Giggedy

I have just received the last 73 slides (i hope i hope) for my MSc. This weekend I can scan and analyze them...and THEN.

THEN...

Barring statistical anomalies and annoying new committee recommendations I will officially be done the research for my MSc.

Muahahahaha!!!!

Sure I have to export these # and then do stats on all of them but ...GIGGEDY AND HOT DAMN!!! I really am getting there :)

Meep.

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daytripping

Last night at about 3 AM I went over my first draft of my damn report that is due monday that I had to give to my supervisor this AM (and will come back early from comic con to finish if I'm not done before I go...). It's not too shabby. Needs some filling out, but it will do I think. My mountains of data (literally 3 inches of printouts of data and graphs...meep) is hard to wade through so I may keep that discussion superficial in the report and keep a bit more info for my talk on the 27th when I've had a few more days to go through it all and build it up logically. Nothing is worse than flinging data wildly at people...
I looked at my watch at 3AM and saw Wed June 15 on it...and I was very confused...thinking tomorrow was thursday...but that the paper was due wednesday...and how did I skip a day...and then I made the link, shook my head and finished my draft to go off to bed. I slept in this morning and had a good, albeit tired, work day. I'm on a constant low sleep this last 8 days, so it's getting easier. I know what to eat and how to keep my body fueled. Oddly, exercise helps, even when exhausted. I skipped the morning workout to sleep, but stopped by a class on the way home on a whim and I feel all the better for it.
Now for a bit of supper and another go at some revision...and bed time of a real human being!
Joy :)

So. Close.

I just checked my cancer cell lines for what may very well be the last time. Ever.
Meep.
I may get to shut down that part of my MSc for good at the end of this week.

Please cross your fingers, toes and all available appendages on my behalf...


SCIENCE!

playing the numbers game

I am currently exporting a gajillion data points from algorithm analysis of over 300 microarrays...and listening to my iPod...going thru old albums to pass the time as I occasionally click a mouse or tap a key and hit control c control v more times than I'd care to count. The D-sides album by Gorillaz is great...especially this song. It makes me happy and sad at the same time.

Soon, once I export all my gajillion data points, then...THEN I will crunch numbers...I am meeting all my supervisors and coconspirators in Vancouver at the start of June at a conference/training seminar on my thesis subject (I got a bursary to go! meep!) so I must get ALL my data collected, run and analyzed so I can impress their pants off. Well not actually their pants. They're old crudgenly scientists...some of them are women too. Erm. OK nix the pants thing.
Lets just say I want to impress...and it's exciting to finally have my first 1/2 of my data ready from my thesis. And It will be ready for my update meeting in June too...

Only 2 more thingys left to build, test, scan and analyze. Then...(gasp) perhaps I can get permission to write!

Back off, I'm doing SCIENCE!
He hee...

Meep!

Me hee...

I just got back my grade on my reading class:


85%


Yipadee!







AND so I can smugly say that I have officially kicked ass and am done the academic portion of my MSc.

For REALZ!

MEEP!

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Yes. Quite. Ahem.

Oh let the heavens ring with my joyous shrieks and the ground ricochet with my wibbling....I'm done evil paper#2! I worked on it all weekend and was up finishing the 186 references (it was an 18 page monstrosity of knowledge) until 5 AM sunday, but it was handed in yesterday along with my reading list. I am officially done the academic portion of my MSc.

Giggedy :)

It was a long exhausted day and I went home after work last night, at a normal hour no less, had the best falafel pita and mug of Harp I have ever experienced and ended up going to bed ~7:30...Ah! Slept like a baby rock all night! This morning I was up for a swim and it's back into things.
What a relief to be done all that! My committee meeting has been set for the end of June so I have lots of time to get things done. It will be nice to slow down for a bit...
The image above is by Mike Mitchell. I really like his art...check it out if you have the time...

Bjork and Toonsces

The proverbial light bulb has come on over my head with all necessary bells and whistles and I am finally getting somewhere with Evil Paper #2. Which is good, as it's due monday. Heh. Ahem.
Enjoy this gif of Bjork and what looks suspiciously like Toonsces in a small suit while I work away. Talk amongst yourselves taters.

"Look out for that cliff Toonces! Aaaahhh...."

