As you might know, the first day of Laidlaw research has officially started today. Hence, just to start off on the right note, I have punctually turned up in the lab, full of optimism and in hope that I will not blow anything up (I was successful). The first moments in the lab were nerve-wracking: do I have to remember all of the reagents and where they are located? What are all of these liquids and powders for? What can I touch and what is better to be avoided? What will happen if I accidentally confuse similarly looking flash with something completely different? All of these thoughts were flowing so rapidly through my brain (one of the few in this lab that was not an actual sample) while I was staring on the bright lights and white walls of the room. Fortunately, from the very beginning of this experience I was not alone and one of the master’s students working in my lab (an absolute hero) explained me all the most essential and helpful things to remember while doing research. One of the most comforting things I have found out today was that something will go wrong: I will probably confuse the previously mentioned flash for something else, make mistake in the calculation for the mass of reagent or leave something to chill out for a bit too short or too long. Once I’ve realised it and accepted it, it immediately became a little bit less scary.

As soon as I was explained most important safety features of the lab, I was free to do some prep for the next day’s experiment. Funny enough, even though I was just mixing up some buffers, I instantly felt like Harry must have felt during his first potion classes: my hands were shaking when I was weighting my TBS powder, I was confusing the volumes of water I needed to add to get the right dilution and I couldn’t find the flash with the right molar concentration (12.6M) of the hydrochloric acid for the life of me. Fortunately, after the heroic fight with the distilled water distributor (1:0 for me) I managed to get most of my solutions right and the last thing left to do for the lab day was to prepare the right hydrochloric acid dilution. Before completing the task I was warned that the solution itself is corrosive (wouldn’t be best friend with my skin tissue) and hence I would have to be extra careful handling it. Fortunately, nothing except of my sense of smell got damaged (the acid definitely doesn’t smell like flower meadow)! Then, I was all free to leave the lab, grab my favourite meal deal and go to the library to do some prep for tomorrow:) Hopefully everyone else doing research had fun today, see you in the next blog post!

very accurate representation of me trying to read the labels on the flasks with reagents