Ayako told me that no,

Ayako told me that no, I don’t have to attend to the lectures. Thank heavens. This morning’s 3h lecture was spent dozing off and makind plans for experiments – with intermitting thoughts about what I should or should not do about my life, only once waking up for a short while (by the cue of the lecturers Utterly Inaccurate and Misleading explanation of GABAergic inhibition’s role during early development – had to comment on that….)
The other SUmmer Program Participants spent last evening in a rather low-class bar in Wako, but had fun – I promise myself that I will try to join people on Friday or Saturday evening. On the other hand, on Friday evening I could have a slot at the setup after 6PM … and Sat night there’d be the Asakadai class – but perhaps I can skip that, just for once even though it is the cheapest training option (only around 3000 yen with traintickets included).
I inventoried my remaining budget and found I have 55000 yen left from the 130000 I had when arriving. Should start saving up – and stick to the cheaper food at the campus canteen instead of fancy latte+milano sandwiches … And find an ATM that would be happy to provide some cash for my VISA….

I am starting to suspect

I am starting to suspect the ‘ending of Rain season’ did not mean ‘less rain’ but just some traditional view of seasons, with the dressing code changing slightly towards different kimonos or something. It again seems the whole Pacific Ocean is falling down on us.
The Kentucky Fried Chickens have a baseball problem. For some reason (that so far rather obscure to me, but has something to do with year 1985 when the Tigers last won the league or something), if the team called Hanshin Tigers wins a game or more seriously, the ‘Colonel Sanders’ statues in front of the KFC’s are likely to be hauled away and throwin into rivers by fans. The KFC headquarters has allowed the local franchises to bring the statues indoors for night.
…..
An elderly man was inprisoned yesterday, for training his dog by letting it off the leash for attacking the passersby. “I thought I could settle grievances over injuries (caused by the dog) by paying money (to the victims),” Matsubara was quoted by prosecutors as telling investigators.
Well, enough of newsflashing. Got to go, attending to the Official Programme. A 3-hour lecture awaits. Maybe I’ll get a chance to read a few articles ….
-2.30PM-
The first lecturer was given 3 h of time. He overdid it by one hour – most of the audience was not aware of the limited opening hours of the canteen and just barely made to the raamen. I decided my stomach is more important than the lecturers accoun on how he, while workin on his Ph.D in the 60’s, was discussing with someone about something and that other guy called just the other month and said, “Listen – you were right” – and instead left with the other of the Finnish girl and got to show off with my impressive skills at the Ito Yokado grocery. But, since I got the excuse of escaping the session, I am determined to stay for the next few hours here at the office doing anything more useful – like, talking to the Professor; he’s leaving for several weeks and I should discuss about what I am supposed to accomplish during that time …
-evening-
Something is seriously wrong with this place.
Again, I was experiencing some bouts of depression and frustration, but this time, just an hour of concentration on doing actual work – developing the biocytin-staining of 8 neurons in 7 slices – somehow wiped away it all.
The low moods attacked me during the ‘Official welcome party’ – not so much because of the numbing talks and manifold warnings of not partying loud at the apartements, but rather because of the fact that I was not going to. It occurred to me that a significant part of the 44 attendees (for the lecture course; of them, 17 are internship students like me) is going to be enjoying their time here by partying in Roppongi and closer – and I did not even find the spirit to mingle with the people at the Welcome party longer than it took to handle my hunger but rather went back to the lab even though I was clearly given ‘permission’ to do the stuff tomorrow. The other people have been actively arranging all kinds of events, parties, barbeques, brunches – as well as thinking about doing ‘fun’ things like designing a t-shirt fot the course. Meanwhile, I sneer and turn on my lasers.
This is not a 30’s crisis – I don’t mind my physical age, but … it just seems that even though I used to be the one to go rallying in bars with a foreign group like these (at EYPs in Strasbourg, Prague…) and stay up on dormitory roofs just to see a sunrise in a foreign city – that’s like, 10 years ago. And when was the last time I enjoyed partying till morning – or even much later than midnight? All I ever seem to be dreaming of is the next opportunity to sleep.
Discussed with Thomas about the need of prolonging my stay according to the sexual success of some fluorescent male mice – and, not suprisingly, he was not insisting or otherwise pressing – only letting me know that if I wished to use the option of staying slightly longer he would fund my stay, but equally well I could return later after the dissertation for a few months – or even, the project could be finished by someone else. Also, it was nice to hear that I am not expected to make any committing decisions about postdoccing or not at RIKEN BSI for the rest of the year.
So, instead of being frustrated, depressed and everything on those lines, I am going to sleep with not much worries about anything – even had the will and way to dye the rootline of my hair (it’s fortunate that I took the colour with me from Finland – I haven’t seen red hair dye ANYWHERE in ordinary stores…)

