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I'm so proud of myself, I just made the best dinner ever. No processed/frozen food at all! Mind you, it's a rainy Saturday and I haven't really done much, I don't know if I would put the effort into non-frozen things during the week Maybe when I get better at it, we'll see. Plus, I totally handled raw meat! Those of you have eaten out with me know I'm weird about meat, ie no meat with bones, etc, so this was a big step.
Things in the lab are starting to get moving. I had a few weeks of waiting for a specific strain of worms to grow for a few generations, but I can finally start actually working on my project this week. Oh and I found a video of C. elegans, just for fun. This is taken under a microscope, the worms (nematodes actually) are a bit less than half a millimeter long when fully grown. It's very frustrating to try and pick one up with a metal pick, they really wiggle.
Yesterday afternoon I got drunk at work for the first time. The last of the students who were away for the month returned, and since everyone was back, we had a long-overdue celebration of another student's papers acceptance to a major journal. So we had a big bottle of champagne, which worked out to about two glasses each. But not having had too much to eat for lunch, the bubbles worked pretty quickly. And when the champagne ran out, someone ran out to grab beers, and I (slowly) had one as well. So I was more than a little tipsy walking home from work. I can totally understand now why Kathy complained about beer and wine at Friday afternoon lab meetings. I think it's mostly not having had a decent meal beforehand? I don't usually pack too much food. Luckily though, our official lab meetings scheduled for mornings so alcohol gets trumped by caffiene.
Also yesterday I was invited to go out with a girl from the lab, and her boyfriend, who is a Chemistry grad student. The plan was to meet up with a number of other grad students in the department for dinner and then grab drinks somewhere in the St. Laurent area, which is basically the student ghetto of Montreal. I skipped dinner since it was going to be a sushi place (again, weird about food and didn't want to make a weird first impression - considering just telling everyone in this province that I am allergic to seafood and avoid the issue completely :P) but I met up with them afterwards. It was a gorgeous night last night, a little bit muggy but it cooled off pretty nicely, so we grabbed some beers at a convenience store (very convenient) and found a spot in Parc Jeanne-Mance, one of the bigger and really nice parks in the area. A couple of the guys brought guitars, and aside from a few bug bites and a damp bum from sitting on the grass, I had a great time. The other students were really interesting, relaxed people, and I had some great conversations. I really hope I get to meet up with them again sometime.
I was very (as in very very) nervous about getting together with new people, in a new situation, but I'm glad I went. And itt probably helped having had so much to drink at work beforehand.