Formaldehyde POISONING

Working on a thesis can be frustrating, all-consuming, and character building, amongst other adjectives. I didn't realize it could also be physically harmful. This week has been a whirlwind of near death experiences.

First, I poisoned myself with formaldehyde in the lab. After one day of actually running the experiment I had a splitting headache. The next day I couldn't breathe. The day after that I was vomiting all over the place and fell asleep at 5 pm. I am loathe to even go close to the experiment now. Fortunately, my lovely lab mate brought in an ancient-looking gas mask. I can't wait to wear that and have my advisor walk into the lab.

Then I went and hiked Longs Peak. It was a slow, arduous process that I did not quite finish, thanks to my doubtful balance. I should mention here that I didn't learn to ride a bike until college, and the process is still not very comfortable for me. There were several occasions where I nearly fell off the edge. After the third, I decided to turn back and live another day, if for no other reason than to complete my thesis. The formaldehyde must be adsorbed!!

I was also almost hit by a car while running, almost impaled while playing basketball and nearly crushed under a semi while driving to the grocery store. But that all happens on a fairly regular basis.

I understand that none of this is particularly coherent. I'm trying to convey how much I feel like Marie Curie this week, slowly poisoning myself for the sake of science. To do this more effectively I should probably explain my experiment first.

The main goal of my thesis research is to determine the fate and transport of formaldehyde sorbed to hydroponic growth media. What does this mean? Say you live in a trailer or in a really industrialized part of town. There's a high chance that the air you breathe contains a dangerous level of formaldehyde (I learned this week exactly how low a dangerous level is). Formaldehyde is the stuff they use to preserve dead bodies, like at funeral homes or for frog dissection. Formaldehyde is extremely toxic and can cause headaches, nausea, breathing problems, and even death. Most notably, though, extended low dose exposure leads to cancer. Basically your lungs get pickled and then you die. It's a pretty scenario. So, you live in this poisonous air...what can you do to clean it up? You can buy an expensive air filter. Chances are, though, that if you live in a formaldehyde contaminated area you aren't exactly rolling in the dough. So you buy a plant. Plants are fantastic at cleaning the air, because that's how they grow. Carbon dioxide goes in, the carbon gets assimilated, oxygen goes out. Boom. The same works for a lot of common air contaminants such as, you guessed it, formaldehyde.

So what I do is figure out exactly how much formaldehyde each plant can uptake and degrade. This is basically akin to running a filter through to saturation, except I'm doing it with the hydroponic growth media (what the plant is rooted in). We're looking at hydroponic plants because they're easier to distribute and the media is a lot more consistent than soil.

So yes. I was poisoned by formaldehyde this week in order for people to breathe clean, cancer-free air. I'm such a martyr. But no more, ladies and gentlemen, because we now have a GAS MASK! Cue the triumphant horn music.

On a side note, I made a presentation to 200 new Indian students on campus this week and I didn't die! This week's just been all kinds of crazy survival.

On another side note, my friend Morgan and I collaborated to make this masterpiece:

Have a nice day.

Can you dig it?

I'm feeling incredibly stressed out for no reason whatsoever.

Aside from the thesis work and other impending deadlines.

So I decided to create a self portrait with my touch pad in GIMP. Procrastination seems to soothe my nerves quite effectively. Here you go, the first stunning piece of artwork to grace this blog:

Ignore the ramblings of a tired Anne.

Gerbil Wars

So, I'm doing a thesis.

Don't ask me why I'm doing a thesis. It was one of those harebrained ideas that I love to throw myself into completely and later regret. But a thesis is one of those things it is not easy to weasel one's way out of.

I didn't have to do a thesis. I could have done 30 credits of coursework for my master's degree. Nice, directed, easy coursework. In fact, I didn't even need to do a master's degree. I could have just graduated this summer along with everyone else in my class and joined a pleasant little consulting firm. Simple. I could have been sipping stout at happy hour with my office buddies, joking about our clients and rolling in my relative wealth. But no.