Ohayoo mina:) I have started

Ohayoo mina:)
I have started to dream in the nights. This, in addition to the fact that I am able to sleep 8 hours without a problem, most likely means that my head starts to clear up in this wonderland and the subconscious has time to start working out.. Last night, for instance, we were playing (LARPing…) Juhana’s Kulak in a small wooden cabin in the middle of forest in the wintertime… only that, after military choppers starting arriving, it became clear that it was not a game… Also, I met my father at Oomiya train station and started a very scientific discussion – unfortunately, the alarmclock intervened just when it got interesting….
Yesterday I finished my precious litter of 11 heterozygous mutant mice – 3 cells from 2 animals. Both of them seemed to be non-KO mice, though – but they might be used as controls. So, from today, I got no mutant mice – but while waiting for the others to grow into the right age, I got to master a slightly different method of recording. I am hoping I’ll be able to do that before half of the lab goes away on holidays… it seems it’ll be just me and Walther here for some time… But, anyhow, probably I’ll be able to do the swimming, at least.
Ja, shigoto ga.
ps. Did you know that many restaurants in Tokyo allow dogs to follow their owners into the eating area if the dog is wearing clothes?
-11AM-
Damn. Realised I’ve been analysing using wrong parameters. Stoopid Yoe – I’ve been wonderng why the curves don’t behave nicely… should have quantified the responses according to injected current and not membrane voltage. I won half a point from myself by realising that myself, though.
But, 2 days of analysing to be done again.
There are 2 girls from Finland going to be attending the 10 days of lectures starting tomorrow. Small world?
-Late evening-
I am again amzed by the healing power of a short walk outside – and you are spared from some rather bitter and frustrated accounting about how everything’s wrong. Instead, I am sitting happily back home, drinking something that looks like a cider but tastes like something else (and is called chuurii ?), watching a David Attenborough documentary about polar bears (dubbed in japanese) and not so worried about anything anymore.
The frustration was stemming from the lack of romantic feelings between some mice – the pairs that were supposed to produce the fancy & sexy mutant mouse litter have been having a vacation together for the whole July without any signs of attraction between the males and females. In addition to the sadness of such cold feelings, it is going to be difficult to perform any of the experiences needed for this project for several weeks – and even other types of experiments are badly hindered by a) the Official Summer Programme starting tomorrow and 2) the very restricted availability of the setup – it has for the last days been freed for my use after 7PM… To somewhat of a shock for me, I was asked if I could prolong my stay for some weeks. This, in spite the fact that I must go back home to work on the Bloody Thesis Thing… … or then they’ want me to come back and finish the stuff later. Don’t know, having unfinshed business on the other side of the planet isn’t just so appealing…
On the other hand, I have started to feel like I really could stay here. I mean, I miss Finland and you folks back home already – but it wouldn’t perhaps be so much different even if I stayed somewhere closer, like France… I am swaying in my moods about it. Sometimes I am just SOO tired with everything being so foreign – other times it feels strangely peaceful and safe here. Like constantly walking in a quiet garden, if that makes any sense to anyone. The strangeness of everything will probably fade away quite fast (I am not more dreaming about Pedro’s Blackened Steak at Santa Fe – not after I heard that if one wants Really Good Steak, one can order that’s made of animals that for their whole life eat only sweetest fresh hay, drink sake and get a massage once a day…. so, it should be possible to get good meat here even though good western food so far has been limited to pizzas and antipasto at Italian restaurants…) … can’t say yet. Probably should collect a list of pros and cons…. But still, perhaps I won’t have to decide yet…
*sigh*
Decisions, decisions.
And the 3% Chuurii is getting to my head.

