Basically, I’m combing facial skin for bacteria to analyze their DNA.

That’s a little dry. Here’s where it gets interesting. There are these things called ‘phages’ — think of them as viruses that attack only the bacteria on your skin. It seems as though people who don’t have acne have a lot of these bacteriophages. There’s this relationship between your own immune system with phages versus the bacteria. When it gets out of balance, you’re a lot more likely to have acne.

It’s a crazy concept: people with naturally beautiful skin are a viral breeding ground!

The idea, hopefully, is to study this relationship to make some pharmaceutical product designed to treat acne more specifically (instead of washing it with generic benzoyl peroxide as most acne medications do nowadays). If this can happen, I’ll be super duper rich! But then again, that’s not likely to happen. Still it’s interesting work.

Job Duties: Assist in the development of experimental protocols for sequencing and as required by the research project. Duties include assisting in molecular and cell biology techniques such as cloning, PCR, DNA purification/preparation, immunoprecipitation, agarose and polyacrylamide gel electrophoreses, immunoblotting, and bacteria/phage culture. Other duties include standard instrument maintenance, inventory maintenance, and keeping the lab clean and well-organized.

Job Qualifications: Knowledge of basic microbiology, genetics, molecular biology and biochemical principles. Ability to use basic laboratory equipment and to create and maintain records accurately. Ability to communicate effectively to convey experimental procedures and results. Interpersonal skills to effectively interact with faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows and students. Ability to maintain laboratory readiness for future
experiments. Demonstrated computer skills including knowledge of MS Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint.

I start February 1st. Yay. This job pays about $5 dollars an hour LESS than what I was making. Still pays well enough, and I guess I have to be willing to start back at square one since it’s a different field.

Getting this job means that I will have to drop one of my two organic chemistry courses because they each have 6 hour labs (12 hours of lab D:).
 
It works out to 50+ hours of work a week on top of my organic chemistry coursework. Damn.

Problem is, she’s also a workaholic to the point where it’s unhealthy and a little crazy. Also, apparently, a workaholic to the point that I doubted she was able to handle a relationship properly, and it wasn’t working out for me. I lamented the idea of having to break up during Xmas season, and to add to it all, it was also her birthday just after Xmas. Breaking up with someone on their bday or Xmas was too much of an asshole move even for me, and I hoped to avoid it. I thought maybe I could settle for less, at least for the time being, and see how things went. It was mainly the almost complete lack of communication day to day in between when we saw each other that was the problem — when we actually saw each other, our dates always were marathon dates and we do well together in person.

 So yesterday, into another awesome date we went, starting with a candlelight dinner (yes, i CAN cook gourmet food, not just ramen!) and short hotel stay, to the following day’s horseback riding, hiking, observatory star gazing, shopping, beach walking, fooding, and a movie. Wow, that was lot to fit in a day’s time. After that awesome date, to cap off the wonderful evening…

we broke up.

With no tears but hugs kisses and smiles, it was the most bizarre and also amicable break up ever. Truth be told, I didn’t want to let go. It feels a little bittersweet, but I’m pretty happy at how things turned out. I’d say it was mutual breakup. Sometimes, as well as people get along, things just don’t work out.

Said it wasn’t worth it. But my resolve crumbled. …

I camped for Black Friday. -sigh-

1 hour of waiting, and a whole lot of crafty line cutting later, I got myself…. a whole bunch of electronic crap I’m not necessarily sure I need. But hey 400 people were willing to wait in line for these doorbusters so that makes it okay, right? RIGHT???!?

-_-; mou nemasu.