PS - I removed the snow...because it's all melted. YAY! :)

Crunch time

I had a lovely day yesterday hanging out with J, eating pizza and watching Frisky Dingo and laughing like a kid. Saturday I worked a full day, but then got to dress up in full indian sari and go to a vegetarian banquet and then meet friends for drinks after. It was nice to be able to spend some time with J. He's finally feeling a lot better from his cold so we could spend some time together and relax. We both needed a day of chilling to prepare for a week of insanity...we'll both be very busy this week. This week will prove to me whether I can ride the line of nutsville without jumping in and wearing my tinfoil hat. Full on 17 hour days are here to get it all in. Yup -it's crunch time. I have 2 papers due, a speech on friday along with the "usual"- 9 cancer cell lines to grow and blocks to make plus work, plus PMS and I'm coming down with J's cold. After this, it will taper off a bit...data crunching and starting on my semester end meeting/report, to get some numbers from all my semester's work. Once these papers are done, I can focus more on my actual project. I'm wanting them to be A one perfect, but realistically I'll settle for grammatically correct and not sucky at this point. Just some solid work...proper referencing's been a real bitch for these things...

From my initial cold symptoms I feel not too bad -bit tired and I'm enjoying the fact that currently I sound like Leonard Cohen. It's amusing... I'm going to roll with it and I *WILL* make it thru this week. I'll just do all I can do, make sure I get enough sleep and I am all set with lots of healthy lunches and pumpkin carrot muffins (so goood). I'm just going to do all I can every day and then sleep the sleep of the dead and get up and do it all over again. If I have to skip workouts for sleep and rest I will...I just need to survive it.
One day at a time. I can do it. :)
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Rawr! I am the clutterbeast!

Ah.
Yesterday I relaxed supremely, along with getting a LOT done about the house. My house is now all homey and inviting again -not a train wreck of clutter with random fluff and crumbs everywhere and papers scattered about.
Most importantly-there are muffins.
!

Tonight I can work off the kitchen table (which you can now see the top of) and sip tea as I start typing up drafts of my first assignment of the semester and get down to business with the long stretch of writing, reading and data munching and crunching that will fill my next few months.
I am ready now to dive in with flippers on...:)

I would like to propose a toast

I just got my grades back for last semester.

And yes -I am giggly with glee...

93 in biostats and 88 in HSC research methods!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's nice to know that hard work and my giant mad scientist brain are worth something now and then. Man, I am so pumped to kick some more academic ass this semester.

JOY!

Start again!

Well, I'm off to give my MSc progress meeting talk. You know, *that* one that I was supposed to give before.
I'm wearing my new dress pants. They're stretch corduroy. *wicked* - like pajama pants, but posh looking. It's like giving a speech in fancy pajamas :)

Here we go!

Yarrr! This here be the nucleus...

Today is my second bi-annual progress report meeting for my MSc.
I'll be so glad when it's done. I hope hope hope it goes well. My report for it is complete and my talk should be just fine. I'm rather burnt out so I admit I'm just pleased it's coherent :) I have lots to show for my time, but not a lot of analysis yet, and I suspect I'll say the phrase "I'm analyzing that right now, I should know soon" about 6 zillion times as we discuss my speech, but at this point, I'm looking forward to it being done.
You know - so they can give me more to do :)

Wish me luck...I wore my new pirate boots, so it has to go well, right?

Sometimes I'd like to quit

Sometimes I think that if it weren't that I'm nearly half done I'd love to throw this whole MSc thing out the window. I'm just tired of being tired and way too busy for my own good. When I realise I am planning my week and I am unsure of just how to make sure I don't have to do work on my birthday (saturday) I know it's gone too far. People aren't meant to do this for long periods of time. Well, not without medications anyways. Last night I came very close to throwing a wobbler...but in the end I finished and came home and I feel better today.
Truth is, I just have to keep going. Things will get done, bit by bit.

All I know is, when this is over I a throwing a very large party. You are all invited.
There will be cupcakes and beer.
And me with the biggest grin you've ever seen.

For now...it's back to the data mines for me...

I have a cunning plan my lord...

I would totally hang that on the wall...only if the hole in it was available for my cat to poke his head thru occasionally

These are exciting and chatotic times - I may have to travel for a weekend for my MSc project in a few weeks (to learn new and exciting things) and, I must say, it is a pain in the butt to try and get everything together, find proper flights and try and book things and figure out who's paying for it (please not me please not me). I am not joking when I say that I really do not have time...and am amused that travelling grad students are lumped in with doctors who make a gajillion dollars...cuz we can totally afford the same accommodations...Man, how do people travel for a living? This is absurd.
I can book holidays no problem...that's *my* plans. Someone else's plans, while intellectually stimulating, are SO not the same thing...
Don't get me wrong - I'm quite excited to travel on my own for a weekend. I'm just having stupid details thrust upon me and I'm wigging out...I'm sure it will all turn out OK in the end...right?

