Kelley Bromley

Well, this was my first full week in the Song lab and it was ok. I had my midterm on Monday which was a big stress relief! I ran several PCR gels… hmmm… I have 4 primers and ran test runs on those, 2 worked so I went ahead and amplified a lot of that DNA, but only one of them worked! I didn’t know you had to use the same PCR machine (there are two in the lab) but even trying the one that didn’t work with the EXACT SAME SETTINGS on the original PCR machine still nothing amplified… weird. The two which didn’t work originally I ran another test PCR and got one of them working, so I’m leaving the two which don’t work for awhile and will go back to them later.

For the original one which worked I amplified a bunch and even isolated the DNA! Cool stuff. I just kind of followed a recipe and asked everyone questions along the way because Fang wasn’t in on Friday. I was going to clone the fragment into the vector then, but we were out of the restriction enzyme I needed and the place where you buy it was closed. Weihui showed me where all the cloning stuff was and how to pick a buffer, and he was extremely patient and a good teacher (fang can sometimes go too quickly on things, heh) I told him I’ll need his help next week with cloning and he said he would.

You can see a picture of the gel from my first PCR reaction on the left! Cool huh?!

Well, our mission for today was for Lionel to get a hair cut at the barber in the Safeway parking lot; however, once we got there it was an old man with an orange fro styling another old man’s hair - he said, “Can I help you?” and Lionel asks for a haircut, and then he says “I have an opening for Monday.” So apparently this is like an old man styling hair thing - like old fashioned with the slick and everything, lol, so we continued down 10th to go to the barber there, and for once Lionel got a haircut with no cowlick! It looks very good.

On our way back up 10th to Safeway we stopped in a used book store, and then Home Hardware, although at the time we thought it was a combination of a dollar store/liquidation store. We went in and I was surprised to see they carried toasters and kitchen stuff and stuff like that. It had the liquidation feel because things were stacked to the ceiling and hanging off the walls like the pegboards in dollar store places. Anyway, I realized it was Home Hardware when someone asked if I needed help and they had the logo on their t-shirt o.O We picked up a container to hold spaghetti

We then left and continued up 10th to the butcher shop there, which is the whole purpose of this post! We’ve been meaning to go there for awhile now. They even sell RABBIT!! They didn’t have any in stock, but they can order them in for me!! YAY! RABBIT STEW BABY!!!! We ended up getting two Italian turkey and two turkey cilantro sausages, and we’re going to try the Italian one tonight.

Then, as luck would have it, Safeway had snapper fillets out for half price (buy one get one free) so we got 2kg worth :D They look awesome! We’re having the biggest one for supper and froze the rest. We ran out of trout awhile back and only had basa and tilapia in regards to fish, and since we won’t be going to Costco for awhile it’ll be nice to have more fish variety again :)

Well, thankfully Fang said the primers will take awhile to come in, and the experiment is 4 days long, so we’re going to wait until Monday. This week was reading week, which means no classes so you can study for midterms, but I was in the lab from 9 to 5 everyday and by the time I got home and the house and supper was taken care of there wasn’t much time left for studying. Anyway, since the primers are going to take awhile Fang gave me Thursday and Friday off to study - yay! Unfortunately I got a nasty headache yesterday and had to have a gravol and ibuprofen and go to bed at 7pm *sigh* but today will be a day of studyage. On the up side, we had a lovely supper yesterday of nutty chicken - delicious! I’ll be posting it in the recipe section.

