Day 1 at Foster's Lab

The lab itself is actually a pretty big one. They have 4 new co-op students including me for the summer and they are actually in the middle of expanding into new rooms and getting things set up (or well, the full story is that all the previous people moved into the Michael Smith Labs next door and so they are now claiming all the space that they left behind).....but i must say, i dont think i'm quite used to this whole new lab environment, and i dont mean it in so much the layout, but the whole laid-back-ness of it all.....having gotten used to 12 hours a week of here's-the-lab-let's-blitz-through-it-in-1.5-hours, i find this whole we-have-four-months thing rather weird.....

but let's start at the very beginning, shall we?.....i must say, of all the other co-op students around i think i got landed the better job =P whereas everyone is kinda picking things up from the middle of an experiment that their supervisor is working on, I actually get to work with mine on something completely fresh and new =P.....yes, i know it's cell culture, but it's all from scratch......they dont have some commercially prepared cell lines we can use, so we'll actually be starting them from eggs.....and the coolest part? no one has ever succeeded in doing something like this before =P (there is apparently somethign that makes honeybee cells notoriously difficult to grow long-term, and no one has yet discovered the reason XD)......but anyways, i digress =P

the day started with a rather long lab meeting with two presentations (and Joan has managed to haunt me even more! as if cell cultures weren't enough, there was talk of the MAPKKK and mTor and phosphotyrosines...>__<").....and then an EXTREMELY long lab tour......(we spent a disgustingly long time with the autoclave, and all i could think of is that it looks eeriely similar to the old one we had in the lab.....but apparently this one actually steams the entire room if it's closed improperly XD)

yah, nothing much after that, i actually feel like i wasted an entire day doing nothing.......i was sitting at my desk on my computer reading through some papers and making some notes on what needs to be done tmr......and then reading through the same papers again and looking at the same notes........though tmr was promised to be more interesting........a trip to the UBC farm where the bees actually are (rather scared about that, not a big fan of bees, tho i was assured we won't get stung with the bee suit on).....and then a trip to the dollar store to look for something we can scoop bee eggs with......and then actually prepping the solutions and media......actual lab stuff finally!

But there is one problem that I am rather keen on solving........how not to starve............it sucks to not be able to eat properly.......i bascially lived off a bottle of juice and a small bowl of soup all day.........AND i was running low on water........as a result i was so light-headed and out of it that i managed to leave my umbrella in the washroom, missed a bus, waited for 5 minutes BEFORE realizing i don't have my umbrella, going back to the lab only to find the doors locked (and i dont yet have the building keys), and had to walk back all the way to the bus loop, hungry and miserable, only to miss a second bus.........