Melting glass is fun

Today at work I got to melt glass. Sort of. We have these small thin glass rods and we use them to work with tiny tissue samples. So today I got to put them over a flame to seal the ends shut and bend them to make a hook. It was fun. What is it about fire that is so fun? I also finished my ELISA test and it didn't come out right again. Errr it's so frustrating! All that work..3 days... for nothing. I never really mastered the ELISA but at least I got some practice doing it. The worst part is I don't really know what exactly went wrong. I think I'm just not naturally a very patient person and research in general takes a lot of patience. Tomorrow I am going to start on me and my mom's samples. I am doing an ApoE. I think it's like a 2-3 day process so I will have to finish it the beginning of next week. I'm glad to be doing something new again; I love learning new skills. Today was most of the interns' last day so I got a check. I will get another one when I complete the program. I'm glad I'm staying for another two weeks. There's more work to be done, and I would feel like I was leaving a lot of loose ends if I left after today.

Russell (the other intern) did immunohistochemistry today. That was the process that I did a million billion times for the past 3 weeks. I have it memorized and I could do it in my sleep so I was helping him. It's amazing what different techniques we have. I do things efficiently, quickly, yet correctly. He does things slowly and methodically. It drives me crazy. I have to hold myself back from just taking over and doing it myself because he's so slow. He took all day to do what usually took me about half a day. But oh well, it still turned out right and he learned the technique which is what's important.

After work I went to Daniel's house and he cooked dinner for me and his parents. It was nice to see them again. Daniel is such a good cook! He doesn't even follow recipes he just makes it up on his own. And I get to take leftovers to work tomorrow for lunch. His parents showed me pictures of their Mexico vacation and his mom bought me this really cool sarong bathing suit cover up thing. It's really pretty. It looked like they have a good time. His parents have such adventurous vacations! I am excited because I am going on a cruise with them to Mexico in December. His mom found this deal where it costs the same to have four people in a room as to have two people in a room, so Evan and Rennie will have a room, and his parents will share a room, and they want me to come to make it an even 6. I love cruises and I love his family, so it should be fun!

I can't believe that Mariah and Mercedes are leaving tomorrow. Just like that. They are being taken away once again from the only parents they know. I am so sorry for Chris and Aimee. I feel so terrible, I can't imagine how they must be feeling. Sorry guys. That just sucks. I'll be thinking of you tomorrow!

Rollercoaster of a day

Today has been quite a day. I've had moments of happiness and lots of moments of stress. My presentation was today. I had to give a 5 minutes presentation to a bunch of families and researchers at work. I was really afraid that I would say something wrong or one of the other researchers would ask me a question that I wouldn't know how to answer. Well this morning Doug, my boss, was like why don't we look over your presentation and make sure there are no typos or anything. I was thinking "well, I have already submitted it so it's too late, but why not". So I just let him change things. Well as we went along he made a lot of important changes. So I really felt like I needed to use this corrected version. We also took a picture of one of my slides to stick in there which was a really important addition. So when we finished (about one hour before presentations begin) I ran it over to Brian's office and he replaced my old one with the new one. All morning I went back and forth between moments of complete panic to moments of complete calm. When it was my turn, I took a deep breath and went for it. When I was up there I just kind of talked like I was explaining it to a friend. I relaxed and it went really well I think. Most of the other interns did really well too. Some did terrible, but most did well. I was so happy to get it over with. Afterwards, Daniel came up and I showed him around the lab. It was fun to show him because I talk about it all the time. And I introduced him to my boss which was cool. But I really had work to do, so Daniel left and I finished my work. I did this ELISA test and it turned out really strange. Doug doesn't know what happened (it wasn't my fault), but anyways I have to start over and do it again tomorrow. That's what stinks about research. I spent 3 days working on this test and it came out wrong. Well, the standard worked which is good, but the rest of it came out strange.

Then I got home and we went to P.F. Chang's for dinner. Delicious. But, in the middle of dinner, Teresa called and asked if I was still coming to babysit. Crap. I didn't realize it was confirmed. I thought she would call me if she wanted me to babysit, but she thought it was already set. But I had such a stressful day, I really didn't want to go over there all night. My parents kinda got that vibe, so they volunteered to go for me. So now I feel terrible because I didn't show up to babysit and now I'm supposed to be there but instead it's my parents. It's not even worth it. I should have just gone. Cause now I'm tired and depressed and stressed and feeling really guilty. Ugh. Why do I have to have a conscience? It would be so much easier if I didn't care about responsibility. Alas, that's just not me.

Oh yeah, I got a $50 Visa gift card today at work. All the interns got one. And I get my check next week. I love earning money. Even if it's not that much, at least it's something. I don't even know what I'm going to do with it. Probably it will go towards buying a bed for Daniel's dorm room, or gas money, or tuition money.

That's another thing I'm stressed out about. My financial aid package was a whopping (sarcastic) $10,000 this year (with loans). That means that my parents/grandparents will be left paying about $25,000 this year for my tuition, room, and board. That's a lot of money. I think I'm sufficiently depressed now. I think I'll go bake some cookies.

