Blog Archive: July 2003
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July 31, 2003 - raining
in july ?!
-5:57 pm: yes it was for just a bit. Not too much, but still
it is quite odd for it to be raining. Overall this summer has been cooler
than normal for me, probably because i'm up here in the Bay Area rather
than in LA. I've heard though that LA hasn't been nearly as hot as it normally
is, heck they had thunderstorms down there a few days ago. Went into lab
today around 9 am to finish up the all the alexa-biotin staining we've been
doing the past few days. Our 10 hr and 8 hr butyrate induction experiment
didn't turn out as well as i had hoped, but it did gives some useful info.
Based on those results and some results from before we're going to officially
start the experiments on cholesterol. The CD14-Av cells stained pretty well,
showing those "lipid rafts" we were supposed to see (basically looks like
a bunch of dots all over the surface of the cell).. Finally our transfection
worked decently well, using the DNA we made a few weeks ago. It was pretty
exciting to see that our DNA actually worked and that we hadn't isolated
crap.
-Yay!! tomorrow we get to do some o-chem. We'll be making some cyclodextrin-cholesterol
complex to use in our cholesterol experiments. Basically cyclodextrin is
a cholesterol binding complex that can be used to either remove cholesterol
from a membrane, or if it is saturated, can be used to deliver cholesterol
to a cholesterol-free membrane. So using the complex, lovastatin (cholesterol
synthesis inhibitor - inhibits HMG-CoA reductase (hydroxymethylglutarate-CoA
reductase), and starvation media, we can almost precisely control membrane
cholesterol content. Being able to control cholesterol levels allows
us to toy with various cellular mechanisms that might be affected by cholesterol
level; in the case of this lab, protein secretion from the trans-golgi network.
July 30, 2003
- more alexa-biotin staining
-9:13 pm: we've been doing a lot of alexa-biotin-avidin staining
lately. Today that was basically all we did. Also received a new protocol
for a GAG chain assay that we will do on Monday (but start on Saturday...
we finally get to put our radioactivity training to work! hehehe. We have
to do even more alexa staining tomorrow for the transfection we did last
night. The summary: today's staining: 3 hr FCS-starved HeLa AV-CD14 cells
and 8 and 10 hr sodium butyrate induced AtT20 AV-POMC cells. Tomorrow's staining:
HeLa transiently transfected with 2 ug AV-sialyltransferase pCDM8 plasmid.
We are going to be looking at quite a lot of slides tomorrow!
-didn't do anything outside of lab today... so no funny stories to tell
or anything. Yes very disappointing that we didn't have any crazy adventures..
oh well. I'm also really pooped from sleeping less than 6 hrs each
of the last 4 nights.
July 29, 2003
- pick up game
-10:44 pm: I had a very fun day today, especially after lab.
Well of course, IB131 sucked... it seemed to go by extremely slow today;
i really couldn't wait to get out of that lecture room. After anatomy,
headed immediately to lab, but unlike yesterday, with actual assignments.
OOOH. Hehehe, i actually began with making collagen coverslips for no reason,
just for practice but Amber and Judy made good use of them. While we waited
for them to dry, played more big2 and had a pointless adventure to the VLSB
library to obtain the sequence for the EGFP (enhanced green fluorescent
protein, enhanced in the sense that all the codons were changed to human
codons). So yeah we play a lot of big2 now. Such a good game!!! (Hmm that
reminds me i still owe them 40 pushups from last night... 0_o)
-After our games of big2, returned to reality to do more cell work. Jonathan
split some cells, plated some AtT20 on laminin while i started the transfection
with HeLa cells. Amber and Judy had a tense time with their HK2 cells (actually
i was getting pretty angry too... anger is contagious). We were all done
with lab work around 4:10... proceeded to RSF for badminton and b-ball
-Jonathan had to go to his PoliSci class, so it was only Leon, Amber
and I who played badminton. I was sucking it up... which put it me in depressed
mode. I realize that i shouldn't expect much from the 3rd time playing,
but i get frustrated easily and in general have low self confidence. ANYWAY..
