While the epoxy dries...

I've now spent five whole weeks working in the H lab now, and what a fantastic-exhausting-challenging-mind-blowing-confusing-headache-inducing five weeks it has been. Just in the last week, I've:

• started a surgery with JK, only to realize halfway through the he hadn't checked the impedance or gold-plated his electrode yet
• checked impedance on a single-unit electrode (which was unbelievably frustrating)
• gold plated various tips on a single-unit electrode (which was similarly frustrating)
• mourned the death of the rat that died halfway through surgery (he was a particularly friendly and calm one, too)
• recorded one rat (JK1... no really, that's his name) and marveled at the EEG (months ago I would have been confused as to why it didn't look like the EEGs I've seen in movies and pictures; now I'm excited. Oh, how quickly we learn...)
• coded too many schedules and added a lever preference test to them
  
• leafed through pages upon pages of notes trying to find the record of E1's surgery so I know which leads are recording what areas of the brain
  
• recorded E1 and speculated about coherence while he did the DNMS task
• trained E2 and wondered why he was still stuck on Block 4 (up to 20 second delays) while E1 has been acing (literally) Block 6 (up to 30 second delays)
• been interrogated by an intimidating French guy
  
• fixed the feeder on the operand chamber (it was disgusting)
  
• made 12 sets of electrodes for implantation (only six more to go! and then I have to cut the wires to the right submillimeter lengths, assuming Jon checks them and they are to his satisfaction)
  

And today (and the week) isn't even over yet. Next week, we start surgeries (18 rats need to be implanted in a little over a week). I also get my wisdom teeth out Wednesday afternoon, but theoretically I'll be back at work on Thursday so we don't fall behind. On Monday I'm going to learn some more Matlab. I also have to put together a presentation over an article for journal club the following Monday. Hopefully I'll understand more than half the paper.

It's been a good few weeks (minus that one 70-hour week when I was in for 10+ hours on both Friday and Saturday), though, and I'm excited about the upcoming ones. Surgeries, training, analyses galore! BP, the med student at my lab, showed me this blog that I'm excited about reading... it's written by a med student about life as, well, a med student. Not that I'm premed or anything.

Before school starts up again, I'd like another mini-vacation, though. I'm thinking of going up to Boston and NY, and maybe NJ... take Friday off, perhaps, once all the surgeries are done and the training is underway.

On another note, I helped this one woman write a letter to a prospective employer a few weeks ago. Today she came by the lab to say goodbye: it was her last day here; tomorrow she's moving across the country to California because the company not only employed her but gave her a raise. It's odd and kind of cool to think I helped make that happen (of course, all her experience and references probably helped a bit).