PhD Count up.

Hey SLS's (Sisterlocked Sistahs) and friends,

I'm just getting back from the lab and I had a great idea. I'm gonna use my blog to count down the days until I defend. But instead of counting down I'm going to count up because I won't know the actual day of my thesis defense until my thesis committee gives me permission to write my thesis.

Since yesterday (this morning) was the day I declared that this is my final year, today, September 13, 2006 is day one. Each time I'm going to write what I've accomplished (in somewhat lay persons terms) and what I need to do. I usually do this each week but it would be nice to see a diary of my goals.

So far this week I've been trying to use an assay (a kind of test) that was developed in another lab. First I'm working to reproduce the data that they published in their paper. Doing this tells me that I'm performing the assay correctly. In parallel, I'm applying the assay to different strains of yeast to expand my efforts beyond repeating someone else's work. I've been doing this for about two weeks now and no dice. So tomorrow, I'm going to tweak it a little and see if I can get the results I'm looking for.

I'm also doing a lot of cloning (using bacteria to copy pieces of DNA) and I think its coming along. . .but I have more cloning of additional DNA fragments on my checklist so this is only the beginning.

Tomorrow I'm making chromatin. . .ugh! Its a tough job but someone has to do it.

I'm reading this back and thinking, "Will everyone want to know all the details? I don't want it to be a boring blog!!" I guess I'll tweak my "count up" as I go. In honor of the first day I'll add some lab pics. The first is with my PhD advisor Steve. He's the boss but he has also helped me so much in the past year. A year ago in July, my first advisor didn't have enough funding to keep me on and I had to switch labs and start over. Although that it bad this event was actually a blessing from God. I'm a living of example of the phrase "God makes a way out of no way" and I just have to give God praise for helping me through this journey. I'm now in a well funded lab working with a great group of people and I receive real mentorship from Steve. Let's just say I didn't have those things in my first lab. Next photo is me and a "Western blot sandwich"--that I didn't eat but it was a fun play on words. Last photo: Me and my media. I use these flasks to grow up a large amount of yeast, then I collect all the yeasts and purify away almost all the proteins until I'm left with just their chromatin. I started cultures tonight.

Thanks for all the support. I realize now that I have so much to write about this part of my life. I think my blog will be really therapeutic and will help to keep me motivated through the long days that I need to get through to get that PhD. Stay blessed! (: