Feeling effective and affected

In my younger life, would I have ever imagined that my happiness could be so tightly bound to my effectiveness in lab? Probably not, but that is how it inevitably goes. I've been working at the computer for awhile to design little strands of DNA that I can use to amplify regions of a gene I'm interested in, as well as a gene for antibiotic resistance. Low and behold, I was able amplify DNA from these regions successfully on the first try, and now I'm doing a reaction to knit them all together. That will place a huge antibiotic resistance gene in the middle of this gene I want to mutate--totally freaking messing up its function when I stick it back into Vibrio fischeri's genome. That's the goal, and if I get my mutants I can finally do interesting work and know what strains I'm working with.

So to summarize, lab is going much better, and since I'm returning to molecular biology work, I can work much more independently and with confidence. It feels so good.

On the polar end of that good feeling is the looming dread of presenting a journal article at the departmental journal club on Friday. I wish our journal club wasn't open to everyone who wanted to wander in, because I may only have students for an audience, but probably since I'm the first presenter of the semester I'll get lots of professors as well. Maybe. It's just a little scary. But it's going to be good for me. For one thing, putting together presentations makes you a better speaker and hones your ability to communicate to the scientific community (text book reason). Also, it will be good for the lab to have someone do something for the department. Finally, it will let me get the last credit hour I need to complete my coursework, and I'll get it out of the way by Friday. Then I can focus on much more fun and less horrifying things. At least until March, when I have to present my research at the yearly Squid-Vibrio Pow-wow. However, it's much more fun when it's your project, and not some freaking paper. So yeah, I teeter between very nervous to just "it will be good to get it over with, and good for me, and I can totally handle it."

Scared!

If anything, this semester is impressing upon me how good a student I can actually be when I focus enough. I have no tests, but 3 presentations to give. Very teaching-oriented this semester. My lab kids are super awesome, even if I cringe every time I hear myself calling them kids. In all actuality, they're maybe 2 years younger, but they are getting younger and younger and my senior year seems farther and farther away. I am finding some success in just pretending I am the peer of everyone else here. Maybe I am. That's a hard call to make, but in a year I have changed in ways I would have never anticipated. I am not the best student here, but I belong here, and I can make it to PhD here. Just keep repeating that "Fear is the mind-killer" mantra . . .