Oops...

Today is a bad day for me... I only realise that i have been handling EB (the mutagenic sub) the WRONG way today. Wat a disaster! I was most apologetic to the rest of the lab staff as I have inadvertently placed their health at risk, on top of mine too.

I try not to think about the mutations that may have occured for the past week. Hopefully, my DNA repair system is still going strong... I may be exaggerating the severity of the situation but it's no joke that lab work is hazardous... Imagine the constant exposure to chemicals which may be potential carcinogens and infectious microorganisms.

Having said that, I think that it's also a mind thing. Being overparanoid is one of the greatest hurdle that we, as medical professions must overcome. I am happy to say that I am not as afraid and paranoid as before. Much as i acknowledge the threat is real, I think that being overly worried and paranoid will make matters worse as accidents usu happen when one spends time fretting over such things. Take all necessary precautions and hope for the best.

I experience my first experiment failure yesterday ... Couldn't get any results after a day of hard work. I finally ran out of beginner's luck. I began to understand that failure is part and parcel of research. A Dr told me that 75% of research work is about failure and if U intend to do research in future, better be comfortable with failure. Failure means having to repeat your experiment all over again, thinking of what could have gone wrong in the process, from pipetting to concentration of solutions used to equipment settings. So many steps can go wrong. If contamination is suspected, the culprit may be the reagentA or B or C, or the culture, so and so forth.

Research is all about perserverence and patience. My only hope is that i will be able to complete the experiment in the next few weeks...=)