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Published: October 28th 2009
As soon as my head hit the pillow Sunday night after returning from my marathon weekend in Hong Kong, it was time to start my second week in the Pan lab. My primers had come in so I knew that this meant “time to work” since Dr. Pan had mentioned on more than one occasion “how easy it will be to sequence 100 isolates!!” Little did I know that I was about to walk into a giant hazing event that would continue to the present…hazing Pan lab style. Monday started like all the other days with me waking up, talking to Josh, getting a “sports drink” from the little stand by my room then walking to the lab while listening to an audiobook and eating a granola bar left to me by Jon (God bless him for that!). I arrive and set up my computer at my lovely desk and wait for Dr. Pan to tell me the agenda. He came to me and we talked about what the first few steps would be (mind you these steps changed every time I talked to him) but I was going with what he was saying in the moment…I found Hua (my keeper) and we got started. Their protocol is very similar to the one that I use in my lab with a few less steps and a few less precautions lets say. This won’t mean must but to a few of you but they wear gloves…they don’t even spray with ethanol before starting experiments! This took a little adjusting…I felt like I was contaminating EVERYTHING…every time I opened a tube….like I was a little girl sneaking a cookie from the kitchen and I was going to get caught at any moment. The best difference is the way they run their gels, and again this will mean nothing but to a few of you, so let me just say…it is awesome and SUOER FAST AND EASY! I would NEVER get away with doing it this way in my lab, but for this week I am going to enjoy the ease and speed of their electrophoresis method. I ran 2 PCRs that morning and by the afternoon Dr. Pan had come to check on our progress. The primers worked, but Dr. Pan tells me at 4:30 that he wants me to try to amplify in one piece instead of two, cutting the work and the money to sequence in half. I was all for this except for the fact that I had tried this in my lab and it did not work. So, at 5:00 I set up the 3 hr PCR and wait…..almost 4 hours later I get the results…same as in the states…it did not really work so at 9:00pm (after a 13hr day) I went back to my room to end this day!
Tuesday I arrive to find out that after I left Hua and Dr. Pan had talked and decided to try a different protocol and it had WORKED!!! Not just a little worked…a lot worked! This was very exciting for me; it is always exciting when something that did not work before now works, but this was a biggie. So, I get started right away setting up a PCR with 10 isolates (just in case the reason it never worked before was me I did not want to waste any reagents) and a few hours later…it worked! So, I set up another PCR. I am thinking maybe 100 is not so crazy after all….and then the bomb was dropped. Dr. Pan wants me to CLONE and sequence from the clone. I have never cloned before, but I knew that it took a lot more work and a hell of a lot more time than sequencing straight from PCR material. So, while my second PCR is running Hua and I start the cloning process (which turns out to be arduous and tedious to say the least) but also VERY time consuming. Gel purification, ligation, transformation, blah blah blah and between all of these steps and within some of these steps are 6 and 8 and overnight waiting times. Now, typically one would sit down and plan this out…taking advantage of the time within the normal working day and scheduling things to coincide with times that do not directly have a conflict with other things like SLEEPING! But, not in the Pan lab. Cloning you say…okay….let start cloning. Without going into the gory details, all you need to know is that I started my pleasant Tuesday in the lab at 8am and I ended it by leaving at MIDNIGHT! I had to walk back to my room at the witching hour (which creeped me out to no end) and did not go to sleep until almost 1. The good news is 2 fold…I got to learn the first part of the cloning process AND I got to talk to Josh on his lunch break. I knew that it would be a hard work week, but I never thought that on day 2 I would putting in a 16 hr day in the lab…and that was only day 2. Josh say says to me “you can do anything for 3 more days…” and my response to him “is it really considered 3 days if you are working 16 hours per day? I think it is considered more like a month!” But he is right…Wednesday Thursday Friday then a 36hr trip home….that is how far away I am to my bed and my husband and OLIVE GARDEN! If I can digress for a moment…I have started to let myself think about that I want to eat first when I get home…of course Taco Bueno comes to mind first, but given that it is 3 hours away…it is going to have to wait a few weeks. Then, after I get that heavenly thought of party burritos out of my mind, the next thing that comes is….I want homemade mac and cheese BUT I don’t want to cook it so that is out….then…I want Maggiano’s, but I don’t want to drive to get it so it is out….then I am flooded with all sorts of food that are all tied…I want manicotti from Olive Garden, I want Cajun Chicken Pasta from Chili’s, I want a STEAK from Logan’s….hell…I want a tuna sandwich from Subway, a hot dog from Sonic, a spud Ole from McAllister’s…I want to sit on my couch watch American TV and eat cheese! Olive Garden salad and bread sticks keeps rising to the top…but who knows what will be first as far as food but I can promise you one thing…Dr. Pepper is going to be the first to pass these lips and that will happen in Chicago GUARANTEED!!!
