Contrary to popular belief, we did actually come to Canada for work!

So first off, let me start by sharing some fantastic news – Joonas is now the newest, full-time employee of a small, local acoustics company! Getting to this point was a bit of an uphill struggle but fortunately all of his hard work and determination eventually paid off and now he’s been back to work as of last monday. From what I gather, work had started off really well and he’s already been to a couple of worksites to do measurements and gotten through Ontario’s vigorous health and safety training. During his first week he experienced what it’s like to work with Canadian construction workers, who are apparently incredibly polite and friendly, met with a couple of the owners of his new company, went bowling with his new colleagues and participated in his first Sushi Friday lunch. As you can all imagine he’s happy to be back at work and making social contacts of his own! 

For me, work has been a bit slower than i would have liked. Transitioning from being one the people who has been in the lab for the longest to being the newest is rough. At first I had to rely on someone for absolutely everything.. now fortunately I am slowly getting the hang of things and finding my way around. For those of you who are not into science, you can skip the next paragraph 🙂

The project I am here to work on is mainly AFM based… our groups core interest lies in CNCs and their use in several different applications- which ranrange from vaccines, aerogels all the way to adhesives and thin films. My work is closely related to adhesives and latexes and how improve their properties by adding CNCs into their mixtures during different stages of their processing/manufacturing. My role is not so much to analyze the mehcnical properties of these adhesives but more to investigate their physical structures through micrscopy. At the moment I’m focusing on using AFM, TEM and cryo-TEM but we’ve only done trial runs so far, which weren’t particularly succesful so I’m looking into establishing a protocol which could be used throughout our lab when imaging sticky/soft samples like the ones we’re working with in this project. In addition to the project, i’ve taken on AFM teaching duties and have no succesfully learned how to use the AFM myself and have taught our newest PhD student how to use it as well. The AFM setup in our lab is super different to the one back at Puu, but once you get the hang of it is perhaps easier to use than that one. The only thing is that the software of our AFM here is completely different so getting the hang of that and finding all it’s ’secrets’ will be challenging. There’s a really nice lab system here where every group has their own lab which is always locked. This obviously means that the professors either have to fund all of their own equipment and have them in their own labs, or then they have to ask permission to use another professors equipment. I like the system here because it gets rid of the ridiculous issue glassware and equipment going missing and theres better control over who is using which equipment. The only drawback is that you simply run out of lab space because you are confined to one room. To make sure people dont step on each others toes, our group has develoepd a system in which everyone is designated an area of countertop space in the lab which nobody else is allowed to us – you can store your samples there, the glassware you’re using and everything else you will need and your space will be respected and none of your stuff will be touhed. I was away the day my lab space was allocated and i came back to find this:

Otherwise the working culture here seems pretty similar to Puu. The only difference here is that people are expected to be alot more independant and the PhD student go through quite a rough sounding examination process because they qualify as ’doctoral candidates’, which is a really different system to what Finland has. The whole schooling system here is a bit tricky to understand with all their undergrad and grad classes, and their accelerated masters program, comprehensive examinations etc., but thankfully I can just listen and learn about them out of interest rather than stress out about them as they no longer apply to me! 

This week I am hoping to get into the lab at full speed and work through a bunch of things I have on my to-do list! Hopefully things will star running smoothly and this feeling of not accomplishing anything will turn into a feeling of annoyance at shitty lab results, frustration at their interpretation and then satisfaction at the final, compiled result! For all of us who work in science/research, there is something seriously wrong with us that we find enjoyment in battling through endless distances of quicksand for just a couple of care free steps on solid concrete only to then drop back into the sand. It’s infuriating and gut wrenching but so totally worth it, and I wouldn’t have it any other way! 

On that note I’m going to sign off.. here’s hoping everyone has a nice week! 
-Elli