Life in My Lab
Each day begins with a meeting with the other Howard Hughes students from about 8:30 to 9:30, where we listen to seminars with varying degrees of interest. Then, I take the hike to my lab in the Medical Science Research Building (about a 10-minute walk, give or take). From there, each day is different. Today, for example, I am depleting IgA out of milk samples for an experiment later this week. On Friday I spent all my time making agar plates, a long and tedious process. Some days I have the pleasure of counting bacterial colonies, which is rather mind-numbing due to the fact that there are literally thousands of colonies on a single plate. Of course, I consider the day a sucess if I get to use liquid nitrogen to freeze things (bacteria, IgA samples, parafilm, pieces of laboratory equipment, etc).
Sometimes the monotony is broken by new discoveries I make. For instance, about two weeks ago I found a drawer at my lab bench containing dozens of micropipets of all shapes and sizes. I was thrilled, because until that point, I had had to borrow other people's pipets when they weren't looking. Now I have a large supply of pipets at my dispense.
Another, less cheerful discovery I made last week was in the autoclave room. My impression of the autoclave up until this point was based on its outside appearance, which resembled the entrance to a nuclear submarine. The only visible entry point of the autoclave was a large, heavy hatch set in a metal wall. However, this particular time when I was in the autoclave room, a draft blew open a hidden door in the metal wall (I say it was hidden because I think the door handle snapped off, so it was flush with the wall). Venturing through this door, I discovered the true face of the autoclave: a small box with a bunch of pipes, covered by decaying insulation and an expired approval certificate from Cherie Berry. Needless to say, my bubble was thoroughly burst.
