Today was not the greatest day I've ever known

Right off the bat, I discover that my dialysis tubing leaked and my beautifully purified protein occupied a 2L volume. I first tried concentrating it, which worked at first until the apparatus broke. After that, I just loaded the remaining 1100 ml over a column.

The unfortunate part is that this protein is one in a set of five (a parent protein and four mutants) that I purify simultaneously. I prefer this approach because it ensures that the proteins are subjected to almost the same conditions. These proteins are very sensitive to purification and storage conditions, including length of time spent in storage, so it's really not ideal, in my opinion, to purify this protein by itself. So, if this protein isn't salvageable, I'll probably start over again with all five. Ugh. It's not the end of the world, but I am irritated because this dialysis was the final step and means I essentially wasted the majority of this week.

oh. well. breath in, breath out, move the fuck on.

Stalked in the lab

When I am the new person in a lab, I am acutely aware of the fact that until I know, at least to some degree, what the hell I am doing and where in the hell everything is located and how things run from day to day, that I am going to be a burden to someone. However, there is really know other way to learn all this information, so I try to ask different people for help instead of constantly bothering the same person. I find that most people, myself included, are pretty willing to help a new lab member adjust, but only to a point. After several days of questions it gets hard to not let the constant interruptions get on your nerves a little, and if you are already having a shitty day, it’s even more difficult not to let it show.

To avoid this problem, or at least to keep it to a minimum, I say spread the questions around. Although some inquiries can only be answered by specific lab members, almost anyone can provide you with a common protocol or show you where a reagent is located. I assume that most people take this approach, but our new post-doc apparently does not subscribe to this philosophy. In short, the new post-doc is stalking me.

Every single, cotton-picking question is directed at me, even when multiple people are available to choose from. I’ll give the person some credit, at least they don’t interrupt me right while I am in the middle of something, but it seems like every time I turn around from the bench, there they are, waiting to ask me something. Today, I found this person just watching me. They didn’t have a question, they weren’t looking for anything, they were just watching. It's creepy.

+ and -

Got out of bed late and arrived at worker later than I wanted too. (-)

Magnum, P.I. arrived late for our meeting. (-)

Magnum, P.I. decides my new data is super exciting, and as a result we are aiming new paper at a higher journal (+,+).

Spend chunks of the day arguing with a salesman from the Toyota dealership. (-).

Go over salesman’s head to manager, get what I wanted in the first place and get salesman in trouble (+,+).

Gloat about small victory over ever used car salesman, resulting in 30 minutes of wasted time recreating phone calls for interested co-workers. (-, considering I started the day late and gloating isn't exactly attractive)

Remove one item from to do list (-) and leave work only 45 minutes later than expected (+).

Go to store in an effort to determine what size maternity pants I need so that I can purchase them off eBay and save money. (+)

Get lecture from maternity store sales woman that no matter how hard I try or what I do, my body will never go back to the way it was and I will never fit into my old clothes again, so I might as well accept it. (-,-; one negative because this is not what I wanted to hear and one because I didn’t say anything rude back to her as I was completely shocked that anyone would say this to anyone.)

Determined that my legs are too small and thin for maternity pants at aforementioned store. I can either wear pants that are two inches too short or I can spend the next six months hiking the bastards up every five minutes. (-, Now, I must visit more stores.)

Walked three miles, but who knows why since it’s apparently a lost cause. :) (+)

Worked on manuscript from graduate school lab for two hours. (+)

Managed to make all this junk into a blog post (+)

Net for the day is positive. Not too bad for a Monday.

Attack of the Rash (and hormones)

I've decided I'd rather endure pain than itch. At least the drugs for pain work. All the crap on the market for itching is complete bullshit.

Starting Sunday around 5:00pm until 5:00am, I watched as my entire body, from the neck down, was taken over by the rash from hell. At first, I blamed the new couch. We just purchased a new couch and I've heard reports that bed bugs are on the rise, so this was what I secretly feared as I lounged on the couch Sunday, itching like crazy. At first it was just my back, but then I started itching on the back of my legs. I thought maybe this was all in my mind, since thinking about the couch being infested with bugs, could surely result in some psychosomatic itching.

I decided a shower was the answer. And it was, kinda. After getting undressed, I glanced at the itchy places in the mirror and saw that my back and the back of my legs were red, as if I had a sun burn, and were covered in giant whelps that were anywhere from 3 to 5 inches in diameter.

