Day 10: Well Hello There, Qiacube!

My bedroom! My bed is the one on the right, and yes, its on the ground, but its surprisingly comfy and the room is pretty large comparatively to the other apts. I looked at! There's a lot of storage space - so much so actually that I can't fill it up at all.. about half of my space is empty! :)

The front of the apt building! Washer and dryer in my unit, gym, pool, and secured access. Woot!

My first full day in my apartment started well! I woke up to get ready for work at about 9 and found that I was the only person awake in the apartment. I took my time getting ready and actually made myself breakfast which is fairly unheard of... Don't worry people, it was only oatmeal! Once I got to work I was excited to see Dr. Mitchell and get working on continuing the barcoding that we had begun on Monday. When I got there in the morning we went straight to work on the 12 samples. We took them out of the heating station we had them baking in at 50'C overnight and headed straight to the lab. I unfortunately committed the faux paux of wearing flip flops on a day that we were heading up to the lab, but Dr. Mitchell said not to worry about it so I guess they aren't too strict around these parts. As we walked up I met the man in charge of the lab area and Dr. Mitchell set up next Monday for me to do my official lab run through with him so I would be able to work through the process alone in order to get as many samples done as possible which made me really happy. I don't know why, but I didn't really think he would trust me with all the lab work alone. I'm just a girl with a degree that doesn't know diddly-squat about DNA Barcoding. He kept using lingo as we went along that I was hard-pressed to keep up with, but he was also good about trying to explain everything thoroughly as we went. In the lab we donned lab coats and gloves and continued the Barcoding process. This basically involved transferring the DNA solution into new test tubes (leaving behind the actual moth matter) and putting them into a machine called the Qiacube. Now this machine is hella legit. Dr. Mitchell thought we were going to have to do all the stuff by hand, but luckily the machine was available and it apparently saved us a lot of time using it. After we headed back to his office and he informed me that they were having a free BBQ for Museum staff for lunch, which was awesome. I had a turkey dog and a beer for lunch (who can say no to a free Australian beer that you've never tried?). I spent the lunch chatting with a couple of the Museum staff and specifically this very interesting woman who does a lot of agricultural research in Papua New Ginneau. It was good stuff. After lunch I worked to photograph the specimen that we were currently testing and called it a day by about 4pm leaving with a print out of a 50 pg. manual Dr. Mitchell wrote for one of his classes on DNA Barcoding, PCRs, and some other stuff I should really bulk up on. I walked home, stopping to buy a few more groceries and necessities I had forgotten to buy earlier at one of the larger markets. When I got home two of the boys were home, but Yalin my roomie wasn't because she works night shifts. So I basically hung out in the living room (that's where the strongest internet signal is), surfed the web, and tried to get a little more acquainted with the apartment. I made some dinner with the rice cooker and worked my way through the manual. It was a little awkward since I had only met the guys once, and since everyone was doing their own thing we didn't talk at all, but I figured that's the way it starts out. So no biggie. I worked my way through the entire manual and thanks to a couple videos that Dr. Mitchell showed me before I left I actually understood most of what it said. After a long hot day I decided to pass out after I finished settling in so I would be ready for another day.