Beating that heat

Some fun goals have finally been achieved this week with research! While the CO2 tank is still empty in Dr. Trinkle's lab, I've been using an incubator and biosafety cabinet in Cong Li's lab where the cells have mercifully not died. This means that I've finally been able to carry out that confluency assay and have determined an optimal seeding density for the titanium bottom petri dishes. I also did a whole bunch of fluorescent dyeing on these dishes yesterday to figure out the optimal dye concentration for Ethidium Homodimer-1! Now that I've figured these out, I can start seeding dishes for actual laser spallation. I should probably also get started on my research paper too...

Last week, I decided that I was going to make it to Black Swan Books before they closed no matter WHAT because I was needing a book. I had finished Slaughterhouse Five a couple days before and had taken to re-reading Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer to the point where I had it pretty much memorized. So, after getting off work, I had an hour until the bookstore closed so I bee-lined home and then walked down Maxwell Street in the sweltering heat. On the way, I passed the florist that I had spotted a couple weeks ago and it was ALSO OPEN. I weighed my options and then went inside. It was so adorable in there! I was tempted to buy seeds and honey, but I settled on a greeting card because I just started organizing my summer budget (with half the summer gone already, of course). I'm going to be a florist now. Here is proof that this place is the best:

Once I dragged myself away from the florist, I got back on track to the bookstore which ended up being this nicely air-conditioned old house in the middle of some antique shops and boutiques. The old guy who ran the place told me stories of how he started this shop from ONE book and how he traveled around the country in search of books for his collection. He also complained about young people going to Amazon for all their needs and I pointedly thought of Melanie. I explored the shop while he went to dig up an old copy of Gone with the Wind in the basement. When I'm a florist, I will live right next to an eclectic bookstore like this one. My life plan is SO GOOD NOW.

When I got back from my adventures, Melisa and Matt and I wanted to get matcha, but the matcha place has a strange license for serving alcohol and kids under 21 weren't allowed service at 6:30 pm. So we went to this secret cafe behind the greenhouses next to the florist! It was covered in ivy and full of fireflies and there was a very social cat wandering around. They had some really good blood orange soda. I want to go back for gelato when I get paid again!!!

I'm getting so fit

This week in the lab started off much like it has in the past couple of weeks, with the cells starved of CO2. Even though I had adjusted the incubator's CO2 levels, the CO2 tank decided to become empty. Additionally, JD had some car trouble on Monday, so I had some quality bonding time alone with my cells. While we were making arrangements for the cells to be housed in Cong Li's incubator, I contented myself with observing the culture flasks with the inverted microscope. I was surprised to see the most of the cells actually weren't dead! Three of the flasks still had many adhering cells, and one had enough to seed two new flasks. The petri dish that I had seeded last Friday was also still filled with surviving cells, so I seized the opportunity to dye them with a new concentration of Calcein AM to test with the fluorescence microscope. I think this concentration is a winner:

On Tuesday, I got excited by the brief rainfall and decided to run outside rather than go to the gym with Mel. Sadly, it did not end up raining, so I ended up running through thick, muggy, Kentucky air instead. On the bright side, I discovered Woodland park! I had a good time wandering around and listening to a mini orchestra warming up on the corner stage.

On my way back to Jewell, I found BLACK SWAN BOOKSTORE!! If you'll remember from my first blog post, I found this bookstore on the world wide web in a desperate moment of boredom. I hadn't ended up going yet, because I didn't realize how close it was to where I lived. I plan on visiting before they close today so that I can see if they have Gone With the Wind.

Cell Death Mystery SOLVED

So this last week, actual stuff started happening with research! We managed to figure out why our cells kept dying in Dr. Trinkle's incubator: the CO2 level was 0.5% too low. I took care of that business, but it takes forever for cells to grow up. While this issue was getting sorted out, the confluency assay for the petri dishes was underway at pharmacy. This was quite a nerve-wracking experience this time, I went to change the media WITHOUT JD. Changing media isn't too bad, but it's really nice to have a buddy at pharmacy. The people who work over there are all pretty nice, I'm sure, but I know very little about them--only that they are experts at the latest gossip. I imagined them shooting me furtive looks as I blundered around their gigantic lab, possibly judging my biosafety cabinet skills. While the experience was uncomfortable, I felt quite accomplished as I walked back to Dr. Grady's lab in the soggy oven that is Lexington. Unfortunately, I have no exciting pictures of the pharmacy lab to include here because I didn't have the guts to take one. I do have proof of my confluency assay! Here are the little MG-63 cells adhering to the plate! They're cuties.

