Back to Work

So, it's Monday, and I'm back at work.  It's a bit slow, but I spent the morning planning a protocol, and I'm letting some transwells incubate for a while this afternoon.  Things will be much busier later this week, at least, since tomorrow I get to spend a lot of time counting cells.

I have to make an adjustment to my no-chocolate-indefinitely plan.  I bring Special K protein bars and Quaker granola bars to work regularly, and both have chocolate in them.  I also have hot chocolate in the house that I haven't finished.  So my adjustment is that I can have the protein and granola bars and not have them count, and I can finish the hot chocolate (but can't buy more) and not have it count.

I made the weirdest purchase on Amazon.com.  Or, I guess it's not that weird, but after I made it, I realized how absurd it was.  The Sims 3 ... a microwavable heating pad ... and tennis balls.

The Sims 3 will have to wait until February 13th, unfortunately, because I'm taking the GRE that morning and I really need to study (I'm fucked as it is; the Sims will just make it worse).  The heating pad and the tennis balls are for my shoulder(s).  I used those CVS-brand Thermacare pads on my right shoulder a couple of times, and they REALLY helped.  But I prefer something reusable, and as I'm a bit worried about having electric heating pads burn down my aaprtment, I picked out one I can microwave.  Takes less than a minute, apparently, and will stay warm for 45 minutes.  Excellent.

Tennis balls?  Lie down on the floor on your back, put a tennis ball under your shoulder, and roll around.  It pushes the tennis ball into the shoulder muscles around the shoulder blade, and basically massages the muscles.  I am ridiculously excited.  My shoulder is hurting just thinking about it.

In other news, it just occurred to me that just under a year ago, I had mono (eek!).  And last night, I realized that there was one majorly positive thing that happened in 2009: no flare-ups.  None.  Nada.  Maybe I'd get some swelling, but it would be gone by the next day and it wouldn't be back.  Amazing.  I've been having flare-ups regularly for years, since the beginning of college (before that, I was still learning to manage my hives, so I didn't have deep tissue swelling, but I did have pretty much constant, horribly painful hives).  No flare-ups since October 2008.  Wow.

In about 20 minutes, I have to remove the gelatin from the transwells, flip them back right-side up, and then put laminin in them.  Fun!