and god said that you now waste a LOT of time playing online…
i just found a bad, bad addictive comic…
metadragon recommended it on her site…it’s called Sluggy Freelance…
http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=970906
go to it…spend much time reading it…it has a bad rabbit, an evil rabbit…
I’m at lab right now…first day. Actually, it’s lunch time and Jose has run off somewhere…my leftovers didn’t really fill me up, I guess I should have brought some more from home.
Starting in the lab has been good, although a bit overwhelming…okay, a LOT overwhelming, as in bordering on panic attack at points in time. I got here this morning and the first thing they taught me to do was edit DNA sequences (sounds illegal to me, like I’m modifying DNA!?) but it really wasn’t like that. Simply, computers are too stupid to always be able to correctly interpret difference between the little G, A, T, and C readings it gets. Since it only see the light spectrum, if there is overlap or two that are really close together, it can’t determine what letter it’s supposed to be. So some poor peon goes through and double-checks the computer. Ooo! Ooo! That would be me!
Second, I matched up the strands of DNA, read as, I told the computer (stupid MAC) to do it. It went whirr, and then chimed and it was done (took all of 15 seconds, I’m so glad I live in the now and not 20 years ago where I would have had to have done it by hand). Of course, this was followed by Technology Fubars. Jose couldn’t remember the code to align DNA on the other computer (I had to separate strands, each a LITTLE bit different, and they needed to be lined up correctly). Jose though the start code doo-hickey was supposed to be < but it was supposed to be >. This took an hour to fix. <sigh> It was a long hour.
And now…I’m on lunch, breaking from PCR, what’s PCR you ask? Polymerase Chain Reaction. What does that really mean? Not a clue on my part. All I know is that my hands smell like latex (and not for a good reason) and that I’m working with really really really really really really really small quantities of liquid and these quantities of liquid are REALLY expensive.
Also, there is radiation one room away from me and next door to that is a whole pile of Ethidium Bromide…which is nearly as bad….! Danger Will Robinson (*thank you Eric 
, I had a long day dammit…leave my inability to remember the name of pop icons alone…)! Danger!
so tomorrow I start working in the lab…with Jose…should be interesting, I will be learning the grunt work this week…as my prof put it…”don’t think about it, just learn how to do it…you can think about it later!”
i also am all connected again, via DSL…I will be complaining about that today, hopefully
but for now, I’m off to watch my lab safety video and read my grad student hand book!
