We had brunch (very early lunch) at The Afghan Market and then drove to Great Falls on the Maryland, where we walked along the C&O Canal, and also took the path to see waterfalls. We then took various trails and climbed many rocks. It was exhilaratingly fun, climbing steep trails and stepping rock to rock. It wasn't too sunny and it was a relatively cool day with clear blue skies that backdropped the waterfalls beautifully.
We ate dinner at China Chilcano, a fusion of Peruvian, Japanese, and Chinese food, and it was delicious, though their one 3-inch in diameter pork belly sandwich was not worth $8.
It's my last day in DC and it couldn't have been more fulfilling than it was. It has been an amazing 9 weeks here in DC and Bethesda, both exploring both cities, and interning at NIH. Tomorrow, I start the drive home and then reality (or the next chapter in life) hits me. Senior year, college apps and everything else, here I come!
Thank you to everyone who has supported my internship and experience here, but also to anyone who has visited this blog: it is nice to know that my words and experiences, however unimportant they may be, are read by people who do care to know.
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Friday, August 7, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 60 (August 7, 2015)
It was the last day, and I'll keep this short before I start crying.
Let's stick to the facts to keep these tears in check. I brought the cookie-brownie bars I made last night at 11pm to the lab meeting (I didn't forget this time after the chocolate chip cookie incident!) and Danielle was presenting a paper going through revision by another lab who does extremely similar things to what we're working on. Danielle prefaced her presentation with a quick walkthrough of what our lab is researching on, mainly for the sake of Nick, who is new and thus the only person who doesn't know about our lab's research. As she walked through the background, I realized how far I have come because I followed everything she said, simply because I had already knew it, after reading many papers. As she launched into her presentation, which was highly technical and dug deep into the core of our research, I was pleased in my ability to follow her talk as well as the discussion and questions that bounced around. My first week here, Danielle was presenting her research and since she had provided no background, I was so lost. Things have come full circle, with Danielle being the first and last lab meeting presenter I've listened to, and I'm ridiculously happy to look on how far I've come.
Today was mainly finishing up my lab notebook, since there was no experiments for me to do. I grabbed an early lunch with Christina, Deborah had also went to get lunch then, and it was a pleasant way to spend the last day, lunch with all the remaining interns. We also met a person from the lab next to ours, hi Mike, and it's pretty funny, at least for me, that I'm still meeting people on my last day. Speaking of meeting people, as I was walking up the Medical Center metro escalator, an Asian kid comes up to me and asks if the tennis racket I was carrying was a badminton one. I told him no, but it's funny that so many things happen on my last day, and if I didn't know that today was August 7, it would feel like any other day of my internship.
Deborah and I had to go to an awards ceremony for our research program (NIH-SIP-NINDS) and we saw the top three presenters from poster day yesterday, which was a really good experience both to learn about their topics, but also to learn what other people have been doing in the same institute at me (all of NINDS was in the afternoon session, and since I was "required" to stay at my poster, I couldn't go around and look at more posters during the afternoon session). There was a reception afterwards with food, and I also met Jennifer, who I had met during the NIH-SIP Career Symposium, which was coincidentally another full-circle moment.
I talked to Gailyn for the first time, even though she was in Mike's lab and I had seen her around. I can't believe 9 weeks has passed and I've only officially met her today! She was so sweet and gave me thank you cards for me to write notes to Richard and my mentor.
Before leaving, I placed my lab notebook on my mentor's desk and I gave everyone a hug. Well, all the girls because Jon had left earlier (I bid my goodbyes, no worries) and I already had one last talk with Nick, who jokingly told me to consider his alma mater, Villanova this fall while I'm applying for college.
I turned my badge to Katie, my office manager for the summer, slipping it under her door since she had left the office already, and then I walked out of Building 35, taking the route that my mentor and I have always taken when leaving work together, one last time.
I got home before 6pm, something that has never happened this whole summer, and a part of me feels empty, even now because I feel like I should be busy; I feel like I should be reading papers for journal club next Monday or looking up more information on mitophagy and the proteins involved in this quality control mechanism, but journal club has ended and my summer at NIH is over. Sure, some weeks dragged by when my experiments weren't working and I found myself working late hours, but these 9 weeks flew by, full of amazing lab mates and other fellow interns, disobedient bacteria, mischievous cell lines, and one incredibly knowledgeable, amazing mentor. It was truly a wonderful experience, and with that, my story in one city comes to a close.
Let's stick to the facts to keep these tears in check. I brought the cookie-brownie bars I made last night at 11pm to the lab meeting (I didn't forget this time after the chocolate chip cookie incident!) and Danielle was presenting a paper going through revision by another lab who does extremely similar things to what we're working on. Danielle prefaced her presentation with a quick walkthrough of what our lab is researching on, mainly for the sake of Nick, who is new and thus the only person who doesn't know about our lab's research. As she walked through the background, I realized how far I have come because I followed everything she said, simply because I had already knew it, after reading many papers. As she launched into her presentation, which was highly technical and dug deep into the core of our research, I was pleased in my ability to follow her talk as well as the discussion and questions that bounced around. My first week here, Danielle was presenting her research and since she had provided no background, I was so lost. Things have come full circle, with Danielle being the first and last lab meeting presenter I've listened to, and I'm ridiculously happy to look on how far I've come.
Today was mainly finishing up my lab notebook, since there was no experiments for me to do. I grabbed an early lunch with Christina, Deborah had also went to get lunch then, and it was a pleasant way to spend the last day, lunch with all the remaining interns. We also met a person from the lab next to ours, hi Mike, and it's pretty funny, at least for me, that I'm still meeting people on my last day. Speaking of meeting people, as I was walking up the Medical Center metro escalator, an Asian kid comes up to me and asks if the tennis racket I was carrying was a badminton one. I told him no, but it's funny that so many things happen on my last day, and if I didn't know that today was August 7, it would feel like any other day of my internship.
Deborah and I had to go to an awards ceremony for our research program (NIH-SIP-NINDS) and we saw the top three presenters from poster day yesterday, which was a really good experience both to learn about their topics, but also to learn what other people have been doing in the same institute at me (all of NINDS was in the afternoon session, and since I was "required" to stay at my poster, I couldn't go around and look at more posters during the afternoon session). There was a reception afterwards with food, and I also met Jennifer, who I had met during the NIH-SIP Career Symposium, which was coincidentally another full-circle moment.
I talked to Gailyn for the first time, even though she was in Mike's lab and I had seen her around. I can't believe 9 weeks has passed and I've only officially met her today! She was so sweet and gave me thank you cards for me to write notes to Richard and my mentor.
Before leaving, I placed my lab notebook on my mentor's desk and I gave everyone a hug. Well, all the girls because Jon had left earlier (I bid my goodbyes, no worries) and I already had one last talk with Nick, who jokingly told me to consider his alma mater, Villanova this fall while I'm applying for college.
I turned my badge to Katie, my office manager for the summer, slipping it under her door since she had left the office already, and then I walked out of Building 35, taking the route that my mentor and I have always taken when leaving work together, one last time.
I got home before 6pm, something that has never happened this whole summer, and a part of me feels empty, even now because I feel like I should be busy; I feel like I should be reading papers for journal club next Monday or looking up more information on mitophagy and the proteins involved in this quality control mechanism, but journal club has ended and my summer at NIH is over. Sure, some weeks dragged by when my experiments weren't working and I found myself working late hours, but these 9 weeks flew by, full of amazing lab mates and other fellow interns, disobedient bacteria, mischievous cell lines, and one incredibly knowledgeable, amazing mentor. It was truly a wonderful experience, and with that, my story in one city comes to a close.
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 59 (August 6, 2015)
Today was truly the culmination of non-lab NIH. I get to the campus at 10am and I head straight towards building 45 where the poster presentations are at. I've looked at the program (located online) and I found out that Chris was presenting in the morning. He was surprised to see me, but it was good to see him one last time, learn about what he has been doing this whole summer at NCATS.
Then I had to rush back to building 35 (which was quite the walk/run...in flip flops) to print my poster, which took a decent amount of waiting time, and then I had to run back to building 45 to set up, change (good thing I was wearing tshirt and shorts, because I was sweating like crazy from all the walking I've done). I got there to see some posters in the lunch session, saw Michaela's poster on modifying procedures for nurses when gearing up to come in contact with Ebola patients, as well as Bronte's on magnetized gold bellflowers.
When it came the afternoon session (the session I was presenting at), no one showed up for the first 20 minutes, no one showed up. Then Bronte did, which was so nice of her. I didn't have a chance to practice presenting my poster, so it was good that Bronte was first because I could practice and there was no pressure. After she left, there was a long lull where I just stood there, and then a girl (a friend of the girl who's poster was next to mine) came and asked me to present. After her, it had been 40 minutes into the 2 hour session, I had only given my presentation twice, but my throat was dry and my voice was hoarse.
Chris was lurking while I was talking to the girl, waiting to jump in after she had left. I presented to him, and as I was talking to him, Jobart came and lurked alternating between coming, leaving, coming, leaving. But I'm really glad Jobart came because it was really thoughtful of him even though I know he was really busy. As he left for the final time, he gave me a thumbs up and a smile before walking away, which helped boost my confidence (already growing because I got to practice my spiels with different people), but also felt like validation of my presentation, that I was doing it right.
