Day 4 (Man, i need more creative titles XD)

So, how goes the fourth day on the job? =P.....i must say i was pretty proud of myself =P

today was quite the contrary to what happened yesterday. Whereas i kept thinking I really didn't do anything at all yesterday, i found myself very oddly productive today =P.....I was done my list of things to do (like prep media, do more sterility tests) by 10:30....and was twiddling my thumb till 11:30 waiting for the pH meter to free up so i can finish the last thing on my list to do.

But really, my proudest thing has to be my aseptic techniques......I was actually rather unhappy about the fact that we were having trouble with the media and it kept getting contaminated....the first time, fine, i wasnt careful enough and was being sloppy.......the second time was like WHAT?! again?!........so when i looked at it today for the third time and saw that oh-so-familiar film of growth on the surface my heart sank, thinking i must have done something terribly stupid and contaminated the stock bottles (which would have wasted $200 worth of materials.....yes, that much for three 500mL bottles of media).....but then when i opened our other incubator to look at that plate (we use two incubators, the nice, new one with has 5%CO2....and the old one that's basically just a heated cupboard) there was no sign of contamination whatsoever......there was not even a speck of a cell to be found under the microscope!!......i was sooo relieved, and I think we can come to the conclusion that the old incubator is contaminated with some yeast kinda thing.........marta, my supervisor, told me let it sit for a while longer, coz there was no signs of growth in one of the medium (Grace's Insect Medium).......only if the last medium is also contaminated can we conclude it's the incubator (tho i cheated and looked at it under the microscope and i can see little cells floating around, just very few of them =P)

we had another scare with contamination today too XD......and again, i'm very proud that it's not my fault =P.......we were reviving the cells from cryopreservation that were cultured last summer to see how well they do in -78C liquid nitrogen.......and so i was using the hemocytometer and trypan blue as i was so used to back in the lab (i must say i'm going to come to hate counting those stupid cells......especially if they all look the way they did today)

me and hemocytometer have met.....we've decided that we really can't get along

and so the first batch was fine (the ones directly out of the cryovials).....but then the ones after dilution with media was absolutely horrific!!!!......instead of having a slide of blue liquid, it just became liquid completely overwhelmed with blue floaty thingies (i was actually going to write that description into my notebook, but then thought it wasnt quite professional)....but bascially think of dust on water, except there's a huge amount and it's all blue......and so marta just flipped and panicked (espeically when we tested the trypan blue alone and it was fine, and then with the media and it clumped)......so she freaked and thought it was very bad bacterial contamination....but she had to run for a meeting, and so she left me to do some research......but then, after some researching, i found that apparently serum (in our case the 20% fetal bovine serum we added) causes this to happen XD (apparently trypan blue has a higher affinity to serum proteins than cellular proteins =P).......and so once more, it was just another harmless scientific phenomenon........tho it does complicate things, i now have to actually test the media to make sure it's the serum's fault, and then this means from now on we'll have to first centrifuge down the cells, take the media out, and replace it with PBS (phosphate-buffered saline)

and i guess the final thing to note is that i think i've found my rhythm with the whole co-op business.....i can get to UBC by 8, do my devotions there before i start my day =P (using a computer in the SUB, coz i dont think it's quite proper to be using my lab computer to do personal stuff.....though i was using it to secretly check for my marks, which are still not out, seeing tammy sent us all an email saying joan's still hacking away at our protein papers XD)....i quite like this arrangement =P........and maybe if i can pull myself together and sleep earlier then i can actually read on the bus (and not sleep it away =P).........also hopefully once i can properly ingest again i'll bring in some granola bars for an afternoon snack in addition to the sandwich that i have grown to be fond of =P

but anyways, on other news......i now know what's causing this pulling feeling everytime i open my jaws a certain way......apparently my dentist has sewn my gum to the side of my cheeks......but hey, it's ok, it doesnt hurt, and only one more pill of antibiotics left tonight before i'm done with all these medication =P

had an orange flavoured yogurt tonight.....kinda odd =P.....but it actually tasted pretty good =P