Picture a Day - Day 122

My brain has declared a state of emergency and threatened to shut down.

I got to count colonies yesterday. Seems simple enough right? I did learn to count thanks to a vampire with OCD.

Only when it comes to bacteria nothing is ever simple:See each of those little white dots. No not just the huge white ones but also the itty bitty little hidden ones in between? Well there are even more tinier ones hidden between those small ones that also demand counting. I got to do that yesterday with 8 little bacteria circles a plate on 20 different plates. (Science is nothing but repetition, I don't think we've found anything new since the 60's).

It helps that I am so nearsighted when I take my glasses off and focus up close it's like having a magnifying glass surgically attached to the front of my eyes. But I get one hell of a headache as I go from one extreme to the other.

There is another unpleasant experience one must fight against when working with bacteria. When it is your mission to get bacteria to grow and be fruitful you make special media chopped full of nutrients to do it but then suddenly your other more insidious mission is to keep everything else from growing on it to.

Like say a fungus:Oh how I loathe sterile techniques sometimes, especially if you work in an old building when a good air supply is only thought to be a band from the 70's.

Sorry for all the really ugly pictures of bacteria and ranting, luckily it's over and I can look forward to other things. Now I just have to grow it up in tubes and measure the OD. Growth curves how I love thee, let me count the ways.

But since it's Friday and those pictures are not something you really want to remember here are some pretty ones from nature:

I've never seen a willow tree in bud before. It has a very fantastical feel as though the tree could spring to life and start talking. Though I imagine he'd just complain about how a strange man in yellow boots won't stop singing. Terry ol, derry ol in deed. An early bud on a tree, funny how it has such a fall feel even though the bud is trying to grow and not die off.

What is the most mind bending thing you have to do at your job? Misery is known to prefer company so maybe sharing it will help to be rid of it all. Though then you wouldn't be miserable anymore so misery would want nothing to do with you and then it'd be alone again. So then you'd be miserable again and then misery would like you.

This is complicated. I may have to diagram it out.