Roller Coaster

I just had the most frustrating week in my whole summer break so far.
The project I was trying to finish up has been put in halt for a week since I decided to start using a new material (400Da PEG spacer instead of a 4000Da) in hopes something might actually work. So the material was supposed to be ready by Monday, I go look for the chemist and he aint there. I see my supervisor and he says the chemist made a mistake in preparing it and so its going to take another week!!! At that point, I couldn't care less since I was sick of the whole project.. proteins, SPR, PEGs agh those were just words that gave me headache.

Then the supervisor tells me to work on another alternative project for this week only and gives me a report on someone who has done it last year (he wanted me to use a new protein for it). He was going to a conference and was hoping to use the results I get in his presentation there.
He also informs me that I'm meant to write a bloody report on the original project..

So I go on preparing for this new project, its meant to be working well since it has been tested before and am just performing it on a new protein. I have to first immobilize the protein's antibody on one channel and then pass the protein at different concentrations to see the response. Then if it works I immobilize 5 other antibodies on the remaining channels and pass 6 different proteins. I prepare all the samples, buffers etc.. and start the experiment on Tuesday, but nooo the SPR shows erratic results. I continue working through Waitangi day even though its a bloody holiday and still doesnt work. By Thursday I got the pHd student who does lots of work on SPR to help me out and we manage to get a good run on one channel. But immobilizing the rest of the channels and we get crazy craaazy results. I was in the verge of smashing the stupid machine and my only conclusion was "its not working since its made in bloody israel" ahm ahm

BUT on Friday morning I make a new run and apparently the immobilization steps on Thursday were good, its just the stupid stupid SPR was not reading the results well (we all know why :D) so I go on with the results JUST in time for my supervisor to get them and put them in his poster... and and... I got my name on his poster as a contributor :D :D yaaaay

Apparently, this is the way research goes.. I think the most valuable experience I learned in this whole project is this... I don't like research as much as I thought I did. Definitely not biochemistry stuff!

But to balance things out I lost horribly horribly in Squash to my mate and someone I thought I cared about ignored me for the whole week.

In the end, am still looking forward for Monday :D