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July 9, 2003
hey can you recognize me/ i am the light of the Sun
monsoon season in chicago.
i see rain in the air that does not hit the ground.
one thing i do is atomic force microscopy. do as in in charge of our group's afm. it was a recent addition to my plate as the undergrad who usually does it is away for the summer. anyways, we are collaborating with a group down at the med school. and by collaboration i mean, teaching and letting them use our afm. they are wanting to image red blood cells. they have to be in a buffer solution. fluid is not good for the piezoelectric crystal in the microscope. it is also a challenge to engage the microscope in fluid. but some how, after just a few hours (like 8) with the afm the past week, the med student (a md phd student, sean) and i got it to image cells. well, the brilliant sean got it to image cells. i was just the technical consultant with suggestions.
so, his lab does work with malaria. and blood. they want to eventually be able to coat the tip with a ligand and place the ligand on a receptor. good luck with that i half jokingly tell him. it does not sound easy. it does sound interesting. it is a lot like dip pen lithography if you randomly know about that. anyways, so the blood cells have a pretty short life span, so he has to do the sample prep in my lab. and if you know me and blood (well, anything biological in general) it was all my strength to not get totally freaked out. i don't know why blood freaks me out. (here i am getting freaked out just remembering all the paraphernalia he had on the desk next to mine.) i give blood some what regularly. there was a time where i had a fair amount drawn. (dude. shepherd took about 5 gallons in the first hours i was there.)
so, we got an image of a cell. of course it was like an hour after we first put the sample in the stage, so it was kinda dried. But an image we did get. it is amazing how science is just trying and trying again. i guess a lot like life. you learn from your mistakes, take measures not to repeat them, learn to look for the signs something is wrong, and hopefully all the planets align and you get your sample or, in this case, your image.
i wish you could buy contentment in the mail. i am currently very content, and in that state it is hard for me to see people i love be discontent. i want to some how bottle it all up and be able to give it to them. or have some sort of secret way of being content that i can share and then people would find that contentment. but as much as i have tried, i can't. it frustrates me though -always has.
in these sane moments, i think it is a choice - to be content. you just do your best with what you are given and you are thankful for what you have. that is contentment. but i have had some not-so-sane moments in which i couldn't make the choice to be content no matter how hard i tried. so i don't know. i still wish i could somehow share it.
i want to put the recipe on a card and then fill a jar will all the dry ingredients like the cookie mix jars. so i can give it to someone and say, just add milk and eggs and cook at 375 for 10 minutes. and viola - contentment!
i am ADD with the layout of this site. whenever i come across a blog layout i like more, i always want to change to it. not as easy.
to fulfill some request - here is a pretend picture of iz.
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Posted by christina at July 9, 2003 9:22 PM