Eric Wong(iGem)

Fire Alarms all summer long.

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:54:43 -0700

Today started out like anyother day, woke up and went to work.

Since aynor taught me how to do gel purification i did help aynor with her gel extraction project. halfway running the gel the fire alarm rang and we had to evacuate and “CEASE ALL OPERATION AND EXIT THE BUILD” Calmly( by calm meaning slowly walking out not giving a crap about the fire existant or not) when were outsided the heat was scourching and we saw allen just was across to bryers hall and stayed up there.

when we got back we finished our experiments around 5 or 6. looking at this you might think its late since we start work around 9am, but for the past few day we usually ended around 8 or 9 and get home around 10.

today i was surprising tired today? i doubt its the fact i sleep at 2am since my body has already adapted to the time change, but probably cause i was working out more than usual yesterday and woke up all sore.

Raquel has been sick (of us) lately so she hasnt gone to work, hope you feel better!

I got a feeling..that tonight is going to be a late night

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:11:46 -0700

so yesterday!..which was monday we had our first lab meeting. jackie and myself were pair with aynur to prefect out mini prep techniques to get higher concentrations.

i was actually pretty happy that we spent the time to go over the procedures in detail and not just what the next step was but why we did the step…i found my concentration went from the usually around high 90 to mid 100 ng/ul to about 200 to low 400ng/ul. needless to say im going to start using this technique more often.

yesterday was a long day due to the fact that we had to organize our libary of GEF,RASSL,GPCR and etc to find out what we got already what has a useable concentration and what we need to transform again and mini prep. when all was said and done it was about 9:45 XP

Ryan Q gave me a ride home and i ate whatever was left of dinner and then crashed cause i was dead tired…but i still manage to sleep at 2 in the morning. o.o

Free time at work?...NOT EVEN!

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:21:02 -0700

Today was harsh! started work about 8:30 to keep my notebook updated, then do some DNA purification, restriction digest, some more transformation cause some of the first ones didnt work, and some more mini preps. Overall a very busy day, I ate lunch in about 5 to 10 mins?

oh i met the new exchange student today, han si!? haha she seems like a fun person. she speaks mandarin! so i can pratice my own mandarin..nOICEEE.

Game Time

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:14:53 -0700

During the meeting on friday it finally hit me that we actually dont have that much time left. we need to make constructs, test if they work, and if they dont (which most likey the first time it wont) then we have to redo experiments…the stress of actual lab work is start to get real. im pretty confident i am up to the challenge and since there aint much lectures left and more hands on lab work now, i wont be sleeping during the day much. its all good cause i love lab work!

BLACK! TEAM! cause we so ninja

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:48:28 -0700

WHELP! so i was put in the BLACK team with Ryan Q., Katja, David, bethany(?) and iowa. i was pretty glad i was in this team cause i was always able to get along with David and Iowa. we had pretty simple straight foward ideas for braking and acceleration of a cell, but then had a kick ass idea for steering. haha we’ll present our stuff tomorrow on thursday. Hope it goes well!

BOOT CAMP OVER!

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:35:20 -0700

Its been about a week and a half and and we finally finshed our boot camp sessions of cell mobility. i was kinda surprised that we were able to integrate such a large ammount of information is such a short period of time. HAHA GUESS WE ARE REALLY THAT CRACKIN! well we finally finished out pre-project today and oliver genreally was pleased…i think…=p. the team chanllege is set for wednesday and we will find out what our teams are going to be. im pretty sure im gonna be happy with whoever i get cause all the buddies seem pretty fun and easy to talk to. UNTIL THEN!!!

its Friday? ITS FINALLY FRIDAY!!! OH SWEET FRIDAY

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:40:48 -0700

FINALLY! the first friday is upon us!…..let us have a moment of silence to take in the the serenity…………….SILENCE OVER! this week was exhausting but if i take a look back at the whole week it was also worth the time. every hour spent at UCSF was full of intresting stories and facts…i have been dubed the sleeper since i always fall asleep during the lectures but its not like it try to! =P

Well ill try to stay awake to the most of my ability….but i aint promising anything….i know what your think, “well eric you just plain retarted! just drink some coffee and you will be a good as new!” well mr smarties panties! i have already done that but it has seem that i have developed a high tolerence for caffeine and like 10 to 15 mins in from finishing my coffee and i drop dead…..( ive been sleeping around 2 to 2:30 each night though) BUT IM A HIGH SCHOOL GRAD…its what i dooooooooo

We finally finished our pre-project screening and i only got 3 working vectors out of 20…sad face? =[

oh there is HAPPY HOUR every friday…5:30? around there….TOO BAD I AM A LAW ABIDING CITIZEN WHO DOES NOT BREAK THE LAW IN PERSUE OF ALCOHOLIC BREVERGES! …..ill just bring my 21 and older brother to work with me…i have heard we look VERY similar…=]

6/17- ICE CREAM CAKE!

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:19:15 -0700

Sooo halfway into the week i learned alot of intresting information from the lectures…i admit i doosed off once in a while, but i generally absrorbed most of the information. On another note! we started on our minipreps today for the clones we starrted in the pre-project as well ask started our own cultures of dicti cells. we had to spin and freeze our cell during a 5 mins break of the lecture this morning and it turn out we can bend time cause when we got back to the lecture it was about 15 to 20 min break (even that was an understandment =P) haha whelp i and seriously going broke this week cause i brought lunch on campus twice and 10 bucks gone like that! Seriously?!?! im gonna have to bring my won lunch..like cup of noddles or TV dinners and stuff like that to save money. During the down time people would usually just go on the computer, but what i suggest! is that we get some sort of game system in there and play some call of duty 4 of something! Oh! it Raquel’s birthday on sunday? i duno but we had ice cream cake! scoreee i had mint…it was sooo good but i felt soo guilty afterwards….then i just didnt care cause i was like ill work it off when i work out anyways! OH YEAH! Raquel is targeting me! From not giving me e-mails to putting post it up on the wall…i am seriously hurt! haha not really im a team player…what else can i say HW has been…time consuming? yeah ill leave it at that but the journal clubs help explain it alot…if i stay away…maybe sleeping at 2:30 isnt the best idea…

6/15 - First Day

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:58:39 -0700

Today was my first day at UCSF for the iGem program and we meet up with everyone at Mission Bay around 9 in the morning. Today was more like an oreientation for everyone to get to know eachother on the team, everyone seem pretty cool and fun to talk to. we had lectures all the way until around 1 then we had lunch, which was sooo much better than the school lunch at lincoln. so that was one of the upsides for me today, the team also got a international student on the team this year that have been in the iGem compeition for three years already. thats a really good addtion to the team since more experience cant hurt. The day was pretty chill after lunch we just chilled in the lounge room, but raquel reassured us that not everyday will be like that. haha =] Overall for a first day it wasnt bad at all and i look foward to work with everyone for the remainder off the summer. oh btw, we are require to write these blogs 3 times a week for them to access the iGem program.