Grad school interrupticus updaticus.

Now with updates in pretty colors!

• Big piles of science need to happen because S.W.A.M. is presenting at conference X in June that is so cool I can't even get in to go listen. She has promised to give me mad props if I can finish dataset Cthulhu by then.
• Final Teaching Portfolio requirement for my Higher Ed minor due early May. TOMORROW, errr looking at the time, actually that would technically be today. YIPE!!! You should see the monster I have going. BFF Postdoc is measuring my progress by how many centimeters it grows every day. Whee! Turned in. Now it has to go through at least two separate committees before I find out what the lowdown is. This is the last requirement for my minor. Will I reach my goal of finishing it by the end of 2008? Looks good so far... but portfolio revisions have occasionally been known to last for multiple semesters...
  
• In other news, Dataset Cthulhu still kickin' my ass. We also had a "fun" cold-room incident that set everyone back about two weeks. Who needs drama when you have science?
• Due to the above-mentioned "cold room collapse of '08" which killed plan theta, we are now officially resulting to "contingency plan omega" to try to get sample Cthulhu-NS to our EPR collaborators in time. I don't like contingency plan omega. It's one of those all-or-nothing, if you cut the wrong wire civilization as we know it (or several months of work) shall die a horrible death sort of scenarios. But it's the best plan I have and a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. *salutes bravely* Wish me luck! (For the next few weeks, kthx)
  
• After a two-year track record of getting my PCR reactions to work within three tries (site-directed mutagenesis, fragment amplification, you name it, I could do it) I am suddenly completely stuck on something. I had a nearly-identical reaction totally optimized and did it (literally) several dozen times without incident. WTF? *head-desk* I am suddenly suspicious of all of my reaction components, despite being super-sterile girl.