Thursday, April 27, 2006

RE-SULT!

So, I'm having a little bit of a downer this morning. Writing up my mid-term review, an interesting event for PhD students in my department. We have to write up everything we've done in the last 18 months or two years (in my case) in 10 pages (double spaced) and make it sound like we've achieved something so we can continue with our studies. So, anyway, writing up my report ready for next week. I was kinda concerned that the result I thought I had might not actually be right. I could write several paragraphs in my nerd phase, telling you all about what I was doing and why I thought it might not be right and why it needed to be right for me to continue at all with the project, but that could be quite boring. So let's just say, I needed this result to be what I thought it was. I've had a difficult time confirming it, it has been a shit of a process. PCR is evil and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Today, I ran a gel of a PCR I did yesterday with a polymerase used by the lab next door for difficult or long PCRs. It actually worked!!! Not all of it, but one of the PCRs that can't work unless my result is real, worked! I have a result! It's real! I can continue with that project and know that life is worth living and the sun will rise tomorrow. I'm most excited.


target 3'


So you can see the left most lane is a ladder, with different sized bands on it, the brightest one in the middle is 3kb (3000 base pairs of DNA) then there is a lane with a few bands in it (this is the PCR I have to repeat) and then in the next lane at just over 3kb, is the band that proves that science doesn't hate me. It's the band that tells me that I really do have a result.

In other exciting news, I baked bread over the weekend while my mum was visiting. It was half rye bread and half white bread. It has what I think looks like a bit of a flock of seagulls haircut. See what you think, I'm off to find some champagne!!

rye/white bread

Just also to add, I'm going home tomorrow, which means I get to see MB for the first time since March, huzzah!

Friday, April 21, 2006

torren and tikka


torren and tikka
Originally uploaded by scientician_kate.
Just to prove to myself that I can post photos, here is a photo of Tikka and her brother Torren. He's the big burly fellow on the left and Tikka is the sweetheart on the right. It took forever to get them to sit like this, I used liver treats to get the adoring look in their eyes. If you notice, both their right eyes are the same colour, a dark brown, the left is lighter, in Tikka's case blue, in Torren's light brown. Tikka recently received her own 'bling' collar that has her name in diamantes on it, L hopes that it will stop people calling her 'tigger' as she is most commonly called by the misinformed. Tikka decided to wake me this morning, by coming into my room and looming over my bed (I have a futon, it's very low) and staring at me. Fortunately, she saved her licking me for my foot which was hanging out from under the covers. I can't imagine having to wake to a dog licking your face, I shudder to think about it. Morning breath is bad enough, but dog morning breath, ew! Okay, here goes, blogging photo, wish me luck.

first post

Hello to all who are interested,

Starting a blog because it's the thing to do and I read so many I feel like I should give back a little and share the delights and boredom that accompany my PhD as well as all the fun of my crafy type projects and all the fun I'm having with my scooter and teaching people to dance.
This week has been pretty crap. Last Tuesday, I fell off my scooter. It wasn't fun, my left elbow is delightfully bruised and my shoulder is quite sore. The best bit is that it was as a result of someone else failing to give way, so at least I should be able to get her insurance to pay for my scooter repairs and my physiotherapy. The bad bit, is seeing as she didn't hit me, she may feel less than obliged to help me out with those payments, or at least her insurance company may not be too keen. So I'm currently in limbo land, waiting for her details (wasn't able to get them because of my insertion into an ambulance) and waiting for the insurance company to send me the correct forms. No doubt it will be a fun experience. However, I did have a little victory in beaurocracy (spelling?) land today. Telstra are going to be giving our household a significant credit to our account, huzzah! So evidently complaining in a nice way is actually effective.
So enough whinging, what else is new? I bought fabulous sparkly shoes on the weekend to make me feel better, an absolute bargain at $30, will post photos when I work out how. My mum is coming to visit this weekend and look after me and it looks as though my housemate L and I will be doing something lovely for lunch on ANZAC day. She's working until 7am that morning, so I'm guessing she'll be not actually conscious until lunchtime at the earliest, no dawn service for me this year. I helped L overcome her fear of piercings today and went with her to the salon where she got her belly button pierced. It wasn't nearly as scary as she thought it would be and all is actually well with her. Let's hope it doesn't get infected.
anywho, I'm feeling lazy and we're about to have afternoon tea for one of the reception type people, she's leaving us for the physics department and a full time job.