science!

Amazing how the ability to generate data is energizing. Today I finally received my long-awaited reagent; a vital dye (which means it won't kill the cells while I am looking at them) that stains the nucleus. I'm using it to look at fertilization in my embryos. I've been waiting for it since August, and by a long series of tedious and semi-tragic events, it took until now - November - for me to actually get the damn stuff.*

So. This evening, despite being tired and drained from battling a cold for the last two days, I stayed late in lab running an experiment to see that this will work. It needs some optimization, but it looks good to me, assuming I can get the quantity of embryos I need. The realization of how much energy the ability to work had given me hit when I got home around 10pm (I should have stayed later, if not for that pesky cold, my unwillingness to walk home alone after dark, and the low chance of catching a cab at night) and had to meet with a neighbour. And at that point I realized how cool this little experiment really is and started rattling on about it. It even prompted this post. And as an added bonus, this could actually tell me something really interesting about my project, and with a little side work, even become a nice little paper.

See - excitement!
Just the push that I will need to finish up here in a little over three weeks... cripes that's coming up fast.


*On a related note, I am still waiting for many of the other things that were on that list. Sigh.