what i learned today:

always wear socks to work in the lab. This morning, my lab-mate Josh dropped his 3mm sample on the floor by accident. If our floor wasn't a fake terrazzo rubber tiled floor, it would have been pretty easy to find. However, Josh looked for it for an hour, then Matt looked for it for another hour. We had to look one at a time and without our shoes for fear of stepping on it. Even though we aren't large people by any means, if one of us stepped on it, it would crushed and therefore lost forever. So when my turn to look came about, I stepped out of my birkenstock bostons (that I neglected to wear socks with today), and procedured to scour his desk and the floor around his chair. I found it after five minutes but now my feet feel disgusting. I would love to go home and take a shower. I hate getting my feet dirty. We definitely need to do a better job of keeping the lab floor clean.