Garnet's Life Adventures

Easy, fast day

Our first class didn't start until 11am today - from talking with a others in the course, we all slept in instead of going to "private study" which is what our timetables told us to do.
On my way in I got a little excited thinking it might actually rain today - there was a very thick mist in the air and you could almost feel the mist on your face as you walked. Our 11am class was more of a review of the ELISA lab. First thing they tallied everyone's "final answer" (felt like we were on Millionaire) the numbers ranged from 1.6x10^6 all the way to 9.82x10^-7. My answer was 3.17x10^-6. I was about 95% sure I was correct, not to brag, but I have done lots of ELISAs in my time at Trudeau, so I didn't really think I'd skipped a well or skipped a step or drawn my graph incorrectly. I owe Larry credit here since he taught me how do the graph's by hand instead of having the computer figure it out. The plate reader we in the lab here is not nearly as sophisticated as the spec in Larry & Paula's lab!! After 30 minutes of explaining the correct way to solve all the equations and draw the graphs we came to a final answer of 3.2x10^-6, yipee I haven't lost my touch in the lab!! I was rewarded with "smarties" which over here is a chocolate candy made by Nestle - nothing like smarties in the US.

For lunch, Louise, Rita, Katie, Alan and I were all suppose to meet since our class schedule's are all very different. Katie, Alan and I found a cute little cafe down Goodge St - we called Rita and Louise. 15 minutes later neither has joined us - it's easy to get to, just 7 minute walk from school. Rita called to say she was lost - we asked her to name off landmarks. I finally realized she was all the way down by Tott Rd. tube station - she'd apparently walked the wrong direction for about 10 minutes, so we turned her around and gave her new directions back to where we were. Louise then called to say she was just getting out of lab and had class in 20 minutes so she'd have to take a rain check. Rita finally found us - she'd picked some food up along the way since she was worried she was running so late. Luckily she had enough time for a cup of coffee & question me about how we (Americans) pronounce words. Their first example was interesting. They wrote, "KANSAS" and asked me what it said. I said, "'kan-z&s". Then they added two letters in front, "ARKANSAS" and again asked me what it said. I replied, "'är-k&n-"so" and they asked why it wasn't "är-'kan-z&s" to which I had no good answer, aside, that's just the way it is!!
(side note: At this point it still hadn't rained and was a little brighter, but still had that could rain later look about it. )

My afternoon was spent learning how to use PubMed, LILAC, and a few other databases. It was not that exciting but passed the time. Katie and I got paired up on one of the computers so when it came time to "test out" PubMed we searched "Lyadova, I" and up popped our paper - it was cool to have the whole class turn around and look at me when they saw my name up on the screen :) I'm the only one in this class who isn't just out of uni! After 2 hours of search practice, the librarian deemed us qualified to find whatever we needed and we were allowed to go home.

I decided to try taking the bus home today, this could save me a lot of money if I didn't have to get the weekly tube, but instead the weekly bus travel card. It only took about 5 minutes longer and I actually got a seat instead of standing by the door on the tube. I will have to make a few more test runs before I make a final decision, but it's looking promising. BEST part is my bus is a 24hour bus, so I don't have to worry how to get home when the tube is not working or closed.

Well I'm sorry to say that is all I have to report for today - got home too late to take any photos of the neighborhood, but I should have some time this weekend. The only real plans I have are to go to the Globe on Friday night and take a train up to Oxford to see a "family friend" on Sunday - hoping there will be good photo opportunities there as well!!

Oh yeah by the way, it never rained :(

posted by Sara @ 7:32 pm