Home Sweet Home

I really hate sleeping away from home. I love my bed. This weekend I was at UMW School of Missions with my mom, Linda Moore, Carla Whitmire, Arvilla, and Gretchen and Dan Miller. It was not nearly as boring as I thought it would be. It was pretty interesting. Mostly, it was nice hanging out with some ladies from the church. And just kind of affirming the idea that we should be accepting of all people, especially in church. Surprisingly, the part I liked most was reading my bible. It has been a long time since I have actually opened my bible and read it. It's actually quite pathetic. But this weekend, I remembered what it's like to read a passage and really study it. To try to understand where the writers are coming from, and what the significance of this passage is, and what Jesus was trying to say, and how it applies to my life now. It actually makes a lot of sense. I mean I love to study for school, why is the bible any different? I think that's why I like hearing Chris speak. Just like me, he takes a very intellectual perspective on the bible. He looks at the history and culture behind it. I always learned new things about bible times when we used to have bible studies in high school. Well, I was inspired this weekend and I really want to study the bible more. I am going to see if I can find a good devotional book that takes the same appraoch to bible study that I do. Maybe I will find one that Daniel and I can do together. We complement each other in a very good way for bible study. He's emotional, and I'm practical. He's a feeler and I'm a thinker. So it would be nice for us to study the bible together.

Part of this came out of a book I just finished reading called The Red Tent. It was about the story of Joseph (and the coat of many colors) but from the perspective of his sister Dinah. In the bible, there is just a short passage about Dinah being raped (Genesis 37 or something like that). So this author took what was given in the bible, and expanded it into a full story. So after reading that book, I wanted to read the bible and see what it had to say about the same story. It's remarkable how reading a fictional book can make the bible so much more understandable. Because of that novel, I can now probably recite the generations from Abraham and Sarah all the way down to Dinah. I know who married who and who had what sons and daughters just from the way the story was told.

Today I went out to lunch with some of the YAMS from church. When I agreed to go, I didn't know that certain people were going to be there. And when I found out they were, I was not thrilled to say the least. Part of me thinks I shouldn't judge them and I should just be nice and whatever. But then the other part of me says that I decided a long time ago that my life was much better without these people. And I just always left angry and upset when I was around them. I mean, there's a point that you just decide that a relationship is toxic and it needs to be cut out of your life to save everything else. Anyways, I successfully got through lunch without saying one word to them. So it turned out fine. I enjoyed everyone else there. It was so nice to see Kendra again! Daniel's coming over for dinner :-) It will be a good night.

Busy Bee!

Today was the busiest day I have had at work in a long time. I finished my ELISA test, and it didn't turn out very good. I left work very disappointed in myself. I'm such a perfectionist so I want to get everything right on the first time, but in research and laboratory science that's just not realistic. Sherlin graciously told me to cheer up and not to be so hard on myself, but I tried so hard to do everything right. There's just like a million things that can go wrong and when it's my first time, I'm just reading instructions and trying to follow all of it perfectly. It didn't turn out horribly, just not perfect. There were a lot of math calculations involved with concentrations and stuff. I know I did the calculations right, but I'm pretty sure I pipetted some of it wrong. Tomorrow Doug (my boss) is going to work with me on a protein assay to practice. So all I can do is try to do better next time.

Today at work Brian, the guy who hired me, asked me when I'm taking my MCATs. I told him I'm not planning on medical school. That started a whole conversation with my whole lab pretty much. The truth is, I've been thinking about it a lot. Daniel has told me a few times that he would support me going to medical school. Originally I didn't want to go to medical school because I didn't want to be in school for another 4 years and I didn't want to be a doctor because I didn't want to work long crazy stressful hours. But I have discovered via my coworkers that really it's only two years of school and then two years of on-the-job training (rotations and residency) and that doctors often can work regular hours (like in a family practice). And I was thinking how great it would be to work as a pediatrician and help sick kids. And then Sherlin and Joshua told me that I would be a great candidate for a M.D./Ph.D. Now THAT is ambitious! U of A Phoenix has a program that takes 7 years. So the idea is that I could do research from a clinical perspective. What good is research without applying it to patients anyways, right? The question is, do I want to go to school for that long, and can I afford to go to school that long? I am definitely an overachiever and that matches me. Sherlin told me she thought I should be a doctor because of the kind of person I am. It suits me. I will have to think about it long and hard for the next few years.

I am exhausted. I was busy ALL DAY. Like I didn't have 5 minutes of doing nothing. I have discovered that working in a lab means doing LOTS of dishes. Yuck. I am so tired of washing dishes. This weekend I am doing UMW School of Missions. I just hope that it's not completely boring. And I hope that I learn something. I know that my faith has kind of been on the back burner for a few years. I just keep ignoring it because if I think about it then I feel like I have to put work into it and actually do something about it. So maybe this weekend will inspire me to really work on it. Or maybe not. Daniel and I are planning on finding a methodist church in Denver. Now that we have a car (!!) we can drive to church. I am so ready to go back to Denver. I miss class as crazy as that sounds. I miss learning new things. I used to tell Daniel every evening at dinner all the amazing things I learned that day (usually in psychology or physics). I love science. It makes so much sense and it's so interesting and everything fits together perfectly ordered. Ha. I'm crazy.

