I'm a survivor!

Today was a whole bunch of excitment. And sheer and utter exhaustion. But ya know, the goods come with the bads.

Hurricane Ernesto. Was actually a very welcome relief. The past couple days have been insanely hot and I was thrilled when Tuesday night it started raining. Yesterday it was kind of gray but nothing bad. Then around 4 when it was time for me to hike all the way across campus, it started POURING!! I am not prepared for this kind of thing. You can tell who has lived here for a while, they all automatically carry umbrellas.. smarties. I arrived at the Ethics Seminar absolutely drenched! And unfortunately, people love the AC over here so the auditorium was frigid. Oh well, everyone else in my group was soaked too..

Walked to a seminar around 6 and it was lightly sprinkling, no biggie. But at the end of the seminar.. around 8pm.. it was POURING again. And tons of LIGHTNING and THUNDER. Does the CAPS make it seem more intense?? Luckily I phoned up my number one hero and he and the trust suby arrived in no time flat and whisked me and another UCDavis friend away and home safely. The lightning was pretty intense but most places have lightening rods and there were tons of people just out jogging or walking their dogs like it is no big deal, so I can't say it was too scary. The storm continued all night and today it has been sprinkling on and off (but i did bring my PreCip!!). Hopefully I can run home before it starts up again, if it does.

So first hurricane down.. no biggie. Love the cooler weather it brought and the lightening was pretty amazing. It rained about 5 inches or something crazy, but it is good because we were having a drought this summer.

Today was also my FIRST real lab to TA. I've spent the entire week frantically autoclaving, begging equipment, and prepping for it, and I think it went off pretty well. It is a challenge dealing with 10 students who all have completely different levels of experience, but the ones that have a lot were really nice about helping out those who didn't. Bless my dear prof, but he just went on and on about historically famous plasmids and then left me.. alone. For the rest of the time. Except to come back and tell me he thinks there is residual DNA in dialysis tubing, and talk about his daughters' swim team. Awesome. I was frantically busy, but I think everyone learned a lot and got their projects done. I just can't believe I have to start all over again for next week, but hopefully it will just keep getting easier. Now it is 6pm, I missed the Ethics seminar, I just innoculated some cultures of plasmids I hopefully tranformed into e.coli with frog behavior genes in them, and everyone has gone home. I am starving and exhausted and have a ton of papers to read and homework to do before tomorrow. But I think I am just gonna go home and see what yummy thing Trent has fixed me tonight.. Love having him here, it is the BEST!!!

Ciao!