(Go here for Episode I)
The next
days I was going to the Serveis to measure the standard substances. I liked the
Serveis because they were the most similar thing I had seen so far that was
close to the precision and seriousness that my Physics teacher of the high
school (aka La pellejo ( The skin; kind of female version of Mr.Barns of the
Simpsons) had traumatized me to expect...even if I wondered why I had to be so
careful with the methanol when doing the lipid extraction, but I could use it
so happily in the Serveis to clean all the stuff... some of the many things
that didn't make sense at all...
The best
pattern to measure was the CH7, with was a kind of bloody plastic that stuck on
every single thing it touched, so I needed one hour per beaker...Anyway, I
tried to find it the positive point and I saw my long hours measuring as a Zen
exercise.
It was the
middle of December when one day I met the Great Portuguese along the corridors
of the department and asked me if our supervisor had already looked up my
selection of corpses...of course no. So, she did and then we went together to
harass my supervisor so he reviewed it. Unfortunately, there weren't enough
bodies of all the species I had to analyze...so, my new task was to find more
rotten seabirds!! Additionally I had to start to prepare everything to my visit
to a lab in Ciudad Real ( Ancha es Castillaaaaaaaaa) to do the fatty
acid profiles.
So, I spend
the next two weeks between the Serveis, lectures in the afternoons and
contacting with fauna rescue centres to see if they could provide me with some
(not too decomposed) corpses (I won’t bore you with details, but they were like
10 centres all around the East cost of Spain…nothing if we compare with my epic
seek of pictures for my undergraduate project in which I wrote to every single
zoo and rescue centre I found, from EEUU to Australia…) .
Fortunately,
I could have a little break for Christmas…
Back again
in Barcelona, while still weighting my standards
in the Serveis, I was busy trying to get the material I needed for the lipid
extractions, bothering the Great Portuguese more than she deserved.
I had,
finally, to start to collect samples of the corpses, and the first step was to
find the ones that I had chosen! My first trial alone was pretty discouraging,
nearly emptying one of the freezers without much success… But again, the Great
Portuguese came to the rescue and agreed a date with me to visit the famous
“Freezing Chamber”.
I remember pretty
well that Friday evening, when pretty much everybody had left the department
and I went to meet the Great Portuguese. She put on some gloves and a wool cap
and I, stupidly said “Is it so cold?” to what she, kindly answered “In a
chamber at -20ºC? Yeah!” (Even if that summer I used to enter there with my
sandals…). We took the elevator to the last floor, where the Ecology department
was, as well as the Jack the Ripper’s lair. We entered the Ecology department
and the Portuguese opened the door of the chamber…a mess of boxes piled one
above other appeared in front of us after a little cloud of water vapour.
Creepy, more with the axe at the other side of the door…good to know that there
was emergency exit XD!
With a
printed list of where the corpses were supposed to be, we were carrying boxes
in and out trying to get all the death birds I needed. Then came one of those
moments that tells what kind of person you are. The one who was my boyfriend
then was calling anxiously to my mobile phone. After some time the Portuguese
said “ You can reply if you want” But in my mind this sounded with a Spaghetti
Western tone and my mind interpreted it like “You, hen, reply that phone if you
dare and we will prove that I’m more scientist and more dedicated than you will
ever be” So I thought “F&%ck it! And said “No, It’s not important” and we
continued piling up and down death seabirds, not only in the chamber, but on
the cellar too. Some young people spend their Friday evenings having beers and
fun, I moved corpses…and then some people wonder how Dexter can be one of my
favourite series…
Some days
after, a nicer episode came about, and the Valencian and I went to one of the
fauna rescue centres to collect some corpses. The GPS didn’t get lost us too
much and we arrived there on time and we could pick up nine precious dead
seabirds, including a couple of Northern Gannets (nice animals…though kind of
smelly inside…).
And this is
how January ended up; you’ll have to wait little bit longer for the fascinating
world of dissections and lipid extractions; tomorrow I have to wake up early to
fix the data of the Samangos that the Cardiffian left before being introduced
in the magic universe of tagging pictures of camera traps.
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