Monday. For some reason I

Monday.
For some reason I managed to sleep for 10 hours last night, feel resurrected, if aching from the training yesterday…
Today I have to ‘do’ the last 2 mice in the mutant litter – then I won’t have any extremely useful subjects for at least 10 days, which matches rather well with the Official Summer Course Programme that starts on Wednesday – I got an email that warns if I don’t attend to the parties the won’t refund my flights. Or, not exactly in these words, but that’s the message… darn… Also, during the lunchbreaks I am supposed to be attending to the poster session, so no more swimming – and today the pool is closed, another ‘darn’ here … I will soon be getting paranoid about getting overweight…
Spent a big part of the morning uploading my photos from the weekends adventures – describtions still missing, though … lots of pictures of Gautam – for his mother:)
And, since yesterday the net connection was even less functional than usually, Sunday’s entry comes here:

Woke up at around 5AM

Woke up at around 5AM because of an earthquake. I was not scary or unpleasant in ay way – felt like someone was gently rocking the bed to make me go back to sleep… (I saw other things swaying as well so it was not just my head spinning. A resident practiser of Bujinkan told me a week ago, that he always keeps an eye on the hanging lights – if they start to swing, he’ll be ducking for cover).
This morning, the sky looks different. Or, for the first time, there is something to look at in the sky – usually the clouds are one indistinguishable and shapeless gray mass (even when the sun sometimes shines in between), but today they clearly have some boundaries and are of different shades of gray and blue. Maybe the rain season would indeed be soon over… Franck tells that thanks for the typhoon season, the clouds are extremely beautiful during the winter here. For the moment, looking at the clouds makes me see neurons and automatically judging whether or not they’re patchable… but that’s uderstandable, I guess.
Anyhow, nice weather woudn’t hurt today, since the plan is to go see several shrines and other stuff with Gautam, Junichi and Ako (who’ll be our local guide). I asked her to show me a shrine or temple and explain the different altars etc – hopefully we don’t spend the whole day in different temples….
The unavoidable newsflash:
“SHIBUYA SLASHER
Man on scooter stabs five men”
-11.30PM-
Exhausted. Not really by the temples or shrines or the walk – had frequent enough cappucino breaks – but by the 3 hours of continuous eating and drinking. Even thoug I have lots to talk about, got to leave that for tomorrow -an early wake up is waiting.
And, oh… the small earthquake injured 200 people and destroyed several houses. 5.6 on Richter’s scale – luckily, 200 km away from Tokyo.