I managed to rope in this random Indian lady who was walking by (she was a research fellow, aka postdoc), and I hope she was intrigued. I felt a little better with my explanation, but it was still a little shaky. As I was talking to her, Jon and Nick came over and listened. It was really thoughtful of them to walk all the way from building 35 just to come see Deborah and me. Jon asked if the 5 receptors I was presenting were the only ones in mitophagy, I said yes, and he subtly shakes his head no (though later we talked about it and it turns out only 5 have been discovered but there may be more). I got really flustered and mad at myself and had to will myself to shrug it off and keep going with my presentation. The problem with presenting my poster is I realized how much I don't know and it woke up this strong desire to stay more weeks, stay the year, dedicate my life to research this topic, simply because there's so much to figure out and since my experiment didn't get the expected results, there's so much to figure out why it didn't work and how to make it work.
I ended up giving my talk 7 times and by the end of the two hours, my voice was so scratchy. My mentor lurked while I was giving a presentation and afterwards, he told me I did a good job presenting, which
Afterwards, I went back to the lab, met with Richard, and he said he'd be glad to have me back in the lab next year and in the future! So I definitely have an in with this lab, and I'm glad I have an invitation to come back!
It was a great day, presenting my poster, a culmination of my whole summer here, getting invited back in the future to my lab, and meeting friends I've made this summer, learning about their research and seeing them one last time before possibly never again.
Thank you Chris, Michaela, Bronte, and many other interns for making my summer here fun. Your posters (and presentation of them) blew me away. It's too bad that you can't start any follow up steps tomorrow!
Then I had to rush back to building 35 (which was quite the walk/run...in flip flops) to print my poster, which took a decent amount of waiting time, and then I had to run back to building 45 to set up, change (good thing I was wearing tshirt and shorts, because I was sweating like crazy from all the walking I've done). I got there to see some posters in the lunch session, saw Michaela's poster on modifying procedures for nurses when gearing up to come in contact with Ebola patients, as well as Bronte's on magnetized gold bellflowers.
When it came the afternoon session (the session I was presenting at), no one showed up for the first 20 minutes, no one showed up. Then Bronte did, which was so nice of her. I didn't have a chance to practice presenting my poster, so it was good that Bronte was first because I could practice and there was no pressure. After she left, there was a long lull where I just stood there, and then a girl (a friend of the girl who's poster was next to mine) came and asked me to present. After her, it had been 40 minutes into the 2 hour session, I had only given my presentation twice, but my throat was dry and my voice was hoarse.
Chris was lurking while I was talking to the girl, waiting to jump in after she had left. I presented to him, and as I was talking to him, Jobart came and lurked alternating between coming, leaving, coming, leaving. But I'm really glad Jobart came because it was really thoughtful of him even though I know he was really busy. As he left for the final time, he gave me a thumbs up and a smile before walking away, which helped boost my confidence (already growing because I got to practice my spiels with different people), but also felt like validation of my presentation, that I was doing it right.
I managed to rope in this random Indian lady who was walking by (she was a research fellow, aka postdoc), and I hope she was intrigued. I felt a little better with my explanation, but it was still a little shaky. As I was talking to her, Jon and Nick came over and listened. It was really thoughtful of them to walk all the way from building 35 just to come see Deborah and me. Jon asked if the 5 receptors I was presenting were the only ones in mitophagy, I said yes, and he subtly shakes his head no (though later we talked about it and it turns out only 5 have been discovered but there may be more). I got really flustered and mad at myself and had to will myself to shrug it off and keep going with my presentation. The problem with presenting my poster is I realized how much I don't know and it woke up this strong desire to stay more weeks, stay the year, dedicate my life to research this topic, simply because there's so much to figure out and since my experiment didn't get the expected results, there's so much to figure out why it didn't work and how to make it work.
I ended up giving my talk 7 times and by the end of the two hours, my voice was so scratchy. My mentor lurked while I was giving a presentation and afterwards, he told me I did a good job presenting, which
Afterwards, I went back to the lab, met with Richard, and he said he'd be glad to have me back in the lab next year and in the future! So I definitely have an in with this lab, and I'm glad I have an invitation to come back!
It was a great day, presenting my poster, a culmination of my whole summer here, getting invited back in the future to my lab, and meeting friends I've made this summer, learning about their research and seeing them one last time before possibly never again.
Thank you Chris, Michaela, Bronte, and many other interns for making my summer here fun. Your posters (and presentation of them) blew me away. It's too bad that you can't start any follow up steps tomorrow!
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 58 (August 5, 2015)
I finally finished my poster, towards the later half of the afternoon! My mentor looked over it in the evening and I'll just print it tomorrow...the day of my poster presentation. Cutting it close, I know, but it'll all be okay because I'm presenting in the afternoon session.
I was going through another chocolate chip cookie craving, and so I ended up going down to the convenience store and buying a box of cookies, and then offering them to everyone in my lab so I wouldn't eat them all myself. It was a good thing that I had a cookie because I stayed really late in the lab today doing 49 genomic minipreps for my mentor while he looked over my poster (I also had a few of the cookies that Lesley keeps in her drawer always to tide me over). It was awful only because I can't use a repeater for genomic minipreps, meaning I have to pipet each one individually, and my mentor doesn't have ergonomic pipetters, which means my thumb got a workout using the pipets full of resistance. Considering I was doing 49 samples, pipetting up and down repeatedly for each sample, my left hand was very exhausted afterwards. Maybe it's a good thing I'm ambidextrous because once my left hand got too tired, I switched temporarily to my right (which did slow things down a bit), and then once my left hand felt less exhausted, I switched back to it again.
My mentor and I walked to the metro station (he takes the metro to work every day). At 9pm, the campus is pretty quiet, it's dark, but most of all, the temperature has cooled down quite significantly and it's wonderful weather. Bethesda doesn't have too much light pollution, so there were a good amount of stars visible tonight. It felt good to be done with my poster, good to have successfully completed 49 genomic minipreps, and good to be in this nice weather at this peaceful hour, I just started running about because I felt a burst of energy from this good mood. My mentor has definitely seen the crazy, unprofessional, dumb side of me, and I'm really thankful to have had him as my mentor for the summer. He's pushed me hard, expected a lot of me, but I'm so glad he did because I've learned so much and improved so much this summer. I'll miss him, but I will keep in touch.
An hour before we left building 35, Jon came in. He certainly does work weird hours. I had one chocolate chip cookie left and so I offered it to him. He snatches it eagerly like a little kid and its these rare moments when the distinct personalities of people in the lab manifest themselves and I'm hit with a realization that I'm really going to miss all of the people in this lab. Jon has been awesome to play tennis with and have interesting conversations. My mentor loves to troll him and we three have quite unique, hilarious conversations, us three being people who love to talk. I'll miss them all, all the people in Richard's lab.
I was going through another chocolate chip cookie craving, and so I ended up going down to the convenience store and buying a box of cookies, and then offering them to everyone in my lab so I wouldn't eat them all myself. It was a good thing that I had a cookie because I stayed really late in the lab today doing 49 genomic minipreps for my mentor while he looked over my poster (I also had a few of the cookies that Lesley keeps in her drawer always to tide me over). It was awful only because I can't use a repeater for genomic minipreps, meaning I have to pipet each one individually, and my mentor doesn't have ergonomic pipetters, which means my thumb got a workout using the pipets full of resistance. Considering I was doing 49 samples, pipetting up and down repeatedly for each sample, my left hand was very exhausted afterwards. Maybe it's a good thing I'm ambidextrous because once my left hand got too tired, I switched temporarily to my right (which did slow things down a bit), and then once my left hand felt less exhausted, I switched back to it again.
My mentor and I walked to the metro station (he takes the metro to work every day). At 9pm, the campus is pretty quiet, it's dark, but most of all, the temperature has cooled down quite significantly and it's wonderful weather. Bethesda doesn't have too much light pollution, so there were a good amount of stars visible tonight. It felt good to be done with my poster, good to have successfully completed 49 genomic minipreps, and good to be in this nice weather at this peaceful hour, I just started running about because I felt a burst of energy from this good mood. My mentor has definitely seen the crazy, unprofessional, dumb side of me, and I'm really thankful to have had him as my mentor for the summer. He's pushed me hard, expected a lot of me, but I'm so glad he did because I've learned so much and improved so much this summer. I'll miss him, but I will keep in touch.
An hour before we left building 35, Jon came in. He certainly does work weird hours. I had one chocolate chip cookie left and so I offered it to him. He snatches it eagerly like a little kid and its these rare moments when the distinct personalities of people in the lab manifest themselves and I'm hit with a realization that I'm really going to miss all of the people in this lab. Jon has been awesome to play tennis with and have interesting conversations. My mentor loves to troll him and we three have quite unique, hilarious conversations, us three being people who love to talk. I'll miss them all, all the people in Richard's lab.
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 57 (August 4, 2015)
The poster is still a work in progress. Poster day (when I present my poster) is in 2 days, but it's okay, I'll get it done no worries.
Sitting at the stool again at my mentor's desk, Jeni walks by and changes my stool to this "massage chair" where you sit and kneel too, so somewhat of an upgrade from a stool used to get buffers and chemicals to make buffers. After Shireen mentioned that Sue was gone for the week and thus not occupying her seat, I moved to Sue's seat because my foot fell asleep from the weird sitting position in the other chair. I really got lucky to be placed in a lab with such sweet people.
Ate lunch with Christina, we were joined by Jeni and Alicia, and then Catherine walked in and since she's going to be away at a wedding from tomorrow until Monday, she wanted to say good bye to me before she left. I can't believe everything is all coming to an end so fast; I have 3 more days, but it is the last time I will get to see Catherine in a while, if not maybe forever.