after that we were all eager to play some bball instead (Jonathan joined
us at the RSF right after his class around 6:10). They had some whack Yoga
class going on in the gym next door (damn whole gym for like 10 people doing
yoga....) so we had to wait until 7. When the class finally got out, we
rushed to the courts and shot around a bit before a group of people came
to challenge us to a 5 on 5 full court game. At first i was like hell no,
freaking out of shape and they had like 5 guys who were all taller and fatter
than us. Eventually agreed to play, at extreme urging from Jonathan and
assurances that we wouldn't be the skins team. Damn the guy i was guarding
in the beginning had like 5 -6 inches on me, -_- couldn't rebound for jack
shit.... Eventually i ended up on some huge ass white guy who sweat like
Niagara falls... DAMNIT... My only consolation was that we actually got
close to winning (lost 12-10). Not bad for a bunch of shorties (relatively).
Afterward felt pretty good even though we lost.. (i scored 4 pts w00t (7
if those freaks actually counted the three 3 point range shots i made))
-We ate at the ramen place after the RSF (after showering). MMMMMM...
Dinner conversations consisted of talking about (supposedly) cute girls etc
etc and some other random stuff (REM sleep, car accidents, getting sued for
$1 million). As usual none of these conversations had anything to do with
me (yes me very good at staying out of having to talk about myself)... finally
after all that returned to lab to finish off the transfection... leaving
me off here.. in the middle of doing laundry. What crazy adventures will
we have tomorrow!? We'll see.
July 29, 2003 - hmmm it's been a long time
-12:38 am: yikes haven't written in this since thursday...
BOOO!!! Well my primary excuse is studying for the IB131 midterm, although
i should have been able to write at least short entries. Oh well. Y'all
haven't really missed much. Or maybe not... Let's see if i can recap the
past 4 days:
Friday: all i can remember doing is a ton of cell work. Splittting,
freezing, thawing.... basically the whole works. Split and froze some
Av-POMC cells while also thawing out some Av-CD14 HeLa cells. We'll be
apparently running several experiments at once with those two different
cell lines. the Av-CD14 HeLa experiments sound particular interesting
since we will be constructing this fancy double-GFP-calmodulin-targetting
protein contruct.. starting from scratch (yeah... all the way from having
decide what primers to order to perform PCR).
Saturday: I split Av-POMC cells on friday onto six laminin coverslips
to run a butyrate induction experiment. So Saturday, Jonathan and I spent
about 8.5 hours in lab from 4pm to 12:30 am. We bascially had to induce
the cells for various amounts of time (16, 14, 12, 10, 8 hrs). I spent
the long ass breaks between starting each induction studying for the midterm...
Except for the very last one where we played some cards instead (I was
very sick of studying at that point).
Sunday: Did some heavy duty immunfluorescence of the 8 hrs experiment
from Saturday. Unfortunately, the experiment did not work so well, so
we're going to have to repeat it.. at least the 10 and 8 hrs inductions.
We did play some more cards (big 2) during the IF breaks... I sucked, leading
Jonathan to proclaim himself the "Champion." After lab (which was from
8am-1pm... yes it does suck to have to come into lab at 8 am when you last
left it at midnight)... studied more. Around 6ish.. Amber calls up to see
if we want to play some b-ball... i initially decline, saying i needed to
study but agreeed to let her BF, Sam, borrow my ID. BUT after thinking about
it..i decided that i needed a freakin break... So i took one to the tune
of 2.5 hrs. Dang played some really fun games. Sam was good, probably more
so than my old high school buds, hehe. Amber did well too, hitting both game
winning shots (both from 3 point range) in our 3 on 3 games with random mofos.
That was definitely relaxing.