I found out it’s perfectly

I found out it’s perfectly OK to eat the morning Kellogg’s with chopsticks.
Bad news – the article that’s been under writing for 8 months now, was rejected. This is bad – since my boss tells me he wants it to be in press before the dissertation. Crap. A year ago I was told it’s ok for it to be just a manuscript – then it had to be submitted, and now, in press…
I am not suprised it did not pass, since no-one else showed any attention or interest for the study or the manuscript after I wrote the first draft in *January*. …
Damn. I’ll have to find some hours between work and sleep to re-think and re-write. Damn. Damn.
-1AM-
It’s a wonder how 13 h of work (with one 45-min lunch-and-swim-break) makes one forget about such depressing matters. Mood is surprisingly good, and for a long time a tiny ‘good value and quality’-beer and a cold springroll haven’t tasted as good.
Today’s achievments included printing out a poster (I have to present it somewhere sometime for the official Summer Course or they won’t refund my flights or something), attending to the team seminar with 2 really interesting presentations, analyzing the two cells from the KO mouse (unfortunately, even one of the cells shows clear changes, the other is more difficult to interpret..), eating a bowl of raamen and later some kind of green pulla that emerged from the vending machine, and starting an experiment at 9PM despite lot of scepticism towards the usefulness of it. At 11.40 I finally got a cell and recorded it for more than half an hour, and I have the feeling I again got a winning ticket from the genepool lottery..
Then, a line or two from the news:
___________________________________________________
Suicides above 30,000 for fifth consecutive year
Around 60 percent of the people who took their own lives were aged 50 or older, while 7,940 killed themselves due to “economic or livelihood problems,” the highest number since the agency started compiling statistics in 1978.
The figures reflect the increase in the number of people who have lost their jobs amid corporate cutbacks, along with the growing number of individuals plagued by debt problems as the economic slump drags on.
Health problems was the most common reason.
______________________________________________
Do not get depressed. Read the local columnist’s article on Japanese English.

