Evolved To Wonder

Lab Diary 2.24.2009

Approximately 4PM:  This is the most and perhaps only noteworthy thing for today.  One of the nicest recordings I’ve gotten in a while.

It’s firing at about 3.3Hz, mixed tonic (the single spikes) and bursts (the parts that look like somebody with a mohawk stuck their finger in an electrical socket).  This cell lasted almost half an hour - this is a ten second sample.

Lab Diary 2.20.2009

9:45- 11:45 Recording

11:45-1:15 Seminar (Chris Miller)

1:15-2:30 Recording

2:30-3 Lunch/Email/Internet

3-6 Fly work/impromptu meeting with PI

6-6:30 Planning project for undergraduate #3

6:30-7 Fly flipping

Notes:  So today I tried putting the recording first so as to make sure I would get to it.  Well, I definitely did get to it, but it resulted in unacceptably high stress levels and rushed fly work.  In a way it was good because it forced me to streamline and just get rid of some lines that I know deep down aren’t worth my time but that my pack rat nature wouldn’t, until today, let me abandon.  Undecided on where to go on that from here.

I learned today that I will be sans work study students until Wednesday, which means part of my Monday or Tuesday will have to go to fly flipping.  One more thing to take into account.

Started to teach electrophysiology to undergraduate #2 today.  I’m optimistic he might be able to become our lab’s second physiologist, especially given the upcoming summer.

Way more work left to do tomorrow than I’d hoped, but I’m fried.

A few sappy and/or happy things

1.  I’m sure the statement I’m about to make has limits, but there is nothing like a morning bike ride in Southern California’s February weather to remediate most levels of my exhaustion.

2.  There is a mother/daughter pair on my hockey team.  The mother is our team captain and is about my mother’s age, and the daughter is in college.  Seeing them together, talking about laundry or sarcastically sniping at each other, makes me miss my mother.  It’s approaching ten years now since I lived close enough to see my mom all the time.

3.  I actually have two confirmed purely social events on my calendar in the next week.  This may be unprecedented;  what is even more astounding is that I’m actively looking forward to both of them.   On the other hand, I love today because there is absolutely nothing written in the box for today.  Glorious.

4.  www.environmentalgraffiti.com has recently become one of my favorite websites.  The pictorial nature top tens can hold my attention for way too long, but I mean come on… crater lakes!  Underwater volcanoes!  Awesome.  Plus, this story.  Ha.

Lab Diary 2.19.2009

My attempt to see where all my time goes continues…

9:30 - 10:30 New Solutions

10:30 - 11:00 Fly work

11:00 - 11:05 Yogurt

11:05 - 12:30 Electrophys prep and Undergraduates

12:30 - 2 Attempted recordings and Undergraduates

2 - 2:20  Lunch and reading Ashburner’s Drosophila

2:20 - 3:45 Wrapped up in Ashburner’s Drosophila … oops

3:45 -4  Downloaded an audiobook about Kant

4 - 6  Attempted recordings (absorbed nothing of audiobook about Kant)

6 - 7  Catching up on articles

Notes:

Got a lot done for a day with three undergraduates.  They’re all starting to get the hang of their respective tasks and projects - yay!

I actually had a second day in a row of recording time!  I think I got two with data worth using.  Tomorrow we’ll try for three in a row, but no promises.  The cells are much like people in that they display no sense of urgency when there is no time pressure.  I seem to get more nice cells when I only have 90 minutes to devote to trying.

Life is not a highway, it’s a balancing act

There are not many “lifestyle” draws of going into science.  The pay sucks, for one.  For two, there is a distinct lack of glamour.  I know - spending all day staring at vials of insect larvae SOUNDS fantastic, and who wouldn’t want that for themselves?  But let me tell you, when your hair is never out of a ponytail and you can wear the same jeans and t-shirt today that you burned holes in yesterday with the bleach you use to coat your electrodes and nobody around you will think anything of it until you forget about that and actually go into the grocery store or something.. you realize glamorous is something you are NOT.