UIUC Part ... Next

So much has happened since my last post. I will outline it now as I think of stuff and then talk about it later. Let's see:
This past weekend-
read and got more papers for home research
received protocols from Saumen
went to IHOP on Sunday
Walked a lot
Went to the Spurlock Museum on campus on Saturday

Monday, Tuesday-
Ran around Monday morning doing stuff to get the ID stuff
Went out to Joe's with Dr. Lu, Igor, and Saumen- got lots of food out of it
Then started on research did some PCR prep and transformations
Got my ID finally but needed a sign-in for the internet
Got no results Tuesday from the transformations
Sat around and eventually got my sign-in for the internet
I also picked up a sweatshirt, it's orange =]
Then took my final safety exam
Then ate my leftovers from Joe's
Then performed different transformations and created some solutions for tomorrow which took me until 7:30

Ok that is all that I did, I think. I could talk about it all but I think it will wait until another day. I'm tired. Good night.

Edit

Well I guess I will add more while I am sitting here waiting to put stuff on the PCR. So the past few days has been good. As you can see in the outline above, I did a decent amount of stuff. The museum was nice and had lots of stuff from ancient Egypt, elsewhere in Africa, Japan, Oceania, and the evolution of Europe from knights and castles to the computer. It was relatively interesting and took up about 1.5 hours of the weekend. So it was good especially for free. I did a lot of walking around too. It was a nice weekend. I saw people doing stuff. I finally went into the Union building after it was mostly closed so it wasn't too helpful but it was nice to finally go in. I saw people playing frisbee and wanted to join but didn't manage to work up the nerve to ask to play. Shut up I'm not a socially adept person. Anyway after that I watched anime and sat around in my room. Sunday I went to IHOP for breakfast. It was pretty good and for less than 10 bucks I was more than happy with it. The rest of Sunday, I think I took some pictures around campus. I also went to see where my next dorm will be. It's really far from my lab unfortunately. It's at the southern edge of campus and probably a 10 to 15 minute walk whereas now I take less than 5 to get to lab. I think that was about it for Sunday. I probably watched anime and read papers too. I honestly don't remember.

Monday started the lab work for me. Saumen walked me through procedures and protocols to follow for the work we are doing. It was a strange thing to be introduced to a new lab and environment and work with completely new procedures and even types of samples. But it was good. Saumen, Dr. Lu, Igor, and I went out to lunch as well. We went to Joe's which is some type of brewery/bar thing. It was pretty good. I ended up getting 2 meals out of it because we got a huge appetizer tray that was enough for probably 5 or 6 people. So that was awesome because Dr. Lu paid for the meal and we were all sure to thank him a lot for that. I think I may try to eat there again before I leave. There were a lot of burgers that I wanted to try but I could only get one obviously. Anyway, we did more work after lunch and I finally got my safety exam stuff finished. Oh and Monday morning I also got my ID I think. AAHHHHHHH!!!! These days are all running together I don't remember when I did anything. I just know I have my ID, I finished my safety stuff, and I am now an official temporary member of the lab. I am working with stuff like PCR, transformations, site directed mutagenesis, and other stuff like that. Not sure what all of it means but I am doing it. And I got to freeze stuff with liquid nitrogen so that was fun. Haha. Hmmmmm... And I got an Illinois sweatshirt. It's bright orange and I really like it. And work tends to last until 7 or later each night. Tonight is probably going to be no different seeing as we have to PCR until 6. But hopefully that is the last thing to do. I don't know. We shall see. Well I think that is about all for this post. I will make a new one at some point. Maybe after I start using the stopped flow UV-Vis spectrometer. We shall see.