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Friday, December 14, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Compliments
Girl in BYU women's locker room: Are you on the [BYU] swim team?
Random guy at my parents' house: Have you done any modeling?
Granted, the girl probably was wondering why I had wet hair since very few people actually shower in the BYU women's locker room except members of the swim team. And that random guy was trying to butter my dad up so he would invest in the guy's crazy scheme. But I would prefer to tell myself that the locker room lady was impressed by my trim, toned physique and that Mr. Sweet Talker was truly struck by my stunning, model-like features.
Isn't subjective reality a beautiful thing?
Random guy at my parents' house: Have you done any modeling?
Granted, the girl probably was wondering why I had wet hair since very few people actually shower in the BYU women's locker room except members of the swim team. And that random guy was trying to butter my dad up so he would invest in the guy's crazy scheme. But I would prefer to tell myself that the locker room lady was impressed by my trim, toned physique and that Mr. Sweet Talker was truly struck by my stunning, model-like features.
Isn't subjective reality a beautiful thing?
Monday, December 03, 2007
Two Cheers for Robots
I have been working in the same lab for over 3 years. Many of the experiments that I do follow roughly the same protocol, especially in preparing the sample. With few exceptions, I use modified buffered salt solution (MBSS) to suspend the cells.
But today, without noticing, I grabbed the bottle labeled, "MBSS sans Ca2+/Mg2+". As John Harmon will readily tell you, "sans" means without. I don't know if that is Greek or Latin. And no one in the lab speaks either Greek or Latin, so I don't know why we don't label it as "w/o." That's faster to write than "sans." I guess that's just what we scientists do--use the fancy way to say something simple.
Anyway, basically I ruined the 3 experiments I did because there needed to be calcium in the medium for the whole thing to work. Dang it.
The thing that's most frustrating about it is that I should have realized what the problem was after the first experiment. Someone else had to (very charitably) point out the problem to me. So I felt like a robot today who just goes through the motions of doing research but isn't capable of generating real solutions to problems or really thinking about what I'm doing.
Am I ready to convince my thesis committee that they should let me graduate? Or do I really have no idea what I'm doing? Either way, I'll be glad when April comes...
But today, without noticing, I grabbed the bottle labeled, "MBSS sans Ca2+/Mg2+". As John Harmon will readily tell you, "sans" means without. I don't know if that is Greek or Latin. And no one in the lab speaks either Greek or Latin, so I don't know why we don't label it as "w/o." That's faster to write than "sans." I guess that's just what we scientists do--use the fancy way to say something simple.
Anyway, basically I ruined the 3 experiments I did because there needed to be calcium in the medium for the whole thing to work. Dang it.
The thing that's most frustrating about it is that I should have realized what the problem was after the first experiment. Someone else had to (very charitably) point out the problem to me. So I felt like a robot today who just goes through the motions of doing research but isn't capable of generating real solutions to problems or really thinking about what I'm doing.
Am I ready to convince my thesis committee that they should let me graduate? Or do I really have no idea what I'm doing? Either way, I'll be glad when April comes...
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