Almost done with my poster, but I have to run it through my mentor before I can print it. Towards the afternoon, after working on my poster for all of the weekend and really getting annoyed with OpenOffice (I don't have Microsoft Office) after it crashed twice, the second time right when I finished the whole poster, but forgot to save, so I lost all of my conclusion and had to rewrite it, I was getting exhausted and as a result, a little loopy. That caused Shireen, Christina, and I to devolve into absurd, random conversations that weren't supposed to be funny, but we were all laughing. It's what Tuesdays-that-feel-like-Wednesdays do to you.
Shireen gave me a ride to the metro, but for some reason, there was this metal part sticking out of the cement block that prevents you from driving over the edge of the parking garage, and she went over it and got the thick metal nail stuck in her bumper so when she tried to back out, it got caught and damaged the underside of her car. Hopefully she'll get it repaired without it being too costly...
Monday, August 3, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 56 (August 3, 2015)
So today I presented a paper at my journal club. It was more data than conclusions, and the paper was pretty redundant in using so much data to repeat the one point it made. But Lauren and I presented, Laura and I brought cookies, and our last journal club meeting ended well. I'm sad that it's come to an end, but I've learned so much from it. In combination with my research, I've learned how to read scientific papers and I've gotten much faster at it too. Also, presenting my first paper ever, it was a big learning experience on how to give scientific presentations.
Long noncoding RNAs were, are, and still will be a vague concept just because they're so new and not much is known about them, but it was a good topic to learn more on and I had an awesome environment, surrounded by all these people: Laura and Quira were our supervisors, and then Bronte, Jessica, Luke, John, Jeff, Lauren, Austin, and Joachim.
On my first day demotion, because Nick and Jobart have come and they need cubicle space and since I'm the youngest and also leaving after this week, I gave up my seat. I moved in with my mentor, sitting on a ladder stool today as I worked furiously first on my paper presentation, then on my poster. Creating a poster is hard because it's my first time and I have to start from scratch since I don't have a template. It's going to be a crazy week.
Long noncoding RNAs were, are, and still will be a vague concept just because they're so new and not much is known about them, but it was a good topic to learn more on and I had an awesome environment, surrounded by all these people: Laura and Quira were our supervisors, and then Bronte, Jessica, Luke, John, Jeff, Lauren, Austin, and Joachim.
On my first day demotion, because Nick and Jobart have come and they need cubicle space and since I'm the youngest and also leaving after this week, I gave up my seat. I moved in with my mentor, sitting on a ladder stool today as I worked furiously first on my paper presentation, then on my poster. Creating a poster is hard because it's my first time and I have to start from scratch since I don't have a template. It's going to be a crazy week.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 55 (August 2, 2015)
Today was a whirlwind of things.
As we were walking to a Zip Car, we passed by The Wyoming and we were allowed in by the really nice lobby lady. Turns out, this is the apartment where Dwight Eisenhower and Betty Friedan and other historical figures lived for a period of their lives. The lobby is all marble, even the columns, and the windows are tinted/painted over so that when the sunlight comes through, it gives the impression of beauty, despite the fact that on the other side of the window is just a dirty alley.
The tinted glass from the inside -- The actuality of what was outside the window
We drove to the arboretum (I still have no clue how to pronounce it), and spent a sunny, hot, but clear-blue-sky afternoon there. I got bit 3 times (3 more than my mosquito bite total for this summer) and was tailed by many more insects, but the trees and plants and flowers were all so pretty.
After the arboretum and lunch and grocery shopping, I headed off to NIH to finish up my experiment. I didn't actually get to finish because that would have meant I would be at NIH until 11pm, but thankfully, I found a stopping point and left at 9:30pm. Which is good, considering I still have to prepare for the presentation Lauren and I are giving at journal club tomorrow.
As we were walking to a Zip Car, we passed by The Wyoming and we were allowed in by the really nice lobby lady. Turns out, this is the apartment where Dwight Eisenhower and Betty Friedan and other historical figures lived for a period of their lives. The lobby is all marble, even the columns, and the windows are tinted/painted over so that when the sunlight comes through, it gives the impression of beauty, despite the fact that on the other side of the window is just a dirty alley.
We drove to the arboretum (I still have no clue how to pronounce it), and spent a sunny, hot, but clear-blue-sky afternoon there. I got bit 3 times (3 more than my mosquito bite total for this summer) and was tailed by many more insects, but the trees and plants and flowers were all so pretty.
Look at how sunny it was today! Only the sun made today hot; there was a cool wind and it wasn't humid.
Where I saw my first ever hummingbird! I'm so bummed I couldn't get a better glimpse of it (it was backlit and so I only saw the outline, which makes it hard for me to ID it) or even a picture.
I don't like the color orange but I'll make an exception for these marigolds.
lavendar
ginkgo bonsai
a dragon-shaped trident maple bonsai
The Capitol Columns
Excuse the horrible upkeep of the pond and pretend that the pool is clean and filled with water.
After the arboretum and lunch and grocery shopping, I headed off to NIH to finish up my experiment. I didn't actually get to finish because that would have meant I would be at NIH until 11pm, but thankfully, I found a stopping point and left at 9:30pm. Which is good, considering I still have to prepare for the presentation Lauren and I are giving at journal club tomorrow.
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 54 (August 1, 2015)
This morning we went to Tyson's Corner, which is this huge mall with tons of stores in it. We wandered around, ate lunch at Seasons 52, and then hopped on the metro to Reston, Virginia. From the train station, we were supposed to take a bus to Reston, but we accidentally got on the bus that took the really long route to Reston...whoops.
Once there, we wandered around some more, found some fountains and gelato/ice cream/ frozen yogurt places, more stores, and also chanced upon a music concert that was playing tonight. It was clearly no Lollapalooza, but it was fun to watch. Since it was a latin american music, fast paced, kind of like Cuban Salsa, and there were a few couples that free-danced to the music, as well as some kids who spun around in circles.
Waiting for the train, I caught a few shots of the sunset.
Friday, July 31, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 53 (July 31, 2015)
Lab meeting today. Jon presented and his research deals a lot with imaging of cells. This is one form of data I have a hard time understanding. The fluorescence of different colors and different proteins and the merged images and interpreting them has always confused me. It was no different, but after getting through a thorough read of Danielle's most recent paper (which provides me with so much information for my poster) (which took 6 hours in total to go through all the supplementary figures and understand every piece of data), I feel a little better about looking at fluorescent cell images now.
At the lab meeting, we also discussed the issue of finding desk space for all the incoming people. The verdict, at least the one that impacts me, is that I'll be moving from my own desk to sharing a desk space with my mentor (since I'll only be here for one more week), and then a grad student (Nick) will come and take 1/3 of my space while Jobart (another grad student) will take up 2/3 of my space. I guess I didn't appreciate how nice it was to have my own desk (and/or not end up in the storage/fly room like Hetal) until I'm finally being evicted. Also, they installed a huge Mac desktop at my desk in preparation for Jobart's moving in, and it looks pretty sleek. Too bad it's not for me because that would be pretty awesome.
While checking my cell lines today, I found some odd crystalline formations and I was so worried it was contamination. After my mentor looked at it under the microscope, he just told me to wipe down the cell line flask with alcohol because it could just be something on the outside of the container. I cleaned it and looked at it again, and the weird crystals were gone, but now I'm a little weirded out, but also intrigued by what those formations actually were, because in a weird, other-worldly way, they looked cool, with their crystal-sharp triangular shapes, clumped in a disturbing oval-shaped cluster.
A funny (but almost tragic) incident that happened today was when Sue noticed that the pipet from the cell culture hood was missing. Things that are in the hood must stay in the hood (for fear of contamination) and this was a big deal firstly because it wasn't supposed to leave the hood in the first place, but also, equipment of any sort is expensive. Emails were sent out to the whole lab and every person's lab bench was searched, but the pipet never showed up. Finally, Black and Lesley decided to search the trash bins in the cell culture room, and they found the pipet, with a pipet tip still attached, in the garbage! They were so lucky that the garbage people didn't make their rounds at their normal time today (they were a little later than usual), otherwise the pipet would have been gone. But I guess someone must have wanted to discard their tip but ended up throwing the whole pipetter away! It's a little silly that this happened, but I'm off the hook since it was missing yesterday, was present on Wednesday, and Thursday morning and I didn't use the hood within that timeframe that it disappeared.
At the lab meeting, we also discussed the issue of finding desk space for all the incoming people. The verdict, at least the one that impacts me, is that I'll be moving from my own desk to sharing a desk space with my mentor (since I'll only be here for one more week), and then a grad student (Nick) will come and take 1/3 of my space while Jobart (another grad student) will take up 2/3 of my space. I guess I didn't appreciate how nice it was to have my own desk (and/or not end up in the storage/fly room like Hetal) until I'm finally being evicted. Also, they installed a huge Mac desktop at my desk in preparation for Jobart's moving in, and it looks pretty sleek. Too bad it's not for me because that would be pretty awesome.
While checking my cell lines today, I found some odd crystalline formations and I was so worried it was contamination. After my mentor looked at it under the microscope, he just told me to wipe down the cell line flask with alcohol because it could just be something on the outside of the container. I cleaned it and looked at it again, and the weird crystals were gone, but now I'm a little weirded out, but also intrigued by what those formations actually were, because in a weird, other-worldly way, they looked cool, with their crystal-sharp triangular shapes, clumped in a disturbing oval-shaped cluster.
