So, in the life of Rachel!
It's been a long time since I last updated. I've been back in Singapore for approximately two months. Two months, though short but it has truely been a eye-opening, life-changing experience. Job as a researcher in probably a leading research agency has taken a tremendous toll on my daily routine. Yet I reckon I'm beginning to enjoy the essence which makes this job challenging -- STRESS!
The failed unsuccessful experiments aint that disappointing. In my most honest opinion, it is simply a test of one's patience, persistence and determination. Notwithstanding the fact that the sucess of a research is probably dependent on the sucess of his/her experiments, validity of results, the ability to confer the attained results to paper and possibly the depth of knowledge and presentation skills. Nevertheless, sucess is pretty subjective indeed.
I remember the first major mistake that I made was to boil the total lysate without the protein dye. To put it in simpler, more imaginative terms, it's like boiling an egg without the egg-shell. So as you can imagine, my entire protein sample got denatured. I still had to face up bravely to my mistakes and went to report my mistake to my supervisor. At first, I reckoned he sounded pretty angry. Funny how later he was trying his uttermost best to console me. And he told of how he used to run agarose gel electrophoresis with water instead of the TAE buffer. When the people around me heard that, they almost rolled on the floor laughing. But it's still comforting to know that he is trying his best and mistakes to him is all part of the learning process.
That is why, despite all the long hours in the lab, the increase in the strands of white hair, the time that could be used to catch up with old pals, the tiredness, exhaustion and what not, what I have gained from this experience is definitely far greater than the sacrifices i've made. It's all worth it eh!
I guess research at Otago should be much more exciting and relaxing with everything at your own time own target. Oh, did I mention about my new year's resolution: graduating with a First-class honours so i can proceed to get a PhD by the age of 25!
anyway it took me quite a while to ponder why my two very learn-ed supervisors who are MD,PhD would want to enter the research field. It was only after entering the field itself that we can only do so much and as doctors you can only do so much. A researcher with a medical background would be most ideal since the person would know the physiological, anatomical and biochemical aspects of the entire human body well, even right down to the pharmacological reagents harmful or advantageous to the human body.
Maybe that is the reason why there are so few MD, PhDs around.
Signing off..
