TGIF

Last night was a blast. First, we went to a pub called 'Ti Na Nog' off shop street. It was really spacious, had a fish tank behind the bar, and was a fun spot to hang out. After a while, Niamh showed up from dinner with her family, and after we'd hung out with everyone a bit more, we headed across the way to another pub, The Front Door. This place was HUGE! There had to be at least 10 rooms and around 4 or 5 bars in the place. The atmosphere was the best part, though. We situated ourselves in a little nook off to the side, where we laughed, took pictures, and danced. The night ended with some old 80s and 90s classics, like "Grease" and other great songs. We took a taxi back to Corrib Village and crashed.


It was hard waking up this morning, but totally worth it. We got to work on time and had a relatively easy day. I started by running a gel and setting up a PCR. Unfortunately, my reaction from last night didn't work, so Sandra got me to set up another reaction using only positive isolates from before and her reagents. Hopefully it will work, and we'll see on Monday what we need to fix. Tea was fun, as usual, and filled with talk of TV and concerts. When we got back to the lab, Fiona showed Sarah and I how to set up sensitivity tests, which was relatively easy. It's something I've only done in class once or twice before, so it'll be neat to do it a lot and get some practice now. Plus, this is work that was done previously on all the isolates we're now PCR-ing, so it's an insight into more background on our projects.

Dani and I went to the College Bar for lunch, where we ran into Marit, Niamh, Tyler, Danny, and Darren. Always fun to hang out with everyone. From there, we stopped by the bank so I could deposit my paycheck (yay cash!) and then headed back into work. I finished off the day by running another unsuccessful gel and then looking up information on bus tours for tomorrow. I think we'll head on one to see the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren, so it should be really nice. We headed home after work, where I took a nap for a few hours.

When I got up again, I made some pasta and we all watched the elimination episode of Big Brother. In case you don't know, it's a reality show that's huge in the UK, where people live in a house together for weeks and basically do nothing but talk and argue. It's amusing how obsessed they are with it, and even more so how addicted we're getting. Oh well. Ruth and Niamh invited us over to watch a movie at their apartment, so we headed over after the episode and watched "The Day After Tomorrow". It's a few years old, and not that great, but more amusing than anything else. I still love the part where the Americans are illegally immigrating into Mexico to get away from the ice storm. Classic.

I've just gotten home from that and booked our tour for tomorrow. I should have some excellent pictures up then, so I'm excited. I should get to bed now, though. Gotta make sure I don't fall asleep on the bus! Cheers!