Day 357: Thoughts from the lab

My giant very suspicious case full of equipment from my school lab.

Well today is a busy day! I’ve got a lot going on so hopefully by the time you read this I’ll have all the setup taken care of. Working in two labs seems like a fun and interesting way to do experiments and it is! It’s also a huge pain.

Bringing two fields together can end up creating something magical. It’s like peanut butter and chocolate, somethings just work and create something amazing when you combine them. I love cross-disciplinary research because the two groups coming together have different ways of doing things.

Being stuck in the middle I get to learn both ways! That’s great when you want to learn about all sorts of cool and exotic things going on. On the other hand it makes for twice the amount of work.

Today I have to transport equipment from one lab to the other. There is a lot involved, namely checking out the equipment and convincing any faculty as you walk out with thousands of dollars of equipment that you do in fact do research in the lab. Of course, the transporting is only half the battle.

Making sure you have everything is the biggest issue. If you forget a cable, well good luck! I mean you can always go back and forth, but 30 minutes one way seems a bit much for me! So making sure you have everything is important. I personally like to grab doubles of everything. This means I’m waking out of the lab with a giant case of equipment full to the top, but it also means that I (most likely) didn’t forget to grab something in my rush to get in and get out.

Yep, I’m stuck in the middle of two labs and both want me to do things their own way. I don’t mind though, I get to learn both ways of doing things and with a little luck, come up with a whole new way of doing things. That’s actually the plan for this week. We’re going to do some cross field research that I’m thrilled about.

That’s a story for after the publication(s) … hopefully. In any case, today is going to be a busy day, with a little luck tomorrow will make today worth it.