I didn't even know they made them that large

...That's what she said. OK, seriously.

So I have a neuronoma in my foot. Which, according to the Mayo Clinic's website, is a swelling of a nerve. Due to injury, wearing tight shoes, or repetitive sports that put strain on the balls of the feet (i.e. running or tennis). In my case, injury. Maybe running from class to lab to class to lab to home to lab to Boyfriend's to class to lab to...you get the idea.

I thought it was a stress fracture or a pretty serious contusion, but nope. Apparently it's a neuronoma. Guess what the best treatment for those are? A shot.

A huge-ass cortisone-anesthetic shot. Oh and the standard RICE-ing. But the shot. I kid you not, the needle was as long as my pinky. And it wasn't one of those quick in-and-out shots like HPV or Tetanus--no, the doctor kept it in and had to inject slowly. And kept pushing the needle deeper. I swear, at one point, I could feel the it poking at the bottom of my foot.

On the bright side, I felt grrrrrr-EAT for the next 3 or so hours. Driving home was hilarious, too, as my foot fell asleep (of course it was my driving foot).

So that's my story for today.

Holy Nitrogen Fixation, Batman! Real Results!

So I was puttering around with my research today (Linux is all fixed, btw--Dr.J never changed the privacy settings in my files, so while I could see them, I couldn't access them), and found something exciting. AKA really nerdy and boring if you're not into microbio.

One of the proteins for which I was annotating a phylogeny, I noticed a huge group of the phyla Alphaproteobacteria were all of the same two genera: Rhodobacter and Rhodopseudomonas.While their proteins weren't directly related to the one I was working on--as noted by how the structure of my tree was shaping up to be--it was interesting that they were all of these two genera. You see, these two, as well as other Alphaproteobacteria whose genus name starts with Rhodo, are bacteria that reduce Hydrogen Sulfide to elemental Sulfur in metabolism. So I started going through my notes from when I took Microbial Diversity (so glad I ended up saving those) and found out some more information, though not enough. I'm going to have to search through the Journal of Bacteriology's archives or something.

I'm excited to present these results on Friday. I don't know what it means yet, but it's exciting.

Linux-ing, Part 2

I hate Linux and it hates me. Seriously.

Either that or Dr. J's main computer is out to get me. For real. It isn't letting me access any files, now including the ones I made myself. I was able to access one file for about an hour or so last Tuesday (basically, long enough for me to finish working with the data in that file) and then it decided I couldn't use it anymore.

And I'm the only undergrad having this problem. I think Dr. J might think I'm a moron.

In other news, I've been looking at Microbiology Master's programs (I don't think I've got it in me to get a Ph.D.), mostly in the Richmond to DC corridor. So that would be VCU, George Mason, and Georgetown. And I found two MS programs in Biohazard Defense that look pretty cool in addition to normal Master's programs.

Hopefully I can rock the GRE in May.

Off Topic...

I know this is in no way related to the purpose of the blog at all, but:

I'm going to Las Vegas!!!

Which should be amusing since I almost never drink and don't gamble. But gambling really isn't high up on any of my friends' list of priorities for this trip. And the only reason we're really going is because it's incredibly cheap for us to go at the moment (thanks, recession). It's going to end up being $440 for the flight and hotel together...and we're staying at one of the seriously famous hotel-casinos, not some AmeriLodge 3 miles away from the strip.

So exciting!!

Also: apparently Montgomery County has a brushfire warning today...in the middle of February. I love it here.

I hate getting graded

Nothing like a few grades to remind me why I prefer my research lab to my class lab.

My average in class lab right now is a whopping 50. And that's easily one of the lowest in the class. I know I'm not really a very smart person, but being in my major is one of the easiest ways to constantly remind me of that.

In research, it doesn't matter how smart I am, as long as I can figure things out. At least it feels that way to me.

This was an incredibly incoherent entry, mostly because I'm annoyed at myself for not doing better.

Linux-ing

So today was my first experience with Linux. And my first step into hacking. Sort of. VT-endorsed hacking.

I learned how to create tunnels to other computers, namely the Linux system that is holding all of the lab's molecular evolution data. I have no files as of right now, but Dr. J (my research lab adviser) is placing files into my home program so I can work from home and not spend every waking second in the lab, on the computer in his office. This was in the plan all along.

Learning the command lines is tedious. Right now all I can do is sign in and out and toggle between my folders. I need to figure out a new password that will be acceptable to the system so it will let me change my password from the default one that Dr. J gave me when he set up my account.

I'm also learning to use a program called FigTree to create cladograms (or, at least as of right now, annotate already existing ones to make them ready for publication), which is a pretty standard, self-explanatory hybrid of Photoshop and Excel.

All in all, it's been a good few days in the research lab.

In other news, once again VT is proving to the world that it never, ever closes. Not even when all the schools in the county, nay, the commonwealth are closed. Including many other universities. Eesh. So when I wiped out on a patch of black ice today, when rushing between classes, I just reminded myself that this will all be worth it in the end. And popped a few Advil to keep the souvenir bruise on my knee from hurting too much.