Friday, September 15, 2006

Last Day of Class and Under Siege by Midges

We had our last PSS today, and it covered free radicals and antioxidants. Two of the girls in my group baked cookies and a chocolate cake from scratch for all of us. It was a little early in the morning for such a huge sugar rush, but somehow we managed to rise to the occasion. We actually ate that entire cake. Afterward, we had our last journal club, and the articles also covered lipid oxidation and free radicals. I was on a bit of a sugar buzz, which definitely isn't the best condition to be in when you're sitting through people's presentations. The cake and cookies were awesome though. I told you I had a great PSS group!

In the afternoon, I went to the lab and finished my experiment. At first, I thought it hadn't worked. But after I let it sit for a while, I came back to discover that it had indeed worked. So I am happy to report that I actually have some results to show for my presentation next week. Everyone else in the lab had left by the time I finally figured out that things had worked, so I didn't even have anyone to tell. But I left a note for the staff scientist who has been helping me, and went home feeling a lot better about the whole experience.

When I got home, it was starting to get dark already. It rained all week including today, so that makes it get dark really early. Because we had so much rain, there were all these little flies around (which I later found out are called midges). I had noticed them earlier when I was outside, but I hadn't thought much about them besides being annoyed at having to walk through swarms of them. Well, what I hadn't thought about was that I had left my kitchen windows cracked open this morning, and I came home to find my kitchen absolutely FULL of these little flies. I slammed the windows shut so that no more would come in, but there were already plenty inside, and the windows were coated with even more that wanted to get in. At first I thought they were mosquitoes, but after I realized that they weren't coming after me, I figured out that weren't. They do look like mosquitoes though. Anyway, I wound up leaving my kitchen light on so that they'd stay in there and not go all over my apartment. It seems to be working. I'll have to figure out how to get rid of them all tomorrow.

4 comments:

Alexander Pine said...

well, how about that EtOH trick?

CCLCM Student said...

That was only partially effective for the fruitflies, and even if it worked 100%, I'd literally need an entire lake-full to kill all of the midges. It's both amazing how many of them there are, and also disgusting that there are now dead and dying bugs everywhere I go. I do keep my windows shut now though. :-)

Alexander Pine said...

That's too bad, I mean the shut windows. How about window screens or some sort of very fine netting?

CCLCM Student said...

Well, in my admittedly limited experience, if you have enough midges, and they want in badly enough, they will find their way in through every possible crevice available. Even with screens there.