Oral hygiene doesn't mean licking yourself clean

Remember a week ago? When I created a bacterial culture from the crud on my tonsils? And someone in the class got accidentally dosed up with E. Coli? Well, it turns out they were very lucky not to have been swabbed with whatever came off my throat. After one week, here's what my agar plate looked like:

People in my class were very impressed with how disgusting it looks. I felt like the bad dude in microbiology. Much more exciting than the dull white dots that other people's plates grew. Mine has white dots, green patches, and the upper left region shows a clear patch where the bacteria have broken down the blood in the agar. Just imagine what they've done to me. The picture doesn't show it very well, but the bacterial colonies are all connected by straight lines which I believe are canals they have built to channel water from the cool polar regions to the arid deserts in the centre of the plate.

We then had to prepare slides using Gram stain to examine the bacteria. I was eagerly looking forward to seeing what they looked like, but my slide ended up looking almost completely blank. I probably stuffed up the fixing stage and must have washed my bacterial civilisation down the sink. What a shame. If you live near Adelaide I wouldn't go swimming in the ocean for the next few days.

Anyway, shamed in public as I was by my horrible tenants, on the way home I dropped in to the supermarket, which gives me the opportunity for a quick self-portrait.