My blood is in the freezer.

Yesterday at work I finally learned how to process blood. I learned the procedure that takes the blood from directly out of the veins of the subject into 6 different tubes: 2 of plasma, 2 of plasma pellets, and 2 of white blood cell pellets. So this morning at my mom's lab, we both had our blood drawn and then I took it to work and processed it. I was nervous because it was the first time I did it all by myself. It's not a hard procedure, there's just like 2 kind of tricky parts. I was mostly afraid I would mess it up and then I wouldn't get to test myself. But now both me and my mom have our samples in the freezer and next week when I get some free time I will do the ApoE test. It takes 3-4 days total to do the test, so it'll be at least a week before I know my genotype. But I am super excited. The results will tell me (and my mom) whether or not I have a '4' allele. If I do have the '4', it means I have at least a 20 times more likely chance of getting Alzheimer's. About half of people with Alzheimer's have the '4'.

Work has been really awesome lately. I've been learning lots of new techniques. Every time I learn something new, I am so excited! I keep thinking about my chemistry labs and stuff when I will already know how to do stuff. And what kind of jobs I can get with the skills I have learned. The other people that work in my lab are all so nice. They are always willing to help me and tell me little tips and tricks to make things easier. Everyone is nice and respectful and they don't mind answering my million questions I ask each day. They must be so tired of hearing "Where does this go?" But they are very patient with me. I will genuinely miss the lab.

Yesterday I seriously felt like the luckiest girl in the world. My mom dropped me off at Daniel's house on the way home from work. When I walked in, dinner was almost ready. Daniel handed me a glass of wine and the table was set beautifully. In about ten minutes we sat at the table and he served up a beautiful meal. We had salad and fettuccine alfredo with little vegetables put in and chicken marinated in italian sauce cut up in the pasta. Then for dessert a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate ice cream. Yummy!! Isn't Daniel the best? The dinner was so delicious and I was tired after work and it was just perfect. I love him.

hahahaha

Mariah just gave her barbie a bath in the toilet. The bathroom floor is covered in water and her barbie is soaking wet. Ahhh children. Hilarious.

Yay for the weekend!

Thank goodness it's Saturday. I needed the extra sleep this morning. Work has been a little boring lately. As an intern, I basically just do what I am told. So if nobody gives me anything to do, I am stuck trying to look busy all day. I feel guilty if I'm not doing something that's actual work. And 3 weeks ago I was told not to read a book or surf non-science related websites while at work (facebook is blocked anyways). So I'm not left with many options that don't explicitly contradict rules I was given. Usually I just try to surf science-related websites, or do dishes, or just basically clean up the lab. Yesterday I did a lot of this. Sometimes people make up a solution and just leave it there. Nobody knows what it is, so it just sits there for weeks and weeks. So finally yesterday I just threw away a bunch of stuff that had been lying around for a while. And I did inventory of the freezer. That was really fun. Our freezer is kept at -80 degrees celcius (about -140 farenheit). There are important samples in there and if they thaw and re-freeze, they are basically ruined. Our job was to take out boxes, write down the numbers written on each little tube (81 in each box), and if there is space then consolidate boxes down. To keep everything cold, we have to take only two boxes out at a time and they have to constantly be surrounded on all sides by dry ice. Every box and the entire freezer is covered in a layer of frost so every time we open it, chunks of ice fall off and melt onto the floor. We also have to use these big mittens to touch things because it's so cold. And then we have to rub off the ice and read the top of each little tiny bottle. Needless to say, it's a very cold job. And to make it worse, when the freezer gets above -70 degrees, an alarm goes off. Just opening the freezer for 30 seconds causes it to raise about 5 degrees each time, so that happens a lot. But we finished that so I won't have to do it again. At least I felt somewhat useful.

There are a lot of crazy rules in the lab. For example, yesterday I had to take these boxes off the shelf in the lab, put them on a wheeled cart, and wheel them to another room. In that room is a sterile hood. I had to take each box off the cart, set it under the hood, turn the top 180 degrees, and put it back on the cart to back into the lab. There actually is a reason for this. When we sterilize things, they get really hot. If the tops of the boxes were on correctly, the pressure would build and they would explode. So we put the tops on wrong so there's space for the pressure to escape. When they are finished, we have to let them air dry. But if the tops are on wrong, then un-sterile air can get in and contaminate them. So we have to put them under a sterile hood and put the tops on right so that they are sealed and protected. I really felt OCD doing that whole procedure. I felt ridiculous. But at least I know that all of our tips are sterile!

Today I am going to church to scrapbook and then my family is going over to Daniel's house for dinner and then I'm babysitting for the Francis'. I'm excited for church tomorrow. I'm playing the piano and it's been a few weeks since I have gone. I really like going and sitting with Daniel. It makes me feel like we're married or living together or something.

Right now Nicole is babysitting Mariah and Mercedes. They just wandered in here looking for the kitty haha. I think I'll go play with them. They're so cute!