Last Friday we started purifying our proteins that we’d isolated earlier in the week. We finished with that yesterday, after working on it several hours on Friday, a couple hours Saturday, another hour Sunday, and most of the day yesterday. At least most of the process doesn’t require constant attention (for anyone reading this who would understand, we were doing column purification, and only used gravity to pull the product through the resin. Read: it was SLOW). So we’ve had a few very late workdays, not leaving the lab until 6 or 7 at night, between isolating the protein on Thursday, purifying it Friday, and then the toxicity study I did yesterday requiring a total of two and a half hours of waiting time. We’re still not to the point of being able to really start on the project, since there are a few things we were not able to learn last week because other things were taking too long.

Sunday we went to the Dragon Boat Festival at a lake nearby. We rented paddleboats, which was fun for Angela and I when the guy on the dock was trying to explain which parts of the lake we were allowed in. We obviously don’t speak Chinese, and he had no English either. We eventually called to one of the students to come over and translate for us. There were all sorts of booths selling food or balloons, or for playing games. There were even a couple selling pet birds. Every half hour or so, there were also longboat races at one end of the lake. I got the impression that these weren’t just random teams of visitors to the festival, but groups that trained just for this event. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of the races, otherwise I’d post one.

After we left the festival, we went to a nearby river that is a popular weekend spot for the local people. There were lots of families playing in and near the water. We went wading in one part of the river, and I of course promptly slipped on a rock and fell in. Luckily, I made the brilliant decision to purchase a digital camera that is waterproof. So the fact that I was carrying it in my back pocket at the time I fell didn’t cause any problems. Or the fact that I forgot to take it out of my pocket when I later jumped off a ridge into a deeper part of the river. I even tested out its underwater capabilities and took a picture of a 6 of hearts card we found floating in the river. I love my camera. It’s pretty much indestructible. If only my pants were the same… they were ripped by my graceful fall at the beginning of the expedition. Nothing bad though. I think the moss and mud stains will be harder to deal with. All in all a fun day.

Really, really loving my waterproof camera,
Jamie