Alright, so like Gab. Ross, the beginning part of my first week was pretty depressing. This is due to multiple reasons:
1. A rising senior joined the lab and Teuta, who thought I did wonderfully last week, decided that I should attempt to do the whole experiment basically without her help. This was after I ran the experiment with her ONCE. She ended up correcting me approximately 20 times in less than one hour... Yeah... now that undergrad who's from Princeton thinks I'm a fool. Great.
Sidenote: we're seriously taking a lot of precautions for working with something as harmless as E. coli. It makes sense for all of these things to be in place though. [point, there are a lot more than 20 things to keep in mind when doing this experiment.]
2. The trap (huge mechanism that records videos essentially) for some unknown reason, doesn't work. So basically, 3 days in the lab are wasted. The problem is still trying to be fixed, but I can't run my experiment because I need 3 to 4 hour long videos!
3. Because of the nature of my experiment, I have to miss lunch. That means from the usual 4 meals and 3 snacks I have just dwindled down to 2 meals and 1 snack. :'(
4. I still don't have the proper software due to regulations. I'm not allowed to get the disk that allows me to install this program called LabView since my computer that I use doesn't belong to Princeton. This essentially means that it's gonna take a lot longer for me to analyze the data, and my programming skillz are put to the test.
Okay, that's depressing and pathetic enough. So heading towards the good part. I essentially ran the whole experiment today without a mistake (I actually made a tiny one, but it was easily fixed.) So that made up for Monday's work. Too bad Steven, the undergrad student, didn't see me.
Also, my supervisor said that she'll try to get the installation disk of LabView tomorrow, so I can analyze my data much quicker. It's a pity that all the work I did might go to a waste, but it was extra practice!
So depending on how the next set of E. coli behave towards a 620 mM sucrose shock, I may start looking into two different strains of E. coli. If that happens, then things can get interesting and very busy. However, that would mean that I don't think the original amount of time I planned to put into working in the lab will be enough. I might have to cancel my trip to Florida ... x( ...all in the name of science
Other than that, my experience is going pretty well. I'm not too challenged in terms of difficult concepts, but the precision I need with my hands can be a bit taxing. I guess this is good training for eye-hand coordination for gaming and surgery. I'm not sure if it's just me or if it's just because my experiment is just getting starting; however, I have a lot of free time. Sometimes, Facebook and Tetris seem pretty tempting... :D
Peace~
-PK
1. A rising senior joined the lab and Teuta, who thought I did wonderfully last week, decided that I should attempt to do the whole experiment basically without her help. This was after I ran the experiment with her ONCE. She ended up correcting me approximately 20 times in less than one hour... Yeah... now that undergrad who's from Princeton thinks I'm a fool. Great.
Sidenote: we're seriously taking a lot of precautions for working with something as harmless as E. coli. It makes sense for all of these things to be in place though. [point, there are a lot more than 20 things to keep in mind when doing this experiment.]
2. The trap (huge mechanism that records videos essentially) for some unknown reason, doesn't work. So basically, 3 days in the lab are wasted. The problem is still trying to be fixed, but I can't run my experiment because I need 3 to 4 hour long videos!
3. Because of the nature of my experiment, I have to miss lunch. That means from the usual 4 meals and 3 snacks I have just dwindled down to 2 meals and 1 snack. :'(
4. I still don't have the proper software due to regulations. I'm not allowed to get the disk that allows me to install this program called LabView since my computer that I use doesn't belong to Princeton. This essentially means that it's gonna take a lot longer for me to analyze the data, and my programming skillz are put to the test.
Okay, that's depressing and pathetic enough. So heading towards the good part. I essentially ran the whole experiment today without a mistake (I actually made a tiny one, but it was easily fixed.) So that made up for Monday's work. Too bad Steven, the undergrad student, didn't see me.
Also, my supervisor said that she'll try to get the installation disk of LabView tomorrow, so I can analyze my data much quicker. It's a pity that all the work I did might go to a waste, but it was extra practice!
So depending on how the next set of E. coli behave towards a 620 mM sucrose shock, I may start looking into two different strains of E. coli. If that happens, then things can get interesting and very busy. However, that would mean that I don't think the original amount of time I planned to put into working in the lab will be enough. I might have to cancel my trip to Florida ... x( ...all in the name of science
Other than that, my experience is going pretty well. I'm not too challenged in terms of difficult concepts, but the precision I need with my hands can be a bit taxing. I guess this is good training for eye-hand coordination for gaming and surgery. I'm not sure if it's just me or if it's just because my experiment is just getting starting; however, I have a lot of free time. Sometimes, Facebook and Tetris seem pretty tempting... :D
Peace~
-PK
No comments:
Post a Comment