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DONE my last midterm and DONE my last 6-hour lab!! Now I am FRREEEEeeee…. to study for final exams lol. Such a glamourous life I lead (you know I love it though). My lab section went out to celebrate this evening, yay for beer on a Monday! I love when scientists get together to do social stuff… we’re a special bunch who can’t help thinking DNA jokes are funny.
I took the rest of the evening off from studying and baked banana cookies. YUM they were so good!!
As for the lungs, they held up nicely on this long day. I’m thinking that I will kick the prednisone tomorrow. And hopefully go running!!
Phew, it was one of those long days!
This first bit may be too much information for you, if you don’t wanna know about what comes out of my lungs, do not read on. So I was standing around in the kitchen at breakfast, eating an orange while talking to my roommate, when suddenly I inhale some of the juice and start to choke. After the startling bit is over, I continue to cough a little bit. And then. Then I had this sudden massive rumbling cough, and I coughed up like a whole mouthful of thick but sort of fluffly white phlegm. Taken aback, it took me a moment to realize how freaking good that felt. So I encouraged the coughing for a few minutes and was able to clear some more. And for the next few hours I was on a cloud.
It’s a good thing I was on a cloud because I had a class, then a midterm. The cellular physiology midterm went super well. It was a bit on the easy side but whatever I could use a bit of easy amid my courses!! Next I had my massive Monday lab, which didn’t turn out to be too bad. By the end of it I was starting to feel tight and I could really feel it on my walk home. I was kind of grumpy about that because I thought I had fixed my lungy problem with this morning’s phlegm fiasco. I got home and made dinner and sucked on some ventolin.
I went back to school because there was an info session for next year’s honours projects. Even though I was feeling tight still, I brought my pool stuff for after because I had planned on a swim today. Of course the fact that I brought my swim stuff meant that I absolutely had to go to the pool, so I did. I love being in the pool, but I had to get out after 8 laps because I just wasn’t feeling it, I was too tight. Sooooo I came home, which is where I am now.
The lungs are being not very nice this evening, and I don’t know why. I wish they would get over themselves. Grr. It’s not a huge deal, and I’m not concerned about it, but it’s a little much for running or swimming.
The 5 km vs. 10 km debate is still not settled. People have not been very warm on the 10 km idea at all. And now I don’t feel so good so it’s harder to think a 10 km is realistic. I guess I really do have until Sunday to decide.
Monday is my worst day scedule-wise, so now the rest of the week is looking pretty peachy!
Tomorrow is Canada day, so it’s a holiday! I’m happy to have a day off. I’m making lots of progress in my research project, I’ve gone through about 200 samples so far. What I do with them is extract the DNA from the mouthwash samples (this is really gross when you get bits of food or discoloured samples) then I amplify the gene I want to look at, then sequence it. The sequence pops up on our computer and I can easily spot mutations. I love my job and I’m pretty thrilled to be involved in research. However, working in a lab you are bound to encounter some interesting personalities. My colleagues and I joke that we could create a whole TV series based on the people in our lab. My biggest issue is unwanted attention from a certain fellow student (who hopefully doesn’t read random asthma blogs) Please, anybody have any tips on fending off boys you work in a small space with???
Breathing-wise, I’m good. I was paying for my bike ride yesterday but I’m over that today. I have a funny story about my bike ride. My sister and I rode a fair distance to procure ourselves some bubble tea. On our way back home, we were riding on a path through a park, it looked pretty deserted so my sister decided to do her infamous T-Rex imitation. She was making dino noises and had her hands in T-rex formation, all the while pedaling along. She gets really into it and it makes me lose it every time, I was killing myself laughing. All of a sudden her bike started to wobble seeing as she wasn’t holding on, and she exclaimed “Ah! I’m veering off the pathway!” And veer off the pathway she did, tumbling onto the grass… right at the feet of some poor lady sitting on a bench who had witnessed the whole debacle! Well when my sister realized this she hopped right back onto her bike and rode away, laughing very hard. I completely lost it at this point and tried to ride up to her but I was laughing too hard. I couldn’t breathe but I couldn’t stop laughing. Isn’t that the worst feeling ever? It brings back bad memories of being tickled to death by older cousins when I was a kid. ”KJ…. stop…. being funny. Can’t… breathe!” That’s what I tried to say to her, and I could tell she felt bad but neither of us could stop laughing. Anyway, it was utterly silly. This is a perfect example of how you can cause your very own asthma attack by sheer tomfoolery. Thankfully I recovered after a short break on the grass and rode merrily on home. I still had fun : )
The weather is stormy outside but I hope that the it behaves tomorrow because I have a full day planned in the SUN. Look for my (educational) Canada day post tomorrow morning before I head out!
