Safety Thursday, September 28, 2006

Yesterday was interesting to say the least. Four of us (myself, Susanna [German], Nadia and her friend [French]) were eating dinner at the kitchen table last night. We were going over different English terms and Nadia and her friend inform me that they know all the curse words in the English language. They learned this through music mostly; thank you Mr. Fifty Cent. Well, to say the least, she demonstrated her vast knowledge of these terms. I cut her off and told her that we don’t use those words and she kept going. The funny thing is that Susanna is very naive and soft spoken and I thought that she was going to die, foreigners! Hahaha (wait that’s me shoot). The second reason why yesterday was “interesting” was because we had our first fire. Nadia was making fish and chips in a shallow pan using a gas stove. So far this sounds like a horrible idea. It was; some of the grease went over the side of the pan which resulted in some really large flames, followed by screaming, and running out of the kitchen. Now this happened just as I left the kitchen, but I saw it through the window. It must be that firefighter instinct, but as the girls were running out, I grabbed the extinguisher and ran into the kitchen. I did not have to use it because the flame went out just as I was getting ready to pull the pin. I will give Nadia some money next time she wants to have fish and chips. The only positive is that I did not have to exercise, because my heart rate was in the target zone for quite awhile. Hindsight, the funny thing is that I had just decided earlier that day that I was not going to get insurance for my belongings while I was here studying. Maybe this was a sign that I should think again?

Lab introduction today went from 9:30 – 4:30 and it was really good. I learned new things and brushed up on some of the things I learned in my undergrad (like it was a long time ago or something). We did some dilutions and ran a gel electrophoresis with a 23,000 base pair piece of DNA. Safety and precision were drilled into our heads and for good reason. One of the substances we are using is ethidium bromide. This substance allows us to visualize the DNA under UV light. It achieves this by intercalating (squeezing) between two connected strands of DNA. So if it gets on you it does the same thing to your DNA…that’s BAD! Therefore, it causes cancer because it modifies your DNA. We get to use lots of other harmful chemicals, but nothing I haven’t used before.



Today one of my friends had to go to the police station to pick up his passport. I did not understand why the police would have his passport and thought maybe I forgot to do something as a foreign student. The reason the police had his passport is because he has to register with them because he is from a “terrorist” country. This made me very sad because it seems really unfair. What a horrible feeling to be labeled that when you are innocent.