Danielle Blog

First day of work

Well, I just (well, an hour and a half ago) completed my first day of work at the University of Minnesota!

I am happy to be back to work. I had gotten to the point where I was tired of being in the house everday and was going slightly, or not-so-slightly on some days, stir-crazy. I was also ready to be back in the lab DOing stuff. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to make the transition to where all I do is read and write about science. This is what happens to primary investigators (P.I.’s) as they become more senior and as their lab becomes more established. They slowly end up moving farther and farther away from bench science. I think that is why my P.I. wanted to be the one to teach me how to dissect today. Not only did it give me the best teacher possible in the technique, but it gave him the chance to get back to the bench for a bit.

I really enjoyed it, because it is always better to learn from the P.I. than from someone the P.I. has trained.

So, that was cool. Tomorrow, I’ll get to try to dissect on my own. Everybody has warned me that the first times they tried to do the dissections they couldn’t find the right structure and made the cuts wrong and everything just looked like a big ball of mush. But that with time, you get better at it.

I’m looking forward to trying.

Today, I dealt with a lot of technicalities in a new job. Had to find the parking lot and how to walk to my building. Then get my employee number which allowed me to get my ID, email, and parking. Oh and I also did one hour of online training. But in the process, I learned my way around the buildings a little bit better. And I got to eat lunch on a bench outside while it was kind of sunny.

All in all, it was a very pleasing first day.