Well, I had my first day in the Song lab today. I finally got the names right! I got a tour of the lab - they have reallllly nice equipment and a huge lab! Hong is leaving and I’m taking over his lab area - he has about 1/5 of the lab at the end of the lab in a nice corner space near the millipore system at the end of the lab, I like it because it’s sheltered from the bustle of the rest of the lab. I also think my desk is going to be in this area when people move around a bit. We had a lab meeting and Dr. Song talked about how the lab research is a team effort, and one person is the main researcher and others help so we can all get some publications. I’m going to start some research which he says will lead to publication in 4 to 6 months - yay! I’m so excited… I’m finally in a real AD lab, and everyone is so focused and knowledgeable. I’m a bit worried because I have to dive in right away into the project - I already have to pick our primers tomorrow! Gah! I don’t even know how this research works, heh. That’s the one thing about university - it’s the only thing you get paid for when you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing, LOL. Anyway, I’m really looking forward to getting back into some hard core biochemistry again.

I worked on the Notch paper in the morning, but the rest of the day was the lab meeting and reading up on stuff for my project. I think most of the day will be lab work this week, and I’ll have to study for my midterm in the evenings, so the Notch paper will have to be put on hold for awhile. I was sooo tired at the end of the day though - don’t know how I’m gonna study at the end of the day, not used to that anymore, heh. I’m sure it’ll all work out, I still have lots of time before the midterm. I’m relaxing tonight and will go to bed early so I’m ready for research :)

Dr. Song invited me to dinner at the Golden Szechuan restaurant with his lab to celebrate Chinese new year / the holidays a little late. I was really nervous, but everyone was quite nice. Almost everyone is Chinese and it was a bit hard getting the names correctly, but I’m sure I’ll get them eventually :) There was a LOT of food, and it was very delicious. They served Frontera wine, a mix of Cabernet and Merlot, and I didn’t even pull a face! Yay! This wine torture I’ve been putting myself through has finally paid off in a social situation, LOL.

I was told by a fellow SJer that London drugs had the 3 drawer sterilite containers which hold 12×12 paper out for $9.99 (regularly $14.99) so we went and I bought 5 of them :D I used to have wire cubes set up with extra shelves held in with twist ties, and the paper in archival envelopes on each shelf - the only think is the envelopes don’t fit in the drawers, but the paper fits perfectly when out of the envelopes, it just feels like they’re naked in the drawer after being protected in the envelopes for so long, LOL. It looks so much neater though! The worst thing is I spent a good 2 hours assembling and organizing the wire cubes and wiring them together with twist ties :D

As we were in London Drugs, Lionel went to the kitchen section and picked up some nice silicone utensils that were still stiff enough to put some pressure on - a regular serving spoon, a slotted spoon, and a spatula. They all seem to be over-sized, but I guess they have to do that if they make them out of rubber, lol. They were really pricey… $11.99 each! Yikes! But Lionel really liked them and he made a good point that they would last a lifetime (silicone AND Kitchen Aid… I guess you can’t go wrong), anywho, we got them and they seem nice. I like the silicone cookware stuff :)

Ok, so on Monday night I learned my Afrikaans, on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning I did my NRSC501 assignment, but on Wednesday, despite getting off early, I never got any work done on the notch paper because I had a god awful headache and had to sleep it off *sigh* SO today it’s full steam ahead! Hopefully I’ll get my rat done early and I can work work work!

This week has been pretty much NotchNotchNotch, heh, so I’m taking a break. We went to Walmart to bring back our canister sets because the seals were bad, and we picked up a meat slicer :) Cheap deli! Yay! We also bought some corning ware because ours was a little too big for some of the dishes we make (like my cauliflower bake). We were going to go to Costco too - I spent 6 hours preparing pictures to print…. but there was a power outage due to the wind we’ve been having and they were closed *sigh* I was looking forward to that the most, but I’ll just wait now until we get our scanner and I can print copies of the Emma pictures.

Speaking of wind, there was a wind warning in effect last night and our windows were rattling throughout the night. When we went to the parking lot the huge pine tree in the parking lot had lost numerous branchlets (as opposed to large branches, heh) all over the parking lot! It looked like the mass murder of a pine forest - little pine cones laying everywhere. It was nice today though except for the massive amounts of rain. I hear the sun comes out in a few months, heh.