layout|::
Clay photoshoot from his new album, A Thousand Different Ways. Out September
19 2006. Layout by azuresque
This week has really be quite a week of nostalgia for me. Reason being I’ve been back in NUS twice this week. First was to have lunch wih my colleagues and to shop for lab supplies. Second time was today when I was in the Animal Holding Unit for my animal use course. Every time I go back to Science Fac, I always see familiar faces, mostly the Rag dancers. Today on the bus I met Starry, who was going for her morning paper. Right now there’s this heavy exam atmosphere in NUS. I can feel it even before I reach NUS. Brings back a lot of memories.
For the animal course, we mostly learnt how to handle, sex, inject, draw blood and euthanise the animals. We used mice, rats, rabbits and guinea pigs. We were working in groups of 4. To start of we had one mouse each. My group’s were all male. Knowing my luck, we got the edgy, aggresive ones. All of us got bitten by them. If you don’t grab it by the scruff properly, it will just turn it’s head and bite you. Took me forever just to scruff it and anaesthetise it. The grossest procedure is orbital bleeding, which involves sticking a tube into the eye socket (eyeball still inside) and bleeding it from there. That was the only procedure that made me cringe. We put down the mice by breaking their necks, so to speak.
Next up, rats. Mice are small and cute and vicious, but rats are huge but supposedly friendly. This time it was 2 ppl to a rat. The male one was ok, but the female was a little *****. In mice, the males are the aggresive ones. Essentially same procedures. Another extreme procedure we do is cardiac punture, which is essentially bleeding it straight from the heart. Talk about emo huh? I can see where the nickname Wormtail in Harry Potter and the POA came about. Rat tails are gross. The rats we had kinda had fleas or ticks or something. And they’re stinky. And they poop on you.
Over lunch, I had some time so I snuck into the Science Libarary. They still have absolutely no security. Good thing I still look like I belong there. Tried to check email but the computer system on the LINC PCs require you to log in to the VPN to surf external sites. Bah. Still happy to enjoy the air con and relive the memories of the times I stayed in that library from the time it opened till the time it closed. All the times when I studied alone, or with my Life Science pals. Those were the days.
The rabbits were cute, but they can put up quite a struggle when you pick them up. Apparently the way to calm it down is to tuck in under your arms. I still can’t pick rabbits up properly cos they’re really big and heavy. I learnt that rabbits are induced ovulaters. Instead of having a cycle, the female’s ovulation is only stimulated by copulation, which is why they breed so efficiently. They also have 2 kinds of poop, one of which they’re supposed to eat. Eew. We restrain them by wrapping them up in towels. They are quite cooperative to being wrapped up. Guess it’s comfortable for them. Another way is to put them in a cat bag. Rabbits are actually easier to inject than rats and mice. I ended up having to be the one to euthanise the rabbit my group was working on. It was quite simple, just inject the euthenasia solution into the ear vein. It twitched, pupils dilated and it was gone just like that. I killed Roger Rabbit. =P
Guinea pigs are really noisy and nervous. They squeal like heck when you pick them up. Happened to everyone except me! When I picked up the guinea pig it didn’t make a sound, even when I picked it up many times. Didn’t even struggle much. I cuddled it close to me and did a little bouncy dance with it. Real cute. I guess guinea pigs love me. Maybe cos my 1982 cohort has always been known as the guinea pig batch. Haha.
posted by azuresque @ 6:07 pm | 3 waitedMon, 25 Apr 05
Sat, 23 Apr 05
Fri, 22 Apr 05
Wed, 20 Apr 05
Tue, 19 Apr 05
Fri, 15 Apr 05