Labs, Waiting and More Waiting

I've been spending the past couple of days processing a PhD student's archaeological samples from Kosipe, Papua New Guinea, in an effort to learnt the techniques I will using on my own archaeological samples, once I get access to them.

The whole thing requires a lot of time spent in the laboratory, fiddling around with various liquids (some very expensive) and microscopic samples. You won't know if you get anything until you've mounted the slides and given them a squiz under the microscope objectives. I am anticipating long periods of tedium and freezing in the temperature controlled depths of the Electron Microscope Unit.

One thing I did start working on was processing some samples for a reference collection. For some reason, my supervisor is interested in Chinese medicinal plants, so I ended up pounding away at roots and tubers with a pestle and mortar, feeling like an apothecary.

Progress is a bit slow at the moment, with me tying to do impossible amounts of reading with insufficient time, but hopefully things will work out. The more things I have to keep me occupied, the more hopeful I feel about everything. Guess being busy is best.