Science Monkey

We had our organizational meeting for chromatin journal club today. For the second term in a row, the prof singled me out and suggested that I present one paper in particular. I guess I will…it’s sort of a command performance, eh? Chromatin looping, probably some 3C…at least the background won’t be hard!

The journal club is going to be in the new building again this term. I can’t believe what a lazy ass I am…I found myself grumbling about having to walk all of 10 minutes to the new building once a week. Lazy, lazy.

Work is…work is okay. I tried to run a big sequencing gel today but apparently screwed something up. The dye fronts got about three-quarters of the way down the gel and then stopped. Just stopped completely, making a thin, dark line. Sigh. I’ll try again tomorrow. I think I used the wrong buffer to make the gel, which would explain things pretty well. Otherwise, I’m feeling a bit frazzled. I’m supposed to have an undergrad but I haven’t seen him yet this term. All last term we didn’t have work for him and he was around. Now that we have work, he’s not there. Serves me right for not keeping him busy last term.

I’ve got at least four major projects going at the moment in the lab. I’m doing 3C in the brain, DNase I hypersensitivity analysis of three different regions in the distal genes, bisulfite genomic sequencing of the same regions, FISH and immunofluorescence, ChIP, and in vivo footprinting. That’s more than four…whatever. I hope that something catches fire (not literally!) and I can get some data out soon. I’m so over this lab. I like my lab members, but I’m over working in this lab. One more year. I can do it. After that, who cares what happens to the lab?

Enough whining. I’m going to watch the end of Jeopardy! and play some God of War. If I were a good student I’d go back into the lab and start that sequencing PCR. We’ll see how I feel after Jeopardy.

Why is it that if it’s going to rain for only about 10 minutes this morning that it rains WHEN I AM ON MY BIKE? And, why does it wait to rain until I am ALREADY ON CAMPUS?

Monkey wet. Monkey not happy.

Happy new year, everybody! I hope you got at least a little sleep last night. I managed to stay up until midnight, for about the third year in a row. Emma had to work last night (and is actually still at work, on a 24-hour shift), so I just lazed around the house.

In the spirit of New Year’s resolutions I went out this morning and bought a copy of David Allen’s Getting Things Done, which seems like a good system of time-/self-management and organization. I’ve been reading Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders blog off and on for the past year and the system seems like one I might be able to follow. Also, because I’m a dork, I bought myself a moleskine. I bought a 3×5 moleskine with a grid, rather than the straight ruled type.

Off to work for a little bit, then a birthday late lunch/early dinner for Grandma. Type to you later.