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.





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!!



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