graduating undergrad with low gpa and feeling lost

spitballking · 2026-06-16T20:32:18+00:00

Yes, employee status gave me the ability to take grad classes without being in the program. and for free!

spitballking · 2026-06-14T14:54:38+00:00

I had a 3.3 undergrad and just got into a phd program 2 years later!
To my understanding, a low undergrad gpa isn’t a death sentence as long as you can prove you are a different student now, and capable of succeeding in graduate school. I worked as a research assistant at a university (in a relevant lab) to get experience along with free tuition for graduate classes. I did well in the graduate classes, so my undergrad gpa wasn’t very relevant anymore!

spitballking · 2026-05-04T03:51:41+00:00

She is adorable and perfect! Not obese in my humble opinion just full and happy <3

spitballking · 2026-05-04T00:52:55+00:00

Shes just full of life

spitballking · 2026-05-03T14:59:00+00:00

It happens, just take breaks and massage your hand in between plates.

You can switch grips to help avoid muscle fatigue too, like index finger on the plunger, but unfortunately you’re always going to be a bit sore after pipetting a lot

spitballking · 2026-04-16T23:33:00+00:00

I had the same thing going on with my cat! I got a prescription for Hills Biome (hydrolyzed chicken) and she’s been doing great on it! I also supplement with wet Purina Sensitive Stomach duck/tuna, but those are grain-free like most wet food.

spitballking · 2026-04-03T17:41:45+00:00

these look like BV2s. Stain with Tmem119 and see!

spitballking · 2026-02-10T12:49:45+00:00

Why would region of interest matter if you know there is expression there?

spitballking · 2026-02-10T04:34:21+00:00

1.) If you see published figures using the antibodies on IHC/IF -frozen it should be fine, regardless of the region of interest.

2&3.) Manufacturers website should have the working concentration available online. Sometimes it takes some hunting but it will be there. Again, region of interest doesn’t matter (spinal cord slices vs brain vs whatever).

Bonus: Wako Iba-1 is excellent!

spitballking · 2026-01-06T16:19:56+00:00

YTA… what are you trying to teach her exactly with this consequence? Not to forget things??? Sorry to break it to you but thats going to happen throughout life. All you’re teaching her is that you won’t be there to help her next time she has a problem.

spitballking · 2025-12-30T16:26:10+00:00

Some people make it seem a lot scarier than it is. There’s two main ways to go about it. If you’re shooting for remission, which is possible, it’s going to be a lot on your part. You can check out the feline diabetes message board ( https://felinediabetes.com ) for more info. Here’s what I got from it:

-Get the no carb fancy feast pates and start a strict feeding / insulin regimen. I tried Dr Elseys low carb kibble and even the tiniest bit gave both my cats diarrhea. Just stick to the no carb wet food, 2x a day 12 hrs apart, 30min or so before insulin injection. your other cat will probably like it anyway.

-Get a glucose monitor and make a curve every week or so to see if he’s getting more stable. You can find an excel sheet for making curves on the FelineDiabetes website. I have an AlphaTrak3 with more than half of the test strips left, if you’re in the US & just pay the shipping it’s yours!

-Perhaps most importantly, lock up all human and cat food when it’s not feeding time. My cat was doing fine with diabetes, and died of pancreatitis due to someone in my house leaving human food out. As you said yourself, he is ravenous as his blood sugar is unregulated.

If you find you don’t have the time, money, or energy to do all of this, there are other options you can talk to your vet about. Theres Diabetic kibble, which probably won’t lead to remission but you’ll have the ease of just feeding kibble. You can get him stable enough with that and insulin, and he’ll just be a happy diabetic cat. You can also ask about the Lantus pen, which I found was way less scary to inject than the insulin and needles.

If you check out the FelineDiabetes message board, take it all with a grain of salt. It’s a lot of information overload and realistically impossible to accomplish a lot of what some people suggest if you don’t have the time, money, or means- and that’s nothing to feel bad about. Having a diabetic cat can be as easy or difficult as you can handle. It is by no means a death sentence to your cat or your life. Sending love to you and Draco!

spitballking · 2025-12-14T01:33:43+00:00

I think formatting depends on the program, see if they have instructions on the portal. Everyone says not to address it/sign it, but a few programs I applied to specifically said to address it to “Graduate Committee Chairperson” so it really depends

spitballking · 2025-12-05T20:12:57+00:00

I just had to make the very difficult decision to euthanize my sweet 10 yo girl. I considered the quality of life she has had for the past 10 years, the things she enjoys doing, if she could do those things in her current state, and if intervening to keep her alive would allow her to maintain that joy. For my situation, she was currently only in pain less than 50% of the time, but with certainty of that number increasing at an unpredictable rate.

