as if he were

this is how an untypical morning goes:


1. wake up ten minutes later than late.

2. drag self to bathroom only to find the sink has been replaced.

• replacement sink has no working tap.
• brush teeth in laundry sink.

3. actually make breakfast. [phgrenadier: two eggs ;D]

• have heart attack when sis squeaks and grabs my arm.
• find cockroach on kitchen bench.
• on dad's suggestion, pour boiling water on cockroach and cook it to death.
• lose appetite.

4. watch dad and sis leave.

• soon afterwards, rabbit appears.
• pat rabbit.
• chase rabbit.
• ignore vibes of resentment from cat.

5. attempt to pack lunch.

• pantry empty.
• change mind.

6. leave house.

----

I did end up arriving late to lab today, but only relatively. Plenty of time to make up stock solution and set up all the equipment. For anyone who doesn't know, my lab work consists mainly of a) cannulating intestines [ie. threading the tissue onto tubes so solution can flow through], b) topping up solution reservoirs, c) occasionally altering solution flow and d) recording for 20 or 30 minute periods. Drugs flushed through the tissue sometimes have the effects they're supposed to and sometimes - most of the time - they don't. I guess tissue varies from guinea pig to guinea pig but I'm pretty sure that a lot of it is human error too. Riveting stuff.

All the activity is recorded using a webcam and video imaged, compressed, converted into matlab summary files and finally analysed off graphs. So stuff like this is what I get to stare at at my bench all day:

top: jejenum; bottom: duodenum. each organ bath contains stock (control) solution or drug and is heated to around 33-35 degrees C.
my tissues are awesome and well-behaved today. mwa. except not actually mwa, the thought of actually kissing this is a bit sickening

which is converted into stuff like this, which I have to analyse.

segment of duodenum 45 minutes after flushing L-Phenylalanine solution through. each line across the graph is a contraction. this is what happens when the L-Phe actually works >3<

the lab kills a guinea pig pretty much every day at 9.30am, so we all have to be there by then or we'll miss out on getting tissue. They say this but I suspect since we're ickle undergrads they'd make allowances for us - I arrived two hours late one day thinking I was in for analysis and found they'd left me tissue on my bench anyway.

so now you know. :D it's not the most exciting stuff around but it is volunteer work and it is experience. Today is my 14th and hopefully final L-Phe experiment [fingers crossed for some nice, conclusive results]; after this, I'll be hoping to do something a bit more challenging. <3


and yes, I am blogging from the lab. xD shocking