JDLAStew

It looks as though I'll pull a b in lab and lecture. I'm not happy since I was always an A student but I'll take it. Some of my classmates have failed completely. I had a 96 going into the final of lab. I got a c on my final which was 50% of grade and now I've got an 86. Oh well. At least I survived!

My final is Tuesday---hope to learn what my unknown is soon...I'm nervous. Right now, I've got an 87.2 in the class without 2 take home tests and homework graded. I just want out!

BlessedMom--I am jealous! I still have 2 more weeks of micro and A&P2. And can I say, I stand in awe of you? Ha! I have only one rugrat (age 3) running around and that's plenty! I can't count the nights I'm up into the wee hours seeking out that precious quiet time. Congrats on your completion and your grades!

This may be a totally stupid question but I'm doing my research paper for my micro final. I'm a little more positive that I have B. cereus and in case I'm wrong, it's only a 5 point mark off. Anyway, here's goes my stupid question. We have to "discuss" why we did each step and blah blah blah. Well we did 2 Gram stains, one directly from our unkown slant, the other from the growth in our nutrient agar plate. Why were 2 gram stains from the 2 growths necessary? I know there is a logical explaination but logic has escaped me. I was up til 4 am writing the first of it--thus far 13 pages and counting. Don't ya just love micro? Ha! Anyway if anyone knows and can explain the logic behind this, I am thanking you ahead of time for your answer.

I'm doing both AP2 and Micro this semester. I don't know if you have kids but I have a 3 year old so I spend a lot of nights up late since it's the only good time for quiet time. My hubby goes to bed late too so by the time it's entirely quiet it's like 12am. But they are doable together. You probably won't have much of a life for the summer but I dont think much of us will for the next 2 years anyway :)

It doesn't look "swarming" yet the bacteria really grew in size on the plate. You can see my streaks then it really forms large colonies out from it. Very shiny and flat. It resembles b. cereus in the agar but with everything I do it looks like it could be something else. I'm about to start writing the paper on one of them and pray I get it right. My friend and I had a good breakdown cry tonight. She's stuck on hers but I would be money hers is B.subtilis--well with the except her EMB looked like mine. The purple-ish color with the yellow halo look. Her's is dry, mine is shiny. I'm sorry for explaining this junk over and over. My hubby has no idea what I'm talking about and this seems to be my only vent area. Other students will look over at what I have and say, no that's not what you have--I'm sure I have that and yours doesn't look like it. ACK! Do they think that helps? Anyway I'm off for a small weekend trip. Will be back Sunday. Have a good weekend and thank you Akspudus for ALL of your help. I mean it.

one problem, we don't have e. aerogenes. and we can only do one more plate, mannitol salt. we are only allowed to do nutrient agar, emb, ma, and msa and 2 gram stains..and a catalase test. i was catalase positive. the only microbes we received were 1 of the following 9: bacillus cereus bacillus subtilis escherichia coli klebsiella pneumoniae micrococcus luteus micrococcus roseus proteus vulgaris serratia marcescens staphylococcus epidermis any ideas??

I thought I had this thing licked. Tonight, my gram stain looked Gram positive. At this point, all I have for sure are rods. My EMB turned out pinkish/purple with a yellow halo?!?!?! My MacConkey had a slight bit of pink growth were I started and then went to nothing at the bottom. I haven't completed my last plate which is Mannitol Salt. My nutrient agar growth is creamy white/buff, shiny, flat. And like I said rods. Does anyone know why my EMB turned out this way? It doesn't make sense with any of my previous results. Yep, there they are...there's the tears.

After reading all about all your unknowns and whatnot, I feel bad for complaining! I should be grateful. Ours in 1 of 9 and no mixed cultures. After going through my notes and Akspudus', I'm pretty sure it's B. cereus....but of course I won't know for sure until my tests are done. At this point, I'm just dreading the paper--it's a minimum of 18 pages with no internet sources. Ick. Since I'm starting to complain again, I'll quit and be grateful that mine isn't as near as hard as the ones you all have. Good luck to everyone. Just a few more weeks left, right? :)

We get to do nutrient agar, Eosin Methylene Blue, MacConkey agar, and Mannitol Salt. I believe we get to do catalase. Our unknowns could be 1 of 9 and based on colony morphology and the Gram stain, I know I've got one of the 2. My agar plate looks identical to b.cereus, but my gram stain doesn't look like it--more like subtilis. I would appreciate any help. I was up til 5am googling, and checking on ask.com. I'll PM you my email address so you can send anything and everything you have! You can hold me to it, I will help you anyway possible that I can as we go through school! I'm really just upset and worried over this! (Can you tell I freak out, a lot? LOL)

I've googled various things....no my teacher never looked at any of our slides even before we started. Her whole deal is pretty much teach yourself. After searching I think I've got it down to either one of the 2 bacillus species. The picture of b. subtilis on wikipedia looks identical to my Gram stain--looks magenta and purple (maybe not so pink??) However, my agar growth looks more like cereus from this website http://www.bact.wisc.edu/Microtextbook/index.php?module=Book&func=displayarticle&art_id=123 in fact, my cereus looks identical to that! We are supposed to use Bergey's during the final too and I have no clue about how to use it and my teacher has never shown us. I have felt very lost all semester and it's across the board with my classmates. I know a lot of people enjoy micro but I've hated it...I've been frustrated and lost since day one! And we didn't make our own slants. She had slants numbered and we had to take it and do a gram stain from it and plate it in NA at 2 different temps. Then start from there. We can do MA, MSA, and EMB but we can't do them all unless we justify why we did them in our paper. And, did any of you have cereus look peach in agar before? When we grew it earlier this semester ours turned peach and I can't find a peach sample anywhere on the interent. I think ours was messed up then so that is throwing me off. Ack! Anyway I'm gonna try to get some sleep and NOT think about micro!

