*blah* I suck at being a scientist

Today, I was suppose to try out a new protocol that involves alot of toxic chemicals and steps that I've never ever done before. It took me a few days to gather the chemicals, reagents, check out all the different protocols etc and finally today is the DAY to try my hands on it to actually doing it!

So... I made ALL the mistakes that I can possibly make....

I weighed my chemical and then added the wrong volume of water to it.... Darn, had to repeat the step again...

I had to coat the glass plates with silicon and I was overly generous with the silicon, so had to re-do it like 4times!!!

Then after like an eternity, the plates seemed to have dried, we were suppose to wipe it clean with ethanol... not sure if it was really working but the ethanol seems to be sticking onto the plate with tiny bubbles... eeks!

So great, the plates looked ready, we can clamp them together with paper clips and try to load the gel into it.... (all protocols says that the gel polymerises ada hardens almost IMMEDIATELY after adding the final 2 components into it so got to be QUICK!) My sharp-sighted fellow lab-mate pointed out that we ought to tape up the glass plates to prevent leaking of the gel, so we took a whole roll of tape and taped it up like a dummy....

k.... while loading the gel, we noticed that the gel seems to find its way OUT of the glass plates... it was LEAKING!!! ARGH... the worse NIGHTMARE has happened. After re-taping the plates 3 times.... yes... we finally stopped the leak. At the back of my head I was thinking why doesnt the gel polmerise yet? It was suppose to be like super fast, almost INStanT is'nt it? *strange*

So both myself and my lab mate sat down on our seats puzzled.... and then she realised that we did not remove the gas out of the gel material!!! AHHH the gas will prevent the gel to polymerize! that's Y!! I forgot to degas the gel !! darn....

so I had to weigh chemicals AGAIN (for the 3rd time) and then add all the magic potion inside and DEgas the darn thing and then load it onto the nicely cleaned plates..... and guess what?? it started to leak AGAIN!! you would think that we got better at sticking tape around the glass and clipping it full of clips right? Well, it din work! after two rounds of re-taping... it finally settled down properly.

now for the next 20min-30mins... we'll have to keep our fingers crossed that it polymerises PROPERLY!!

yah.. in conclusion, I suck at doing new experiments and that I'm a bad-tempered one when it fails too many times! HA HA HA