Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Scientist Life's shorter than normal

This is one thing i feel strongly against, after 5 days of working on the same 9 samples. Finally today i found the impedance, or the root cause of problem of not being able to get any positive result from PCR reaction. In the end, it's all down to the PCR primer pair problem, that denied my 4 whole days worthwhile effort trying to get something right -- it is really not my techniqical problem. For this PCR laboratory technique, i can say that i am as pro as anyone else now.
My supervisor told me the 'moral of this story' is, 'believe in yourself and be confident in your own judgement.. and never ever give up trying'. He said he always know the pair of primer he used to work on very often , is working. Previously, i used other people's primer pair (recommended by his research teammate), tried for 4 full days just to carry out that experiment. After all he told me this... u can almost hear the breaking sound of my blood vein... oh my gosh, why don't he let me use his own pair of primer then? is it so fun to test for others for 4 full days? i don't understand in this case... life is wasted.Evidently. : (

In case you wonder how can one experiment takes up one full day -- very simple... to prepare the cDNA for PCR amplification takes half an hour... next, for the PCR machine to do the job for me, takes me 3 hours plus plus... then i have to prepare agarose gel (waited for half an hour for it to form gel) then loading PCR product samples into the well takes me another 20 mins (as i tell you, i can work very fast liao), but running the gel takes me another hour waiting (well, whenever i have free time, i can spend sometime reading online news, even MSN messenger chatting or writing emails, or to poke people for fun in Friendster). After all these, then only i can collect my result, determines the rest of my day, either a success or a disappointment ( no 'failure' in my supervisor's dictionary).

Alright, today i deserve it. ( i don't have mood for another failure...nono...disappointment). Then since i am already applying to take a leave as schedule to travelling in Stockholm, Sweden for 4 days, my supervisor gave me a long list of PCR samples to do (of coz using his pair fo primer now...don't make me crazy), and another sample list of white blood cells extraction to do once i come back from holiday. It should takes me more than 1 week to finish the task. yes, i'm a cheap labour and yet so useful for my supervisor ...haha...

oh yea, he praised me on many occasions, make me feel overrated sometimes. hhmm.. there was one day he asked me whether i'll continue my studies until phD. I said i won't (at least for this moment). He asked back, 'why not?' he thinks i have the potential, and 'highly motivated' by working, should seriously thinking about the decision again. he went further saying that i was now doing even better than some of the Master students that he met. (overrated...i'm overrated~). He said that he only spent one week of demonstration and guidance and i already could work on my own, learnt very quickly. (okay , to be fair, 50% of things i have already done in my first 2 years of laboratory, although those session i was not that serious and careful, but it is really not so alien to me...that's why...)

Oh no, don't get me wrong, they are really a great bunch of nice people. I really enjoy getting along with them. i don't feel any offensive to my supervisor, he's a great guy also! Just want to let you guys know that... i'm also tough, and i guess you never see such a 'highly motivated' yet committed volunteer who is almost the first few who come into the office (usually 9.30am or earlier) , and almost the last few to leave (on somedays... not always), somemore willing to work overtime (sometimes worked until 7pm)... scare ler? haha... don't worry i'm not a workaholic,and not so 'highly motivated' as described, just that i'm always the man of responsibility. I will always try my best to complete the task in my hand in time.

That's about it... the first 3 weeks of my working experience. Although this is my first working experience, clearly proven that i can work... i'm not 'qian jin shao ye' as someone described me.
Enough said. haha...

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