A Curious Girl: If you learn from your mistakes, I'm getting a fantastic education

This morning my boss asked me to make up some gels. This is a flat jelly-like thing used for different sized molecules of DNA. It's not hard to make - you need some agarose (a powder), some buffer (a liquid to dissolve the powder in) and some dye (to give the DNA colour). I went to get the dye from the lady who usually makes our gel. I weighed out the powder, put it into a conical flask, poured the buffer on top of it, and went to put it in the microwave to dissolve. My boss reminded me to stop the top of the flask with some tissue.

When the microwave had been on a minute or so, I was aware of a burning smell. I opened the door. The tissue looked a bit brown. I took it out and threw it in the bin. About ten seconds later, my boss asked me what was burning. "Nothing... my tissue went brown so I... threw it in the bin."

He looked into the bin. We could both smell burning, but couldn't see the tissue. And the bin, I might add, was for 'hazardous waste for incineration'. My boss grabbed the bin, ran outside, found the tissue, and stamped its black and burning hide to death.

So... first achievement of the day, I started a fire at work.

He decided to take over dissolving the agarose in the buffer, and so then I poured the liquid into the trays to set. Then realised I needed the dye. So I put the dye in on top of the by now setting gel. The dye wouldn't spread and remained a stubbornly blue blob in the middle of the mostly clear gel. I tried to stir it in. It got a pretty marbly effect, but not the nice blue I'd hoped for. Nick, a colleague, remarked that it was FUBAR. Which is an expression I usually hate, but even I had to confess that it was F***ed Up Beyond All Recognition. And I had another tray of entirely clear and now setting gel without dye in. Determined to salvage it, I tried to pour the rather gloopy liquid back into the flask. It spilt everywhere, even over my lab coat. I wiped the floor and got a very slimy tissue. I figured I'd send the lab coat to get cleaned.

By now I was really determined to get a good gel, without setting fire to anything. I started again. Everything, thankfully, went all right this time. My boss came back, laughed at me, and then remarked that I seemed to be wearing his lab coat. Yeah, the one with gel down the front.

I'm amazed that I'm still employed.

It could have been worse, you know - I used to want to be a doctor.

***

I went to church twice yesterday. In the morning I went to my church for the Christmas celebration. It was really great, although I would have liked to have sung more. The gospel choir were wonderful though, and the dramas were competently done (if you've seen any church dramas, you'll probably know why this is barely short of miraculous). It was a quite unusual service, with a selection of songs that was impressively varied. Possibly a few more 'traditional' items might have attracted any visitors, but still, I think it was really enjoyable and hope any new people thought so too :)

Afterwards, I went to the shared meal, reintroduced myself to a lot of people, and had lots of fun. I was glad that I brought along a lot of pasta salad because people always seem to bring desserts to such events :) We had a present exchange at the end - I got a lovely picture frame.

In the evening, I went to a carol service at a nearby church. I'd pick up their flyer the day before so thought I'd go. Was a bit startled when, after my initial greeting by the lady on the door, no one said hello to me. I tried smiling at a couple of people but they didn't want to look around. The first words anyone said to me were from a girl sitting nearby... she said, "Can you move up a bit?" I'm afraid I gave her a bit of a dirty look :) Afterwards, when the minister invited everyone to come to coffee, I wandered around in a bit of a lost fashion and eventually saw an old lady by herself. I went up to her and said hello, and introduced myself. We chatted a little bit, then the people she was with came over, and started talking to her. She told them that I was called Helen and visiting. One lady said, "Oh, that's nice," but then they all proceeded to ignore me. I got up. I ended up finding a lady who'd come to see some family members in the choir and didn't know anyone either. We had a nice conversation after that :) I was a bit shocked though, even though she'd been before a few times, she was sitting on her own, and I don't think she was a Christian. Fantastic example they were setting (/sarcasm).

The actual service was good though. Lots of good carols... When I got home I persisted in playing 'Angels from the realms of glory' on my keyboard, I don't know what Kathleen (my next door neighbour) could possibly think of me.

Random word for today: collage

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