Tokio Marine is accused of

Tokio Marine is accused of hiding billions in income.
I’m dead tired.
-1:40 PM-
I just knew it – should have not bragged about the success yesterday. Today, I am no good… after 4 hours of struggling, gave over the setup and next mouse to Walther. I would have the time and resources, but just … can’t.
Thomas tells me to take a break and go outside to the sun (which was a joke, it’s raining:) .. but maybe I’ll treat myself to some food this afternoon.
-3:40 PM-
Better now. Had a latte and a friendly, familiar milano sandwich – it really helps sometime to eat things that make your subconscious tell you “Mmm… that’d be goooood…” instead of “Well, doesn’t seem to contain anything slimy, probably quite eatable and perhaps even good”. After having thus replenished my energy sources, went shopping – in addition to food, I wanted to buy a small bowl to eat my morning All Bran Plus from something else than the styrofoam container my instanoodles came 3 weeks ago, as well as chopsticks (to replace the single-use sticks that accompanied the same insta-noodles). The bowl was easy – a 2 minute stroll in the kitchenware section of Ito Yokado made me want to buy a load of plates and bowls – all so beautiful, light, and handy. The chopsticks (hashi) were not so easy – not surprising, though, if one sees the analogy of going to Stockmann for buying a fork, even though single pairs were fortunately available. On the other hand, the amount of different designs and styles and qualities was such that for a moment I thought about going to the store’s fast-zarusoba-joint and picking another single use hashi – but finally, when at the cashier I stood with my pretty laquer bowl and the sticks, bowing to the cashier-lady, I felt glad and slightly more adapted, perhaps…
My shopping basket contained also toothpaste (the universal Aquafresh-brand – I just did not want to risk washing my teeth for the rest of the stay with something that’d taste like seaweed…) and a Perfect Whip. Someone might remember, I commented earlier on this Perfect Whip thing – after watching the ad on TV for a dozen times, I have concluded it is some kind of facial wash. My usually parchment-dry skin has become oily during the last weeks and I’ve had enough of washing it with soap, so … well, it might be used for making the beard grow stronger, …. dunno … but on the ad, pretty young females use it and seem happy, probably I’ll bee also:)
Hm. The campus canteen opens in a hour and a bit. Already waiting for my bowl of raamen.
-midnight-
*purrrr* in the end, this turned out to be a good day.
Even though I am getting profoient in slurping the raamen, I am not confortable yet with sniffing with nose – I have the impression that blowing one’s nose is not polite at public places. So, after the tasty and spicy miso-raamen with a running nose for the train station. Somewhere in between I realised I did not have anything to use to ease the situation – fortunately, where ever you go, you find pretty girls giving out packs of tissues together with company advertisement. For some reason, the first ones I met at the central ‘plaza’ of Wako were not pretty, were not girls and completly ignored me. As I went to ask for a pack, the man turned, gave me a nasty and ugly look, and uttered some kind of ‘Tssssss…’ between his dirty teeth. I was frozen for a moment, then turned away – and realised the tissue packs he was distributing contained advertisements of girls, with phone numbers and photos. I think I went blazing red, and hurried away embarrased (the next tissue-distributor, a pretty girl with a miniskirt uniform, promptly put a pack advertising the local pachinko, or a money-gaming place….) and was far on the other side of Kawagoeshi before I stopped wondering whether all the other passangers stare at me.
The trip to Higashi-Matsuyama for Nagato-sensei’s class provided an excellent opportunity for observing how the Japanese spend time in the train – it seems that everyone living in Japan spends a substantial portion of their lives in trains. Fortunately, there seem to be various other ways to pass time in addition to sleeping, listening to music or (as I was later explained) groping women’s buttocks. In the wagon I was in, there were several people with laptops, a few with some sort of game consoles (GBA and others I did not recognise), and a portable DVD-monitor -combination that really seemed handy. One teen guy next to me was holding a music player in his hand – in a second, it was replaced with GBA and next, the cellular phone. He switched between them so quickly I did not see where they were all coming from – and he seemed to have his earphones connected to each device simultaneously….
The train ride would have been even more pleasant had it not become quickly dark. Still, after Kawagoeshi, the landscape turned more rural, with lots of small rice fields and houses dispersed in between. Higashi-Matsuyama was – at least what I saw of it – a tiny town with unproportionally big neon screens and lights everywhere. As soon as I had gotten out of the train station, I spotted three tall guys carrying budogear, and by following them I found my way to the Dojo. (and was attacked by a dog on the way – the guys told me it has been there for 4 years but it knows them already – I was new so got special attention. I was rather happy to find out it was chained to its doghouse…)
And this was a Dojo. Not like probably most in Finland and some in Japan I’ve seen – practically school gyms with tatami instead of floor. The house in the middle of a small yard was rather tall, with the training area having high roof; sliding doors, large-area windows divided into squares, and a small shrine on one wall. (No doubt the Hombu Dojo is a Dojo; but it was such a special place it almost felt like a shrine…) Nagato-sensei greeted me when I entered and asked one of his students to show me to the changing room – again, I was the only girl present. During the class, I got to train with 2 blackbelts, the names of whom have slipped my mind, but one of them was resident student and another from Holland – both had the will and patience to explain to me techniques and the most vital parts of sensei’s talk (this time everything was in Japanese – previously, someone does simultaneous translation most of the time) – and I had great time with them afterwards on the train back towards Tokyo.
It was relaxing to talk for a change with western people outside the work – it was very soon clear that despite the different origins and the fact that most of the people training at that dojo have been living in Japan for years, the mindframes were very similar. So I returned to the lab at 10.30 PM in such a good mood that Franck, working on this presentation for tomorrow’s team meeting, was alarmed and had to ask what had happened.
As to criwn the day, Walther informed the result of yesterday’s genotyping for the lottery of this week, and, it has turned out that one mouse was a WT (wild type) and another one, homozygous knockout (KO). Even more luckily, I think I have almost-first-class recordings from the two mice, and a quick glance would suggest there IS an effect for knocking out that gene…
A bad news, also told by Walther, was that when this litter of mice is finished, we won’t have any GM mice for some time. I appears that the mice that are supposed to breed are too young to know what they are expected to do… But, as for me, it doesn’t sound so bad – after all, I have already tons of data and images to process and analyze, articles to be read (and not to mention the dreaded thesis-thing….)
But, for now, I can happily surf the TV-channels, munch a springroll and sleep rather late tomorrow – it won’t be necessary to be at office before noon….

