T+ 3h 50min
It is done. Phew. Up until 4am this morning printing out stuff, and then wake up today to collage, lug it all to uni and hand it in. Unfortunately a few other honours students are still going. I guess it’s okay, you only lose 0.5 marks per day it’s late, not like the crazy 10%/day thing.
So what to do now? Don’t know. Sleep? Who knows. But I think a copy and paste of my acknowledgements page is in order…
I am indebted to many people for their invaluable assistance, helpful advice, and kind guidance rendered this year.
Immense gratitude is owed to my three supervisors, Robyn Overall, Penny Smith, and David Day, who have spent countless hours supporting me in my struggle with biology. Thanks go to Robyn for being, amongst other things, a smiling and reassuring constant with a fantastic ability for lateral thinking; to Penny for her eagerness and vast knowledgebase; and to David for his clever ideas and meticulous appraisals.
Much appreciation is also extended to Angela Ho for her friendship, skilful guidance and eagerness to share, as well as for supplying vectors, competent cells, an Arabidopsis cDNA library, and other lab paraphernalia. I am grateful to Jing Ji, Michelle Barthet and Emilie Cameron for their unceasing and uncomplaining help in vector construction, supplying competent cells, and general lab assistance. Thanks go to Debbie Barton for her patient teaching of tricky immunocytochemistry techniques and for her help and advice on microscopy. Thanks also to Errin Johnson for her self-sacrificial attitude when giving assistance and advice in anything from PCRs to confocal microscopy. I am also indebted to both Errin and Debbie for their highly demanding, last-minute efforts trying to divulge the secrets of protein aggregates using electron microscopy, which was nothing short of heroic. I look forward to studying this in greater detail with them. Christine Faulkner, now living in Scotland, was indispensable in setting up half the project, donating vectors and providing encouragement. I am grateful for the help offered by John Gardiner in searching microarray databases as well as for his kind concern for me. Laurence Cantrill provided much valuable assistance with the Zeiss confocal microscope and other cell biology matters, as well as being open and approachable. I also owe a great debt to Dave Collings from Australian National University for conjuring up half the project and for helpful discussions and encouraging comments on artefacts and over-expression. Thanks to Leila Blackman, also from ANU, for her constructive observations and for vectors. Thanks also to Rosemary White and Craig Wood, both from Canberra, for supplying dyes and vectors. Louise Cole must also be mentioned for her helpful advice. Thanks to Ellie Kable and the Electron Microscopy Unit for allowing the use of the Nikon confocal microscope; to Jan Marc for allowing the use of his particle inflow gun; and to the Skurray/Firth lab for kindly allowing the use of their equipment.
This list would be incomplete without mentioning the rest of the honours students, whose friendship and support have made this year much more enjoyable.
Finally, I am greatly thankful for the support and understanding of my family and Sara, who have undoubtedly borne the majority of my stress this year. Last but not least, I am thankful that God has given me this wonderful opportunity to study this world in such detail and be continuously amazed at the intricacies of biology.