Today prof laid out the final plans for our project. We'll be collecting samples from factory workers in 2 weeks' time. He really needs a sense of humour. He was giving instructions (70 copies of the questionnaire) and he went like...are u sure u can remember all I've said..do u need to write it down or do u have an excellent photographic memory. Well in the first place, I think it should go under audio memory..and secondly..I think 70 copies is not a very complicated thing to remember. Then he said I'll be in-charge of the entire project from now on..from sample collection to storage to data entry and analysis. Sounds like a mouthful. According to him the PI's job is only to bring in the money. I don't mind doing all the work...but what worries me is that his grant hasn't come in...so I dunno when I'll be a full time RA. Since I'm only a JUINOR RA, I should be given half the workload. I didn't ask for the power, but now I got the responsibility. Anyway, I shall take things in stride - since I do wanna proof to him afterall that I'm capable of pursuing my PhD (since I'm not an official student yet). Hope things go smoothly.
Today's lab work was hilarious. The preparation part was easy...just pipetting stuff here n there..but when it came to measuring the reading on the spectophotometer, my graphs hardly tallied (which reminds me...I'm supposed to be doing the analysis now...). I did another run and it was SLIGHTLY better. Guess I better improve on my techniques...for this assay..practice makes perfect (I hope). My friend CW who also did honours was getting worried cos in his new lab he didn't have any wet lab stuff to do, mostly just analysing statistical data. He was pretty disturbed with the idea that he'd be losing touch with lab work. That set me thinking...gosh...did NUS train us so well that we life scientists are gonna feel strange without our micro-pippetes?? Hope not...
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