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Welcome to the week from hell.
Jul. 22nd, 2005 02:31 pmFinally a free minute to sit down and type...*sweatdrop* This really has been the worst week EVER. I haven't gotten home before 9 since Sunday.... Let's break it down...
-Sunday-
Was picked up at 8:30 am to go out in the field. Sat in the kayak for hours for watersampling and cleaning. Got home around 4pm, tired and grimy. Everyone in the house was going to Washburn Island again to bbq so despite being tired, I went. Was fun. Ate good food.
-Monday-
The fun begins. We took our cages and samples out of one of our sites. But first we had to go collect samples for Sophia so we wasted some time. So we took everything out of the water while fighting off these crazy flies. They were everywhere and they liked to bite you when you were trying to do something and thus was defenseless.. *sigh* So we finally finish around 1:30 and eat lunch on the way to the lab. We started weighing out our final weights. This means cleaning each piece in fresh water, blotting and then weighing. And the peces were dirty. We're talking 1 sample done in 15 min... with 28 samples, this adds up. We ended up not finishing and left at 10pm. Got home at 10:30 exhausted.
-Tuesday-
I get picked up at 9 again to get the cages from the second site. Again this takes us until 2pm so we can't start weighing until 3. In 3 hours we have only just finished the 8 remaining samples from Monday. Keep working and end up giving up around 9. Get home and eat mac and cheese and try not to cry.
-Wednesday-
I stumble into the lab at 9am with coffee. I had to give a progress report on my work. I only have the growth data for one site. I spend till noon making my presentation. I eat lunch and then we go right to weighing more stuff. At 4 I give the crappiest presentation ever, mostly due to the fact that I never got to look at it and plan my thoughts. I wanted to go home, but no one else was going so I end up staying with the last 12 or 13 samples. 6-10 we work. Finally we finish and Elizabeth happened to be leaving so I finally get home ready to die. Warm up frozen quiche and eat it while talking on the phone to Pat. Go to bed at 3am.
-Yesterday-
I spend the morning puttering around, labeling things and washing stuff. Mirta and I sit while I eat my lunch and try to figure out the stat program. Finally at 2:30 we meet with Ivan. I expect to be able to go home shortly after. Instead, while we are talking, Mirta mentions the color differences in the algae. Ivan said we should to chlorophyll extraction to see the differences. As we looked at the protocol it says you need fresh samples. Unfortunately we had already frozen our samples. Mirta panics and says we have to do it right away. I run around for an hour collecting supplies, going to the stockroom and mixing things. We finally start at 5pm. THAT'S WHEN I'M SUPPOSED TO LEAVE!!! NOT START!!!!! We have 56 cages and each cage has 2 algae species. This means 112 samples that need to be defrosted, cleaned again, weighed and ground up in acetone. Needless to say, we only did one site (56 total samples). It was so dumb. We didn't finish until 4am!!! i was at the freakin lab till 4am. That's like 10 hours of grinding. Finally get home at 4:30 and collapse into bed.
-Today-
I wake up at 8am dead-tired. My head hurts. My stomach feels funny. My right hand in numb from all the grinding. I have a blister and it hurts to move my fingers too much. Luckily, Mohammed didn't really want to leave so I had time to shower and wash my hair. My poor hair hadn't been washed since *before* all the field stuff.gross. I arrive in the lab at 9:45 with coffee and a bagel. I'm instantly sent to go print out some articles in the library which takes me an hour because they're scan and email system is dumb. I get back at 11 and we start with the reading of last night's samples. It's fairly easy work, just tedious and dull. We only have done half. It took us 1.75 hours. I hope the last half goes faster, but we cant start until 5pm cuz they tubes need to sit for at least 12 hours. And Pat is coming today at 4:30 and I feel sooo bad making him wait like that. *sigh*
I'm really not enjoying this week. Because of all this I'm still on page 225 in Harry Potter. I shoulda been done on like Tuesday. *siiiigh* I wanna know what happens!!!!! This sucks....... Head hurts...