A funny (but almost tragic) incident that happened today was when Sue noticed that the pipet from the cell culture hood was missing. Things that are in the hood must stay in the hood (for fear of contamination) and this was a big deal firstly because it wasn't supposed to leave the hood in the first place, but also, equipment of any sort is expensive. Emails were sent out to the whole lab and every person's lab bench was searched, but the pipet never showed up. Finally, Black and Lesley decided to search the trash bins in the cell culture room, and they found the pipet, with a pipet tip still attached, in the garbage! They were so lucky that the garbage people didn't make their rounds at their normal time today (they were a little later than usual), otherwise the pipet would have been gone. But I guess someone must have wanted to discard their tip but ended up throwing the whole pipetter away! It's a little silly that this happened, but I'm off the hook since it was missing yesterday, was present on Wednesday, and Thursday morning and I didn't use the hood within that timeframe that it disappeared.
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 52 (July 30, 2015)
Finished my western blot and the results turned out as expected, but the blot showed up quite nicely during imaging!
It rained today in the typical DC rain fashion. Lesley also mentioned that the weather forecast predicted pea-sized hail. I don't know if there was any hail because I stayed in the whole time, but the sky turned crazy dark smoky grey-blue, thunder was ka-booming, lightning sizzling, and because I was indoors, safe, and dry, I loved watching the window blur completely with the sheets of rain that poured down.
As Lesley, Danielle, Catherine, Deborah, and I were just sitting there, watching the storm for the 30 or so minutes that it lasted for, Danielle mentioned the Studio C skit "Five Day Weather Forecast." Studio C is a comedy group from Brigham Young University. Which, coincidentally, is where Deborah is from and she actually knows Scott Sterling in person! Danielle's son, Jonathan, is absolutely obsessed with him and Studio C, and I watched several episodes of Studio C in the past, before junior year got too busy. Connections in the oddest places. It's definitely a small world. Still, how cool is that?!
I started and finished the paper that Danielle is working on fixing up before it gets published in print! I still have a paper to read for journal club, and I'll be presenting that on Monday. Data for my experiments are slowly rolling in and I need a poster made and printed by Thursday...I'm definitely cutting it close but I'll pull through.
It rained today in the typical DC rain fashion. Lesley also mentioned that the weather forecast predicted pea-sized hail. I don't know if there was any hail because I stayed in the whole time, but the sky turned crazy dark smoky grey-blue, thunder was ka-booming, lightning sizzling, and because I was indoors, safe, and dry, I loved watching the window blur completely with the sheets of rain that poured down.
As Lesley, Danielle, Catherine, Deborah, and I were just sitting there, watching the storm for the 30 or so minutes that it lasted for, Danielle mentioned the Studio C skit "Five Day Weather Forecast." Studio C is a comedy group from Brigham Young University. Which, coincidentally, is where Deborah is from and she actually knows Scott Sterling in person! Danielle's son, Jonathan, is absolutely obsessed with him and Studio C, and I watched several episodes of Studio C in the past, before junior year got too busy. Connections in the oddest places. It's definitely a small world. Still, how cool is that?!
I started and finished the paper that Danielle is working on fixing up before it gets published in print! I still have a paper to read for journal club, and I'll be presenting that on Monday. Data for my experiments are slowly rolling in and I need a poster made and printed by Thursday...I'm definitely cutting it close but I'll pull through.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 51 (July 29, 2015)
Crazy day, long day, the cell culture room didn't open up until pretty late, and since I'm still learning the ropes for lab techniques, I'm pretty slow, but I did shave off time this time. This meant that I left work at 8pm.
Regardless, it was well worth all the time I spent in the lab. I started my first western blot procedure, and this is, in the words of Danielle, "real science." It's a little nerve wracking but I've been taking good notes, so all should go well. Hopefully.
Sadly, with less than 2 weeks left and far more important grad students coming in, I'll be losing my desk space next week and sharing my mentor's desk. But that's okay because I'll be kept pretty busy with lab work by my mentor then.
Regardless, it was well worth all the time I spent in the lab. I started my first western blot procedure, and this is, in the words of Danielle, "real science." It's a little nerve wracking but I've been taking good notes, so all should go well. Hopefully.
Sadly, with less than 2 weeks left and far more important grad students coming in, I'll be losing my desk space next week and sharing my mentor's desk. But that's okay because I'll be kept pretty busy with lab work by my mentor then.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 50 (July 28, 2015)
6 days and 3 transformations later, after figuring out that I was using the wrong bacterial cells this whole time I was here (which explains why my transformations throughout this whole summer haven't been working), I finally finished the cloning experiment I started on July 22. And cloning was a success!
Life is getting pretty busy because I have a journal club paper to present on Monday and then my poster needs to be printed and ready to be presented by Thursday. It's scary how fast everything is coming to an end. On my first day, I was worried that 9 weeks might be a long time. Now, starting my 8th week, I wish I could spend more time here. I've met so many incredible people and although my expectations for this were pretty low considering I have never had lab experience before this, I've learned so much and I'm definitely the master at minipreps.
I would like to take some time to talk about Christina though. We've slowly settled into this routine of eating lunch together. I know that the first few times were just by chance, where she happened to be in the break room eating lunch, on her phone with headphones in. I would walk in, start talking and eating, and she would take out her headphones, put her phone away, and we would just talk. Everything about food to books. She reads lots of classics. We never tire of talking about that. And so from then on, despite how crazy lab work might get and how there's never a set time for lunch, we've managed to eat lunch together for every day except for one. Eventually, neither of us brought our phones to the break room and we would sit there for an hour, talking and eating, other people from our lab occasionally joining us if they happened to have lunch then. It wasn't until a week ago that we started asking each other and trying to plan lunch time (if things were busy in the lab). Up until then, we would just get really lucky. It started off when I asked her when she was done with her current step (and had some wait time) so we could eat lunch together. The next day, I was a little busy, but I was surprised when she asked me when I would be done. And from there, come noon time, we would find each other if we weren't busy, and go eat.
I've never met someone before who I could really talk about classics with. I love the consistency of eating lunch with someone and knowing that it'll be an interesting, relaxing break. I'm glad I met her, she's made this summer amazing, and I know she'll absolutely kick butt at Brown for grad school. Thank you Christina for our conversations and being my lunchmate. We'll keep in touch because you need to read some books and let me know what you think, but I also don't think that I'll stop reading classics any time soon, and so we'll forever have something to talk about.
Life is getting pretty busy because I have a journal club paper to present on Monday and then my poster needs to be printed and ready to be presented by Thursday. It's scary how fast everything is coming to an end. On my first day, I was worried that 9 weeks might be a long time. Now, starting my 8th week, I wish I could spend more time here. I've met so many incredible people and although my expectations for this were pretty low considering I have never had lab experience before this, I've learned so much and I'm definitely the master at minipreps.
I would like to take some time to talk about Christina though. We've slowly settled into this routine of eating lunch together. I know that the first few times were just by chance, where she happened to be in the break room eating lunch, on her phone with headphones in. I would walk in, start talking and eating, and she would take out her headphones, put her phone away, and we would just talk. Everything about food to books. She reads lots of classics. We never tire of talking about that. And so from then on, despite how crazy lab work might get and how there's never a set time for lunch, we've managed to eat lunch together for every day except for one. Eventually, neither of us brought our phones to the break room and we would sit there for an hour, talking and eating, other people from our lab occasionally joining us if they happened to have lunch then. It wasn't until a week ago that we started asking each other and trying to plan lunch time (if things were busy in the lab). Up until then, we would just get really lucky. It started off when I asked her when she was done with her current step (and had some wait time) so we could eat lunch together. The next day, I was a little busy, but I was surprised when she asked me when I would be done. And from there, come noon time, we would find each other if we weren't busy, and go eat.
I've never met someone before who I could really talk about classics with. I love the consistency of eating lunch with someone and knowing that it'll be an interesting, relaxing break. I'm glad I met her, she's made this summer amazing, and I know she'll absolutely kick butt at Brown for grad school. Thank you Christina for our conversations and being my lunchmate. We'll keep in touch because you need to read some books and let me know what you think, but I also don't think that I'll stop reading classics any time soon, and so we'll forever have something to talk about.
Monday, July 27, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 49 (July 27, 2015)
I had to stay in the lab late because of cell culture work, but that's okay because it's not like I get much done once I get home. I'm usually too exhausted to do anything.
Journal club was interesting today. Luke and Jessica presented a paper that was molecular in nature, but I managed to get through the whole paper beforehand, and understand most of the data and procedures because it's very similar to what I'm working with. Harking back to a past conversation I had with Jon about qPCR, I was able to follow this presentation too. I asked two questions, two more than I've ever asked, and I may have caused myself to look like an idiot, but oh well. I asked the questions that I needed to help me understand, and that's that. The mood felt more relaxed and so far, all our papers have been pretty good, so it's been a pleasure to read and talk over them. We only have one more week left of journal club, which is sad because we've just started getting comfortable with each other! Next week, Lauren and I will be presenting, so I better start reading that paper!
Journal club was interesting today. Luke and Jessica presented a paper that was molecular in nature, but I managed to get through the whole paper beforehand, and understand most of the data and procedures because it's very similar to what I'm working with. Harking back to a past conversation I had with Jon about qPCR, I was able to follow this presentation too. I asked two questions, two more than I've ever asked, and I may have caused myself to look like an idiot, but oh well. I asked the questions that I needed to help me understand, and that's that. The mood felt more relaxed and so far, all our papers have been pretty good, so it's been a pleasure to read and talk over them. We only have one more week left of journal club, which is sad because we've just started getting comfortable with each other! Next week, Lauren and I will be presenting, so I better start reading that paper!
