Three-Ring Circus

Last month, I was selling tickets to the Battle Royale in which I took on the laboratory equipment. This week, I am selling tickets to my one-woman three-ring circus. The only problem with taking off a fabulous two weeks for winter break is having to get everything done before I am actually able to leave! Everything was timed perfectly and could fit fantastically into the four days of the week except that, of course, the dishes of cells I needed to use to make cell lysate were not confluent enough to use until Wednesday, thereby setting back everything by a day.

Thursday’s plan was simple: just strip and reblot two Westerns, lyse the HEK cells, make more GST-EWS and GST-EWS-Fli beads, pour and run an 8% polyacrylamide gel, and transfer gel to a membrane – simultaneously. Alone, each is simple, but try to do all at once, and regardless of how well you plan, it gets a little out of control. I felt like hanging up posters in the hallway inviting everyone to come watch Julie juggle multiple experiments and screw them all up! I made sure to write everything out the night before so I could just follow through quickly without having to pause to think about what I needed to do, and there I was in the lab bright and early at 7am to get the day started. Shortly after arrival, I hit the first snag of the morning – after getting my bacterial cells situated and using liquid nitrogen for freeze-thaw cycles, the next step is sonification. I walked into the cold room to use the sonicator, started to set it up, and realized that the microtip was kept in the neighboring lab, and nobody would be in until 9am. It just goes to show that regardless of how well you plan, something out of your control will always hold you back. In the meantime, I continued ahead with the stripping and reblotting of the Western while I waited for lab members to arrive next-door, but obviously my timeline for the day wouldn’t work due to having to wait for the ever-important sonicator tip. I was okay for a while, but by the time noon hit, I was doing so many things at once that I was running around the lab like the proverbial chicken with his head cut off, trying to associate which step of which experiment was counting down on which timer. At one point, I had three timers simultaneously beeping at me while I was trying to figure out how to proceed with the next 3 steps at once. Sadly, none of this chaos and disorganization was due to a lack of planning on my behalf – just due to my inability to actually follow through with my meticulous military-precise plans (I blame that on the sonicator tip hold-up!). I have also discovered that whether or not I want to be, I am on the Graduate School Laboratory Diet, meaning that I no longer have time to eat when I am in the lab. Having to walk out my front door at 6:15am meant that I had no time to eat breakfast, and just planned on taking an early lunch. With timers going off left and right, clearly there was no time for lunch, and next thing I knew, it was 5:30, I still had yet to consume anything for the day, and I still had a few more hours of work ahead of me. I wonder if it would be possible to request some sort of glucose IV-drip while I am in the lab to eliminate the need to ever leave for food while still maintaining energy… just think of all the time that would save!

After a week and a half off to study for finals, I realized that I did miss being in the lab. I think with graduate school, so much is thrown at you all at once that it’s really easy to become overwhelmed. When I’m in class, I’m stressed over what’s going on in lab, and likewise when I’m in lab, I’m stressed over having to study for classes. Taking the time to sort out each one separately definitely reminded me that I do enjoy what I’m doing, and having a week in lab and lab alone, no classes and studying since finals were over, reassured my confidence that this is what I want to do, and that things will get better and I will be happier once I can be in the lab 60 hours a week without having to go home and study. Since I’m finally getting into the depth of my rotation project, I feel bad packing up and leaving for two weeks and I’m sure while I am at home I will feel guilty not being in the lab, but you know what? I just survived what everyone in the program proclaims to be the worst semester of graduate school, so I am going to go enjoy my two science-free weeks and let my brain recover from more biochemistry studying than I ever thought possible!

Death by Biochemistry

BREAKING NEWS! Yours truly has developed what may very well be the first ever case of an illness never yet recorded in humans. Shocking, unbelievable, bizarre, yet true – the world’s first honest-to-goodness biochemistry allergy. A quick PubMed search yields no previous studies on biochemistry allergies (just for clarification, no I did not really look, but you’re right, I wouldn’t have put it past me). Clearly, I am the first ever with such a severe case. Somewhere, some future doctor from whom I will seek treatment will surely get a ground-breaking article in New England Journal of Medicine out of my story.

The past four days have involved nothing but studying for my two upcoming finals in biochemistry and oncology transformed cell. I have noticed a bizarre pattern of my health based on what I am studying. On Thursday and Friday morning/afternoon/early evening, I was in the library all day studying for biochem, and I felt pretty crummy. Fever, achy, congested, sore throat – all your classic allergy/cold symptoms. Friday evening, I switched to studying for transformed cell, and within a matter of a few hours, I felt better. I could breathe clearly, swallow without pain, fever is suddenly gone – I thought my problems were solved! Saturday morning, upon awaking feeling pretty chipper considering the previous days, I cracked open the biochemistry book. Aaah-aaaah-aaaah-CHOO! Almost immediately, the sneezing and stuffy nose returns. After a quick review of the material, it’s back to tumor biology – and with the switch comes pleasantly clear sinuses and feeling fine, normal temperature, etc. I wake up Sunday feeling decent, start the biochemistry, and once again – within a matter of hours, am back to a state of physical misery, congestion, sore throat, difficulty breathing and a 103 fever!

