Siliceous and Delicious

After last night’s very disappointing CLS microscopy session, this morning’s DSA meeting with Beau was just the elixir I needed. He got me back on track, thinking positively about the months ahead, and perhaps more importantly, also about the past twelve months. Helpful as ever, Beau provided his notes on our conversation:

Confocal work: Ben reported that the inverse staining option wasn’t really returning positive results, and showed that the best pictures so far have come from the standard method. Sadly, he got news from the lab tech that with his departure at the end of the summer, the machines will probably be disappeared to various locations. This puts a hard 6 month deadline (at best) on the confocal work.

Presentation: Ben didn’t get a chance to work on this, due to various EPS 8 commitments, but sounded like he knew exactly what should be going where, and has plenty of sexy pictures to add. He needs to do some 3-D reconstructions of some of the newer confocal pics, but otherwise it’s all under control in that department.

Reflections from B: It’s quite a blow to hear that the machines will be gone at the end of the summer. I entirely appreciate the feeling that, despite all the hard work you’ve been putting in, circumstances appear to be conspiring against you in ways that are absolutely not under your control. But what is under your control is how you make productive use of the time ahead. Since you’ve assured me that it’s possible to get the measurements done within 6 months (possible or necessary, I guess both may be the same at this point!), you can now focus on pulling out all the stops towards getting this project whacked on the head during that period. Getting this done will not only leave you with a thesis chapter ready to go, but also prove a tremendous morale boost, which will help the other work you’re doing. The more you work on the machines, the better you’ll get at taking the pictures, and the better the dataset you’ve gathered will become. So hang in there, focus on the prize, and make sure you’ve got a clear path laid out for all the work during the summer.

For next week: Ben will run through his presentation, and for bonus points, also talk about potential milestones for the confocal work during the summer.

Spent the afternoon grading my part of the EPS 8 labs, then went home.