Saturday, May 24, 2008

(: !!!!CHROMOSOMES!!!! :)

I have had the most awesome week ever!!!! …This week my passions were justified. I said before that love cytogenetics!!!!!! And now more than ever!!!!

On Monday I had my lovely genetics lecture about cytogenetics which I love so much!! It’s so fascinating! I am really really going to miss genetics next term… I’m thinking of taking a paper next term that involves independent study on a chosen topic…I don’t think I’ll be able to survive without genetics otherwise! On Tuesday was media and on Wednesday was genetics again!! Yippeeee!! More chromosome study!!!! Down Syndrome, Turner, Klienfelter… and on and on and on about chromosomal stuff! Soooo fascinating!!! :) That night I stayed up till 1am doing my pedigree analysis for Thursdays lab, from last week…

On Thursday I had my final biology lab…. A couple of weeks ago I was looking forwards to the end of the course more than anything…. And now I’m sad that it’s almost over. Last week as I said we started our cytogenetics topic for labs, and we got our blood samples taken and then we left them to culture in medium. This week we centrifuged them, discarded the supernatant, centrifuged and resuspended them in fixative several times. Then Dr Rickards showed us the really fun part. Applying the sample to slides to get a monolayer of cells!

We stood at the side of our bench, put tissue paper on the floor, held a Pasteur pipette at eye level at the level of the table above the tissue paper and dropped drops of water down from the table onto the tissue paper on the floor! It was kind of like chucking tomatoes from a tall building, to get the tomato to mash! Smack! We had to practice our aiming with water first so we could get the sample in the right place on the slide! But it was so amusing! I loved it! So then we did the same with our sample! It was really scary at first. I didn't want to lose any of my sample... but all was well! I had enough sample to make 5 slides! :)

Then we stained and fixed them…..and then….dumdumdadum!!!! The time had come! The moment of glory...or failure. I looked down the microscope at one of my slides and saw….my chromosomes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was soo excited!!!! I was so used to everything not working in the labs this year, that I kind of lost hope…but this time it worked!!! There were so many cells with chromosomes, at various stages of mitosis!!! Sooo exciting!!!!! I was soo excited that I didn't even get upset when I got my report back about PCR and found it wasn't that pleasant... at least I passed... Have to study really hard for my lab test!!! We got to keep our slides, and next week we will come in to the lab and take photos with a special microscope of our chromosomes!!!! I can't wait!!! Then I could see them more close up! That day I didn't want to leave the lab. I stayed till the last student had left the room, looking down the microscope browsing my slides and admiring my chromosomes! It is unbelievably exciting! I wish I had a microscope at home!!!! :):):)

On Friday was another day of cytogenetics (pretty good week, cytogenetics every day except Tuesday!). As usual the lecture was really interesting but seemed incredibly short! It's amazing how time flies when you're doing something great! That day my friend picked up a post-graduate prospectus, and while I was reading it I found out that my favourite cytogenetics lecturer Dr Rickards takes post graduate genetics! Yea!!

Today I happily spent all day doing my cytogenetics assignment and then started studying for my major lab test next Thursday. I can do well in it! I know I can!!!! :) This week after all my excitement I decided that I definitely want to go on to do lots and lots of post graduate study…to do with cytogenetics! This year I have finally discovered my area of biology that I’m crazy about!!!! And I want to learn all about it….!! So I want to do honors and masters and PhD…!!!! As long as it’s all about chromosomes I can go on motivated forever!!! There's so much to learn...and now that I've actually seen chromosomes in real life (NOT in a text book or hand out) it's even more exciting than ever!! J …Hey perhaps one day I will lecture about genetics! :)

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