The week without food

I have been so busy this week at work (besides yesterday)I have eaten lunch only once(that was yesterday). Most of you would think terrible things about me starving myself. The truth of the matter is when you are busy and stressing out about actually getting all of your work done you really don't notice that you haven't eaten until it is 3pm and your stomach starts to say "He idiot did you forget about me?" And this is always GREAT because it happens in a quiet room or a loud room and your stomach is just so pissed at you that it is going to tell the whole world. You know that if you continue to ignore it to finish your work you become light-headed and bitchy.

This is the story of today. I had something to do that happened to be scheduled at 12:30 for the sake of personnel and the machine's schedule. So I was planning on coming into work and start all of my other work right away so that I would actually have time to eat today. But did that happen????? Obviously not. We now have 16 count them 16 scientists sharing 4 only 4 hoods. As you can see this would cause a problem on busy days. We are patiently waiting until all of the equipment comes in for the other lab. So you aren't really picky about when you get a hood because you can't be. But when you get one you just sit and do your work until it is all done. And nothing come Hell or High Water can tear you away from that hood until you are finished. There are somethings that are time sensitive and if you don't get your hood when you need it you are screwed.

So now I am tired and cranky and HUNGRY ready to go home to Josh......what a lucky guy!!!

Hump Day

Well it is Wednesday. I am really ready for the long weekend. Work has been VERY busy as you well know. My test I performed yesterday didn't turn out the way it was supposed to for those of you who are wondering. Come to find out that is never worked for my co-worker who was helping me either. So I don't feel so badly about it but it was sort of a waste of the day. But that's science!!!!

Today has been a pretty lazy day at work. We had a new employee social today. It was camp themed and it was fun we ate s'mores and made God's Eyes. It was pretty fun. The s'mores were like fondue because we couldn't have an open flame we dipped the marshmallow in melted chocolate or just the graham crackers. I am glad that we get paid to do stuff like this!!!!!

I better get back to doing nothing.....

A Fish Out of Water

Have you ever had your supervisor, or anyone else for that matter, tell you "Oh by the way I want you to do X"? And when they say "X" you have absolutely NO CLUE what to do? I had that happen to me recently. My boss says to me "to validate that this gene is present you have to perform rtPCR or run an ELISA." So for those of you not in science as lost as you are now about what my choices mean,this is how I felt about performing these procedures. I think that I am a fairly intelligent individual and have the ability to learn new things. But when I started to read over the protocols I felt like I was a fish and the water was being slowly drained from my bowl.

Luckily for me one of my co-workers has been recently performing rtPCR so he is being gracious enough to help me. He has been a total lifesaver because he is walking me through this pretty much step by step. He hasn't been holding my hand which is GREAT because I could probably do it myself next time. Well atleast with minimal assistance. I do I feel like I am driving him crazy with questions and saying ok I am ready for this and then this.

I do feel like the world's biggest screw up trying to do this procedure I have never done. To me it is kind of like cooking something new. You spend all of this time making it and hope that it turns out well. Then you sit there for 5 minutes before you get up the guts to eat it. Hopefully my "meal" turns out delicious.

Even though I have been struggling all day with this process I am beginning to feel like the bowl is beginning to fill up....

Is it Friday yet?

I have had the most busy as frustrating day since I started my new job. I LOVE my job very much!! I am so glad that we found each other! I just have had a horrible day. It actually started friday afternoon. There is a piece of equipment here that is a result of one of the company's acquisitions. It is a piece of crap. I need to use the machine to determine what to go forward with. I spent most of the afternoon messing with it.

Today I get to work and my supervisor and I talk about cell line deadlines. I am totally doing ok with it but I have a short week next week because of the holiday and my friend's wedding. So I will be pulling my hair out then too. I would rather be busy with this stuff than be bored. This is stress that I can handle where as with my other job I couldn't handle the stress because it was caused by my old supervisor. That stress was unbearable. Hence the new job.

I had a problem with a test that I performed today and I had to do a two hour segment of it over. So I am working until late tonight. That is ok because I can leave 2 hours earlier on Friday and have a little bit longer weekend.

Back to work....... :(