how it happens that I am expected/required to work all of my own experiments out, yet also required to do the initial legwork for other grad students (who are getting paid more than me through certain fellowships), and also explain an entirely new technique (that, although I've received excellent help from another faculty member with whom I orchestrated the interaction independently, I am not completely familiar with yet, although I have worked out how I'm going to analyze the data) to an undergraduate student who only has 3 months left in the lab.
It was a slightly irritating day, although I managed to get a few things accomplished, and decide on a plan of action for my dual fluorescence project. The staining for this worked great back when I prepared the slides in June, but the thing about fluorescence is that brain slices have a property called autofluorescence. And the fluorophore-conjugated antibodies eventually lose some of their signal. So, by the time I got done analyzing pilot data, those slides that looks so pretty in June were just messy. I tried imaging them back in December, and while one brain area looks analyzable, the second was just awful. So, I ordered more secondary antibodies, and ran my tissue again. This time the primary antibody didn't work. Today, I ordered more primary, and I'll give it another trial run at the end of this week. (Also, our fridge broke down sometime last week, and I and a post-doc had to deal with all of that. I'm now suspicious of my secondaries again. The ones I just bought last week. RRRggghhh.)
If I can get that going again, I'll be fine. Hopefully finish my data collection/analysis by the end of April, write my thesis in May + June, defend in July, clean up my lab notebooks, etc for the rest of July, and take August off. Because I get paid monthly, and lag behind a month, I should be able to take the time. I hope I can take the time, work on the house, work in the garden a little bit, just relax, before making the move to Nashville.
You all are probably lost, or stopped reading from boredom awhile ago. I need to start posting some pictures and/or slides so it's not just text-based science.
Well, hope you all have a good night. And I will try to post more later - but my calendar is full of work, chores, and social events for friends who are graduating/leaving town. Those of you who met Kate, she is defending on 2/10, and moving to Chicago the weekend after. Boo for me, but Yay!!! for her. I'm so proud of her, and can't wait to visit (and host her in Nashville once I move).
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2 comments:
Sweetheart,
it sounds to me like the people that give you the extra work need that work done and know that they can count on you to get it done. It is a silent accolade. The problem is that they get into the habit of going right to you first and never considering giving the task to someone less reliable.
Being who and what you are, I suspect you will encounter this problem all through your life. You are the best of the best and have always been so. Other people realize this and can at some times take advantage of it. Weasels will never be placed on the endangered species list, not as long as there are human beings on this planet. Wouldn't it be nice to have a T-shirt with a NO WEASELS emblem on it?
It's really one person assigning me things, and it gets complicated by the fact that I enjoy helping/teaching people, and interacting with other scientists in general. So, when the first extra project came up, I agreed (though I was a little miffed at being asked 15 min after my request for help had been turned down). But it dragged out from a simple thing (2 wks, max) to over six months of trying to get it to work.
I don't mind showing the undergrad what I do to image things either, but I'm running out of time, and this particular type of imaging is not my area of expertise, so I feel a little strange showing someone else. And it's not my equipment in the first place!
So, generally, it makes me uncomfortable to say yes, yet I can't say no to it. At the very least, I'm going to give a heads up to the guy that is helping me that I've been asked to show this student the imaging process (maybe introduce them?).
Hope you're keeping warm :)
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