Monday: Took the damn IB131 test. Stupid POS... although i feel the
same about it as i did the first one... which i got a 95 on... So blah
blah blah... After that ordeal, headed toward lab with no particular assignments
for the day. All we were supposed to was have a meeting with Prof. Moore
regarding that crazy double-GFP-calmodulin thing i mentioned earlier. I
made some collagen coverslips and we played some more big2 while we waited
for the meeting to start. I sucked again (i'm pretty bad at big2) resulting
in further justification to Jonathan's Champion title. The meeting finally
started.. and we were given assignments on the DNA sequences of the various
proteins we are going to construct the fusion protein from.
-After the meeting, we did some more cell splitting, primarily for
maintenance but also to run some small experiments with the DNA we made
earlier this month. After that, we just sat in lab and talked about some
pretty random things, of which the most interesting IMO was the discussion
of what various people do when they sleep. Pretty strange stuff, people!
Finally Leon calls me complaining of starvation.. so we all head out to
the "azn ghetto." After dinner we head back to apartment to play some videogames.
Instead, Amber and Jonathan look at my pictures from Japan two years ago...
the very embarrassing ones showing me 40 lbs heavier and sweating all the
time!
-The next thing we did resulted in me being indebted with 40 pushups
to do. We played big2... for pushups. Initially the penalty was 1 per card...
somehow ended up at 5 (through challenges to manhood and revenge craze)
per card left. I had 8 cards left the last game leaving me with 40 to do....
HECK NO!!! i couldn't do them especially after suffering through about
50 prior penalty pushups from the other games. DANG... so the days ends
with me: 1) 40 pushups in debt and 2) manhood not intact... Weeeee.
July 24, 2003
- radioactivity training, botched attempt to play tennis, videogames
-11:48 pm: pretty interesting day today. Went to lab around
9 to make laminin covered coverslips for use tomorrow. Around 12:30 the
summer n00bs + another student from the lab went to University Hall to get
radioactivity training.. well actually we had a very quick lunch from McDonald's
that nearly made us late. Good thing we ate fast, cuz the instructor did
refuse someone who was late. Damn boring 3 hrs of info about radiation and
safety including ghetto corny videos. We all took a test after the whole
ordeal (which we already had a copy of before the test). But now i'm
officially certified to work with radioactivity... OOH!!! Hehe nothing really
bad though. After that fun, returned to lab. I also unexpectedly ran into
Jamie from TBP... I didn't think i would see her again so it was nice talking.
I was in a hurry to turn in some form to University Hall though so couldn't
talk too much. After that, we started inducing cells with some sodium butyrate
for some IF tomorrow.
-After we were all done in lab, called up Leon to join Amber, Jonathan
and I to go to dinner at a Korean restaurant on Telegraph. Really tasty
BBQ (bulgogi) and good side dishes (i loved the bean sprouts). After dinner
came our botched tennis effort. I was really disappointed cuz i really
wanted to play but sigh... We ended up getting boba instead (haha the idea
is to get some exercise and burn some calories and we ended up getting
more 0_o). All the fun culminated in some good ol' Mario Kart 64... Ah
there's nothing like classic games.
July 23, 2003
- viewing more cells, more assignments, ramen, recall election official
-9:37 pm: wow haven't had a day this long in a pretty
long time, but most of it was pretty fun and definitely not boring. Well
scratch that, anatomy of course was not and should not be called fun...
thank goodness that class is over for this week. Anyway, after that torture
went straight to lab. Now we didn't have much to do today (other than
routine cell stuff) so i didn't expect to do much. Prof. wanted
to see our cells from over the weekend and she was impressed with the
results. The cells are apparently good enough to use in further experiments,
but in order to do that we need to find out about the timing of the chemical
induction. So, we got assigned an experiment to see how different exposure
times to the chemical affect the protein expression.
-After finishing up with the scope work, ate lunch from the asian
ghetto. After lunch looked at more cells under the fluorescence microscope.
These particular cells were HK2 cells from transfection experiments done
by the other two "summer n00bs." HK2 cells are human kidney cells and
the lab is interested in doing some pH imaging with them (basically measuring
the pH at the cellular level using fluorescence microscopy). The HK2 cells
themselves look very different from HeLa or AtT20 cells. They have much
smaller Golgi and a very strange flat shape. They are also pretty
difficult to view under the normal phase contrast scope.
