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What a plant-iful day.
I'll stop with the bad puns now. (But hey, I consider it a good sign that it even occurs to me to make them. A couple weeks ago, that wouldn't have happened.)
I spent several hours extracting DNA from Delphinium nuttallii (DENU) today. And when I finished, I went about in that kind of daze that only lab can induce. That feeling of "what, you mean there's life outside the lab?" And afterward was more time spent thinking about the project for which the DNA was extracted. Though I've started, I still don't have an experimental design. Whee, lab by the seat of one's pants! I was supposed to come up with an experimental design tonight. What I've come up with: use few samples from individual sites and lots of individual sites, far flung. Or as far flung as they've been collected. Meaning sites in Oregon but not the river gorge. Yeah. I'm sure it would be quite nice if I had a clue as to what the hell I'm doing, other than a vague idea that it has something with detecting hybridization.
In other news, I hitched a ride back to campus from Meg's. As I was walking along the road, another friend of mine drove by, turned around, stopped, and offered a ride. So I accepted. The weather has returned to rain.
Friday I'm going to go see a house I might live in sometime soon, like this summer and perhaps after that. Tomorrow I go and wait around for them to tell me that they ran out of rooms before my number came up. Well, there is that off chance that there might actually still be rooms left, so I have to find out. Then comes reassessment of the housing situation and consultation with the people who will have the most to say about it, my parents. Here's hoping things start actually working out.
But speaking of working out, registration went relatively smoothly. I scheduled classes I need/knew I wanted to take, found a class with which to fulfill my last group requirement with something like ease (I had wanted to take one on Medicine and Society, but it conflicted with another class that I really want to take before the second semester of senior year, which would be my next opportunity, so instead I'm taking one on the Scientific Revolution, which one of my friends is also taking), and had some units to play with. Scheduling a math class proved to be a nasty bitch from hell, because there were problems with every possible class I could take. But one had problems significantly less severe in that it didn't conflict with other classes that I must take but merely precludes the possibility of eating lunch a couple days a week, which won't be a new problem, as this semester has had similar situations that are actually worse, because it was a bio lab that stood in the way of lunch, and those are four hours long. So, other than Cell Bio in the spring and Genetics in the fall, o-chem all year, and history and math in fall and spring, respectively, and a bio seminar in fall (which meets one day a week), I'm taking two other classes on a complete whim. In the fall, Early Chinese Philosophical Texts, and Intro to Chinese Religions in spring. Where did this sudden interest in China come from? No fucking clue. Perhaps it springs from the same source as the reason I took Eastern Thought in high school. Or...maybe from whatever caused me to enjoy that class so much. Or something. Because the fact that Mr. Hause was teaching it had a lot to do with it. Anyhow, I think the fact that I am now a bio major attests to a possible predilection for making whimsical academic choices that turn out to have major implications/consequences. I'm quite glad that as a bio major (and not even in alt. bio) I still have time to do other things I'm interested in. This is my third semester running of taking something in the philosophy department, and then there's the China theme of next year, and I'm hoping the next year there will be Sanskrit in my schedule. (It would totally conflict with o-chem next year, unfortunately.)
I think my indecisiveness springs only from not wanting to make a choice, because when I do make a choice, it happens almost frighteningly quickly.
I was going to study a little more tonight, but as it is already two in the morning, further studying is not in the cards. But sleep is.
I'll stop with the bad puns now. (But hey, I consider it a good sign that it even occurs to me to make them. A couple weeks ago, that wouldn't have happened.)
I spent several hours extracting DNA from Delphinium nuttallii (DENU) today. And when I finished, I went about in that kind of daze that only lab can induce. That feeling of "what, you mean there's life outside the lab?" And afterward was more time spent thinking about the project for which the DNA was extracted. Though I've started, I still don't have an experimental design. Whee, lab by the seat of one's pants! I was supposed to come up with an experimental design tonight. What I've come up with: use few samples from individual sites and lots of individual sites, far flung. Or as far flung as they've been collected. Meaning sites in Oregon but not the river gorge. Yeah. I'm sure it would be quite nice if I had a clue as to what the hell I'm doing, other than a vague idea that it has something with detecting hybridization.
In other news, I hitched a ride back to campus from Meg's. As I was walking along the road, another friend of mine drove by, turned around, stopped, and offered a ride. So I accepted. The weather has returned to rain.
Friday I'm going to go see a house I might live in sometime soon, like this summer and perhaps after that. Tomorrow I go and wait around for them to tell me that they ran out of rooms before my number came up. Well, there is that off chance that there might actually still be rooms left, so I have to find out. Then comes reassessment of the housing situation and consultation with the people who will have the most to say about it, my parents. Here's hoping things start actually working out.
But speaking of working out, registration went relatively smoothly. I scheduled classes I need/knew I wanted to take, found a class with which to fulfill my last group requirement with something like ease (I had wanted to take one on Medicine and Society, but it conflicted with another class that I really want to take before the second semester of senior year, which would be my next opportunity, so instead I'm taking one on the Scientific Revolution, which one of my friends is also taking), and had some units to play with. Scheduling a math class proved to be a nasty bitch from hell, because there were problems with every possible class I could take. But one had problems significantly less severe in that it didn't conflict with other classes that I must take but merely precludes the possibility of eating lunch a couple days a week, which won't be a new problem, as this semester has had similar situations that are actually worse, because it was a bio lab that stood in the way of lunch, and those are four hours long. So, other than Cell Bio in the spring and Genetics in the fall, o-chem all year, and history and math in fall and spring, respectively, and a bio seminar in fall (which meets one day a week), I'm taking two other classes on a complete whim. In the fall, Early Chinese Philosophical Texts, and Intro to Chinese Religions in spring. Where did this sudden interest in China come from? No fucking clue. Perhaps it springs from the same source as the reason I took Eastern Thought in high school. Or...maybe from whatever caused me to enjoy that class so much. Or something. Because the fact that Mr. Hause was teaching it had a lot to do with it. Anyhow, I think the fact that I am now a bio major attests to a possible predilection for making whimsical academic choices that turn out to have major implications/consequences. I'm quite glad that as a bio major (and not even in alt. bio) I still have time to do other things I'm interested in. This is my third semester running of taking something in the philosophy department, and then there's the China theme of next year, and I'm hoping the next year there will be Sanskrit in my schedule. (It would totally conflict with o-chem next year, unfortunately.)
I think my indecisiveness springs only from not wanting to make a choice, because when I do make a choice, it happens almost frighteningly quickly.
I was going to study a little more tonight, but as it is already two in the morning, further studying is not in the cards. But sleep is.
