recent goings on in the lab . . .

Since the lab is literally my home away from home (I'm there like 9 or 10 hours a day usually . . .) I decided that I should write about recent goings on! First of all I must comment on how beautifully clean the lab is since our lab cleaning "party" a few weekends ago! I don't think the lab had seriously been cleaned for decades (ok maybe an exaggeration, but not by much . . . we found papers lying around that hadn't been looked at in YEARS) so it was a HUGE improvement! We started cleaning around 10:30 am one Saturday and the last of us left around 2:30 or 3:00. Dr. Bell and I were the refrigerator/freezer clean up crew! This entailed going through practically every drug the Bell lab has used since Dr. Bell arrived at BYU. I know I should've taken a before picture so you could truly appreciate the beauty that is the fridge right now, but oh well, I appreciate the beauty so I'm going to post a picture of it!

Isn't it gorgeous??

Ok enough of that since no one cares. So recently I have been helping Dr. Bell write a paper about experiments that were done long ago (some as early as the year 2000 . . . when I was 13 years old haha) so that's taken up a ton of my time. I've basically had to REanalyze all the data they collected and create figures to go into the paper. So this has entailed taking raw, noisy fluorescence data and fitting it with a curve using the computer so that we can actually quantify that. So that doesn't sound that hard but sometimes it takes FOREVER to get it right since you can get some funky curves . . . anyway the point is I have done something like 150 of these curves (or maybe more?) and just last night we discovered all these experiments we didn't know about so now I have to analyze all of THEM. Here is a picture of me the other day after fitting curves all day and being completely exhausted . . . oh and I was wearing a lab coat because I was cold, not because I'm legit . . . and I know it's kind of an awkward angle, but oh well it represents my thoughts about fitting curves at that very moment . . .


Also I have to let you all know that I'm officially a nerd (yes officially this time), because in recent days I've realized how much I LOVE creating awesome aesthetically-pleasing excel spreadsheets that make things so much easier. Ah there's just nothing like a nicely designed excel spreadsheet :) It's one of those simple pleasures in life ya know? For example, for all these millions of curves I fit, I designed a spreadsheet with a cell that has a smiley face when all the outliers are removed and a frowny face when it's not quite at a happy place yet. How cool is that?? Haha I really am a nerd but hey at least it entertains me :) In fact one day I took a picture of one of my spreadsheets just cuz it was so pretty, but I am going to resist posting it since that's just a lame picture to put on a blog. This whole post in fact is pretty lame, but that's what's been going on recently haha! I think part of why I just love my lab so much is all the fabulous people I work with who are just my pseudo-family here. Ah good times chatting in the lab. Here are three of my favs just cherishing in the lab: Hannabeth, Katalyn, and Celestine!