-After we were all done with scope stuff waited around a bit, then
Prof. Moore explained to us about exactly how fluorscence microscopy can
be used to measure pH. I don't quite get the technique (called "Fluorescence
Ratio Imaging") so i need to do a little PubMed research... After that
was done, Amber and I decided to go to Barrows Hall to wait for Jonathan
so we could study together for the Radioactivity test tomorrow. An OK
study session i suppose.. hopefully none of us fail
-Ate dinner at Ryowa Ramen.. the only place i know of to get good
Ramen here in Berkeley. It's pretty good stuff, but not as good (but
still pretty good) as my favorite ramen place in Downtown Los Angeles
(Hananoichimanme).
-the day after i decide to write about the recall of Gov. Davis,
the special election itself is confirmed by the Secretary of State. Apparently
enough valid signatures (1.3 million, about 900,000 were needed) were
gathered to merit holding the special election. All i can do is sigh...
our state is in for a very rough ride. It really doesn't seem fair that those
1.3 million people decided the fate of the 34 million who live in this
state, but hey that's this state's constitution. The election could take
place as early as September.
July 22,
2003 - the recall of Governor Davis, politics, slow day in lab
-8:32 pm: as I wait for my anime download to finish
i thought i would put my two cents in on the current political crisis
in this lovely state of California. Yes, i do think this whole recall
mess is a political crisis. If pollers are to be believed (and they are
in general pretty accurate), Gov. Davis will be recalled by the end of
this year and will be replaced, most likely by a Republican. The Democratic
party has decided that the best way to defeat the recall effort is to not
put up any replacement candidates, thus leaving California to vote between
keeping the unpopular Davis or accepting a Republican. Unfortunately,
Republicans are very out of step with the needs of the state's general
population. They do not advocate programs or issues that are in my opinion
best for California. Among other things, the Republican party is a well
known advocate of massive tax cuts, the reduction of welfare and the reduction
of education spending (i.e. in the forms of vouchers which take away money
from already money-crunched public schools). One thing that particularly
pisses me off is their blind eye when it comes to the wanton destruction
of the natural environment. Given these, the only reason people in this
state are willing to take on a Republican is because Gray Davis is that
unpopular. At one point in time not too long ago, the state actually had
a $50 billion budget surplus... During Davis's run as governor that surplus
has become a $30 billion budget deficit. As can be expected, people get
mad when $80 billion disappears somehow... and Davis became the easy scapegoat.
It is definitely not all his fault, but there is no one easier to blame.
-Thus, concerned people in the state sit and wait while the whole
recall thing plays out. In my opinion, the recall is damn pointless
since the damage has already been done. The election itself will cost
the state $30 million or so, that certainly doesn't help the budget situation.
I must ask all those supposed 1.4 million people who signed the recall petition
how replacing the governor is going to help the budget situation. Any new
governor will simply inherit the problem and at that will have less understanding
of it as well. So, wow can this state resolve this budget problem? I really
have no idea other than to raise taxes quite a bit., but that seems to
be (and shouldn't it ought to) a politcially unpopular move. California
and Californians should just ride out this budget crisis, instead of making
it worse and embarrassing the state with this whole recall mess.
-If anyone is wondering, I am actually a registered Republican.
Go tickle your brain with that one... In reality i'm probably an independent
since the whole of my views does not fit tightly with either party. While
i seem overally liberal, particularly in my discussion of the Republican
party above, i actually hold many conservative views. The most conservative
of all of them is definitely my view of abortion. I'm staunchly pro-life,
and it's probably the only issue which i can argue hours on end about.
I also hate affirmative action, as i find that idea to be very racist at
best. On the other end of the spectrum, i advocate such things as increased
welfare and social program spending at the expense of decreased military
spending. So yeah i'm pretty fucked up when it comes to having consistently
conservative or liberal views.