Instead, I'm sitting in a shared office in the Telecommunications wing (keep in mind, I'm doing my thesis in the Environmental Engineering department), grading assignments as a TA for a course in the Engineering Management department (seeing a general lack of pattern here?) after meeting with my thesis advisor. Shockingly enough, I'm not doing anything right and I need to revamp my entire experiment. Looks like my bed is a far-off mirage, a dream to only consider once I actually graduate. The best news is that I'm not getting paid.

The only reason I mention this with such bitterness is that I really, really want a cat. You might think the two are not mutually exclusive; after all, can't one have a cat and still do a thesis? Well, yes, unless one is me and decided to live in university-subsidized housing where any whisper of an animal might result in misdemeanor charges. This leaves dogs far out of the question, as they make too much noise. Cats have a tendency to roam about their turf, leading my landlords to suspect something when a feline is consistently clawing at the window of building J. In addition, my time spent at home is rather inconsistent. I might not get home until 3 am from my cozy little lab, but sometimes I hunker in my bed for a solid fourteen hour nap. I also hate cleaning litter boxes. However, my desire for furry companionship could not be assuaged. So I went in search of a silent, low-maintenance pet.

I ended up with gerbils. Gerbils are similar to hamsters except that they need to live in pairs, have long furry tails and can jump about seventeen times their own height (roughly). I fell in love with their tails immediately, because the rodents reminded me of tiny little cats. Have I mentioned that I love cats?

As it turns out, gerbils are escape artists. No joke. My first pair were black and named Cleo and Nelson. They escaped from their cage at least once a week, leading me to hone my hunting skills. It turns out that gerbils really, really like crawling into jars. I was pretty good at capturing the little bugs. I quickly became the most astute vegetarian hunter in all of Boulder. But one day, Nelson escaped straight out the front door. I'm assuming a hawk or owl took her under its wing, because it seems like a gerbil's intellect extends only as far as getting outside.

But as I mentioned above, gerbils need to live in pairs. So I thought introducing the forsaken Cleo to a new pair of gerbils would solve everything, creating a loving gerbil family. I bought two new gerbils and prepared to introduce them, split-cage style.

Cleo chewed through wire mesh to get to the other side and attack the intruders. Wire mesh. In ten minutes flat. I realized I had to keep them in separate cages to avoid an all-out gerbil war. So I switched the cages every day for two weeks or so, in order to acquaint each army with the scent of the other and trick them into thinking they'd lived together their whole lives. I tried introducing them again, wearing thick leather gloves. Immediate attack by Cleo. She'd obviously been using the other gerbils' scent as a way to better identify her enemies. I tried the cage-switch method for awhile longer.

One night, I timidly held Cleo up to her sparring buddies' cage so they could sniff one another through the metal bars. She tried to squeeze her head through and go for their throats. I pulled her back and was struck by the sharp sensation of a gerbil hanging off my finger by its teeth. I had never been bitten by a gerbil before, not seriously. It was like two rusty nails being lodged into your finger and then stuck in a vice grip. She hung on for a solid minute while I hollered and tried not to terrify my roommate, who was already afraid of rodents.

The next day I received a tetanus shot, which is never fun. I did get a cool Tazmanian Devil band-aid, though. I also developed a deep-seated hatred of my pets.

My gerbils now live in permanently separated cages. Cleo sulks in a dark corner of her tank, quietly plotting her murderous revenge on the intruders. The intruders frolick happily, playing together, bathing each other, and sleeping tightly balled together. Maybe one day they will forget about the crazed black gerbil who tried to destroy their peace and livelihood and instead remember only the giant pink hand which blesses them with sunflower seeds and cucumbers. Cleo will never forget the harbored hatred of those newcomers, who invaded her life in an attempt to steal her loneliness and relieve her of boredom. Damn them! DAMN THEM ALL!

I really want to own a cat.