Wrap up meeting

Today I had a meeting with my adviser in Japan, his wife (lab expert in expression systems), and a lab employee who recently began working on the same protein as I am, but from a different organism (for the purpose of NMR). He was present because he will be taking over my supervision for the remaining two weeks.

I wish I could say it went well, but I do not feel like it did. I have been working on the expression and purification of three proteins that form a complex. Two of them are difficult, but manageable. The third is difficult and... difficult. It is difficult in all organisms, in all systems, both cloned expression or native purification. I was working on the most difficult protein because they are expert in expressing and purifying proteins for structural biology studies and without the difficult protein, nothing can move forward.

A few weeks ago, I went on a trip for the weekend to visit Kyoto for their Gion festival. A few weeks later, I asked if it would be okay to leave lab at 5:30pm on the subsequent Friday so that I could visit a beautiful waterfall/ temple area with some other folks from my program. The boss responded that while I technically could leave at that time, he was afraid that I wasn't taking advantage of my time there enough because I was taking "all" the weekends off from work. He said I had not made much progress and that my time there was short. I was incredibly upset by his comment because I had been working so hard. I had been working 12+hrs/day and partial days on the weekend (where I never saw anybody in lab!). I had been enjoying how I had all the time in the world here, since I have no social life or school responsibilities. I would just stay in lab until I went to bed. It had been relaxing and invigorating to be so productive and also have so much fun in the little weekend adventures.

It was important to me to not have him report negatively to the program (since they told us so many bad stories about this before we began). So I changed my approach. I started working on the other two proteins so that I could show that I can be productive. For so many chemicals/kits/protocols the woman helping me would say that she had never done it before. I kind of figured she was using me to test whether they worked. I admit I was a bit frustrated because I was told she was an expert.

At the meeting today, I was told I didn't take advantage of her expertise because I wanted to work on purifying the proteins, instead of setting up a system. I guess I mis-understood because I thought the lab was an expert in all steps to acquire a protein when they said "expression system." I didn't have the scientific vocabulary to understand that she only knows DNA. So, even though I was able to express and partially-purifying two of the proteins, that was apparently also not good. That was me being stubborn and doing what I wanted, instead of what she advised. I swear I NEVER heard her say that I should only do DNA work. I heard her say good things about the other stuff.

I am also super frustrated and upset at how she lied about me at the meeting today. I used a certain bacteria strain to express one of the proteins. I used it because she said I should. I had repeatedly said that I thought it was better to use a different strain and asked her why I should use the one she recommended. She had said the recommended strain was easier in large scale, etc. At the meeting today, she said that it was my idea to use the strain I did because I wanted to use the easier strain, not the one that worked better. While I am not sure about many things, I am 100% certain that I wanted to use Strain A, she said it was not necessary and that I should use Strain B; I used Strain B because she is suppose to be the expert. The adviser questioned why I used Strain B and she said that I had wanted to because it was easier. >:-I  If our previous conversation had not been one where I had a strong opinion against it, I would not be so bothered by this falsehood.

Now I have only two weeks until everything is over. I actually have two weeks and 4.5days but I think I will leave early, instead of staying another weekend so only spend two days here. I need a break, I need to do something fun, I need to rest.

I do not want to leave here having given up my sleep and opportunity to explore a foreign country and still have nothing to show for it professionally.

So tired. So upset. So... #^@!ing DONE.


They said I am welcome to return to continue, after I have established an expression system.

I am trying to ridiculously-hard to not act upset so as not to ruin interactions. I don't think I am doing a good job at it. I could really use a hug :-( but I know that is not an option.