-ah enough of that stuff. So today i woke up at 7:55 am... and
i had class at 8. I'm such an idiot. When i was setting the alarm last
night, i overlooked the fact that i set it to 7:15 pm instead of 7:15
am. So damnit. I still got to class on time (basically i went straight
from bed to class). After that damn class, went to lab where there wasn't
much to do. A little cell feeding and studying for a radioactivity test
on thursday was pretty much it. After lab went home for a rather minimal
lunch then headed to the RSF with roommate. We played about an hour each
of basketball and badminton. I was pretty bad at both. Too many airballs
and missed birdies... sigh... I would blame the crooked basket and my sore
forearm but whatever... i simply sucked today. Probably won't play that
much in the next few days as damn tests are coming.
-This concludes the longest (and will probably remain the longest)
entry for July.
July 21,
2003 - experiment = success
-10:41 pm: yay so stuff actually showed up today under
the fluorescent microscope. This means that whenever we need to do
an experiment with our AtT20 cells, they must be chemically induced.
Not sure what else we will be doing this week, we'll probably find out
tomorrow after presenting results to the professor
-after lab (and quick lunch) went to RSF to play b-ball. Below
average day in terms of shooting. Leon and I lost a 2 on 2 game to
2 of my lab partners which resulted in punishment of 20 pushups each...
Only played for about an hour total.. so not much of a workout, but it
was better than nothing i suppose. Tomorrow we may try playing badminton
again, depending on what time we get out of lab.. (i know i'll be making
every effort to try to get out hehehe)
-it's almost the end of July... so i need to decide what background
to put up for next month. Will probably continue on with the theme of
my family's year 2000 vacation. Or perhaps something from Japan... maybe
even something from Washington state... we'll see.
July 20,
2003 - cells exposed to sodium butyrate
-6:44 pm: continuation of the experiment that was
begun yesterday. In brief, the protein product (avidin-POMC fusion
protein) is encoded by a gene which has a promoter called CV40. This
promoter 's "promotion" is enhanced by the presence of butyric acid. We
hope to see if these cells can still be induced by sodium butyrate to produce
higher levels of Av-POMC. We will see the results tomorrow.
-Other than that brief hour in the lab, nothing much done today.
Typed up some IB131 notes... but didn't do much else. I should probably
be studying IB, as the midterm is a week from tomorrow... but as it
always goes with me, what i should do and what i actually do don't match.
Next weekend will probably a long marathon of stuyding.
July 19,
2003 - more cells on slides, various games
-10:04 pm: interesting and fun day today. First
of all, didn't get up until 11... giving me 10 hrs of blissful sleep.
Haven't done that in a long time and it was really nice. Went to lab around
12 to transfer some more AtT20 cells from plates to coverslips to run
an experiment tomorrow. (Yup... experiments do get run on Sundays)
-afterward, went to Yeh's place with roommate Leon to play
various games. When we got there, Yeh was in the middle of a game
of Chez Geek, so we played co-op Halo for a bit... After being frustrated
with that decided to watch in on a game of Puerto Rico that the other
people had started. Pretty interesting game that seems complicated at
first, but is fun once you get the basics of it. After they finished that
game, we moved onto the game of Mao (that IMO was the most fun). Played
a couple of hilarious rounds of that game, ordered then ate pizza. After
that followed two games of Puerto Rico (both times i lost pretty badly).
Hard to believe, but we spent almost 8 hrs there. Time is very fast when
you're having fun.
July 18,
2003 - viewing cells, Kobe Bryant charged
-6:45 pm: we finally got look at our "new" AtT20
cells under the fluorescence microscope. The results were somewhat
mixed. Apparently the cells weren't expressing a high amount of the protein
product they are supposed to. We did see some cells expressing the protein
(the particular protein is POMC, a ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone)
precursor). Next week we are going to do experiments to see whether POMC
expression can be (and actually should be) chemically induced.
-i was in lab when the DA in Colorado was giving a press conference
over whether Bryant would charged. Thus, us interested people (all
2 of us) sat by the computer loading and re-loading various sports pages
to see what had happened. On the third attempt on loading ESPN.com, a
big, bold display of "Kobe Charged." I never saw that coming.. i was expecting
no charges to be brought, i sort of had a feeling that the evidence was
lacking... Anyway we do our lab thing and i get home (after some gelato).
