My First Day of Work

I am exhausted. I had to wake up at 6:30 this morning to get to work on time. When I got there I had to watch a bunch of videos about lab safety and what to do with a chemical spill, or radioactive material, how to perform an experiment safely, how to use a centrifuge, etc. etc. They were sort of boring, but I was also really excited about the idea of working in a lab. Then a secretary lady took me up to meet my supervisor. His name is Dr. Doug Walker. He is using genetics to research Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. He asked me a little about myself and what experience I have in the lab. Then he took me into the lab and introduced me to the other intern, Russell. Russell just finished high school and is starting at ASU in August. He was kind of dorky, but nice. He showed me the test he was performing. Without explaining all the background and science behind it, I'll just say that we were performing a test on 6 different patients' DNA to see if they have a particular gene that almost guarantees they will develop Alzheimer's. So we performed this complicated test and you have to do everything very carefully or else the results are messed up. I watched the last half of the test, and then did the entire thing by myself with other people telling me how to do it. Our lab is pretty small, everyone except Doug is really really young. There are two lab workers who are about to leave to go to Medical School. So they are all in their 20s and all really nice and outgoing and attractive people. Quite unique for a research laboratory. So anyways they walked me through the test. It didn't turn out really great, but tomorrow we are going to redo it and this time I'll have a little practice so it should turn out better. And otmorrow I am going to learn how to extract the DNA material too. Nikki, one of the med school students, told me that if we get some extra time I can test myself for the gene. That would be really awesome! So in the morning I was really bored just watching Russell finish the test. I was like falling asleep. And there's lots of times in the test where we just have to wait for the gel to set or wait for a machine to do its thing so we had some dead time. I was seriously falling asleep. But after lunch, I felt better and was really excited about peforming my own test. And I am keeping a notebook with everything I'm doing in it. I'll be working in the molecular biology lab and doing all kinds of different stuff. Nikki even said I might get a chance to go down to the morgue and watch an autopsy. I get a badge and I wear a lab coat and go through a million pairs of latex gloves. The most important thing I learned I think was pipetting. Pipetting is not as easy as just squeezing the little bulb at the top and then squeezing it again to pour out the liquid. These are very special automatic pipettes. They are very accurate and there are different buttons and stuff. It's really important to follow protocol in order to eliminate as much error as possible. Even things like holding the pipette in your hand too long can affect the accuracy. And you have to change the tip and throw it out each time so you don't cross contaminate and stuff like that. Anyways, it was kind of boring and scary and I was very nervous and uncomfortable, but in the end so so excited about the work that I am doing and I can't believe I'm actually performing tests for real patients! But I really don't want to wake up again at 6:30 in the morning. And 40 hours a week is A LOT. But I guess it's all about being an adult and having a real job. I'm going to bed now. I need sleep.