I did it!

Well, as promised, it's time to blog about my first attempt at this new technique.

It went...well let's say that it was a medium success.

Not bad for a first attempt...at least I think it's not bad.

So this new technique is supposed to be really simple. I mean REALLY simple. It's supposed to work ALL the time.

My first attempt was last week...I got in early, did some prep and then started. It was SOOOO much harder than I thought it would be. I've been watching people do this for weeks now so I thought I knew what I was doing. -Why don't I believe my own advice? I tell my undergrads all the time that watching and doing are very different and that even though you think you know how to do it when you are watching, that you don't really know until you do it. - This is good advice...I might should listen to it sometime.

Because boy was it different! The first big difference is actually using some of the equipment. It's really really really old. I thought I knew how to work it, I mean I'd watch people do it a bunch of times. Shocker...I did not know how to use it. I had to get someone to show me again! But after doing it, I think I might finally, actually know how to use it! PROGRESS!

Then it was on to actually running the experiment. WOW. The people I'd watched have been running this experiment for YEARS and they just made it look so easy! They alwasy had plenty of time, were totally calm, and just walked through the process. That's not so much how it went for me. I was frantic! There are a lot of time-sensitive parts of this experiment, requiring the use of 3 different timers...that was new all on its own. But to keep that many moving parts clear in my head and to be able to remember what came next was so much harder than I thought.

Without having done it before, I also didn't know just how to set everything up. So I didn't know how to operationalize things or how to multi-task. That meant that an experiment that should have taken a few hours took me ALL DAY LONG! I didn't eat lunch until late afternoon and I have never been so tired! I felt like I was running around the whole time!

And, to top it all off. That experiment, the one that is supposed to work ALL the time...it didn't really work. It kinda worked, in that the drug did what it was supposed to, but the whole thing was about an order of magnitude off of where it should have been. Fun right?

So I did it again today. It went so much better! I felt mostly calm (there were still parts that freaked me out) but it was SO much better than last time. And...the best part...check it out...I was done by EARLY afternoon! This means that I shaved HOURS off the time it took! Now does that translate into decent results? I'll know tomorrow. But for now, I did it!

Today I was all by myself. I planned it so that I would have to be by myself. It's too easy to ask for help if people are around, so by planning to do it when no one would be in the lab, I forced myself to figure it out. This is always the best way for me to learn. I never really learn things until I do it myself. **This has been the story of my life by the way, and a post for another day.**

But I did it! Today, from start to finish, I was on my own and it went well. There is still plenty of room for improvement, but it was a million times better than last week.

So thank you blog, for being a place for me to record this monumental event. Today, I ran my first biochemical assay all by myself! It feels so good to be able to say this. It means that I'm not stuck, that I CAN learn new things, and that even if I don't care at all about something, I still have the ability to force myself through it and come out successful on the other side. I tend to forget that I can do that.

This is a big day for me blog. A big day.

-----The results will be ready tomorrow. I'll let you know how it went...