-Re-look at the reports: Bryant admits to adultery! SO something
really did go on... and thus there should have been TONS of evidence.
I guess the delay in prosecutor's decision to charge was trying to decide
if the evidence showed rape or just sex. In any case, once i read that
(and i had to read it several times, because that was really hard to swallow),
my opinion of him dropped like mad. And what a disappointment. He was
one of the few players in the NBA that i had a good image of. I wonder
what will all happen in the end...
July 17,
2003 - cells on coverslips, badminton
-8:57 pm: didn't do all that much in lab today
other than to transfer cells from dishes on to laminin coated microscope
cover slips. Tomorrow have to go into lab at 8 am to do some immunofluorescence
microscopy... fun!
-tried my hand (more like wrist) at badminton for the first
time today with a roommate and a lab partner. Badminton is so much
more fun (and difficult) than it looks. I think i got the basics of
it down... but i really sucked when it came to playing a real game. Overall
though i think i played pretty well for the first time. Hopefully we'll
get to play some more later on in the summer.
July 16,
2003 - new assignments
-6:04 pm: yay got my new lab assignments today..
basically continuing with another student's experiments on the effects
of cholesterol on vesicle formation. Pretty interesting stuff. Got
a packet about radiactivity.. and have to learn it for a test next
Thursday. It shouldn't be that bad... but the mext anatomy midterm
follows it on the 28th. I should probably get studying on both things...
but that's doubtful hehehe at least until the weekend is over.
July 15,
2003 - did well on IB131 midterm
-9:18 pm: much better than i thought in fact...
When the prof announced the average as 70/100 i thought for sure
i was screwed. Damn 70% seems so low for a class that's pure memorization,
i mean heck it's nothing like a conceptual MCB test.. just spill back
out what you were supposed to memorize. Anyway i scored 1.7 standard
deviations above the mean.. i was pretty shocked when i got my exam back.
-it was pointless to go to lab today.. so i didn't. Instead
spent all day doing essentially nothing, except for watching episode
40 of GundamSEED (yay i got my pointless mecha violence fix.. although
the episode turned out to be a pretty sad episode) and playing basketball
for 90 min at the RSF. Big day tomorrow!
July 14,
2003 - Eager anticipation
-11:09 pm: This wednesday is shaping up to
be quite exciting (at least for me...). First, lab work should pick
up again as the prof. returns from her trip. Not having anything
to do in lab kinda sucks... kinda just sit there waiting for something
exciting to happen. Occassionally i've gotten to observe some experiments...
but that's not enough.
-Second, my Tele-Bears phase 2 registration is on wednesday!
woooo... i finally get to decide whether i would like to run from
Etcheverry to Barrows or from Barrows to Etcheverry. Right now i'm
thinking the first option is better because that's sorta downhill..
but who knows.
-Third, NBA free agent signings will take place! Now,
several big name free agents have announced their signing intentions.
As you might expect, i'm particularly interested in the signing of
Gary Payton and Karl Malone by the LA Lakers. If they do indeed sign
with LA on wednesday (and also assuming that Kobe doesn't go to jail),
LA will be one fuckin insane team next season. I mean damn... they were
already good with Kobe and Shaq.. adding Payton AND Malone... wow.. indescribable.
Pretty exciting stuff for all us LaLa land fanatics, especially
after that depressing season last season.
July 14, 2003 - splitting cells, freezing cells
-5:13 pm: as described in title.. all that
i did today in lab. The prof. won't be back until wednesday, so i'll
probably not go into lab tomorrow. On second thought i might just
stop by to check on the split cells.. hopefully they will have attached
and grown.
-took a small nap after lunch.. fun.. roommate gets
home from class and we go shoot some hoops at the RSF. Nicer shooting
day than last time.
-Eagerly waiting for fansubbers to release episode 40
of GundamSEED... need a fix of senseless mecha violence ^____^.
