2021 Week 11

It's hard to remember this week prior to Friday, but I will do my best with help from my work diary and 5 Minutes Before Bed journal! 

Monday began with a lab meeting, my notes from which I helpfully wrote on the Wednesday page. On Tuesday, I took brain samples to the other campus to be prepared for later experiments and got a blood blister on my walk home. On Wednesday, I drove to a subway station car park to finally send off my damaged phone and request a replacement, and got to the lab early to help inject some mice. Later that day, I collected the brain slices and filled up with petrol for the first time in six months, once I'd realised that the car needs to be unlocked in order to open the petrol catch. I had a relaxed morning on Thursday before presenting at the journal club and running my primary antibody incubations with ease, which is how I expected the experiment to continue the next day!

I was in early on Friday, managing to start my first wash at 08:41 and salvaged my coffee cup from my locker before the asbestos removal work started in the corridor. About 15 minutes later, the fire alarm started sounding, which we assumed was something to do with the asbestos works, but we followed procedure and left the building. Moments later, we learnt that there was a real fire, and so began several hours of waiting for the building to be made safe. During this time, there was nothing to do but sit around drinking coffee and eventually have a pizza lunch, where we successfully convinced the server that we are students to get the free drinks offer, despite not having our IDs with us! Shortly after the pizza, we were allowed to retrieve our possessions; I was accompanied by one of the firefighters, and was relieved to find everything as I'd left it. On Saturday, I was able to finish my experiment after the first half-hour wash was extended by nearly 25 hours, but access will still be restricted going into next week. I also had an enjoyable walk around the city, and interacted with one of my favourite bands, B*Witched, after listening to the first episode of their new podcast, Starting Over!