Isn’t it obvious what’s going on here? I have developed an allergy to biochemistry! Now, I could make a case for it being all mental if it was just feeling queasy and nauseous upon studying biochemistry versus say, sitting in front of the TV for a few hours, but it’s not like it’s deciding between something fun and studying. Furthermore, it’s not just not feeling so great or a headache, it’s being based on the congestion of my sinuses (and last I checked, I couldn’t fake a stuffy nose!) It’s really looking at the lesser of two evils, here. And to be honest, I think I actually prefer studying biochemistry, because as hopeless as that situation seems, I think tumor bio is looking even MORE hopeless since there is much, much more material on that exam and none of the lectures even begin to correspond to each other. And, strange as it is – I actually kind of enjoy the material for biochemistry. I may not have a great grasp on it or feel like I really need to learn it in as much detail as we are taught, but don’t dislike the studying, and certainly not enough to make myself sick over it! So the only true explanation for my problems – a rapidly worsening allergy to biochemistry itself.

Then it dawned on me – I must inform my biochemistry professors of this dreadful and rare disease immediately! I mean, if studying has made me this sick already, imagine what yet another full 14-16 hour day of studying tomorrow will do! And worse yet – the exam. If studying alone generates this much of a response, I can only imagine what the actually heat-of-the-moment hardcore thinking and analyzing of biochemistry will do to me – this could prove to be a fatal allergy. Just think of the implications that would have on the course and the program. I can see the headlines already – “Biochemistry Department Administers Fatal Final”, or perhaps “Deadly Science Final Causes Other Students to Flock to Humanities”. Honestly, neither would be very good for the program. I picture a drastic decrease in enrollment, a few investigations by the Board of Directors, and a potential folding of the program, leaving the faculty members scrambling for new positions at other universities. Really, by not taking this exam, I would be doing a huge favor to the faculty. Just giving me an A in the course and letting me go on with my life would really be in everyone’s best interest, not just mine… honest!

One 'A' Please, Wrapped and Delivered

Things have been pretty busy over here… an insane number of hours in lab last week but luckily I have managed to score a few days off altogether so I can actually do some studying between classes as my finals have already started. I’ve also managed to learn a few new techniques in the lab without causing any major catastrophes/disasters/breaking lab equipment/exploding things/setting anyone on fire – so I suppose there is still hope for me yet! Not to mention that in sitting and talking with my PI the other day, he said he has been impressed with my work thus far and if I would like to return to his lab for my dissertation then we can talk about that in the next week or so, but he thinks I am the right caliber for his lab (apparently breaking shared resource centrifuges and duct taping the spectrophotometer makes me fit right in with everyone else? I’m not sure..).

Regardless, there are a few things I am saving up to discuss at a later point in time... and by later, I mean after finals, when I have time to sit/think/function again. One final down today, and I’m sure I could have aced it if I knew everything possible about making transgenic mice and how to express siRNA in cell lines in an inducible tet-on/tet-off Cre recombinase system, and the step-by-step reagents and incubation times on the ten thousand experiments you can run based off a Western, and all sorts of stuff that is, you know, really simple and obvious to everyone and honestly, what first year PhD student shouldn’t have had lots of direct experience in this already and be able to answer all sorts of manipulative questions? [rolls eyes] As one of my fellow PhD gals put it, some of those essay questions could basically have stated “write out, in three paragraphs, exactly all the laboratory work required to complete a thesis on topics X, Y, and Z.” All I can say is with all crap shoved into my tet-off Cre recombinase siRNA inducing cell vectors, they have about a 0% chance of survival (which is, coincidentally, approximately the grade I expect to receive on that section since I think don’t think I was supposed to have the tet-off system on the same vector on which I floxed the siRNA, my bad). Next up: biostatics, followed by the absolutely dreaded and practically tear-inducing biochemistry final, and the immense amount of detail transformed cell final bringing up the rear next week.

Just thought I would share a bit of holiday humor courtesy of my ever so witty mother. Last week I received an email from her asking for a holiday wish list (I’m 22 – somehow, I feel I’m a bit old to be writing out what I want for the year). I responded stating that there is only one thing in the entire world that I actually want/need/desire/have a use for at this point in time, and that is an A in biochemistry. There is not a single material object that I want more than an A. This is the email response I received, which did add a chuckle to my otherwise study-packed mind-boggling day:

To: Julie

From: Hanukkah Harry

Re: Your skimpy wish list

This memo is in regard to your wish list of an “A” on your biochemistry final. This is a most unusual request that may not be the easiest to fulfill. However, since you have been a good girl this year, we will try our best. Please forward the name, email address, phone number, and home address of the professor. I will contact him and try to determine how much an “A” will cost in the form of a bribe. It may be easier if you have any ‘dirt’ you can dig up on this professor. So I may budget accordingly, do you have any idea how much an “A” usually goes for? I have ties with Santa and checked with his reindeer and some of them have contacts wit the FBI and CIA, so we may have some additional reinforcement there. Please advise if this is satisfactory if you have some other requests that may be easier to fulfill.

OY VEY, Hanukkah Harry

So… anyone have any idea what the going rate of an A is these days, anyway?