Rocking the lab. Yo?

Because I've been spending lots of time in the biosafety hood this week culturing cancer cells...in our affectionately nicknamed cabinet room ("the hood") I present to you a few tracks from a favourite remix album of mine I've been listening to while I'm in there. For some reason it keeps me going at the end of a long 14 hour day...

Have a good day Y'all...

The best intentions have screwed me over

Know how I just said nothing could bring me down?
Yeah.
Well...
I just received the results back from the external lab testing of my MSc project stuff...and they totally did NOT do what they were supposed to. They took my stuff and redid it as they thought would be best and not what they were told to...meaning I have way more work to do than originally and the results are NOT quite what they were supposed to be...so I'm struggling with trying to figure out a new way to analyze my results because I can't do what I was supposed to and it's all I get. I could have prepared them differently and gotten better results from them this way had I known what the f*ck they were going to do. What a great reward for all my hard work! As a bonus, since they're doing a favour for me to analyze them like this I'm not really in the position to complain... so I just have to sit here and imagine hitting the tech over the head with a baseball bat while I try and salvage as much useful data out of these different results as I can.
It's not very cathartic. I need a bigger imaginary bat. Maybe a tazer...

I appreciate people trying to take initiative but this is not their project to screw with...there is nothing like expectantly waiting 2 months for the results of a lot of hard work to find more work... I think can make it work for mostly what I want, but it isn't what I'd really needed and will extend what I have to do just that much longer.

F*CK.

Oh no, I gotta go back to school...

I'm officially a student again.

How utterly wierd...

It's scary when you write it down...

I have just calculated that in order to make up for the time I will be at my 2 classes and a lab this semester I will have to stay an extra 1 1/2 hours at work every day all week to make up the 7 hours...with a get out of jail free card for fridays of only 1 hour. I was already putting in about an extra hour a day for my master's project, which I will still need to continue to do.

Soooo....essentually from september until mid december I will be here for an extra 2 or 3 hours per day, plus a good chunk of saturday.

Whaaaa?

I need a beer...make that 2...

I made you a nuclear protein extraction, but I broked it.

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Caution: science ahead!

It's been the week of breaking equipment in the lab:

Refrigerated centrifuge? ...rotor broke. No worky...may not be fixable either...

Sonication cell disruptor? Looked like just the fuse went at first but when I replaced it and found it still didn't work I took the cover off to have a look and the power cell and connected wires had actually MELTED. To be fair to it it was as old as I am...

UV transilluminator gel box? Only lights up when it feels like it....and only part of it. Now have to move my gels around to see the DNA bands I've amplified.

Last week the algorithm analysis software I use for my MSc project was upgraded and promptly stopped working for a few days too. Grrr.

The simplest solution yet to any of these issues so far has been to put a regular centrifuge in a 4 degree cold room for the odd periods of time when I need a refrigerated centrifuge -a disturbingly simple solution isn't it? I admit I didn't think of it...

For the others? Well, I get to to practice my suck-up-so-i can-borrow skills... It's making me paranoid about touching things - what else will go next?

A fun part of my job is to try and fix/repair lab equipment when it cacks out. Sometimes I can. Sometimes I have to send it away or offer it it's last rights. I may be digging a few holes here...

I'm trying to do a bunch of work so when I take off for a glorious holiday with J for our anniversary I have nothing to worry about...this is making it complicated...
At least my MSc is coming along well. And now that my algorithms can be run again, I can catch up on all the stuff I need to. I have to take 2 classes in the fall on top of all the rest of this insanity, so I'm trying to do as much as I can now to keep my head from exploding...much...
At least the cancer cells and stains have been doing lately have been cooperative...keeping my fingers crossed.

And on a completely unrelated point:

This shirt?

WANT!

I love bacon...periodically. Tee hee...

2. All contaminated things and events are unsatisfactory

*sigh*
*sigh*
Know how I've been struggling to grow some breast cell lines?

Well a nearby researcher was kind enough to start up 2 of the cell lines that I was having difficulty starting and give me a culture of them yesterday.
And, as my luck would have it, it turns out our autoclave that sterilizes my media bottles isn't working right, so the expensive culture media I grew these new cells in, which I just made, is contaminated.
Ergo, my new cells are contaminated...

So, once again, I cannot grow these cells. And I must, grovelling, ask the kind person to do the same thing for me again. And make new media. And try and grow them again.
And not scream.

Fucksticks.
I need a bunny to pet.
Stat.