Finland has broken through the

Finland has broken through the threshold for local media attention:
(From Japan Times)
“FINNS DROWN SEEKING RESPITE
Helsinki (AFP-Jiji) 17 Finns have drowned in the past week as they sought respite from the heat wave surging through the country, where drowning is the leading cause for accidental death, officials said on Monday.
FInns are generally poor swimmers, while warm weather also makes it more likely for heart attacks to occur, Reijo Vartia, from the Finnish swimming and safet association, told public broadcaster YLE.
Drowning is second only to car crashes as a cause of accidental death in Finland.
…”
Don’t you guys drown there! It sounds like you’re roasting there, and people are just doing anything to cool off, jumping into lakes and putting their heads underwater… dangerous country, with so many lakes and all…
Another small piece of news today:
“FINLAND EYES TAXING PROSTITUTES.
Finnish Justice minister Johannes Koskinen, who wants to make the buying of sex illegal in a bid to curb sex trade, admittes Monday taxing prostitutes who continue to ply their trade could be more effective. Finland’s parliament is currently considering whether to follow neighboring Sweden’s example and criminalize the buying of sex, while the act of selling would still be legal.”
…
Also:
Ryoji Noyori, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in chemistry, has been appointed president of the RIKEN.
-5PM-
Already 2 cells from one slice today. 2 more mice to go in this genotype lottery – kind of doubly blind experimental day: only 1 mouse in 4 is expected to be of the genotype we’re interested in. But, I have the feeling the first one was already a winning one:)
Half a liter of more green tea – and again, ‘Just Do It’ I tell myself.
-8:20 PM-
Two more cells done. Teabreak and wait for another batch of slices to be drawn from the lottery bowl.
-0.40 AM-
Only one cell from the last mouse, but taking into account the circumstances (and not-so-perfect slices), I am content. Also, managed to get the mouse tails for genotyping to Hiro – I caused lots of hilariosity in the lab when they found out I had preserved several cm of each tail, when only less than one cm would have been enough. Hiro kindly agreed to cut them down to size for me…
I am getting good enough in this that I started to think of more complicated experiments – I could start doing Purkinje-axon stimulations, for example…
But, now some sleep. Got to wake up at 8 tomorrow to be able to do 2 mice before 17.30, after which I wish to be going to another Nagato-sensei’s class…

It’s morning again. This time

It’s morning again. This time I got to sleep until 10AM, with the aid of eyecovers provided by Air France. My culinary explorations have proceeded to tasting a ‘Moisture Dessert’ – a yogurth of some kind. Again, actually really good, as long as you don’t concentrate on the fact that the chunks of pure Aloe Vera remind you of … snails? between the teeth. But *definitely* healthy. Must be:)
I threw a quick eye on the Hesari verkkoliite – some very summerly photos there. I am missing the whole summer of yours – but maybe they’ll finish the Kamppi area meanwhile:)
-after swim-
Umh. That was a mistake. I ate something that I thought to be an energy drink or something – a semi-jelly in a plastic bag, which promised to fill up all energy stores and replace vitamins lost during excercise. I just lost all apetite for eating anything.
17.30, almost ready to start the experiments.
Or ready, but the set-up won’t be free for still some time, so I might as well go load some calories. This evening – and all the rest evenings of this week, I’ll have to do 2 mice per day (or 3 on those I have access to the set up for the whole day). I am to use a litter of non-genotyped mutants, and according to the Mendelian laws I can expect 25% of them to be homozygous for the mutation. So this is a lottery where I won’t have the results until I make the genotyping (with preserved tails) – and to make sure I get at least some of the homozygous ones, I have to go through all of them. Problem is that the litter is getting older day by day (oh really?) and anything over P18 is going to be very difficult if not unusable.
Just do it.
-midnight-
My heroic efforts finally brought some results. 2 mice, 2 slices, 2 cells recorded, filled with biocytin and Alexa(tm), imaged on the confocal and fixed for staining. Both recordings were without unnecessary offsets, compensations were not so bad and the recordings were stable for over half an hour. I might be getting somewhere with this.
On TV … a Japanese Mikko Alatalo. I swear. Blue shades and all.
Got to write a report to my boss back home… been neglecting that completly. Maybe I won’t be fired for it, yet.