-Sunday-
Was picked up at 8:30 am to go out in the field. Sat in the kayak for hours for watersampling and cleaning. Got home around 4pm, tired and grimy. Everyone in the house was going to Washburn Island again to bbq so despite being tired, I went. Was fun. Ate good food.
-Monday-
The fun begins. We took our cages and samples out of one of our sites. But first we had to go collect samples for Sophia so we wasted some time. So we took everything out of the water while fighting off these crazy flies. They were everywhere and they liked to bite you when you were trying to do something and thus was defenseless.. *sigh* So we finally finish around 1:30 and eat lunch on the way to the lab. We started weighing out our final weights. This means cleaning each piece in fresh water, blotting and then weighing. And the peces were dirty. We're talking 1 sample done in 15 min... with 28 samples, this adds up. We ended up not finishing and left at 10pm. Got home at 10:30 exhausted.
-Tuesday-
I get picked up at 9 again to get the cages from the second site. Again this takes us until 2pm so we can't start weighing until 3. In 3 hours we have only just finished the 8 remaining samples from Monday. Keep working and end up giving up around 9. Get home and eat mac and cheese and try not to cry.
-Wednesday-
I stumble into the lab at 9am with coffee. I had to give a progress report on my work. I only have the growth data for one site. I spend till noon making my presentation. I eat lunch and then we go right to weighing more stuff. At 4 I give the crappiest presentation ever, mostly due to the fact that I never got to look at it and plan my thoughts. I wanted to go home, but no one else was going so I end up staying with the last 12 or 13 samples. 6-10 we work. Finally we finish and Elizabeth happened to be leaving so I finally get home ready to die. Warm up frozen quiche and eat it while talking on the phone to Pat. Go to bed at 3am.
-Yesterday-
I spend the morning puttering around, labeling things and washing stuff. Mirta and I sit while I eat my lunch and try to figure out the stat program. Finally at 2:30 we meet with Ivan. I expect to be able to go home shortly after. Instead, while we are talking, Mirta mentions the color differences in the algae. Ivan said we should to chlorophyll extraction to see the differences. As we looked at the protocol it says you need fresh samples. Unfortunately we had already frozen our samples. Mirta panics and says we have to do it right away. I run around for an hour collecting supplies, going to the stockroom and mixing things. We finally start at 5pm. THAT'S WHEN I'M SUPPOSED TO LEAVE!!! NOT START!!!!! We have 56 cages and each cage has 2 algae species. This means 112 samples that need to be defrosted, cleaned again, weighed and ground up in acetone. Needless to say, we only did one site (56 total samples). It was so dumb. We didn't finish until 4am!!! i was at the freakin lab till 4am. That's like 10 hours of grinding. Finally get home at 4:30 and collapse into bed.
-Today-
I wake up at 8am dead-tired. My head hurts. My stomach feels funny. My right hand in numb from all the grinding. I have a blister and it hurts to move my fingers too much. Luckily, Mohammed didn't really want to leave so I had time to shower and wash my hair. My poor hair hadn't been washed since *before* all the field stuff.gross. I arrive in the lab at 9:45 with coffee and a bagel. I'm instantly sent to go print out some articles in the library which takes me an hour because they're scan and email system is dumb. I get back at 11 and we start with the reading of last night's samples. It's fairly easy work, just tedious and dull. We only have done half. It took us 1.75 hours. I hope the last half goes faster, but we cant start until 5pm cuz they tubes need to sit for at least 12 hours. And Pat is coming today at 4:30 and I feel sooo bad making him wait like that. *sigh*
I'm really not enjoying this week. Because of all this I'm still on page 225 in Harry Potter. I shoulda been done on like Tuesday. *siiiigh* I wanna know what happens!!!!! This sucks....... Head hurts...
