Run and Tumble

Diary of a bug farmer

Archive for the 'Learning' Category

Test results are in

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Prof graded them all in one night.
102 out of 100. I’m pretty jazzed. The class average was such that I feel like this was an actual accomplishment and not just an easy test.
The 2 points were extra credit.  ”Name any prokaryote by giving its genus and specific epithet.”
I wrote Vibrio cholerae, naturally.

Stain is called stain for a reason

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

We did a double header today, both gram staining and acid-fast staining. Most people had about a 20% success rate, myself included.
I’m special, though.  I managed to drop slide #1 into the staining tray. During staining, our slides sit on what are essentially baker’s cooling racks. We’re supposed to pick them up with high-tech slide [...]

Another sign

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

What’s it mean that since I didn’t have to do any post-lecture note reduction, I decided to look through the stacks and journals, and considered that a treat?

First Test

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Without jinxing it, I think I did well.   Any points off are going to be due to brainfarts like misunderstanding the intent of the question or thinking ‘the answer is definitely not A‘ and therefore, circling A.
I ought to work on my handwriting, sorry prof.

Practice Test

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

I just finished the practice test, aced it.   Feeling rather confident.   Knowing how to study and wanting to learn rather than pass makes all the difference.  Still, wish me luck.

Conquered the scopes with compost

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

Tonight we had an open lab; we could come in, practice anything we wanted, and ask questions about the upcoming test.  I decided to get more work on the microscopes.
I crushed them, saw them driven before me, and heard the lamentation of their, uh, women.
I’m still not a master, but I had a much easier [...]

What’s in my compost, anyway?

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

Thinking about taking in some samples from the compost pile to keep things interesting while I practice with the scope during open lab on Tuesday.

Post lab glow

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

It’s almost funny how bouncy and grinny I get after lab.  In my vast experience of two weeks, I think I really like bench work.  There’s something appealing about setting up your equipment and materials in a sort of geeky mise en place and methodically going through the work.

I didn’t cook ‘em and revenge on the scope

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Fixed some smears from the bugs we started growing during the last lab. All the cultures showed growth, so I guess I did wait long enough for the loop to cool off. Phew.
I finally got to use a stain(methyl blue).  I know it’s a little thing, but imagine spending more than a year reading about [...]

Last lecture before the first test

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

The lecture topic was on metabolism.  If you know that means the TCA cycle ad nauseum, then you pretty much know what this lecture was about.  Once we got to fermentations, things got better.  It’s always fun to think about just how damned versatile bacteria can be when it comes to deciding what to eat.  [...]