Another Monday. I have a lot to do this week but realistically, I will probably only get to about 50% of it. Part of this afternoon is already shot because Michelle and I are refinancing our house so I have to go to the bank to sign papers. Here's hoping that I get more done this week than last. I got sick last week and ended up taking about 2 days off. Luckily, the university gives us great benefits so I have a lot of sick time (about 30 days accrued) and a lot of vacation time. Even with my recent trip to London, I will have maxed out my accrued vacation time. The university gives me 16 hours of vacation a month. Additionally, I elect to trade 12 hours of monthly sick leave for an additional 4 hours of vacation. The University of Iowa allows us to accrue up to 480 hours of vacation time. I have hit that mark and will not be able to recieve any additional time. I am going to have to take some more vacation. Darn. Now that it is warming up, I will probably take a couple of days off to get my flower beds ready and planted. I find that to be very therapeutic.
Anyway, I have a couple of tissues to process for protein today. I will probably run the gels tomorrow. Also, tomorrow I will be teaching one of our research fellows how to extract DNA from a filter, get the DNA into bacteria, and grow the bacteria on a selective plate. If we are successful, then I will teach him how to amplify the colonies, extract the inserted DNA, and sequence his insert. Hopefully this will go smoothly. I just hope this guy doesn't expect me to do it for him. My job is to teach him how to be independant. Unfortunately, for many of these surgeons, it is easier for them to rely on someone else since they have a relatively limited amount of time in the lab (usually 1-2 years). However, if they want to be successful researchers, they at least need to know the principles behind the science and have a working knowledge of the techniques.
What I am perhaps most interested in this week is doing the phospho-merlin Western blots of the tissue I collected before a couple of weeks ago. The last Western gave me inconclusive results. Hopefully this one will be a little more convincing.
Oh, we also just got a paper accepted for publication. It is a project that I worked long and hard on. As a preliminary study, it is pretty good but there is much more that can be done with it. The only drawback is that it is labor intensive - the mice require daily treatments. Oh well, that is what I am here for.
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2 comments:
I just passed the 5 year mark at my company and now get 3 weeks (15 days) of vacation a year. I do get to accrue comp time for any hours worked over 80 in a pay period. However, I can only keep 120 when the new year rolls around. I had 160 last December and had to get 40 hours paid out...but it gets taxed like a bonus.
You have 3 months of vacation stored up. That makes me sick. You could be a school teacher -- work 9 months and then take 3 off.
I certainly get paid like a school teacher. I would much prefer to get less vacation and more pay - I will never use that much vacation.
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