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 48 (July 26, 2015)
David slept over and so Black took us two out to brunch at Mandu, which is this Korean restaurant. It was absolutely delicious and mochi was served afterwards!!
I then went museum hopping by myself and spent 2 hours at the National Archives because like the diligent, nerdy person I am, I went through all the documents there. I spent a whole hour at these new exhibit that was just an interactive screen that showcased many documents in different timelines for different topics, such as Equality, Justice, Civil Rights Movement, and others.
I had a few hours before the Smithsonian American History Museum was going to close, so I tried to see as much of it as I could. Despite going at a relatively brisk pace (for myself at least, where I still read every exhibit), I still have one more floor of the museum (the whole War exhibit) to go through. Another weekend, but mark my words, I'll be back to finish!
I then went museum hopping by myself and spent 2 hours at the National Archives because like the diligent, nerdy person I am, I went through all the documents there. I spent a whole hour at these new exhibit that was just an interactive screen that showcased many documents in different timelines for different topics, such as Equality, Justice, Civil Rights Movement, and others.
I had a few hours before the Smithsonian American History Museum was going to close, so I tried to see as much of it as I could. Despite going at a relatively brisk pace (for myself at least, where I still read every exhibit), I still have one more floor of the museum (the whole War exhibit) to go through. Another weekend, but mark my words, I'll be back to finish!
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 47 (July 25, 2015)
Went to the lab for a short amount of time this morning, and I didn't realize that there were a few people from my lab who also come in on the weekends, since this is the first time I've had to go in.
But weekends are for exploring and today was no different. Black, David (Amy's brother), and I went down to Georgetown for the day. First, we had lunch at Ping Pong, this dim sum place which was really good. Afterwards, we biked down to Georgetown, where we walked around, saw this startup that was trying to promote itself, and then went kayaking on the Potomac River.
Afterwards, we went to get frozen yogurt from Pinkberry and holy cow, so much ice cream for a pretty good price! It was different because you paid by size of container, not weight. So you could get as much as you could fill the container with and they were big bowls.
We then went to watch Spy, and after, Black was lamenting over the fact that since it was actually rated R, but he didn't know that and assumed it was PG-13, he let us watch something we weren't supposed to watch. Oh Black, it's fine. It was funny, it was not the end of the world, we're still fine and we're still children.
Dinner was at District Commons and they gave us so so much food and it was pretty good (the Smoked Shrimp Flatbread and White sauce mussels were better than most of our entrees) and we also received macaroons at the end. It was good food, a lot of it, and a great way to end our crazy, physically-exhausting day. Today was pretty hot, sunny but later turned more cloudy, but I've slightly adapted to DC weather. I think when I go back home to Chicago, I'll actually feel cold there!
But weekends are for exploring and today was no different. Black, David (Amy's brother), and I went down to Georgetown for the day. First, we had lunch at Ping Pong, this dim sum place which was really good. Afterwards, we biked down to Georgetown, where we walked around, saw this startup that was trying to promote itself, and then went kayaking on the Potomac River.
Afterwards, we went to get frozen yogurt from Pinkberry and holy cow, so much ice cream for a pretty good price! It was different because you paid by size of container, not weight. So you could get as much as you could fill the container with and they were big bowls.
We then went to watch Spy, and after, Black was lamenting over the fact that since it was actually rated R, but he didn't know that and assumed it was PG-13, he let us watch something we weren't supposed to watch. Oh Black, it's fine. It was funny, it was not the end of the world, we're still fine and we're still children.
Dinner was at District Commons and they gave us so so much food and it was pretty good (the Smoked Shrimp Flatbread and White sauce mussels were better than most of our entrees) and we also received macaroons at the end. It was good food, a lot of it, and a great way to end our crazy, physically-exhausting day. Today was pretty hot, sunny but later turned more cloudy, but I've slightly adapted to DC weather. I think when I go back home to Chicago, I'll actually feel cold there!
Friday, July 24, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 46 (July 24, 2015)
So today transformation didn't work again. One colony again. However, we found out why it wasn't working. I was using the wrong bacterial cells. I have been for this whole time, which explains why all the transformations I've done haven't worked out. I've been using cells that aren't that good for transformation. Well, that makes me feel better now.
Also today, my mentor and I were good labmates to the rest of our lab, and so we defrosted the freezer. Which sounds cooler than it really is. We basically took the tame version of icepicks and hacked off frost and snow (yes, snow in summer!) off the whole freezer inside. I was sprayed with flying snow and ice. Brrr. Plus, the snow/ice was so cold, it burned my hands through my latex gloves. Oops, they were red afterwards. Taking one for the lab though, so I did good.
My practice cell line was discarded by my mentor but I got upgraded to 4 that is part of my project. So much pressure not to mess it all up now...two weeks (minus a day) until poster day!
After work today. Olivia (girl from the elevator) and I went to play tennis. It's nice to play with someone my age (senior this fall) and despite being very different personality wise, we still have a lot to talk about and I got more tennis practice in!
Week 7 is finished and 2 more weeks remain. It's been a crazy summer but the ultimate craziness is yet to come, so stay tuned! Everything will be driving towards the ultimate day at NIH and there's so many more things I need to see in DC before I head home.
Also today, my mentor and I were good labmates to the rest of our lab, and so we defrosted the freezer. Which sounds cooler than it really is. We basically took the tame version of icepicks and hacked off frost and snow (yes, snow in summer!) off the whole freezer inside. I was sprayed with flying snow and ice. Brrr. Plus, the snow/ice was so cold, it burned my hands through my latex gloves. Oops, they were red afterwards. Taking one for the lab though, so I did good.
My practice cell line was discarded by my mentor but I got upgraded to 4 that is part of my project. So much pressure not to mess it all up now...two weeks (minus a day) until poster day!
After work today. Olivia (girl from the elevator) and I went to play tennis. It's nice to play with someone my age (senior this fall) and despite being very different personality wise, we still have a lot to talk about and I got more tennis practice in!
Week 7 is finished and 2 more weeks remain. It's been a crazy summer but the ultimate craziness is yet to come, so stay tuned! Everything will be driving towards the ultimate day at NIH and there's so many more things I need to see in DC before I head home.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 45 (July 23, 2015)
So, my transformation didn't work. All my cloning steps were right though, so maybe the bacteria weren't that primed for transformation to start off with. I'm trying the same experiment and repeating transformation again, so hopefully we'll get some bacterial colonies growing...
Today was an absolutely beautiful day. Today and yesterday the temperature was not that hot and it wasn't that humid. Deborah and I took a walk outside and got some much needed fresh air and vitamin D.
I watched my mentor do a few more methods that I'll need to learn for next week. Other than that, I made at least 50 agar plates (for growing bacteria on) so our lab should be set for a while. I should maybe make some more for the rest of my lab before I leave. I'm starting to think about that now and it's a little sad.
I watched my mentor do a few more methods that I'll need to learn for next week. Other than that, I made at least 50 agar plates (for growing bacteria on) so our lab should be set for a while. I should maybe make some more for the rest of my lab before I leave. I'm starting to think about that now and it's a little sad.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 44 (July 22, 2015)
I cloned a domain of a protein today. Start to finish. It was stressful, realizing how many gaps in my knowledge that still exist, but it was extremely helpful too. From here on, I can only get better with cloning. We'll see if any bacteria successfully grows tomorrow...
Lesley presented two papers at journal club (I was late because I was in the lab the whole day...and I ate my lunch at journal club, and didn't leave work until 8. Oops. It was a busy and rewarding day though) and it was super relevant to our lab's research and field, so it was cool to hear all these other discoveries and see how it might enhance our lab's understanding of Parkin and mitochondria and Pink1.
So it's been a crazy day today, and tomorrow we'll get the results!
Lesley presented two papers at journal club (I was late because I was in the lab the whole day...and I ate my lunch at journal club, and didn't leave work until 8. Oops. It was a busy and rewarding day though) and it was super relevant to our lab's research and field, so it was cool to hear all these other discoveries and see how it might enhance our lab's understanding of Parkin and mitochondria and Pink1.
So it's been a crazy day today, and tomorrow we'll get the results!
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 43 (July 21, 2015)
25 minipreps. In less than an hour and a half. Except for none of this would be possible without this handheld device called the repeater, which pipets the same volume multiple times. It's a hand/thumb and time saver. Repeaters just might be my favorite devices in the lab. Why 25, because that's a ridiculously large amount? Danielle had 58 minipreps to do and I helped her with some.
I get more reminders of how young I am. Well, Danielle realized that I was only 5 years older than her oldest son. Alicia made me feel a little better about the age/generation gap between me and everyone when we talked about her high school times. APs haven't changed much, neither has standardized testing or extracurriculars. It was nice eating lunch with her.
Tomorrow, my mentor has me doing cloning from primer to DNA sequencing: I'm cloning from start to finish, the whole process. I was preparing for tomorrow and doing my research, and I'm a little worried, but at the very least, even if I don't get a good result, I hope I don't make any mistakes with my procedures and techniques.
Journal club (for our lab) meets tomorrow and Lesley is presenting...2 papers. So much to read (or in my case, try to even begin to understand).