Still not completely convinced that the couch was not to blame, I decided to lay in bed and watch TV. I was clean and covered in anti-itching cream. I felt pretty sure things were under control until my stomach and the front of my legs started itching. I got up, looked in the mirror and sure enough, they were red and the gigantic, weird hive-looking patches were starting to form. I smeared some more crap on the new places and got back in bed. This became an hourly ritual that I repeated until about 5:00am when the rash made it all the way to the palms of my hands and the soles of my feat. Needless to say, it sucked ass. On the plus side, as new rash formed, the older parts of the rash went away. I figured it was over, until about 7:30 when the tell-tale itching started back up again on my back. At this point I decided I needed to seek medical help because I was pretty sure I couldn't endure another round.

Turns out it's hormones. FUCKING HORMONES.

I spent Monday and Tuesday taking a shit-ton of anti-histamines, lapsing in and out of consciousness and itchiness. Yesterday was my first anti-histamine-free day. The rash thing started up again around 8:00pm, but it wasn't nearly as bad as on Monday. Thank goodness. If I experience that shit again any time in the near future, I will probably either (a) lose my fucking mind, or (b) overdose on anti-histamines or (c) both.

Anyway, I did learn something; There are no good drugs (oral or topical) for itching.

Avoiding the stuff I've been avoiding

Sooner or later, it was going to happen. My bench space and office space look like a cat. 4 hurricane blew through them, I’m ages behind on my lab notebook and there are various acrylamide gels hanging around in destain mocking me. If I listen hard enough I can hear them. Mostly they say, “Do you even know what proteins you ran on me x number of weeks ago.”

So today, I organize, at least for a little while. So far, progress is painful and slow and I’ve taken every opportunity for distraction that’s come my way. I did manage to clean up all the dirty tubes and tend to my mess of acrylamide gels, but that is about it.

After progressing at a glacial pace, I decided that a hungry Microbiologist XX is not a productive Microbiologist XX, so I accepted an invitation to lunch where I ate a very yummy burrito.

After lunch, I decided a change of scenery might bolster my productivity, so I switched to the office with every good intention of completely updating my lab notebook. I did actually start to update the notebook, but as usual it started sucking really bad and I got distracted.

So, here I am writing a blog post, avoiding the stuff I always avoid.

OK, seriously, I am really going to get back to “work” (until I find something else to distract me).

Emerging from somewhere

In my dreams lately, I live at work. With each dream that passes, more and more items from my home end up at my work place, mostly in my office. Last night, in addition to the majority of my bedroom furniture, I found one of my cats prowling the halls of the floor where my lab is located. I couldn't figure out how it got there. It's a very large cat and would not fit in any of my bags. When I woke up, it actually took me a second to figure out whether I was sleeping in my bed in my office or in my bed in my house.

It’s not that I am working insanely long hours, but I am so busy when I am at work that I can hardly find the time to eat. This level of busy typically translates into thinking about work when I am at home. Sure, the TV is on and I am looking in that general direction, but I am not really watching it. I am thinking about work. Constantly.

This week I am learning to use the Biacore system. I need to run about 16 proteins through that motherfucker and it already appears that much troubleshooting is on the horizon. Blah. Not surprising. At least I am not purifying proteins. I was just about ready to blow my head off as I purified the final 7 last week. Man did that suck.

Well, I am off to the trenches as my Biacore guru just made it in to work. I am hoping this entry marks the beginning of, at least, semi-regular blog posts. At a minimum, I want to get back to reading. It’s strange, but I feel like I am missing out on something.

I'm still here...

I've just been way too damn busy to write any blog posts and even worse, I haven't gotten to read any blogs either.

Anyway, I decided last week that this was going to be the week where I got my ass back into gear and started blogging again. Of course, the week before last, I had decided that last week was going to be the week, but clearly, that didn't happen. As I neared midweek, I was starting to think that maybe I would push things back again, but thankfully, I find myself at work, in between experiments with some time to blog.

I can't believe how insane things are right now. I've been purifying proteins like it's going out of style. Only four more to go at this point. I can't wait until an entire two-week period passes where I don't even so much as look at the FPLC. I'm sick to death of it.

On the plus side, I made some headway with the boring paper from grad school lab and I am about to start writing the paper that caused this protein purification extravaganza. I'm pretty excited to get a paper out under less than a year, but I am freaking exhausted.

During all this time away, I started writing my specific aims for the F32, but I didn't get very far. I really need to get moving on the grant writing, but it just keeps getting thrown to the back burner. Maybe next week...

Hope everyone in the blogosphere is doing well. I can't wait to catch up on everyone's posts.