The Blessings of Microbiology Lab

It's been quite a long time since I've last updated, and I do feel bad about that.  School has been overwhelming for me as I've not been a student for quite some time.  However, the pain in my hip has become so bad today that I decided to skip class and rest.  I figured that, since I'm not in school today, I'll write about being in school.

In my microbiology lab we work in pairs more often than in groups of four.  The "pair" is the person sitting next to you, and the group of four is you and your partner plus the pair across from you.  The two individuals across from me, Brittany and Todd, are pretty much the coolest people I've ever met.  My partner, however, is just a little different.  Her name is Lindsey.  Don't get me wrong, Lindsey is a very intelligent girl and means well with everything she does, but she's so socially awkward it earned her a spot in my blog.   


Our first day in lab is kind of the "housekeeping" day where we get business done, meet our group, and work on some stupid experiment that could be done in all of 11 minutes if everyone wasn't nervous and new to what was going on.  The first day I worked with Lindsey, I knew this was going to be a long quarter...


On the first day Lindsey seemed to be awkward about everything.  Simple tasks that would make sense to any other individual overwhelmed her and made no sense to her at all.  This is understandable, because most things in a microbiology lab can be ass-backwards and confusing.  I had already taken this class for about 6 weeks before I had to drop out and have hip surgery, so I'm able to move through all of this material very quick, but I want to ensure Lindsey knows what she's doing.  So we took our time, made sure she got a feel for what was to be done, and as I watched her begin to inoculate an agar plate, I couldn't help but die a little inside.  The steps for preparing to put a broth-based sample onto a agar plate go as follows:
1) flame the inoculating loop until it is red hot
2) vortex suspension in text tube
3) open test tube and remove the lid with the pinky finger of the hand the loop is in
4) flame the lip of the tube
5) cool the loop on the inside wall of the test tube
6) get a loopful of suspension
7) flame the lip of the tube again and replace lid
8) open plate lid slightly and place loopful of stuff on agar
9) reflame inoculating loop until red hot
10) have a nice day


SHE SAYS EVERY STEP OUT LOUD WHILE DOING IT.  Every single step.  It's like having a narrator in the background, except this narrator announces everything she's doing with strange inflections at the end of words.  


Well by the second lab period I assumed she was a little strange, but nothing too bad.  As Brittany and I listened to the lecture during the first 20 minutes of lab, we were half watching Lindsey as she kept making these odd noises and gestures.  Suddenly her right arm shoots out as straight as it can go and she hauls off and slaps herself in the face with such force it was audible.  She did this again within minutes and Brittany and I found ourselves staring at each other with great concern in our eyes.  
Now I know the difference between one of those "wake up, girl!" slaps you give yourself, or the occasional slaps or pinches you give yourself when you are trying to make your cheeks look a little more rosy for a totally cute guy that's on the other side of the room.  This slap was none of those things.  This is the type of slap you give your boyfriend when you found out that he slept with your best friend, her mother, and her mother's best friend all at once on a Friday night after a toga party.  Very different. 


As if that wasn't bad enough, there were other socially awkward things that sent up exploding red flares.  When waiting for slides to air-dry so we could stain them, Lindsey actually asked the TA if she could hold them up by the fluorescent light bulb to help them dry faster.  The TA thinking it was a joke, chuckled at first, but realized Lindsey was stone serious and said "I don't think that will help." 
Lindsey has a bad habit of interrupting the TAs for assistance, regardless of how minor the issue at hand is.  There have been at least 3 occasions where she's moved another student out of the way to get to a TA who was helping another student.  She'll go "I NEED YOUR HELP" right to the TA while they're talking, and of course they ask her to wait.  That never seems good enough, so she'll just ask her question immediately then and will get the irritated look and they, again, inform her they will be over in a few minutes.  


Then there was the tantrum.  When the microscope somehow came out of focus, it took us forever to find our bacteria on the slides.  I wasn't having any luck finding the bacteria as our wax markers on the slides had long since washed away and our specimen were like a needle in a haystack of glass, so I let her take a shot at finding them.  Five minutes later she was having no luck and stomped her foot and let out this growl of frustration.  Now, I suppose this could be understandable in some situations, but it was followed by her trying to regain her composure and talking to herself saying "It's ok Lindsey... focus." 
When I get frustrated with something I throw up my hands and go "screw this" and walk away for a bit.  I'm rarely one to kick a cabinet or stomp my foot and growl without making a playful joke out of it.  This was new territory for me. 


Then came the time that she started talking to microorganisms. While hunting for live E. coli on her slide, she seemed agitated that nothing was showing up.  Eventually she found them and said "are you dancing for me? Hello little microorganisms.  Are you happy to see me? Did you miss me?" 
This is E. coli we're talking about here.  How can it miss you? It's not a house cat! It's not your boyfriend! It's bacteria! 


This is going to be a LONG quarter.