AHHH overwhelmingness in the lab :)

1/23/12
I still keep forgetting that it is 2012 :) Anyway, there were luckily no transportation mishaps for me today and the shuttle ride to and from the internship went smoothly (hurrah!). When I got to NYSM, Dr. Kirchman and I quickly jumped into the lab and I got to make another gel for another gel for a PCR. Sadly, me being a newbie, something had to go wrong. I'm sorry I can never remember the names of anything, but the powder that mix with water which you heat up in the microwave that cools (after you throw in a mutagen) and forms the gel... well there was a microwave incident. When you heat up the powder water mixture in the microwave to get it to dissolve, it gets VERY bubbly VERY quickly. I was struggling trying to see through the microwave door and well, I allowed a little volcano to form in the microwave. After cleaning up the bubbly over spill Dr. Kirchman had me pop in a strip or two of some gel from old PCRs into the flask containing what was left of our water powder mixture. You can melt down strips like these and make an entire recycled gel if you have enough, but we just melted a couple in what was left of our mixture to create what was fairly close to the original amount. After putting a little too much of the buffer (the buffer is just water, but the really clean sciency water :D) in the gel holding device (I really couldn't tell you... i think the brand is called owl maybe?) I poured my melted water powder mixture into the container and put in a comb to make the wells in which we would put the DNA.
Since we had to wait for the gel to set, Dr. Kirchman took me to the range (where they keep all the skeletons and stuffed animals) to help him find some specimens he would be showing to a class later that day to illustrate the evolution of limbs. For example, Dr. Kirchman's friend, Joe, who also works at NYSM showed us a mole humerus. The mole's arms had adapted so that they were perfect for shoveling dirt and the humerus was at an angle so it would be easier for the mole to scoop (http://www.mnh.si.edu/mna/full_image.cfm?image_id=834 <-- mole arm :D).
After freeing an emu from a crate (with the help of a screwdriver, scissors, and wire cutters), we went back to the lab to see that our gel had turned opaque and was ready for us to place the DNA in the wells. Putting the DNA in the wells, however, takes quite a steady hand. My hands are not that steady. However, I was doing pretty well until Dr. Kirchman commented on how well I was doing. With my chest puffed out as I began to put the 7th sample of DNA in a well..... I pushed the pipet down into the bottom of the well too hard which meant the DNA couldn't come out of the pipet and when i removed the pipet the DNA splooshed everywhere but inside the gel. Whoops. Dr. Kirchman quickly whipped up another sample of that same DNA, fixed my mistake, and I finished the last two wells successfully. Overall it was a good day in the lab, mistakes and all, because practice makes perfect :). Hopefully it will just be a little more perfect next time.