Toward the end of the week, Floyd said he was done with the two pieces that I designed on Inventor! The microscope dish holder and the spincoater lid have come to fruition!! 

Aside from research, there was a fantastic adventure to a cheese factory over the weekend and I am now planning making homemade ricotta--and possibly cheese cake.

Blue Sushi is Better

This week, I've been doing things with CELLS! For most of the past couple of days, I've been doing a lot of taking notes on what to do with the MG-63 cells once we have enough of them. These notes include taking a successful live/dead assay of the cells by dying them with fluorescent stains and observing them with a fluorescent microscope. As of Monday, we have enough cells to start determining which concentration of dye would make the cells properly visible under the microscope. I stayed super late on Tuesday finally trying out all the protocols for subculturing the cells and for staining a few of them. I had a good laugh at how much smaller the hemocytometer is than I expected. It's so mini!!

Last week Mel and I wanted to go to sushi. So we told Matt and he came out with a whole bunch of recommendations--too many to process. It boiled down to two sushi places: "Blue sushi" and "Blue Reef sushi." Blue reef sushi is closer and Matt has never been there, but he has a vehement "vendetta" against it involving him saving the restaurant from an electrical fire and the owner lacking the appropriate grateful attitude and not giving Matt free food for his good deed. So we ultimately went to Blue Sushi. The waitress was super nice and we got a complimentary crab dish from the manager! It was a good day.

Then we went to ice cream in the most hipster part of Kentucky that I've ever seen. I need to go back so I can order the raspberry sorbet.

The only damper on this fun-filled week is the news that we have to do laundry in a dorm called Blazer for the rest of the summer because the laundry machines in Jewell have all mysteriously disappeared. It is nice, however, that the laundry rooms in Blazer have walls with an affectionate shade of green.

Week 2!

This week has been a little more hands-on in terms of research. I spent three hours drawing and fixing a microscope dish holder on Autodesk Inventor. The upside of this story is that I made friends with Floyd the machinist and I will be a total pro with Inventor by the time I take my CAD drawing class this coming fall. While I am learning how to propagate bone cells and use lasers, I think the highlight of my week was going to Surplus. Going in, I felt a mixture of apprehension and the kind of excitement one gets when they walk into IKEA. Our purpose was to find usable microscope objectives for our inverted microscope (also salvaged from Surplus), but I also found some incredible "antiquated scientifica" from what looks like the beginning of the 20th century. My favorite bit was this lil rusty key that went to the box of an old optical piece.

Aside from my Surplus adventures, I have also made some trips to Pharmacy where I have picked up on some interesting gossip about a guy named Jack who is apparently very dedicated to exercise.

I recently had my first trivia night experience as well. After a close battle with "John Penicillin" the whole time, we took a gamble that we ultimately lost because we didn't know the year Amy Winehouse died. We were so close though!!!! We still got a prize though because apparently "Saucy Breadsticks" was the best group name of the night.

First Post

So far, Kentucky has been as I've expected with a few nice surprises: there are lots of horses, lots of green hills, and--one of the surprises--some abrupt and violent thunderstorms. I'm definitely enjoying myself! On Saturday, I went hiking at Daniel Boone State Park with Melisa, Katie, Michelle, and Alina. The most exciting parts included driving through a one-lane tunnel through the side of the mountain and getting lost on the trails so that we ended up hiking about eight miles instead of four!

I recently finished reading my last Jane Austen novel so I've been hunting for cute bookstores in Lexington and the two I like best are "Black Swan Books" and "Glover's Bookery." Both of these shops advertise books of "military history," "equestrian history and literature," and some bizarre genre called "Kentuckiana." This probably means I'll be branching out from Jane Austen.

I am also very excited about the Trader Joe's in town! According to Melisa, we've already gone three times. My one regret about the store is that they do not sell coffee mugs, which means I've been drinking tea out of my little green plastic cup for the past week. I hope the plastic is BPA free.

In terms of research, I've been doing quite a lot of reading based off the the papers that Dr. Grady has recommended. I'm also partially successful in my first use of Autodesk Inventor to design a petri dish holder for Dr. Grady's new florescent microscope. The good news about me not knowing entirely what I'm doing is that I've made friends with Floyd the machinist as of this morning. Thankfully, he has given me some helpful tips.