my first three days at yale.

Alright guys so I started my lab this Monday, and it's been three days. I pretty much started working on my project since the first day I got there..my PI forgot to get me a Yale ID and keys to the insectary, so we went to Yale Provost first and ended up getting nothing since my guardian and I needed to fill out some forms in order to get the ID and the key. Then my PI and I went straight to the insectary.

I thought since it was the first day I might just go around the lab and meet with the post grad student I am supposed to work with. Well, it didn't turn out to be that easy. My PI and the post grad first talked about the project with me: I need to collect data for butterflies reared in wet season and dry season injected with two different hormones in different phases before pupa. Each butterfly is kept in a small envelope and put into the freezer. So my first task was to label all the envelopes and put them into groups, for example 1-W-L-JH means the first sample in group reared in wet season and injected with juvenile hormone during larval phase. So I spent my first day in the lab labeling over 300 butterfly envelopes and transfer the data to Excel. It seemed easy at first but it was a lot of work..my hands were literally shaking after labeling over 200 butterflies.

So that was the first day, the second morning I finished transferring the data. My PI and was surprised that I finished the work. She thought it would take me a few days to label all the butterflies...after that I got a nickname "machine" because I do everything really really fast. My next work was to cut off all the forewings and photograph them in pairs using a really complicated equipment. So that's about 600 wings. These wings are really fragile, I broke several wings just by taking the butterfly out of the envelope. Anyway, that was again a lot of work, so I basically sat there cutting wings for the rest of the day and this morning I finished clipping all the wings. Then my PI came and told me that she had talked with her other partner and she suggested cutting the hindwings as well since studies had shown that mantis and other predators prey on butterflies with specific hindwing patterns. So I spent this afternoon clipping all the hindwings. And then...I got an email from my PI (she went back to her office, which is 15 minutes walk from the insectary) saying that she had thought about it and thought it would be better for me to just photograph all the forewings and leave the hindwings first...Well I guess that often happens in the lab.

So that's my first three days, kinda busy, but I guess more work is coming in the next few weeks. Since most of the people work from 9 in the morning and leave around 4pm or even before, I only work 7 hours everyday. Luckily the my PI said that I could come in during weekends, so I will spend weekends working in the lab as well so that I can get 40 hours a week. Nothing dangerous in this lab, no chemicals except hormones, so I guess no accidents will happen...hopefully

Santooooooooooooooo