A little bit of potpourris

It's official! I have written (and hopefully passed) my last exam at Dalhousie University. No more sitting in the Dalplex trying to concentrate on the question in front of me while the revolving doors emit sounds that can only be described as a Ring Wraith's scream. I love LOTR but not while trying to think!

Now that classes are done, I want to believe things will quiet down into the lull that seems to happen before the summer holidays get into full swing. Wishful thinking? Definetly. The lab is scheduled to move at the beginning of next week and we haven't even started packing yet despite all the warning from everyone that we should have started weeks ago. We have so much collected junk lurking in every available nook and cranny that we'll probably be putting in 12 hour days this week and possibly this weekend to get everything ready for the movers on Monday. We want to get started but we need Dr. Lee to tell us what we can dump and what we can keep. If only he wasn't a packrat...there are a lot of shifty chinese herbal remedies kicking around and let's not forget the prescription drugs just sitting there in a drawer. Special K anyone? And I don't mean the kind you have at breakfast.

It's high time we moved. I have nothing to do this week because we seem to be out of all the supplies that I need to do work. No reagents, no work. Simple but very frustrating since we'll already be losing work time while we pack the old lab and then try to organize everything in the new lab. Plus, we have a research day coming up and all of us were hoping to have more results by the time May 5th rolled around so we could add the extra stuff to our posters. I was really hoping to have done a few more experiments, especially since I was 'chosen' (read: given no choice) to do what they call a 'mini-poster presentation'. Basically, I have 3 minutes and 3 powerpoint slides, no more, to explain my ressearch in term general enough for clinicians and other 'non-research' people to understand. "Don't use words that are too sicentific" it says in the guidelines. Fan-crappy-tastic. What a waste of time. The only thing that will make it worth all the extra hassle is if I happen to win the pize money they hand out to the best presentation. Too bad it always goes to some med student who investigated the corrolation between temperature changes and the onset of flus.

Speaking of busy, this weekend was quite eventful too. A few of us went out Saturday morning looking for cheap furniture at garage sales out in Bedford. The first sale was a joke. Some older people decided that they would open their garage door and see if they could pass of their junk as a yard sale. We didn't stay were long there. The second lady had some decent stuff but it was overpriced. The third (and last) moving sale was the strangest sale I have been to yet. The ad said "NO EARLY BIRDS" so we decided to drive by to see if we could tell what type of stuff they would be selling. There was no junk to be seen on the lawn but there was a long line of old people standing outside the door. We figured we might as weel get in line too and see what was going on. At 10am sharp, the door opened and the chaos began. It was like ants filing into an ant hill- old people moving around in what appeared to be completely random patterns inside the house, looking here and there, arms full of knick knacks. We weren't too far down in the line but by the time we made it into the house (a corpulent woman decided it was a good idea to stand in the staircase, effectively creating a traffic jam inside the tiny house) half of the stuff was being held in the protective clutches of seasoned yardsalers who decided that they needed more stuff. C'mon people, we're students, we need cheap glasses and plates. I bet you 90% of everything that was bought will find its way into another yardsale pile by this time next year. We did manage to snatch a nice new wooden cutting board (50 cents, still in plastic packaging) and a lovely little desk(5$) that just needs some sanding and a new coat for varnish.

I also decided to try my hand at cooking a turkey for Easter Sunday and feed a couple of people in the process. We decided against ham...I'm not a huge fan as ham (makes me feel like a cannibal) and one of the girls is Muslim so I had a perfect excuse to make turkey. I managed to stuff the turkey without too much hassle and quite pleased with myself, I popped it into the oven. Two and a half hours later I came back from the lab to find out one of the roommates had flipped the turkey. Not moved the pan but flipped my turkey over so that it was UPSIDE-DOWN in the roasting pan! It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen! It took me a good ten minutes to manage to get it right side up again and to stuff the stuffing back in. Satisfied, I popped it back into the oven. I thought the surprises were over but when we were carving the turkey we discovered that they giblets were still inside. I checked! I remember taking the neck out (gross...and the roomies pointed out that it was somewhat phallic-lovely imagery right there) and I felt around for the giblets but I couldn't see them, so I assumed that they were missing. Apparently not. Minus those mishaps, the turkey turned out quite well, everyone was happy, and I now have a fridge full of turkey dinner leftovers. If I didn't know any better, I would think it was just after Thanksgiving or Christmas. I forsee a lot of turkey sandwiches for lunch this week.

Moral of this weekend's story: When faced with a bargain, beware of old people, they move much faster than you think possible. And beware of hidden giblets and upside down turkeys. Gobble gobble?

Disclaimer:
First things first. I started another blog somewhere and forgot all about it until a few days ago...and then realized I didn't even know where to find it in this virtual insanity of internet space, let alone remember my sign in name or password. The obvious solution? To start another blog somewhere else and hopefully this time not forget about it.

I can't guarantee this will be entertaining or clever or witty by any means. I spend most of my days in the lab puttering away. Most of the things that are funny on a daily basis make no sense to people not in biology or microbiology. Example? I had my committee meeting today (read: big waste of everyone's time) and we all had a good laugh about my little slip up mentioning the "periplasm of gram positive bateria". Funny? Thought not. We certainly thought it was amusing because you see, they don't have a periplasm. Or maybe they do. There's some controversy about the whole thing really. In case people are wondering, the periplasm is this sort of empty space between the membrane and cell wall where things sort of accumulate until they're exported out of the bacteria. So this is what this little blog space is going to be...a sort of empty space where random things accumulate and maybe something intelligent will come out of the whole thing.

Onto the main event, today's first post!

I am addicted to sushi/maki. My roommate and I have come to the conclusion that there must be some sort of drug or chemical in sushi that gets you addicted. I get random sushi cravings that I can't control. I am like a well-training dog and predictably being salivating the minute someone mentions sushi. If I get a whif of soya sauce with wasabi, my stomach growls. Pavlov would be proud. At least I can take comfort in the fact that I am not alone and that other people have my "problem". We are all a bit sushi-crazy in the lab so odds are, if I am going through sushi withdrawal, someone else is too. The downside is that it's easy to get sucked into a quick excursion down the street to grab some delicious delicious takeout goodness. Sushi anyone?