I jumped the gun. And I'm stuck and ready to cry...hard. Tonight my gram stain looked pink and some were purple! All I know is that it's a definite rod. It's between B.cereus, B.Subtilis, E.Coli, K.Pneumoniae, and P. Vulgaris. Those are the only rods we grew this year. My agar was creamy white and shiny but it went crazy! Almost my whole plate was full and I did a simple streak. I'm scared to death. If the whole class wasn't in there tonight, I swear I could have cried. I felt that huge lump in my throat forming. I was way too confident before. I don't see how the Gram stain could have gone from such a brilliant pink to almost a light purple/dk. purple. A gram stain of subtilis on the net looked like mine did tonight. I'm scared to death!!!

I know I'm probably jumping the gun--we just started last night and we plated in agar at 37C and room temp and did one Gram stain. I'll get a little more clarity with each test. We're lucky cause we do get to use EMB, MSA, and MA to determine. I'm with the rest of you--the paper terrifies me! The paper/unknown is 50% of our grade!

We started our unknowns tonight. The first agar plate I inoculated, I stabbed!!! I was freaking out! After doing the Gram stain, I'm almost 100% positive I have E. coli. I had some large, very pink rods.

I would love to be able to help...but I have no idea. LOL Maybe a mod or someone could help cause that is above my head.

I cut and paste mine. The last page of the ticker has a paste option for message boards. I haven't stuck it in my signature yet.

I found this neat little thing today on tickerfactory.com You can put in your weight and bmi and it shows your progress. Here's mine so far so you can get an idea. We could post it in our messages and keep up with each other's weight loss. Just an idea.

Hey don't knock it--exercise is exercise. LOL Today was free "dump" day at the landfill and the hubby and I took off 3 loads of junk. That was my "exercise" today. Hahahaha. I'm down 3lbs at this point. I'll do whatever weigh in system anyone else wants to do." 3 down...70 more to go! Woohoo!

Congrats! It's so exciting! We'll be nurses soon!!!!

You go Batman! 149 is stinkin' awesome!

Have you tried pilates? The fat smash diet recommended that as one exercise option and I bought a cheap dvd at walmart (like 5 bucks) with beginners pilates. It's easy for me to do so far--I hate exercise. LOL (Who doesn't?) You might give that a shot.

I'm taking this as a sign! LOL I bought this book on Friday, and did my grocery shopping yesterday and am literally in front of the computer with my oatmeal and banana now! I hadn't been on in a few days so this is my first time seeing this post. It really does not seem to be bad--only 9 days with a "hard" menu. I'm going to the forums now to see how others are doing. I couldn't wait until April 1--I had to start and I am today. Here's hoping Ian Smith won't let me down. LOL PS...so nice to see you did well on this. Don't stress over the NLN, I didn't do too well on those practice tests either.

I'm so in and sooo ready to get this 75lbs off. How is everyone going to do it? Weight watchers, low carb, low cal? Maybe we can share some pointers!

I've thought of writing an anon. letter and explaining how she does this to a lot of students in front of everyone. What really gets me is, bless their hearts, there are 2 classmates of mine that would fall into the morbidly obese category, and she hasn't said a word to them to my knowledge. The thought of putting her in her place sounds very empowering in my head, however I'm 1)afraid of any sort of confrontation and 2)this woman holds my future in her hands until I get out of school. But let me tell you, in my head, I've told her what for! LOL I'm afraid my self-esteem in already deteriorated--she just added salt to the wound. Sometimes being a "chunky" woman is just horrible. There are prejudices everywhere. And you are right, it seems to be the last and strongest prejudice to overcome. As far as a weight loss thread/buddy system...I say let's do it. I've got all the stuff for weight watchers it's just a matter of me putting forth the effort. When do ya wanna start? Maybe we could have a "biggest loser" contest online. If they don't want us to compare that here on the nursing forum maybe we could find another or do it on MySpace or something? We could make up a myspace account and go on and comment about tricks/tips and pounds lost. I'm so for it.

It was a shock that she said something so rude--even in front of another faculty member. I guess with sharing offices, my algebra instructor is accustomed to her lack of respect toward others. Did you say you had lost 90lbs Batman...how the heck did you do that? In all honesty, I'd love to lose 75lbs but 30-40 would be nice =D And as crazy as it sounds her comments make me more determined. I wanna be like see I can be "healthy" and do good in nursing. So there. Ha. Yeah, I'm a grown up!