I love working in the stockroom, it's so quiet and peaceful, separated from the world, the sound of running water as it rinses the graduated pipettes. It's nice, I like it. Just me and the mess that has to be cleaned up and organized. I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but I like cleaning and organizing, especially something really dirty. I don't know why, but I like the challenge of organizing everything so that it has it's own place and it stays there, neat and clean. I especially like to clean when there is no one around to bother me or mess something up. When I work by myself, I know what I want to do, how I want to do it and when I want to do it.
Yesterday I organized this shelf. It's usually full of basket of old glassware that we haven't used in ages, but Terry (my boss) is going trough it to see what we can toss. We also put student's experiment samples here, that's why there are letters next to some shelves. The other shelves are for storage of anything that has to be put somewhere, but doesn't really have a place yet.
So yesterday I organized the shelf and some glassware, as I mentioned in my previous post. Today I decided to tackle the drawers! There are drawers on both sides of the C table (the next two pictures will show you both sides). I went through all the drawers and organized everything! The test tubes and the sample vials were in a bad state! Not only were they misplaced and put in a totally wrong spot, a great deal of them were dirty! I went through everything and took out the dirty glassware. By the time I was done, I had a whole bin full of test tubes and sample vials.
This is the front side, the test tube drawers are along the bottom, starting with the smaller sizes and continuing on. The sample vials are also stored here. There's three drawers of vials and each drawers hold three to four different sizes. the sample vials should be stored with the screw caps on them so that when people need them, they don't have to go searching for the caps. But, of course some vials didn't have caps on them, and some were so dirty I had to question the eyesight of the person who was putting it away. But it's all good now, it's organized and neat.
This is the back side of the table. The drawers hold round bottom flasks, separating funnels, watch glasses, screw top test tubes, different sizes of caps for jars and bottles, glass and plastic stoppers and other cool things. The two that I spent the most time on here were the glass stoppers and the exotic . . . something (I forgot the second part of the name). Anyway, those things are used for titration burettes, one part goes into this opening and gets screwed on with these little round wheel things and you can turn the knob of the exotic . . . to let as much liquid to fall from the burrette as you want. This is good because in a titration, you need to be very precise and accurate with your measurements. Anyway, (a little chemistry lab lesson) when these things are stored, they have to have the little white wheel and the colored wheel things on it. But of course, most did not have them. I emptied out all the boxes that were holding the apparatus and went through everything and separated the ones that did not have everything on it from the completed ones. I should have taken a picture, but I didn't think I would go off on such a tangent about the exotic . . . I will make sure to take a picture tomorrow of all the parts and where it is supposed to go, so it's easier to follow.
The glass stoppers. . . what can I say, people don't know how to read. There are marked boxes that hold each size and each little glass stopper has a number (the size) and all you have to do is look closely at the stopper and put it in the right box. But I guess that's too much to ask. . .
These are all the test tubes that were "clean" and I had to rewash them. Don't let the picture fool you, even though it looks like there's not much, it took me an hour and a half to wash! The smaller ones are the worst because they're small so you can fit more in a smaller space and they're harder to wash. So let me tell you the washing process. First I fill one sink with hot water and soap. Then fill the sink next to it with warm water (one faucet for two sinks). I already prepared the bin with distilled water. When the hot-water sink is ready, I soak as many test tubes as I deem safe. after they sit there for a few minutes, I start washing them. Now, some of these test tubes had been labeled on the outside with a permanent marker. That's no big deal because marker comes off of glass, but I have to wash each test tube on the outside as well as inside. So I wash them in hot, soapy water, then I rinse them in warm water, then I rinse them again in cold distilled water. We have to do this for every dish that we wash. Then we transfer it somewhere to dry. Test tubes go in test tube racks. Sample vials go on the drying rack (next picture).
I worked all day today, from 8:30 to 5pm and All I did was organize drawers and wash test tubes and vials! I'm a pretty fast worker, so you can tell that it's going to take a long time for me to get everything organized in there.
After work I went to the book store to look at books I need and double check everything before I ordered them online. By that time I was so hungry! So I went to a terriyaki place next to the book store and ordered chicken terriyaki. The plate was HUGE and there was soo much food! Usually I share one plate with you Makara, but you were not here, so here's your portion!
Can you believe it. I ate as much as I could and all this was still left over. So I got a box and took it home, my brothers loved it!
This is the water fountain on 4th floor of Highline Hospital in the Birch Wing. I heard it when I was walking on the rail above in on 5th floor. It's really nice and soothing.
This is the terrace outside the Gallery on 4th floor. The water fountain is inside and there is a cafeteria or something. This is outside and there are tables to eat on and the rocks that boarder the flower beds are wide so people can sit on them.
This is where the pathway circles and turns around. It has a little bench to sit on and there are trees everywhere! Creates a really soothing and calming feeling.
These are the three separate parts of the Exotic Turnstopers.
This is how everything should fit together and how every exotic turnstopper should be stored! But as I mentioned before, that rarely happens.
This is the burette that is used for titration experiments. The exotic turnstopper goes into the hole near the bottom and gets screwed on. The exotic turnstopper has a little hole through it and you turn it to let liquid from the burette go into a beaker with another liquid. This way you know when to stop (because you would have an indicator in the beaker that would be the stopping point) and you would know how much you have added to the beaker and can do the correct calculations accordingly.
This is just a cool picture from a tree on PLU campus. Cool acorns!
Acorns up close!
