Friday

Just got back from lab this morning.. It was so cool! The grad student needed to get tissue from the mice to do a western blot. I got to watch her kill the mouse, cut off it's head, and take the brain out. She said she was really nervous the first time she did it, but she's very quick at it now. Then she had to dissect out certain portions of the brain. I have the chick embryo memorized, but the mouse brain seems pretty complicated.. She knew it all so well! After that she showed me how they section the brains. They use dry ice to freeze their tissue (unlike what I did got my research where I used wax). So it was cool to see the different procedure and machine they use.. It was much more high-tech than the one I used! Yesterday the students in the lab took me out to lunch. I'm really enjoying lab, especially since alot of it is so similar to what I did at home.
We had a test in my Chinese class yesterday, and I think it went pretty well. We are in the beginner level class, but people in the 2nd and 3rd levels have told us were learning things they'd just learned the day before.. We're moving really quickly！it's cool to be able to recognize a few characters now tho when I see them on signs, where before i just looked past them.
This Saturday some of us are going to the north coast for the day. I think we'll be able to see the beach and an old gold mining community. We also want to go to more temples this weekend, to the zoo at some point, and are going to go see the new harry potter with one of the guys from the UK.