I get more reminders of how young I am. Well, Danielle realized that I was only 5 years older than her oldest son. Alicia made me feel a little better about the age/generation gap between me and everyone when we talked about her high school times. APs haven't changed much, neither has standardized testing or extracurriculars. It was nice eating lunch with her.
Tomorrow, my mentor has me doing cloning from primer to DNA sequencing: I'm cloning from start to finish, the whole process. I was preparing for tomorrow and doing my research, and I'm a little worried, but at the very least, even if I don't get a good result, I hope I don't make any mistakes with my procedures and techniques.
Journal club (for our lab) meets tomorrow and Lesley is presenting...2 papers. So much to read (or in my case, try to even begin to understand).
Monday, July 20, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 42 (July 20, 2015)
Today, the main highlight was journal club. Jeff and Joachim presented today on this paper that was relatively easy to get through, unlike the complicated Xist paper. It was a solid paper, very thorough and interesting and easy to understand, combining both of the mechanistic/molecular-level info from the Xist paper on the second week, and last week's easier-on-the-brain paper that talked about behavioral differences in mice. The atmosphere was also more relaxed, and though people might not have contributed more than any other week (I kept up my streak of staying silent and just nodding in agreement, but this time, I actually read the paper and could follow it!), it felt easier to talk, not like we were slogging through tense silence.
The lights were on, which made it less likely for me to fall asleep. Bronte and I also got iced coffee before we headed towards journal club, so I was super awake! Really though, the paper was a good one. There were maybe one or two aspects that could be better, but other than that, it was very thorough.
Shireen also brought sheep cupcakes and Sue brought zucchini bread, so there was a lot of carbs and sugar and food in the lab today randomly.
The lights were on, which made it less likely for me to fall asleep. Bronte and I also got iced coffee before we headed towards journal club, so I was super awake! Really though, the paper was a good one. There were maybe one or two aspects that could be better, but other than that, it was very thorough.
Shireen also brought sheep cupcakes and Sue brought zucchini bread, so there was a lot of carbs and sugar and food in the lab today randomly.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Book 3: The Track of a Storm Day 41 (July 19, 2015)
Tonight, we watched 4 Minute Mile, a movie (fictitious) based on a runner's term. I'm not going to bore you with deep philosophical musings (also, it's too late to think deep thoughts), but it really made me start regearing towards "real life." I'm 2/3 the way done, once I get back, things start amping up pretty quickly with tennis tryouts, lots of musical happenings, and school. But here it is, day one of the last book to this summer. Here's to three weeks of goodbyes and wrapping things up, Culminating presentations and making some last rounds before I depart.
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Book 2: The Golden Thread Day 40 (July 18, 2015)
Today was purely roaming. Cameron, Black, and I went first to the Supreme Court, then the Library of Congress. That place was full of amazing historical things that made me wish I remembered more of World History and AP Euro, but I know many of it still and it made me so happy to try to find Machiavelli in Thomas Jefferson's book collection or Euclid or Montesquieu (I'm biased towards French Enlightenment/French Revolution anythings).
I would post pictures and I might, but they are pretty bad and it does take a long time to get through them...plus I'm slightly backlogged on posts just because I'm lazy and put them off. Until they start piling up again and then I get mad at myself.
Anyways, the place was cool, with allusions to the 9 muses and a lot of writers (Tennyson, Longfellow, Milton...the list goes on and on and on) as well as the Minerva Mosaic. I really wish I could have gone into the reading room, but I think you have to make reservations ahead of time for that. It's a really quaint, quiet place, and how cool is it that you're housed in one of three buildings that holds all the books ever published in the US?
Then, we walked to Eastern Market, where all these little shops set up tents along this street. Many were antiques, such as clothes, prints, vinyl records. Also, lots of jewelry and clothes. Lots of clothes. I've been to a few farmer's markets, but none were as diverse or large as this one.
I forgot to wear sunscreen, so my cheeks started to feel like they were burning up. In the shade, they didn't hurt, but it did hit 94 degrees today...
We stopped at this gelato place and there were all these flavors of gelato. I was lame and got a 3flavor mix of stracciatella, nocciola, and postachio, which are all not that exciting, like mango or banana or crema (which I asked to try, and it tasted a little like a lemon pound cake).
Next stop was Navy yard, where there were all these restaurants and quiet greenspaces. There was a waterfountain, that ended up being a pool for children to wade in. There was a peaceful spot with willow trees by the Anacostia River, and we relaxed there.
We ate a "snack" instead of dinner at Takorean, which is this Korean taco fast food restaurant, not unlike Chipotle in the way they service. One order came with 3 tacos, a perfect number for us 3, and so we ordered one steak, one chicken, and one pork. And then there were various "slaws" and one of them was kimchi. And then there were different salsas you could add (hence the mexican part of the fusion).
And that concludes our busy day today. We walked 6.5 miles, biked probably another mile, and I am very very tanned/burned because I was an idiot who forgot to wear sunscreen. Tomato today, onion tomorrow.
I would post pictures and I might, but they are pretty bad and it does take a long time to get through them...plus I'm slightly backlogged on posts just because I'm lazy and put them off. Until they start piling up again and then I get mad at myself.
Anyways, the place was cool, with allusions to the 9 muses and a lot of writers (Tennyson, Longfellow, Milton...the list goes on and on and on) as well as the Minerva Mosaic. I really wish I could have gone into the reading room, but I think you have to make reservations ahead of time for that. It's a really quaint, quiet place, and how cool is it that you're housed in one of three buildings that holds all the books ever published in the US?
Then, we walked to Eastern Market, where all these little shops set up tents along this street. Many were antiques, such as clothes, prints, vinyl records. Also, lots of jewelry and clothes. Lots of clothes. I've been to a few farmer's markets, but none were as diverse or large as this one.
I forgot to wear sunscreen, so my cheeks started to feel like they were burning up. In the shade, they didn't hurt, but it did hit 94 degrees today...
We stopped at this gelato place and there were all these flavors of gelato. I was lame and got a 3flavor mix of stracciatella, nocciola, and postachio, which are all not that exciting, like mango or banana or crema (which I asked to try, and it tasted a little like a lemon pound cake).
Next stop was Navy yard, where there were all these restaurants and quiet greenspaces. There was a waterfountain, that ended up being a pool for children to wade in. There was a peaceful spot with willow trees by the Anacostia River, and we relaxed there.
We ate a "snack" instead of dinner at Takorean, which is this Korean taco fast food restaurant, not unlike Chipotle in the way they service. One order came with 3 tacos, a perfect number for us 3, and so we ordered one steak, one chicken, and one pork. And then there were various "slaws" and one of them was kimchi. And then there were different salsas you could add (hence the mexican part of the fusion).
And that concludes our busy day today. We walked 6.5 miles, biked probably another mile, and I am very very tanned/burned because I was an idiot who forgot to wear sunscreen. Tomato today, onion tomorrow.
Friday, July 17, 2015
Book 2: The Golden Thread Day 39 (July 17, 2015)
This concludes week 6 in the lab; I have 3 more weeks, and it's all over. The life I've never considered became the life I've known for the past 6 weeks, which will be the life I'll know no more once I return back to Vernon Hills.
Today, walking up the escalator at the Medical Center, I suddenly hear "Hey Lucy!" Startled, I stop, glance around, and finally see Catherine waving to me. We walk to building 35, we manage to catch my mentor on his way to building 35, and it was fun, talking as we made the long, sweaty trek (yes today was an absolutely gorgeous, cool day, but there were hints of humidity and what can I say, it's summer and I sweat, like most other people do).
The lab meeting was interesting. Changhwan presented first, and he just talked too quietly. His first language is Korean, his English was pretty good, but he just talked way too quiet so I couldn't even hear the words. However, his presentation, from what I could garner from the powerpoint, was pretty cool, and lent itself to a lot of future directions.
Shireen was the second person and her powerpoint was a lot of data and it's slightly different from the lab focus, but it's a big undertaking and it's very intriguing. It's also incredible that she went through 33 slides in under 45 minutes...
It's Hetal's last day today, so she brought homemade cupcakes to the lab meeting. They were absolutely delicious and chocolate-y. Hetal is a to-be grad student. She went to high school in Rockford (she's from IL!!) and went to U of Iowa for as a bio major undergrad. Did a postbac at NIH for 3 years (so she's been here for a while!) and will be starting her PhD at U of MD this fall. She's been here 6 years, working in a mouse lab, and she's entertained us with a lot of stories. She knows what she's doing in the lab and she and Shireen have been doing lots and lots of crispr's these past 4 weeks. She's off to Italy tomorrow for 2 weeks, then back at NIH for the rest of her super-short rotations. I'll miss her but at least she'll be around for my last week at NIH to hopefully play some tennis!
Today there was a lot more lab work than I had been getting, and it feels good to be entrusted with bench work, but also in the cell culture. It was my first time working with the cells without my mentor supervising me and looking over my shoulder, so I was very nervous but since I've done it a few times and I printed out the protocol that I had typed up, I felt a little better.
I went to play tennis with Hetal, which was fun and I could feel myself getting better, but I have a long way to go before I'll feel truly ready for tennis tryouts. On our way down the elevator, as we were carrying our rackets, we found ourselves in the elevator with another girl, who exclaims "You play tennis? We should play some time." Keep your eyes peeled, I have a feeling that this will actually happen.
Got home relatively late, and then went shopping at Costco with Hui. We also ate dinner at 9pm at Hollywood East Cafe, which was actually this Chinese restaurant...the food was good, but the name was kinda weird.
