Records of a Mad Scientist

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Good day. I'm not entirely sure why, although I have some hunches. This morning, I ACTUALLY GOT INTO THE BATHROOM!!! This pretty much made my morning. I have a routine. I hate not being able to get in and wash my face and brush my teeth when I want to. This is the one real downside of having a roommate... but, I got in this morning.

Made it to biochem only 1 minute late. I really need to work on this promptness thing, but 8 am feels barbaric. I don't know how well I did on the exam... I sort of fell asleep while studying last night/this morning. Apparently, though, I'm not the only one who thought the exam came out of no where and bs'ed my way through.

In between classes, I saw the Ads had acknowledged me on facebook... I pretty much couldn't stop grinning all the way through Cell Bio, even if it was a 2 hour lecture on trisomy by a man who pronounced "binding" as "banding" and "three" as "tree". (He even spelled it that way on one of this slides).

I had a torus shaped breakfast food for lunch! I have been craving them for about a week, and so a bagel and cream cheese was really good. Plus, I tutored during lunch, which was quite enjoyable. I like the woman I'm tutoring. She wants to know why things are the way they are, and even though she's my mom's age, its not so bad. I talk her through, and if she gets confused, she asks me.

Labs went well today, too. There were fewer displeased and disheartened students than last week. It doesn't hurt that I got out an hour early, and made it home by 6:30 tonight, instead of 8:30 (there was actually light in the sky! Its been almost a week since I've biked home with light.)

Now, I'm working up more statistics for my research, and trying to get up an experiment. I'm going to watch Glee, and maybe Castle, and relax. If I'm really lucky, I'll get to talk to Adds.

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Cast of Characters

AC -- AD's roommate. Famous for his frustration with his own epic procrastination and ability to curse the latin word on the tip of his tongue.
AD -- my boyfriend. Its new... and exciting... and hard from this distance. An aerospace engineer. Still goes to the famous former football giant across the road from the castle where I went to undergrad.
BD -- one of my best friends from undergrad. Another ex-boyfriend and part of my incestious little circle of friends. Has rigid boundaries that serve him well. Math major and genius.
Dr.jR -- head of the chemistry and biochemistry department. Researches NOM (not eating, sadly, but natural organic material). Nice, but unpredicatble.
DrA -- my research boss. Somewhere in his thirties and totally chill. The first PI I've ever met who bakes cookies during lab meetings.
DrR -- my teaching boss. Crotchety old man who doesn't take shit. Slightly sexist. Smokes like a chimney. A teddy bear.
JL -- our post doc in lab. Chineese. Tells me not to work so hard.
JP -- an ex-boyfriend of mine and sort-of friend. Suitmate of AD. Sort of an asshole. VERY crude. We tend to play off eachother. Once dropped his pants in the middle of a crowded room. Also, halo teabagged someone in real life. More than once. Signature phrase is "Dicking Fuck." Exemplifies why Physics and Math double majors scare me.
Kara -- basically the person who told me to write this.
Michael Cera -- guy in my program. Actually younger than I am (I was suprised). Very nice. Lutheran boy scout. Might decide to teach chemistry. Analytical chemist.
MK -- The youngest member of the Quad (AC, AD, JP and MK). Computer science major. Bearded. Sometimes more mature than his fellow seniors who can drink. More or less uncorrupted. It was adorable when he had his first girlfriend.
N -- my fabulous Indian roommate. Seriously, she is great. And, she feeds me.
St. Pat -- One of the guys in my program. Older than the rest of us by a few years. A good analytical chemist. Smart. Familiar with the works of Joss Whedon.
T -- my former roommate. Gave me a cold for my brithday. LIke, a stuffed one.

A few definations...

Cell Biology -- a field of biology that is basically their answer to the fact that life is based in chemistry. As a graduate level course, it has involved a 2 day lecture on atomic bonding and the Krebs cycle. These were things covered in my freshman chemistry and biology courses.
Cubby's -- My prefered non smoking bar in graduate school
Macrophage -- Somestimes called Macs; a type of immune cell, and the target of my research. I've been told they're ugly, but I think they're pretty cute when I get to dye them pretty colors with florescent dye or proteins and look at them under the microscope. I get geeky abou them.
Microscope -- Dr.A's big, expensive microscope that looks at cells. It can see brightfield (normal cells) and florescent ones. We can also see if protiens are clumping together with it.
Students -- I teach freshman science majors, except for the ones who want to be chemists. I have a lot of engineers, a handful of premeds and biologists, and quite a few pre-pharmacy. Sometimes agravating, often exhausting, and a huge time suck. I want them to suceed, which, according to my defination, is learn something.

WARNING: Scientific Content

I realize that not all of my readers are scientists (I think maybe 1/3?), and even fewer are chemists. So, I propose a science warning system.

* Basic science. Things you should have learned in school if you had been paying attention. Or... if you don't know this, you need to talk to T because our science education system sucks.

** High School/Freshman college science and math. Stuff I would expect you to know after a calculus class and at least one class in physical and life science.

*** Some scientific knowledge. Let's assume you've had 1+ upper level science course in either biology or chemistry.

****Upper level science. You probably need 3 - 4 years of college chemistry/biology to get this part. Maybe not, though. I'll try to avoid this as much as possible. Sometimes, though, I can't help myself and I geek.