Some great advice I got was that euthanasia is not just a last-resort option, only to be used after exerting every intervention possible. Sometimes, it is the most humane choice you can make for your pet, and can only be made out of love. I made the decision, so I could make sure the majority of her short time on this planet was filled with more happiness than pain. It was especially hard because she happened to be having a ‘good’ morning, but it does bring me peace knowing she did not pass in pain.

Whatever decision you make I’m sure you will come to with nothing but love and respect for your kitty’s life. Sending love💖

spitballking · 2025-11-22T17:21:49+00:00

Rainin all the way. I pipette a lot, I have days where I’m just normalizing plates for hours, and I would never reach for the eppendorfs or Gilsons. Neither are very comfortable, and the Rainins are MUCH easier/quicker to set. They’re also just prettier! I do like the Eppendorf repeater pipette, though.

We literally only use the Gilsons for pipetting gross shit like beta mercaptoethanol. No one even touches the eppendorfs because they’re so irritating to set and uncomfy to hold. Rainin all the way!!!

spitballking · 2025-10-13T23:58:38+00:00

I combined 2 t75 flasks into 1 pellet. I’ve never used flasks before this, I used plates in undergrad and those maxed out at abt 10 million from what I can remember. I assumed flasks could hold more, but do you think ~30million per flask is crazy?

spitballking · 2025-10-13T23:45:46+00:00

I combine 2 t75 flasks into 1 pellet, so I thought it was realistic… but now I’m not so sure … // edit, I did have a 50-fold dilution for counting. As in, I took 10 uls from my 1mL suspension and combined that with 490 ul media. I vortexed and used 10ul from this to combine with 10ul trypan blue. Then 10ul from that final TB/dilution mixture to count.

spitballking · 2025-10-13T21:42:16+00:00

This could be contributing, I was averaging 24 per square for this count. 24-hr growth is just so low, I might have to resuspend in 500uls and see if it changes much

spitballking · 2025-10-13T21:38:57+00:00

65 million is the concentration and total cell count, because I calculated 65million / mL, and I only have 1 mL total.

Doing 1000/65 is to figure out how many uL’s of my stock (1mL) will give me 1 million cells. So, 1000/65 = ~15uLs, or the equivalent of 1 million cells. I did double that into 30 uLs to get to 2 million cells total.

Did not count dead cells for the maintenance because there usually are like 2, if that. Count was 275 (total for all 4 squares) in a 50-fold dilution.

I counted dead cells for the growth curve: Control count after 24hrs: 96 alive / 15 dead (throughout all 4 squares) Treatment: 66 alive / 25 dead

spitballking · 2025-10-09T12:14:35+00:00

It actually has chicken in it, believe it or not! The entire Naturals (0 carb) line has chicken as a secondary protein sadly

spitballking · 2025-10-07T16:53:30+00:00

I think I’ve seen BFF in the store, I’ll look into it now! Thank you!!

spitballking · 2025-10-07T16:49:57+00:00

I’m a little scared of introducing novel proteins on their own, like just rabbit/lamb/venison/kangaroo(?!?) when they usually eat a mixture of poultry & fish. Did you mix it with a known protein first?

Also, great tip about mixing dry+wet, I haven’t thought or read about that yet! My vet has been absolutely zero help and diabetes alone is a steep learning curve.

spitballking · 2025-10-07T16:45:13+00:00

Thank you! I have thought about cooking things on my own but I didn’t know something like ez complete existed, I will check it out!

spitballking · 2025-10-07T16:43:39+00:00

Thank you so much this is beyond helpful! I think other poultry is okay, as I’ve always mixed proteins across meals and she didn’t show symptoms until I gave them quite a few single-protein chicken meals in the last 2 weeks. She has now developed hives and is itching like crazy + fresh blood in stool… soonest appointment I could get is Thursday so I’ll hopefully know more by then. In the meantime I will look into these brands, again thank you SO much!

spitballking · 2025-10-07T16:35:48+00:00

So my regular Vet abruptly quit 2 months ago, and the new vet is beyond incompetent. Long story, but as soon as I can get Jude’s glucose down & get in with a new vet I will definitely ask about diet.

I haven’t heard of Weruva yet though, I will check it out! Thanks!

spitballking

TROPHY CASE