Crazy week
I had one of those weeks that I would probably want to avoid as much as possible. My life last week basically involved waking up, coming to work, and choir rehearsals....whew!
We finally managed to finish the COPAS demo. Thanks a lot to Cathy's help it made things a lot easier for me. But everything that could have gone wrong with the project did....in a way. The machine was meant to get here at 10am monday morning--it didn't actually arrive till 3pm. By then the engineer had already gone home and we had lost a day so we had to push our injections back one day. Then the first day we injected all the embryos died......talk about bad luck! This was such a rare even that the stars had to be aligned against the event. Anyway, we repeated the injections and this time the embryos developed. Finally on friday we were able to sort the embryos and get some data. But I was just so swamped the whole time, and I was stressed about perhaps not making it to the Elijah dress rehearsal friday night. The machine appeared to work quite well, even able to identify some embryos expressing my very very faint element. Now this week Cathy and I will be doing QPCRs on the injected embryos to see if our data correlate with the machine's. I think that the machine is pretty cool, and can save us from having to sort through embryos. At the same time I feel that 100K is rather steep for a machine that really doesn't do anything that we cannot already do. But EHD thinks that our time is the most precious, and I suppose if he has to dough to acquire something like why not?
Am listening to Beethoven's 9th. I LOVE that piece! I had the opportunity to perform it with the LA philharmonic in Walt Disney concert hall, which was the most awesome experience. I definitely felt very professional at that time! The chorale will be performing with the American Youth symphony this fall, so it would be fun. Many don't like it because the choir only gets to sing for 15 minutes and the rest of the time you just sit there. But it is one piece of music that gives me the chills to perform. And of course the audience loves it.
Our Elijah concert last saturday went very well. I think the choir sang very very well. Though we did have a moment very early in the second movement where the entire choir did not come in on a part. No one really knows what happened. I did remember thinking that oh I should sing but then no one around me did so it was just silence. And then the men didn't hear us and then didn't come in....ooops! I think it is at least partly because the soloists did something funny right when we were supposed to come in. But we recovered ourselves quite well and I don't think anyone in the audience who is not familiar with Elijah would notice at all. Still, it marred an otherwise truly great performance. But i have to admit (sheepishly) that I am glad that the concert is over and I have no more choir commitments this summer. I really need the time to work! Though after the concert I felt that all that extra time and effort was worth it.
Went for an 8 mile run this morning. I forgot that today was flea market day at the Rose bowl, so when I got there the whole place was packed. But I did find a new trail to run on and was quite happy with that.
We finally managed to finish the COPAS demo. Thanks a lot to Cathy's help it made things a lot easier for me. But everything that could have gone wrong with the project did....in a way. The machine was meant to get here at 10am monday morning--it didn't actually arrive till 3pm. By then the engineer had already gone home and we had lost a day so we had to push our injections back one day. Then the first day we injected all the embryos died......talk about bad luck! This was such a rare even that the stars had to be aligned against the event. Anyway, we repeated the injections and this time the embryos developed. Finally on friday we were able to sort the embryos and get some data. But I was just so swamped the whole time, and I was stressed about perhaps not making it to the Elijah dress rehearsal friday night. The machine appeared to work quite well, even able to identify some embryos expressing my very very faint element. Now this week Cathy and I will be doing QPCRs on the injected embryos to see if our data correlate with the machine's. I think that the machine is pretty cool, and can save us from having to sort through embryos. At the same time I feel that 100K is rather steep for a machine that really doesn't do anything that we cannot already do. But EHD thinks that our time is the most precious, and I suppose if he has to dough to acquire something like why not?
Am listening to Beethoven's 9th. I LOVE that piece! I had the opportunity to perform it with the LA philharmonic in Walt Disney concert hall, which was the most awesome experience. I definitely felt very professional at that time! The chorale will be performing with the American Youth symphony this fall, so it would be fun. Many don't like it because the choir only gets to sing for 15 minutes and the rest of the time you just sit there. But it is one piece of music that gives me the chills to perform. And of course the audience loves it.
Our Elijah concert last saturday went very well. I think the choir sang very very well. Though we did have a moment very early in the second movement where the entire choir did not come in on a part. No one really knows what happened. I did remember thinking that oh I should sing but then no one around me did so it was just silence. And then the men didn't hear us and then didn't come in....ooops! I think it is at least partly because the soloists did something funny right when we were supposed to come in. But we recovered ourselves quite well and I don't think anyone in the audience who is not familiar with Elijah would notice at all. Still, it marred an otherwise truly great performance. But i have to admit (sheepishly) that I am glad that the concert is over and I have no more choir commitments this summer. I really need the time to work! Though after the concert I felt that all that extra time and effort was worth it.
Went for an 8 mile run this morning. I forgot that today was flea market day at the Rose bowl, so when I got there the whole place was packed. But I did find a new trail to run on and was quite happy with that.
posted by La Nuage at 3:35 PM
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