So, I started this blog this morning (Wednesday) and here it is Wednesday at 6pm and guess what…??? Hua wants to extract DNA from our plasmids tonight which cannot happen until 8 or 9 depending on how she feels and then we have to pick colonies so that we can do it all over again tomorrow…now, why we cannot pick colonies tonight and do the extraction all together tomorrow to allow lilt Miss Mariah a little down time tonight is beyond me but I am not about to be the one that wants to actually relax and sleep…no sir..that will not be me. So, I need to find something to do for the next 2 hours…oh the age old question…do I stay or do I go now?
Yesterday Dr. Pan and Mrs. Wong took me to the University’s agricultural test plots about 30 minutes outside of town so that I could see a rice field (I had mentioned it on our first night together and he remembered which I thought was very nice.) I did not get to wear the traditional rice hat or even set into the field but I did get my picture with a scare crow and with some rice too. It was a nice little break from the lab…although the drive made me a little nauseous…all that stopping and going and slamming on the breaks and honking…
So, today I got Papa John’s for lunch!!! I know…I did not know that Papa John’s was in China either, but sure enough…it is…and it tasted pretty good. Mrs. Wong and I started off strong in the question answer department of the lunch outing, but soon (and I mean VERY soon) we started to run out of things to say to each other. Eventually she asked me if John (my husband) and I were thinking about having children and I said yes, then she asked how old we were and I told her...29 and 32...and her reply was this "I had my first child at 29 and it is VERY old to start having children....I dont have the energy." Only in China can you find someone who can say something so depressing and hurtful and have no idea that they are doing it. She is the sweetest thing I have ever seen and she said it with a giant smile on her face. All I could do is smile back :D I think that we are going to go back there on Friday night so that Dr. Pan’s oldest son can meet me. I only met the youngest son last Friday night at dinner. Papa John’s plus my last night in China…there will be much to celebrate. I loved my first week in China, am proud to say I survived my second week, and have embraced my third week….but it is time to go home!
Closing remarks….I realized today just how many wonderful people I have in my life. I realized it when I was out shopping for all of my loved ones…trying to track down the perfect gift for each of them…I have quite a few! I did most of my shopping at the Confucius Temple in Nanjing, but still had some people that I needed to buy for and who would have thought that it would be so hard to find good quality Chinese gifts in Guangzhou. I thought that there would be so many markets that it would be hard to choose just one, but apparently Guangzhou is full of a bunch of high priced American malls full of American clothes and toys and gifts all priced well above what I would pay for it in the States. I managed to find a few things but I am warning all of the men in my life…I got nothing for you! I could not find anything manly enough for the men in my life, so a postcard from the airport will have to suffice…and my safe return home of course…but seriously…I could not find anything. I looked for hours and found squat. I found amazing stuff for all the women in my life, but NADA for the men. Just don’t want you to be disappointed.
And just to further the disappointment, I am having trouble uploading pictures today. I have been trying for a few hours without success so I am going to go ahead and published the blog cuz I did not have that many pics anyway and none of them were very good. I will post them with the next blog! Thanks again for your support and as always..I LOVE reading your comments so keep them coming!!!!
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Laura
non-member comment
Heck if 29 is too old, then check me out lol. What you lose in energy, you gain in patience.....or so I'm told. Congrats on the cloning. That's how my cloning went in my first couple of years, especially when we were working on my paper. Once you do it for a while, you begin to love it. I find cloning soothing these days lol. And no worries about the ethanol :) We only ethanol our gloves in a tissue culture hood. DNA is actually kind of hard to contaminate. I'm excited for you. Maybe you can bring new protocols back with you. Have a great time!