July 13.
2003 - got to leave Berkeley, my pathetic existence
-12:38 am: how exciting! got to leave berkeley
for once instead of having my usual lame ass weekend. I swear i
have no freakin life... my free time consists of sitting around reading
the same websites over and over again. Very very lame. Anyway i was
not so lame yesterday (at least temporarily) as we met up with a friend
from back in Freeborn, her BF and another of her friends. Add in roommates
+ some old dormmates and we all headed out ot Broadway Plaza in Walnut
Creek. Weeeee.... didn't do any actual shopping but it was certainly
refreshing to window shop and admire the stylish clothes. I consider
myself to be the epitomy of unstylish and uncoolness as all my clothes
my mom bought for me.. (lol how sad is that). OK.. enough regarding
that... We ate at CPK (mmm delicious, but overpriced) and head back
to berkeley after spending around 3 hrs total at the mall. Got back
and threw football around at Willard Park for a good hour or so... After
that the fun ended and i returned immediately to sitting in front of my
computer screen, where i have been for the past three hours.
-yeah so i contemplate the fact that i have virtually
no social life quite a bit. I see other people whose lives are much
more vibrant. I've always been this way i suppose. High school was
much worse (if that's believable).. it was all about just studying
and studying more. Sure that all resulted in some nice GPA.. but in
the end i don't think it was worth it. Coming to Cal, it's only been
more of the same. High GPA (however doesn't seem to impress anyone)
earned at expense of social life. What's worse, of course, is the people
who manage the GPA AND have actual social lives to go with them.. damn
0_o. I need balance in my life.
July 11,
2003 - no courts at the RSF, registering for GRE, feeding cells,
haircut
-1:58 pm: a bunch of stuff done already
today... yay but they all had unpleasant aspects to them. First
i get up at 8 to go to the RSF.. when i get there i find that there
is only one basketball court and that it's being used! WTF!!!! it
was friday morning at 8:30 and ppl are actually playing bball! The rest
of the courts were being used in some way... volleyball camp, badminton
courts, yoga class weeee.
-blah... went home at 9 (yeah i wasted 30 minutes
there just sitting around). Finally kicked my own butt into calling
to register for the GRE. Damn registration process put me on hold
for like 30 minutes! Finally got through and scheduled doomsday
to be September 27th, 8:30 am (yes a saturday -_-). Afterward i realized
that that particular week would probably be crawling with midterms...
so i yelled out one big F***. Oh well .. hopefully i'll get around
to studying for that damn thing sometime this summer...
-lunch consisted of some super salty soup from a can..
wow...
-After lunch and a shower, went to lab to feed my
AtT20 cells. Need to change their media every other day (demanding
little rat cells). I pipetted the new media into the petri dishes
a little too hard causing massive detachment (and thus death) of
the cells. FUN.. BARE SPOTS ON MY DISHES... another big F***. Fortunately
most of the plate is still covered by cells and experiments shouldn't
be affected too much (*crosses fingers*)
-it's been two months since my last haircut.. so decided
to get one finally. $15 down the drain.. haircuts up here are so
damn expensive. I could get the same thing in Glendale for $6 (which
is still a rip off in my not so eloquent opinion)
July 10,
2003 - slow week continues...
-4:30 pm: .... only went into lab for ~2
hrs today to look at stuff under the fluorescence microscope...
nothing terribly interesting. This week is almost as bad as that
first week after school ended last semester. Tomorrow's work will
only take like 10 minutes to do.. other than that the day should prove
to be a rather boring one.
-Just got back from post office to pick up package...
damn place is so crowded. I suppose it did kill one hour of time,
but hell it was one worthless hour standing. Before lab shot (poorly)
some hoops at RSF. Very bad shooting day.. and plus my damn ball
needs to be pumped up.
July 9,
2003 - Slow week in lab
-6:50 pm: it's been a really slow week
in lab. the professor is out of town until next Wednesday and it
seems we were only left with taking care of those AtT20 cells. That
basically requires only 10 minutes worth of work every other day...
so other than that i spent a lot of time in lab simply sitting around
or watching other people do experiments. I'm probably not going into
lab until after lunch tomorrow and at that probably not for very long.
