This week was critical in the grand scheme of things; it was my first week truly running things on my own. When I say 'on my own,' I mean that I am the one taking action, supported by Dr. Keller's research assistants, Garett and Melissa, around me. Going into the week, I was very nervous. The impostor syndrome was real. I had a million questions and “what-ifs” floating through my head. Had I learned enough, could I trust my skills, would I be able to get through an experiment without creating a mess or ruining everything? As I went through the 4-day holiday week, I realized that two things could exist side by side. I could complete experiments and get things done while messing things up and maybe making some oopsies. Mistakes are part of the process and are in no way going to prevent me from completing things. They might make it take a little longer, but no problem doesn’t have a solution. These mistakes are the highlight of the week. They made me laugh and are arguably what I learned most from. With all of this being said, here are the top oopsies of the week and what I learned from them.
My trusty bottle of 70% ethanol. Part of working with cells is ensuring that things stay sterile and don’t get contaminated. This means that I do all of my cell work in a sterile environment (hood). This hood only includes sterile items that are either specially cleaned or sprayed with 70% ethanol before being put in. To work in this hood, everything needs to be sprayed before entering, including my hands. If my hands touch ANYTHING outside of the hood, they have to be re-sterilized before going back in. One of my common mistakes is that I will spray my hands, get ready, then touch the chair to readjust myself in it. This means that I have to re-spray my hands before starting on my work. While this isn’t detrimental to my experiment, it is slightly annoying for me. My solution is to say out loud to re-adjust before spraying or to hold my hands out similar to a zombie until I start work to ensure no more touching of things.
Sterile hood where all cell work must be done to ensure the cells and work don’t get contaminated.The term lock-in in is used when someone can’t get their work done and is choosing to instead dilly-dally. I love to dilly-dally. In past posts, I’ve talked about the importance of using the free time to prepare and get things done so that the future will run smoothly. While yes, I do do this sometimes, I also like to sit on my phone and play a thrilling game called Phase-10. When things get into a lull, I tend to find myself reaching for my phone to play Phase-10 instead of double-checking that things are for the rest of the day. I am now tricking myself into getting work done like a little kid with the reward of a coffee break and phone time.
While this isn’t technically my mistake or oopsie, the Robot did cause some problems. When creating new plates, the Robot takes the lid off a stock plate and puts it to the side so that it can access its compounds. The Robot sometimes grabs the lid and then takes the plate with it, which causes me to act like a ninja to try and steal my plate back before it can spill all over. The Robot almost won this time, but I thankfully got it back in time. This lesson is simply to pay attention and anticipate the worst to happen. If I had assumed the Robot would steal the plate, then it wouldn’t have accidentally been partially stolen.
Shout out to all of the little micro pipette tips that I have launched out of the boxes and have spilled. My count is probably nearing the 30’s for the number that I have spilled. Once again not a detrimental thing to my experiments but dang is it annoying.
The little buggers that refuse to stay in their box.