bad karma

*phew* What a hectic week! Finished the ribosome paper on Tuesday and handed in to Dr. Schmidt but have yet to heard back from him. I hope he's too busy to look through it and not because I need to work on it more. Finished the toxin paper on Thursday at 8.00am in the morning. Boy, am I proud! That allowed me to get some work done in the lab before class.

Unfortunately, Thursday afternoon wasn't a good at all. I had to practice how to do oral gavage administration on mice. It wasn't the mice that freaked me out because they are as cute as hamsters and I've had hamsters before. It was knowing how much I might hurt them that stressed me out. I don't get stress out most of the time, not even when I was writing my senior thesis last year or even when I had to take SPM in Form 5. This time, I felt like I just need to get out of the room.

There was two mice who were bound to die soon. They were not infected so Dr. Young told me to practice o.g. on them. He held the mice a few times and I just had to inject the saline water into their stomach through their mouth. That was fine - the mouse did not squirm, the injection went smoothly and it was easy to find the way into their stomach. Then it was my turn to hold the mice. Catching them by the tail was easy. Holding them at the tail and make sure they stay down was easy. Then I had to press them down so that they don't turn around when I tried to pinch their neck (kinda like how a mom cat would bite its kittens by the neck). I got to that part. It was when I tried to pinch their neck that they start to turn their head - a tiny movement from them made me pull back. I can't help it, it's a natural reflex! Dr. Young had done it like a hundred times or so since his last sample size was 60. I tried a couple of times and the mice started to get stressed up since I was pinning it down on the cage but was unable to pinch it up. I placed it back into its cage for a while and when I tried again, I just couldn't do it.

So H, who was helping me told me to practice with a dead mice. I was like oh no! I really don't want to get the mice killed. She told me it will be okay - as though the mice is just a toy!!! But since I could not do it on a life mice, I had no choice. We carbon dioxide fixated the little fellow and I tried on it (gosh! I don't even know its sex!). It worked just fine - but that was because this lifeless tiny fellow is not moving at all. But I got the feel of how much skin I should grab and where is the right place to grab. Then we moved on to the next mice. Sadly, seeing that its friend was just been treated cruelly, this little mice refuse to cooperate and became really jumpy. It was hard to catch it and it was even tougher to get it pinned down. It curled up tightly into a ball and made it really hard to press down on it. Conscious of how it would feel if someone were to press down on my backbone while I'm all curled up, I didn't dare to press too hard either. That made the mice jumps up everytime I tried to grab its neck.

We ended up killing it with me still not very good at catching them and holding them tight. Arghghgg!! That was an act of very bad karma. H told me that in order to work with animals, we have to learn to detach ourselves from them. No names, no coaxing, no daily talks and stuff like that. But I can't help it!!! I am not a big fan of mice either but knowing that it is gonna hurt that poor little thing just kills me. I have not seen that two mice at all until I had to do the o. g. on it and yet I already felt bad for them. Am I capable of continuing on this project? It is not a one time thing - it is a whole phd thesis by itself! But if I don't work on this project, my other choice is the ecology project - how to find a job in M'sia with an ecology experience? M'sians doesn't care about stuff like that!

May the two little mice be reborn in a better treated environment.