Today, walking up the escalator at the Medical Center, I suddenly hear "Hey Lucy!" Startled, I stop, glance around, and finally see Catherine waving to me. We walk to building 35, we manage to catch my mentor on his way to building 35, and it was fun, talking as we made the long, sweaty trek (yes today was an absolutely gorgeous, cool day, but there were hints of humidity and what can I say, it's summer and I sweat, like most other people do).
The lab meeting was interesting. Changhwan presented first, and he just talked too quietly. His first language is Korean, his English was pretty good, but he just talked way too quiet so I couldn't even hear the words. However, his presentation, from what I could garner from the powerpoint, was pretty cool, and lent itself to a lot of future directions.
Shireen was the second person and her powerpoint was a lot of data and it's slightly different from the lab focus, but it's a big undertaking and it's very intriguing. It's also incredible that she went through 33 slides in under 45 minutes...
It's Hetal's last day today, so she brought homemade cupcakes to the lab meeting. They were absolutely delicious and chocolate-y. Hetal is a to-be grad student. She went to high school in Rockford (she's from IL!!) and went to U of Iowa for as a bio major undergrad. Did a postbac at NIH for 3 years (so she's been here for a while!) and will be starting her PhD at U of MD this fall. She's been here 6 years, working in a mouse lab, and she's entertained us with a lot of stories. She knows what she's doing in the lab and she and Shireen have been doing lots and lots of crispr's these past 4 weeks. She's off to Italy tomorrow for 2 weeks, then back at NIH for the rest of her super-short rotations. I'll miss her but at least she'll be around for my last week at NIH to hopefully play some tennis!
Today there was a lot more lab work than I had been getting, and it feels good to be entrusted with bench work, but also in the cell culture. It was my first time working with the cells without my mentor supervising me and looking over my shoulder, so I was very nervous but since I've done it a few times and I printed out the protocol that I had typed up, I felt a little better.
I went to play tennis with Hetal, which was fun and I could feel myself getting better, but I have a long way to go before I'll feel truly ready for tennis tryouts. On our way down the elevator, as we were carrying our rackets, we found ourselves in the elevator with another girl, who exclaims "You play tennis? We should play some time." Keep your eyes peeled, I have a feeling that this will actually happen.
Got home relatively late, and then went shopping at Costco with Hui. We also ate dinner at 9pm at Hollywood East Cafe, which was actually this Chinese restaurant...the food was good, but the name was kinda weird.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Book 2: The Golden Thread Day 38 (July 16, 2015)
Today was relaxing, nothing in the lab. I finished up some protocols and it was a distracting day because everyone was looking forward to the happy hour we were having for Adam, a postdoc who is leaving.
Happy hour went by and this few days are full of people leaving. Adam is leaving and Hetal's last day is tomorrow. I have only 3 more weeks left and wow, life flies by so fast. Many of my preconceived notions of what research and life in the lab have definitely been dispelled. I'll save a huge wrap-up post for when I leave here, but I thought the people here would be intimidating, but they are just people, friendly and inviting. I thought the lab was pretty stagnant as far as people coming in and out, but it's pretty fluid. Yes, some people in the lab have some people who they know better, but everyone is so friendly to each other, and that wasn't necessarily surprising, but I had never really considered a lab to be an all-around-friendly environment.
After getting home at 8pm and eating dinner, Black and Cameron and I randomly decide to go see a movie in the park. I had never seen a movie outdoors before on a big screen, and I also have never seen Roman Holiday (or any movie starring Audrey Hepburn and/or Gregory Peck, or for that matter, any movie from the 1950s and that style). It was good, not buggy, and today's weather was beautiful during the day and night.
I constantly get teased by my lab mates about how young and innocent I am. They are a good decade older than me, but I don't feel it that much. Around them, I feel like an old soul trapped in a younger body because in some ways, I feel so comfortable around them. Hetal and Christina are starting grad school, Deborah is in college, and Catherine is finishing her thesis, but despite the age gap, I love talking to them. Though Alicia is much older than me, I still have fun conversations with her and Jeni. I'll miss them. I really will.
Happy hour went by and this few days are full of people leaving. Adam is leaving and Hetal's last day is tomorrow. I have only 3 more weeks left and wow, life flies by so fast. Many of my preconceived notions of what research and life in the lab have definitely been dispelled. I'll save a huge wrap-up post for when I leave here, but I thought the people here would be intimidating, but they are just people, friendly and inviting. I thought the lab was pretty stagnant as far as people coming in and out, but it's pretty fluid. Yes, some people in the lab have some people who they know better, but everyone is so friendly to each other, and that wasn't necessarily surprising, but I had never really considered a lab to be an all-around-friendly environment.
After getting home at 8pm and eating dinner, Black and Cameron and I randomly decide to go see a movie in the park. I had never seen a movie outdoors before on a big screen, and I also have never seen Roman Holiday (or any movie starring Audrey Hepburn and/or Gregory Peck, or for that matter, any movie from the 1950s and that style). It was good, not buggy, and today's weather was beautiful during the day and night.
I constantly get teased by my lab mates about how young and innocent I am. They are a good decade older than me, but I don't feel it that much. Around them, I feel like an old soul trapped in a younger body because in some ways, I feel so comfortable around them. Hetal and Christina are starting grad school, Deborah is in college, and Catherine is finishing her thesis, but despite the age gap, I love talking to them. Though Alicia is much older than me, I still have fun conversations with her and Jeni. I'll miss them. I really will.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Book 2: The Golden Thread Day 36 (July 14, 2015)
Today was pretty labwork-free. I did a few minipreps for Lesley and Alicia, and then I practiced pipetting, but other than that, it was a lot of "cubicle time" sorting out notes, looking up various protocols...I'm always busy, it's just a question of whether with my hands and feet, or with my brain.
Short post because it was an overall uneventful day. More to come, so stay tuned!
Short post because it was an overall uneventful day. More to come, so stay tuned!
Monday, July 13, 2015
Book 2: The Golden Thread Day 35 (July 13, 2015)
Had a little prep work before I had to rush to go to journal club. Bronte and I scheduled to meet in the lobby of building 35 so we could walk to building 6 together. The problem with lab work is that there's wait time that can be pretty inflexible, so I was getting awfully close to the time I needed to leave the lab to eat lunch and get to journal club. I ended up ditching all food that I couldn't walk and eat with, and ran down, in time to see Bronte sitting on a couch, arriving a few minutes before our scheduled time, and we both ended up getting iced coffee with lots of milk and sugar (too much sugar, that there was a whole layer at the bottom of my drink...) to prevent any sleepiness that might arise during journal club.
Journal club was actually lively. Austin presented alone today, but the paper was about behavioral changes in mice, which was a whole lot less abstract than last week's, which was too molecular for me. This paper was easier to understand the big picture, but I am always lost during the methods and results, because I am not familiar at all with the lab techniques. However, listening to everyone talk and bounce off ideas, it was good to learn how there were flaws in the experiments and how the results could have been crosschecked by other methods but weren't, which was a failing of this paper.
On my way out, Bronte and I walked together, but I held the door for Joachim and talked a little to Jessica. I asked around for buildings, and once Joachim and Jessica found out they were both at building 10, they struck up conversation and walked away together. Yay for making friends and helping others make friends! Bronte and I work in the same building, are the same grade, and it's altogether fun having someone to walk with and someone in journal club that I can talk to. I think iced coffee, and walking to and from journal club will be a tradition...for the next 3 weeks. I can't believe how fast this summer is flying by already. I'm almost 2/3 the way done.
After journal club, I had half an hour before this workshop for high schoolers (from the local area, as well as summer interns who were high schoolers) started as an introduction to various science careers. To be honest, much of the lecture I already knew and it moved very slowly. I ddi meet a few people, but beyond that, it was not very informative, but then again, I've done some extensive self-analysis and I still don't know what path I might want to take. Maybe some shadowing/interviewing is in the near future?
Back in the lab, I performed transfection (take two) in the cell culture lab, and today was just the ultimate disaster day. I spilled two times, and one of them was the transfection mix, which obviously is the most important mixture for transfection. My mentor commented yet again on my pipetting skills (or my lack thereof) and extracted a promise from me to practice pipetting with water tomorrow. Also, I think in the cell culture lab, I have semi-converted to using my right hand. That's maybe why my hand was shaky and I spilled.
My mentor and I were in the cell culture lab for so long (I was going so slow, and even then, mistakes still happened, oh no!) that I left my building at 8. It was a long day, but there's so much to learn still. I need more practice in the cell culture room.
Journal club was actually lively. Austin presented alone today, but the paper was about behavioral changes in mice, which was a whole lot less abstract than last week's, which was too molecular for me. This paper was easier to understand the big picture, but I am always lost during the methods and results, because I am not familiar at all with the lab techniques. However, listening to everyone talk and bounce off ideas, it was good to learn how there were flaws in the experiments and how the results could have been crosschecked by other methods but weren't, which was a failing of this paper.
On my way out, Bronte and I walked together, but I held the door for Joachim and talked a little to Jessica. I asked around for buildings, and once Joachim and Jessica found out they were both at building 10, they struck up conversation and walked away together. Yay for making friends and helping others make friends! Bronte and I work in the same building, are the same grade, and it's altogether fun having someone to walk with and someone in journal club that I can talk to. I think iced coffee, and walking to and from journal club will be a tradition...for the next 3 weeks. I can't believe how fast this summer is flying by already. I'm almost 2/3 the way done.
