Post-Free Posting

What a day!

Had a practical test today which was split into 2 sessions, each 6 minutes. Part one was hemocytometer and part two changing medium.

I almost made an unforgivable mistake in part one. Previously, some of us had discussed about the hemocytometer minutes before the test and one asked, "The red is the 10x objective?" The answer was "yeah". So when I handled the microscope, I looked at the color (red) and successfully identified the central grid. But the examiner told me that I still had time and wanted me to check. Finally, I saw it. The length of the objective did not seem to belong to a 10x but more of a 4x. Dang! Shouldn't have listened to others. Perhaps different microscope have different colors for the objectives?

The second part was more stressful than the first. I had no idea that I was put into an unfamiliar lab. Although we were briefly introduced to where the materials were, my mind was waste bottle, waste bottle, waste bottle...because I did not get the waste bottle in the previous lab test. I was only paying 70% attention to the examiner.

After choosing a hood that I was comfortable in, the examiner asked if we were ready. Instead of answering, I pulled out the two chairs because I intend to put my materials there before spraying with ethanol. The examiner mistook that as wanting to be more comfortable especially this was the first time I entered this lab, and when I turned around, I saw the other person I came in with doing the same thing. Well, I was thinking "...", why follow me? I'm not good at this at all.

Of course, I first thing I grabbed was the ethanol. In a culture lab, ethanol is your best friend. Second, waste bottle! Ugh, he was filling it with bleach and you expect me to wait? No! I wanted to grab the C-fold towel but damn, couldn't find it anywhere. Where? WHERE ARE YOU? Never mind, pipettes and pipette gun. I have to wipe the hood first, so I can put the materials I gathered into the hood. C-FOLD TOWEL, PLEASE ANSWER! Yep, there it was, nearest to the door. Grabbed it, wiped, sprayed pipettes and pipette gun. Waste bottle! Bleach, spray, yes! Flasks! One step ahead, I gingerly took the two flasks from the incubator and left it open as he's right behind me. Spray, spray hands, open caps. Did I just crossover? Was that a cross-over? Hope the examiner didn't see. I was shaking so badly in session one, so I steeled my hands, carefully introducing the pipette into the flasks without touching non-sterile areas.

When I was changing the media, the speed of the gun was so slow, I literally counted one by one milliliter. Just as I was about to fill in the second flask, suddenly, the guy next to me was done. He was packing up. Faster, faster, faster! Yes! Done! After closing the caps super quickly, I rushed to the incubator and returned everything. After the bell rang did I managed to turn off the hood. And...discreetly and not so discreetly took the ethanol from the table and put it back into the tray.

Then it was revealed that I took the wrong medium. It was supposed to be complete MEM, not DMEM. How did I know there were traps? Both were in red, so I assumed they were all complete MEM. I actually hesitated when I took the medium, as I saw two bottles in front of the water bath. First, you are to take the those in the water bath, and second, take the correct MEM. I was able to not fall into the first trap but not the other.

*sigh*