applications, headaches and hamster brains.


yep, hamster brains! they are about 3/4 of an inch in length and rather squishy. we used two machines to slice them: the vibrotome, which has a vibrating razorblade and requires you to fish the brain slices out of the surrounding phosphate buffer with a paintbrush, and the cryostat, which slices off frozen bits of brain which you then thaw by mounting on a slide with a drop of water and smoothing them out. next week we get to stain brain slices and look for certain proteins. I love this class!


applications are almost finished. still hunting down profs for a reference letter. who knew that the hard part would be just getting ahold of them? the next step may have to be scouring the campus for their secret lairs (that is, the offices I know they have, but whose location remains top secret).


I blame the profs for my headache. and possibly a lack of food. of course, the fact that it is 3:12am doesn't help, either. why do I keep doing that?