// the idiot who do not know how to use a pipette//

yup that's me!

DISCLAIMER: The rantings below do not reflect the IQ of a year 4 engineering undergrad. Please do not read further if it is too moronic for your comfort.

for every back-to-school week, I'm always full of complains and grudges
this sem is no exception.
No, i'm not going to whine how my 4 consecutive days of exams near end dec is going to slaughter me (my grades),
neither am I going to complain about the lack of online lecture recording.
I'm not even going to mention my communication breakdown (albeit one-sided) with the lecturer from germany.


well well well
fyp training has started and i'm totally caught off guard.
all the labs, equipment, chemicals seems super duper foreign to me.
i suppose others who did internship at research institutes wouldn't feel the same as me since they have been doing those 'chemical' type of lab work, if you know what I meant.
I mean, i had not touch a pipette since JC days and those were the ones with the orange rubber thingy that fitted on top of the calibrated glass tube.
Maybe the ones we now use are like, supposedly easier to use?
But then, how can it be easier to use when I don't even know what use the buttons on it are for?
I just don't get it.
All the mentors, trainers just took it for granted that every fyp student knows how to use a pipette.
Or that they thought those who do not know are intuitive enough to know what each button is meant to do.
Well, apparently I'm really not that intuitive enough.
If you give me the Iphone or Ipad to use, I probably could handle it for a day or two without the instruction manual.
I mean I haven't done that but I suppose so right?
since many tech gadgets nowadays are claiming to be user-friendly and intuitve etc.


One good thing about dealing with tech gadgets is that whenever I press something wrong, I can always reboot the whole thing.
Or when I type wrongly, save wrongly I can always delete it.
But for experiments, no way!
One step wrong and woebegone!
Re-doing is the only way out.
And due to lack of time, this really dumb person (guess who? :S) had to take the trainer's sample instead!
yes, I wasted probably tens of thousands of cells today.
I really hope karma would spare my incapability.


Maybe I sound like I'm implying that I should badger the trainer for the pipette instruction manual (if there's one) but be rest assured that I know doing so is like making a mountain out of a molehill.
What I (think I) need is someone to explain the function of each of the buttons on the pipette to me.
Not just telling me to press down once or release or wadeva.
When I get my access pass to the labs in a week or two, that's the first thing on my priority list.

And it didn't help that I have to decontaminate every single piece of tool I use.
I wonder such exaggerated decontamination work is required only for bio-related lab or in general, in every type of lab work.
I just feel very idiotic to be asking such question because I'm already a year 4 undergrad and I have no idea how to conduct a proper experiment.
or use the tools in a proper manner, for that matter.
It's just not second nature to me.

one thing I've learnt about myself,
experiments and research is so not my cup of tea.
try harder, hu/m/n.