Altar Boyz!!!!

Watch the Altar Boyz with Jennifer last night.......they were SOOOOOOO goood!!!!

Ok, I will admit, the lyrics to the songs were not overly smart, the musical itself was not that insanely funny, and there was bearly a storyline involved in the whole hour and a half. However, what made it truly exceptional was the fact that it was live music (I suppose you really don't need that much space for a drum, a guitar, and two keyboards) plus awesome singing and harmonies, AND completely amazing choreography! Everyone in the theatre gave them a standing ovation at the end of the performance and I thought it was very, very well deserved.


The fact that the musical poked fun at Christian bands made it feel all the at home. Finally something that's blatantly Christian (despite the fact that they are poking fun at us). True, almost everything was exaggerated and I can assure you no Christian bands ever do things like them (at least I certainly hope not), but I thought it was very funny how they blended in popular culture into all of it. And although some inside jokes would have been very funny, most of the humour was very publicly understandable.

So yes, I'm very glad I got a chance to see them. It's actually a performance I would consider going to see again, becuase, like I said, what you are watching for is the singing and the choreography, and not really the plot.

It was definitely worth the $33 (despite the fact that I didn't pay, and better yet, parking was free because it was after 7), and I might actually try convincing our fellowship to go. I know a couple of people who I'm certain would thoroughly enjoyed it.

They've extended their showing till August 29th!!

PS: Matthew looks like the Starfield lead XD

Mid-term Progress Report

So, July has finally decided to round the corner, and in the midst of constant barbecues (5 in a week) and slightly unbearable heat, my co-op term has past its midway point. What would I have to say about it at this point?

Well, the first thing is that things have definitely gotten a little ridiculously busy. With renewed fervour in collecting eggs and starting fresh cultures, my incubator has now accumulated close to 40 plates of cultures, all of them screaming and demanding some fresh media either every Monday and Thursday or every Tuesday and Friday. To make things all the more complicated, they are suspension cells and are thus not attached to the wells, preventing me from simply sucking out all the media with a vacuum and an evil laugh.

And of course, I am now one co-op student working on two separate and completely different projects. Not only am I now responsible for growing some honeybee cells, I will also be responsible for some bacterial assays. So yes, I do both cell cultures AND bacterial cultures.

However, on a brighter note my bee cultures have turned the corner and are now doing fairly well. After numerous tries and countless failed attempts, we were blessed with cultures that appeared like the following (I really hope I don't get sued for releasing these photos.......I don't recall signing anything that tells me I can't.....there were more photos, but they were all blurry and out of focus):

Culture 6 No Antibiotics, 200x Phase Contrast Microscope, with suspension embryonic cells and adherent fibroblasts

We have finally realized what has been screwing us over, and that is the antibiotics we have been using. We had it at such a ridiculously high concentration that none of our cells grew properly. But now that we've reduced the antibiotic concentration by almost 1000 fold, things are starting to look pretty. There was even this one clump of cell that was contracting periodically as if it was a heart. It was totally wicked XD definitely not something we were shown at school =P

So, looking at my lab related schedule for the next little while...
July 11 - Flying to Grande Prairie
July 15 - Expected Return Date
July 27 - Project Presentation
Once School Starts - Co-op Paper Due