Book 1: Settling into Life Day 20 (June 26, 2015)

Walking out of the Metro, I see Hetal, and so we walk together from the station to Building 35. I've brought my tennis racket for playing with Jon today, and I find out that Hetal used to play, so now we need to find one more person (preferably from our lab just because it'd be so much easier to coordinate times that way) and then doubles would definitely work!

Today at the lab meeting, Lesley gave her presentation, and she presented the background info on the basis of what the lab (overall) was trying to investigate. Because of that, combined with getting through the big bulk of the review paper I've been toiling over these past 1.5 weeks, I definitely was able to see the goal of my lab. At the same time though, lab work is so detailed and so focused, I still have a hard time seeing how all the cloning I'm doing fits in the larger scheme of the picture. Mainly, I'm just amplifying DNA so that there's an ample amount to work with.

I redid the transformation from yesterday, but the second time (first time today), I forgot to incubate at 37dC, and instead incubated heatshocked at 42dC... So third time is hopefully the charm. 5 minutes through incubation, I realized I made the same mistake as I did yesterday, so I added the SOC media, and I think transformation should work this time because I don't think I've made any mistakes, and well, third time's the charm, right?

I was doing lab work for nearly 5 hours today mostly consecutive, only with an one hour break for lunch, mainly because of all the time from the transformations. At lunch, I ate with Lesley, my mentor, Catherine, and Alicia, and we talked about various things. Halfway through, Janet (who I played tennis with...and is leaving on Monday to go back to her lab in North Carolina...she was here on a sabbatical for 6 months) had a going away party, and the left overs were put in the break room. So we gorged on more junk.

I went to play tennis with Jon at 4pm, which was definitely much needed (both to shake off my exhaustion from the week and also the sheer amount of food I ate during lunch). We then walked over to Rock Bottom for happy hour. Oh, so I should explain why happy hour today. So Richard is a fun guy, he likes social. So whenever someone publishes a paper or basically, something extraordinarily big happens in the lab (so basically a paper gets published), Richard takes the whole lab to Rock Bottom, a bar in Bethesda, within walking distance from NIH, and the bill's on him, and there's appetizers and beer. Greasy bar food, beer, and nonalcoholic beverages too. We get a happy hour because in the past month, our lab has collectively published 3 papers. Which is a huge deal. Alicia, Danielle, and Catherine. This also coincides with Adam leaving the lab (his last day is July 10), so it's a celebration of many things. Yes Adam is leaving, but he has a "real" job now, so he's leaving the NIH (which is just like a temporary job, kind of like limbo, the time between getting your PhD and waiting for a job offer) to his new job which is in Boston.

Everyone is there at 4:30 (they go directly from work), Jon and I walk in at 5:15. Whoops. We probably didn't miss much though. There's just a lot of different small clumps that form, somewhat fluid, but yeah, small talk. It takes me a while to sort of fit myself in the amoeba of people around some tables, but I do get in, participate in a few conversations, but mainly just listen. I'm nursing a cup of ginger ale, which looks a little like diluted beer (but with ice and a straw), watching people slowly unwind, some much more than others.

We end at 7:30 approximately, I get home at 9, after stopping at Flippin' Pizza for some extremely greasy pizza. Michaela posts on the group chat we have between the four of us, that the White House is lit up tonight with rainbow lights to celebrate the Supreme Court ruling that legalizes sam sex marriage in all 50 states. Oh. I only knew about the ruling by quickly checking facebook (for the first time today) during a few seconds while waiting in line for food in the cafeteria, and I didn't know about the lights until Michaela asked if anyone would go with her to see it. So I end up going. Pictures below.

This is the closest picture I could take while trying to get as close as I can to the original lighting color.

If I don't take picture there, was I really ever there? Oh, the dilemma of living in the 21st century, filled with cynics and photoshop trolls. 

Michaela took the selfie, because I am incapable of taking any selfies at all.

It's been a crazy day today. Bad because of transformation issues, also because today just felt like such a long day and I was just so exhausted from the week, but good because the lab meeting was cool (Alicia also presented, and her presentation was so intriguing, since she talked about Parkinson's Disease and Parkin and ubiquitin in mouse brains), lunch was entertaining, tennis was much needed, happy hour was definitely a first for me, and hey, the first time I get to see the White House and it was all lit up in rainbow colors. It's a milestone for the US, but we still have a long way to go before we can truly claim to be accepting of all people.