10/06/2002 Entry: "menigitis and other interesting things"

I only have about 15 min to write this entry but I want to do it now anyway. GO!

Today in Micro was supposed to work with Neisserieae meningitidis which is the causative agent of Bacterial Meningitis, which is an infection in your brain and spinal fluid which tends to kill you. In other words, today in micro we were very careful. So, we're doing all this stuff with it, streaking plates, prepping biochemical tests, stuff like that so when we look at it next week we can learn how to identify it. Finally, we do a gram stain, which pretty just visualizes the organism and tells you a little about it depending on color and shape. (wether it is gram negative or gram positive etc etc) So we do this gram stain and it turns out we have a gram negative spore forming rod. Which, for those of you who know nothing about micro (which is probably all of you) is NOT Neisserieae (gram neg coccus) and is most likely something in the Bacillus species. So, whoever sent us the original strain messed up. Damn, I liked the idea of working with a crazy deadly pathogen. There is a slight chance what we worked with was Bacillus anthraxis, or Anthrax, but I doubt it. Damn. (I bet that story was exciting to none of you.)

It's still a study weekend for me, even though it's Tuesday, so I'm still really busy and a fairly stressed, which is why I only have 7 minutes left. Study weekends tend to make me think too much, 'cause my mind wanders during them. This semester my mind has wandered mostly too whatever my current situation with a certain often mentioned friend was at the time, which made some study weekends unbearable and very unproductive. This study weekend has been a lot better because I'm finally becoming less insane and depressed about the whole thing. Which is nice. I may actually be prepared for these tests. *gasp*

I'm really glad I'm going home this weekend to see George Clinton on Sun and Ben perform on Sat. The shows should kick ass, and I really miss home. Last night felt like summer and I wanted to do summer things, like bonfires, urban climbing, construction zone exploring, parking lot Frisbee, kleptoness, potato gun shooting, bbqing, nakedness at Ozzie's and other such things of questionable legality and morality. It's also made me think that I really don't want to stay in Ames this summer. I have very strong ties in CF still and I only have three months out of a year to hang there. If I stay in Ames this summer I'll only have 2 weeks out of a year to hang there. I'm not sure I could deal with that. The only reason I'm staying in Ames is to get a job in micro, and if that doesn't happen I think I'm heading home. Unless I can land a job in Florida with Alex in micro, in which case I'm there in a second. (woo ya!) But I don't think that's very realistic. Damn. Damn to everything, growing up sucks.

Crap, that took a minute longer than it should have. Time to get back to work. Stay tuned for more entertaining posts in the future.