I’m bored and starting to feel like a slacker and since I don’t feel like poo anymore I would really like to go to work today. If I worked anywhere else, I probably wouldn’t think twice about it. I still have a wicked cough though and that’s the problem. I mean, a hospital is a very confined space, especially for the inpatients and I need to think about the fact that I share a cafeteria and elevator with oncology and transplant patients and all kinds of kids for whom this sort of infection would be catastrophic. I mean, it’s not like I’m serving them lunch or wiping their noses or anything but STILL. You can never be too careful when these things spread so readily. The other thing is that bacteria have DNA too and say if I coughed over my reaction and then accidentally amplified some bacterial DNA, or even my own DNA from my aerosolized saliva (ew, I know), my results would be totally screwed. Yes, that actually is a real concern. Damn science, why you gotta be so finicky??
Anyway, if I got my mom to drop me off, then used the staff basement entrance, wore a nerdy surgical mask while experimentin’ and used hand sanitizer ten times an hour, went outside for lunch instead of to the cafeteria and then exited again by the basement entrance, I could justify going in today, and I might just get some work done. I’ll see if my mom says yes.
The new dance class was AWESOME. I loved it and an totally switching over to this from the team. We worked soooo hard. I wasn’t sure how I would do with the lungies but since I was dancing for a new teacher and all I felt the need to show off a bit so danced hard until my body was screaming louder than my lungs. This morning both are complaining but I feel so happy! Yay!
It is my last lab rat Tuesday today. I can’t say I’m too sad, although the labs haven’t been as terrible as I thought they would be this semester. Tomorrow I have 2 midterms and then Thursday I have another. THEN I can take a breather. The end of the semester is coming up so fast, this is craziness! The lab final is next Tuesday from 8:30-10:00 PM, definitely not my prime time for test-taking. Oh well.
Gastroenteritis seems to be quietly slipping out the door without having descended upon me. I cannot tell you how thankful I am for this. phew! Must. get. ready.
Today was my mega lab day and I mostly enjoyed it. In our biochemistry lab, there is this man -I think he’s one of the lab coordinators or something -who likes to roam around. And everybody desperately avoids meeting his eyes, because if you do, he will sidle up to you and ask “How do you FEEL? Can you appreciate the SCIENCE that is going on in the test tube?” Now, I appreciate that he wants us to get excited about our lab work, and he wants us to link practical and theoretical aspects and blah blah blah. Enthusiasm is great, but back off buddy, because if you think I’m going to be sharing my warm and fuzzies about DNA with you, then you’ve got another think coming. I’m just trying to finish on time.
Lungs are good. I’m ready to dance full-out at practice tonight, which is excellent. I can’t believe we’re supposed to be doing a show in one week, that seems crazy! Oh well.
Hee hee. Last night when I considered setting my alarm so I would wake up for my early class this morning I decided against it seeing as “my lungs always have me up long before that anyway”. Well they didn’t this morning! So I overslept but was able still to make it out the door on time. Thanks for being unpredictable in a good way for once, lungs!
Today was an OK day. I performed my very first anaesthesia… on fruit flies! Using CO2!! Then I looked at their girl/boy parts under a microscope. Oh biology labs.
I’ve got to study some more for my music midterm tomorrow. Then I’ve got dance practice, should be fun! TTFN!