Ohayoo… Even more tired today

Ohayoo…
Even more tired today than yesterday. I blame the weather – clowds (kumori) hanging at the level of houses’ roofs, and another pouring rain… Nothing as bad as in the southern parts of Japan, where heavy rains and mudslides have continued for several days and whole areas need to be evacuated, many people have been reported missing or dead, and the live newsfeed from the area looks really depressing… (See the Japan Times coverage).
Got to wake up, though… Today’s breakfast: Green tea (o-cha), a banana (the only type of fruit that is abailable at reasonable prices – one peach costs 300 yen, 150gm of pineapple 200 yen, and a handful of grapes 300… I can’t understand how 2 carrots can cost 150 (1 euro, approx)…), a local type of vanilla yoghurt (“An elegant tasta, it’s nice as it is genuine”) which is quite good, even though it tastes more like vanilla sauce, and a piece of bread with cheese and ham. Should be enough until dinner.
-15 min later, at a rather empty Institute-
Phuck. Forgot. A national holiday today. Kids playing BB at the field. Not that it’s matter so much for working – half of the lab members are here and they’re conducting a joint effort on experimenting on one (1) new kind of genetically modified mouse, in 6 set-ups at the same time… but, the campus cafeterias or the swimming pools are not operating. So, my nuritive and excercise plans for today lie in ruins… wonder if it is too late to go back to sleep, probably is, I am not usually able to fall asleep again after I have left home and drank half a liter of tea.
Still, as the Mouse(tm) is being prepared already at 11AM, the experimenting should be finished by 5PM at latest, meaning that if I schedule my preparations well enough I could be done with my experiments at 9PM (after that I’ll have to spend 1 hour or two for cleaning up and preparing for tomorrow, but anyhow could be back home well before midnight and thus get a few hours more sleep next night – that is, if I won’t spend half of the night babbling to this Blog…)
… just maybe this day will turn out allright.
– past midnight –
Crunching a cold springroll and wondering if I will soon learn to sleep while walking in addition to sleeping in trains…
… it seems that even Japan is such a developed country with all kinds of gadgets simplifying life and making it all so much more efficient, they still haven’t got rid of the mighty Monday-effect. Even though everything was supposedly fine (regarding experimental work), I left the setup after 5 hours of truggling and with only a pitiful 2-minute recording of an unknown cell with unclear membrane potential.
After having completed some tasks before noon, like, preparing a set of new solutions, I decided I’ll need some food and left for the Wako centrum to get a latte and a sandwich – and by the way bought some food for dinner. After walking back to the institute (spelling out phone-order menu for Mos Burger) with the imminent danger of starvation evaded with rather expensive food, I was told that Prof. K. had ordered Pizza Hut pizzas for everyone – after eating 3 small slices I was stuffed like a turkey. Did not remember how heavy food those panpizzas were… and had an aching stomach for the rest of the day and night, with no appetite for anything … Also, I learned later that the pool had been open. Darn.
The other lab members performed a high-level operation with the one mouse. It was the only of its kind, and they wanted to perform as many experiments with it as possible. So, in the morning, after a 2-hour operation meeting (deciding the used solutions, anaesthetizing agent, the order of cutting etc) the brain was cut into 3 parts, each of which was then further prepared by individual people – and finally, all the slices were distributed among set-ups and experiments perfomed for 5 hours. Haven’t seen such an amount of physiological data extracted from a single mouse before…
*hmmm*, I feel I am finally waking up. Just when I thought about going to sleep.