3.15.2016

I’m getting better at taking videos through the microscope with my iPhone. However, I was having issues with focusing on specific areas, like focusing on one specific fish. I was able to get some decent video of developing beating hearts in an embryo and in a hatched baby fish that had not yet inflated it’s swim bladder (they mostly stay still that then). But there was so much white background. I tried to find some computer software that would let me crop the white areas out, but everything costs money I don’t have. I did find an app on iPhone that would crop my videos the way I wanted and let me send it to myself through email, or several other ways.

So now I have two examples showing the two chamber heart of a developing zebrafish. Nothing to do with my work since my lab will be focusing on the fishes brains and neurobiology.

"Zebrafish embryo heart beat" (Watch on YouTube)

"Hatched zebrafish with heart beat" (Watch on YouTube)

Sweating the small stuff

As much as I am enjoying my work, I often question if my boss likes me as a worker. A lot of the time things seem to be going fine. But then I have days where she seems upset about everything I'm doing, over critical maybe. I don't know if she is just stressed about upcoming events and is noticing things more because she doesn't want there to be any issues. Maybe I'm just really sloppy some days... That may be true, but somethings she criticizes days later; the way I took a measurement, learning how she wants me to take notes, etc.

Then, I have moments that make me frustrated because I know it's my own fault. Like today, during our meeting, we were going over one of my tasks I was to do this week. I spent a few hours finding all the MSDS' we need and making sure we have a digital copy of them. I found all but a couple and made note of that. However, this morning, they weren't in the folder they were suppose to be in. I only managed to find maybe 8 of the 20 documents that I was missing. So now I need to do some of that work again in figuring out which documents I am still missing.

I know some of the way I'm feeling is that I tend to take it really bad when people criticize me. I've improved compared to how I use to react. In that past I would be a blubbering mess in the bathroom after a day like today. Now, I'm just probably over worrying. I really don't want to have issues with this job, with my boss. I don't know how well we get a long work wise though. As I've been writing I feel over criticized and haven't been liking her tone of my work. And I've been trying to not get grumpy when I come in each morning and things are changed from the way before. It's her lab and she can set it up however she wants. It just kind of bothers me that she asks me to do things, but she just goes behind me later and moves it or does it some other way. I feel like I'm wasting my time. And I really try not to let it bother me when she does this in my own space. Moving my notebooks around, rearranging how I have office supplies set out on my desk, an order I have a system for.

It's all small stuff, but it bothers me.