week walking up and down orchard road catching the end of the gss and feeling sorely disappointed cos there wasn't anything that caught my fancy and feeling old.
old cos there were so many little chewren in sec sch and jc uniforms walking around.
and i am at least 3 years older than them!!
AHHH.
just felt so out of place..
in camb there are young children, whom i see in church. there are also a lot of ppl in the 18-25 age group studying in the uni. and there are middle-aged and elderly folk.
but there is a severe absence of ppl in the 13-17 year old age group.
i have no idea why.
i just don't see them around.
maybe they are there but i just think they are older.
whatever it is, i don't really see teenagers much in camb- so walking around teenager-filled orchard made me feel so old :(



working in the biopolis now.
in david lane's lab.
feel a bit annoyed cos i can't remember the protocol for a lot of procedures- the last time i did tissue culture was a year ago! so i felt quite useless.
the lab is huge- occupies half of the lab space on that floor- a big difference from the previous lab i worked in.
the lab is rich- there are pre-cast gels! but there are insufficient falcon and eppendorf tube holders. whattheheck. strange priorities.
the lab is predominantly female- about 45 females and 5 males.
my supervisor is making me read papers.
BOO :(
keep nodding off while reading the papers. yawn.