Chemistry of the Elements is my first class in the morning on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I had heard the professor was strict from other students. He didn't hold back on the first day. As he went through the syllabus he repeated over and over again that HE makes the rules and WE have to follow them. If we don't like them, there's the door. He's from India and has a very strong accent. He made a few jokes here and there, but mostly he was firm and clear that the rules would definitely be enforced. And during that first class, in the middle of his lecture, he looked up and asked a guy "do you want to leave?" And when he shook his head no, the professor said "well then zip it!" So.... I'm not sure how this is going to go. So far he does seem like a good teacher. He explained things in a very organized way which is quite different from my chemistry professor last quarter. One thing I don't like is that the lecture hall is completely filled. Not one chair was open today, and this hall fits over 100 students in it. So it's a very full class.
After that class I drove to work. I'm not thrilled about my schedule. It was so hard to schedule my classes and work, so I tried to make it work as best I could. I drive to school in the morning with Daniel, he only has class 10-11am. I have class at 9am so he has to get there a little early for me. Then I drive to work and get there around 10:15am, and leave around 1:30pm. This means I have to clock out for lunch, or eat in the car on my way back to school. It takes almost 30 minutes to get back to school and then I have class from 2-4 on Monday and 2-3 on Wednesday. That class is Nutrition. It's with one of my favorite professors, Dr. Sadler. She is so good at explaining things and really nice. I think that class is going to be so interesting. We are using software to track everything we eat. We have to write two papers analyzing two weeks of our diet. I'm a little nervous to see how my diet measures up to standards.
Unfortunately, Daniel has to wait around on campus from when his class is over at 11 all the way until I'm done at 4pm. So I juggled my schedule a little bit and I'm going to see if this works better. I will move my Tuesday afternoon lab to Monday evening from 6-9pm. Normally, I really try to avoid evening labs. But Daniel has to be on campus for chapter meetings from 6:30-8:30pm on Mondays anyways. Then I can work from noon until Daniel gets out of class at 6pm on Tuesdays and 10:15am-5 on Fridays. That will give me enough hours during the week, and I won't have to drive back and forth from campus between classes. I think it will waste so much gas and time with the driving back and forth. The main street that connects campus and work is always so crowded with traffic, it drives me insane! This will also allow me to use my meal plan for lunch on campus which will save us money on packing me lunch three days a week. And it means we can eat lunch together every day. So hopefully that will work out better for everyone.
Today at work, I was very busy and stressed out. Jen asked me to run a gel for her. This involved making up the gel, letting it set and then adding something like 150 samples to the gel. Jen told me the recipe for the gel really quick, and I tried to remember it. I did remember it well, but I had only done this particular gel once before so I was a little unsure of the process of making it. I had to microwave it so the agarose dissolved and then let it sit in a plastic chamber until it solidified. I used a multi-channel pipettor to add 2 uL of dye to 5 uL of sample. But, when I tried to pull 7 uL out later (5+2) I didn't have enough. That wasn't good. So I just used 5 uL and hoped it would still work. So, I added the samples to the gel. And another problem arose: sometimes, the samples just floated away and disappeared. Normally, you can see the dye settle into the little wells. I was nervous, but I just kept on going adding sample after sample and ran the gel. When it was done, I asked Jen to come check it and she said it looked good. So I had to lift up the gel and carry it to the imaging machine. I lifted up the plastic sheet the gel was sitting on, and took a couple steps to the machine. The gel slid off the glass and splat on the floor. It crumbled into a million pieces all over the tile with 5 people standing there. Nobody even batted an eyelash. They all said they've done it before a million times. And Jen reached down to pick it up and said it seemed a little fragile. She asked me what agarose I used. I didn't realize there was more than one type. So I went over to the cabinet and showed her, and she showed me the jar I should have used. Oops. She said it was no big deal, just trash it and I can run it again another time. So that was 2 hours of my day wasted. A little embarrassing. At least the RNA extraction went well. I hope. :-)
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