Leaving the lab

This will likely be a bit of a mish-mash kind of post because it's been a while since I wrote anything, and quite a bit has happened. Let's start with science. So, while I didn't get to do the lipid analysis stuff that I was planning to do, I do have a shitload of NMR data - at least a thesis chapter's worth. Rad. The lipid analysis was always going to be difficult (I had to explain the meaning of the phrase "pushing shit uphill"), especially as we were essentially trying to develop a method from scratch. Reza, who is the NMR guru who helped me with my NMR stuff said that it was a very good data set, and he asked to use it to prepare a poster for a conference he's going to in September. Juan also asked if he could use it for a poster he's preparing for a conference in July, so good news all around on that front. Next week I'm at a course at the EBI called "Recognising similarities and differences in biological data", which should be good.

On Wednesday we had a dinner at a local Chinese restaurant, partly as a farewell for me and partly to welcome Laura, a French undergrad student who is spending the next couple of months in Steve's lab. On Friday I bought a few bottles of Coopers Pale and Sparkling, and we had a few beers and talked rubbish for a bit (pics on facebook). It's amazing how much you can learn over a pint or two.

We also set up a sweep for Euro 2008 - I got Russia and Holland. Nianshu managed to get Germany and France. Juan sent around a draw saying who was playing who, and I'm playing him tomorrow night (Holland vs Italy), so we plan to meet up and watch the game at the pub.

I'm kind of losing interest in this, so I'll leave it there.