Oh well... the pace will probably pick up next week. The good thing
about this slow time is that it has allowed me to study IB131 stuff.
-speaking of which, i had my first midterm for IB131
today... A little easier than i thought it would be, but not easy
nevertheless. That class is like 100% memorization, which is somewhat
of a good thing for me, but we'll see how i did.
July 5,
2003 - July 4th and shopping
-8:31 pm: ah all fun stuff before
i get bogged down by tons of anatomy to memorize for Wed's midterm..
wee. My family (less Paul) came up yesterday around 1 pm.. We stayed
in my apt for a few hours then, we all (including roommates) headed
over to Romano's Macaroni Grill in El Cerrito for dinner around
4. After that we drove over to Jack London Square to watch the
fireworks. Got there about 3 hours before they were going to start..
so we staked out a spot on some lawn and listened to some crappy hip
hop followed by the Oakland East Bay Orchestra. The fireworks began around
9:30 and were pretty ordinary until the end, when they launched like
100 per second or something for like 30 seconds.. Those 30 seconds were
the craziest display i've ever seen and made the wait definitely worth
it.
-Today we restocked our food supplies which will
hopefully last until the end of summer (doubtful). I also went
into lab today for like 10 minutes to feed my new AtT20 cells..
seemed like a waste of time to only go in for 10 minutes.. but
oh well.
July 3,
2003 - agarose gel analysis
-6:59 pm: the results weren't as good
as I thought they would be... but still better than the first
prep. The gel stuff didn't take that long, however we waited afterward
for sometime to receive instructions for next week. In short,
we will be taking over for a student who is leaving the lab for
med school on his project about cholesterol -dependent secretion.
-Happy July 4th all! I'll be spending it with
my family, which is coming up to the Bay Area for this holiday
weekend.
July 2,
2003 - Maxi prep, exhaustion
-8:20 pm: ran the Qiagen Maxi prep
on the cultures from last night. The results seem to be better
than last time, although we still got a somewhat low but tolerable
yield of DNA. Hmm, saying that is probably premature since we still
have to run some agarose gels to be totally sure. The whole process
was much smoother this time.. it took from about 11-4 instead of 2-8
(hmm we only gained an hour... seemed better than that). After cleaning
up and analyzing the samples with the spectrophotometer. we got out
of lab around 4:50 pm...
-Yay! we went over to RSF to shoot hoops etc...
Watched a bit of a back/abs exercise class then went up to shoot
some b-ball. We got bored of it and so we tried our hands at volleyball!
Scary, haven't played since middle school... It was much funner
that i remember it being in middle school. Played for quite a long time,
without keeping score until some ppl who were waiting started getting
impatient... Yikes.. We switched back to basketball and played a nice
game of three on three. Finished up at the RSF at about 8...
July 1,
2003 - making M9 media
-5:01 pm: another short day in lab
today, although technically my work for today is not finished.
I still have to come in at 10 pm to start the large 1L cultures.
In any case, pretty much only made solutions today and started up
the starter cultures. Same procedure as last week, except this time
using M9 media instead of LB. It was pretty boring... so i won't spread
the boredom to y'all here.
-Wow... hard to believe that half of 2003 is
already gone. Time seems to be going very very fast. I guess
having been busy all of June made it seem much faster than most
other months. The first half of 2003 was pretty fun overall, especially
the the whole semester with TBP. Next semester my responsibilities
with TBP significantly increase... so all my going to every event action
will actually be expected. Not that i'm complaining.. it's extremely
fun meeting all those younger up-and-coming engineers. On the TBP note,
i really can't wait for the officer retreat to Yosemite. I haven't been
to Yosemite since 1996. Even though the waterfalls will all be dried
up by then, it's still a beautiful place. I haven't been away from urban
sprawl for a long time.. and it's killing me. Until then i must tolerate
dirty Berkeley.