After journal club, I had half an hour before this workshop for high schoolers (from the local area, as well as summer interns who were high schoolers) started as an introduction to various science careers. To be honest, much of the lecture I already knew and it moved very slowly. I ddi meet a few people, but beyond that, it was not very informative, but then again, I've done some extensive self-analysis and I still don't know what path I might want to take. Maybe some shadowing/interviewing is in the near future?
Back in the lab, I performed transfection (take two) in the cell culture lab, and today was just the ultimate disaster day. I spilled two times, and one of them was the transfection mix, which obviously is the most important mixture for transfection. My mentor commented yet again on my pipetting skills (or my lack thereof) and extracted a promise from me to practice pipetting with water tomorrow. Also, I think in the cell culture lab, I have semi-converted to using my right hand. That's maybe why my hand was shaky and I spilled.
My mentor and I were in the cell culture lab for so long (I was going so slow, and even then, mistakes still happened, oh no!) that I left my building at 8. It was a long day, but there's so much to learn still. I need more practice in the cell culture room.
Friday, July 10, 2015
Book 2: The Golden Thread Day 34 (July 10, 2015)
There was a cool breeze as I walked out of my apartment for work, earlier than usual because we have a lab meeting. I have the vague inkling that I was forgetting everything, but I ran through my daily checklist. Everything was with me. I hop on the metro, and as I step out of the train and into the Medical Center station, it hits me. The cookies were still at home...
The lab meeting went well. My mentor gave a presentation (right before his presentation for the lab meeting) on how to keep the hood clean in the cell culture room. It was actually pretty funny, alongside informative. He's a nice, patient person and he doesn't really point out problems if he can, because he just wants to avoid conflict, but finally, with the urging of some other lab mates, he decided to bring it back to attention and get lab technique polished up so we don't have contamination. Which is really bad.
Afterwards, I did some lab work, and then I left relatively early (at 5pm, which is a few hours before I normally leave) because my friend Leah came from Pittsburgh to visit me in DC for the weekend.
I meet her at Union Station, where we spend 5 minutes on the phone trying to direct ourselves to each other. Afterwards, we stopped at her hotel, before walking/metroing to meet Black for dinner.
Black originally wanted to take us to eat at China Chilcano, so Leah and I started heading towards there. When we were about 5 minutes from the restaurant, Black messages me saying that the wait time is 90 minutes. I was a little adamant on trying Ethiopian food, just because it's supposedly a cuisine that is common to DC. So he finds a place and gives me the new address. I input that into my phone and we start walking. Suddenly, I realize we're not going the right way, I double check the address I put in, and I realize, for some reason, the destination was still China Chilcano instead of the Ethiopian restaurant. Oops.
No worries, we eventually find our way to the restaurant, and if anything, it looks sketchy. The restaurant is located in a red brick, rectangular building, the door is barred with metal, and the windows are tinted and black and unwelcoming.
However, a group of Americans walk out and they told us the food was pretty good, so we decide to push open the metal bars and enter. There, we're seated, handed a menu, and left alone to decide. We have no clue what anything is. We get the impression that the food should be good because of all the "locals" there, but still, we were at loss for what to order. When the waitress comes over, she helps us order two entrees, and then we sit there and wait. and wait. and wait. We get so hungry, we eat some wafers that Leah brought as as thank you gift (it's a Chinese courtesy to bring gifts when you go somewhere and also a Chinese courtesy to take someone out to dinner when they come...but Black really didn't have to treat us to dinner, we would have been fine on our own, but thank you Black). People see us and a few silently laugh, but we're too hungry, the wait is too long, too bad, we're eating.
The food finally arrives. It's this huge plate with 9 different sides arranged on the edges. The other order was this lamb dish, which was unceremoniously dumped in the middle of this plate. We're each given a plate of this bread, that is spongy and rolled up so it looks like bandages. And then waitress leaves us and we have no idea how to eat.
The lab meeting went well. My mentor gave a presentation (right before his presentation for the lab meeting) on how to keep the hood clean in the cell culture room. It was actually pretty funny, alongside informative. He's a nice, patient person and he doesn't really point out problems if he can, because he just wants to avoid conflict, but finally, with the urging of some other lab mates, he decided to bring it back to attention and get lab technique polished up so we don't have contamination. Which is really bad.
Afterwards, I did some lab work, and then I left relatively early (at 5pm, which is a few hours before I normally leave) because my friend Leah came from Pittsburgh to visit me in DC for the weekend.
I meet her at Union Station, where we spend 5 minutes on the phone trying to direct ourselves to each other. Afterwards, we stopped at her hotel, before walking/metroing to meet Black for dinner.
Black originally wanted to take us to eat at China Chilcano, so Leah and I started heading towards there. When we were about 5 minutes from the restaurant, Black messages me saying that the wait time is 90 minutes. I was a little adamant on trying Ethiopian food, just because it's supposedly a cuisine that is common to DC. So he finds a place and gives me the new address. I input that into my phone and we start walking. Suddenly, I realize we're not going the right way, I double check the address I put in, and I realize, for some reason, the destination was still China Chilcano instead of the Ethiopian restaurant. Oops.
No worries, we eventually find our way to the restaurant, and if anything, it looks sketchy. The restaurant is located in a red brick, rectangular building, the door is barred with metal, and the windows are tinted and black and unwelcoming.
However, a group of Americans walk out and they told us the food was pretty good, so we decide to push open the metal bars and enter. There, we're seated, handed a menu, and left alone to decide. We have no clue what anything is. We get the impression that the food should be good because of all the "locals" there, but still, we were at loss for what to order. When the waitress comes over, she helps us order two entrees, and then we sit there and wait. and wait. and wait. We get so hungry, we eat some wafers that Leah brought as as thank you gift (it's a Chinese courtesy to bring gifts when you go somewhere and also a Chinese courtesy to take someone out to dinner when they come...but Black really didn't have to treat us to dinner, we would have been fine on our own, but thank you Black). People see us and a few silently laugh, but we're too hungry, the wait is too long, too bad, we're eating.
The food finally arrives. It's this huge plate with 9 different sides arranged on the edges. The other order was this lamb dish, which was unceremoniously dumped in the middle of this plate. We're each given a plate of this bread, that is spongy and rolled up so it looks like bandages. And then waitress leaves us and we have no idea how to eat.
We tentatively tear off pieces of the bread, use it to try to pick up some food, and then eat. And it's good. It tastes a lot like Indian food in that it's all very spiced, and the lamb was so so so yummy.
We maybe manage to finish off half of the food we're given. It was a lot of food for a relatively small amount. Less than $30 for the 3 of us. And it was a rewarding experience.
Afterwards, we roamed D.C. Everything looks so much different at night, when the lights turn on. D.C. felt more like Chicago at night than during the day, but even so, building lights are not all on and it's not the same. D.C. is more cozy, but I do miss the elegance of Chicago sometimes.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
Book 2: The Golden Thread Day 33 (July 9, 2015)
I followed Hetal around today as she did a Western blot, and then in the evening, my mentor and I went into the cell culture lab and I did real work with cell culture. Contamination is a huge deal and I definitely need to be more mindful about that. My mentor's snarky comment: I'll be surprised if you don't have contaminated cells by tomorrow. Well, it was my first time. I think I'm slowly becoming righthanded; I was pipetting in the cell culture lab with my right hand, for easy of tip disposal since the trash was on my left.
Other than that, I had scheduled to play tennis, but it rained (and we had a tornado watch at one point and then a flood watch until 12am). We've been getting a lot of rain (I'm sure CA is pretty jealous of us right now) but it has only improved the humidity by only a little bit.
Left later than almost everyone in our lab just because my experiments ran late. I still managed to find time to stop at a Whole Foods next to Tenleytown station, buy some cookie mix, and then get home and bake cookies for the lab meeting tomorrow. I didn't have to bake, but I felt like currently everyone could use some cookies, myself included.
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Book 2: The Golden Thread Day 32 (July 8, 2015)
Today was a pretty crazy day, if I do say so myself. in the morning, went to Building 10 for the blood drive. Getting my blood drawn took only 10 minutes, but I was away from the lab for 90. The other minutes constituted reading handouts and waiting a ridiculous amount of time just to get my blood checked (to make sure I was eligible to donate) and then again to get a needle stuck in me to drain out blood. I found out afterwards that Deborah just called for a nurse 3 times instead of one like we were supposed to. Sometimes it's not wrong to be a little annoying. Things were also a little slow because they had 2 nurses, and then had to call in someone else.
Later today we had a journal club and Jon was presenting. The paper was just completely over my head. I got through maybe the first 3 pages (out of 15) before the meeting, and I was lost. The combination of not following the discussion, the room being dark, and losing blood made me very tired. I caught myself zoning out or closing my eyes and dozing off temporarily. But even when my eyes were awake, everything just flew by me because it was too advanced. Time to do some more studying...
Today I didn't really do any lab work, and I was able to leave before 6, which has never happened before! It most likely won't happen again though because especially with my research project, there will be a lot of things to do. But even so, today, I had a lot of things to research on, so it was a easy day for lab work, but lots of things I really need to start reading up on...
Later today we had a journal club and Jon was presenting. The paper was just completely over my head. I got through maybe the first 3 pages (out of 15) before the meeting, and I was lost. The combination of not following the discussion, the room being dark, and losing blood made me very tired. I caught myself zoning out or closing my eyes and dozing off temporarily. But even when my eyes were awake, everything just flew by me because it was too advanced. Time to do some more studying...
Today I didn't really do any lab work, and I was able to leave before 6, which has never happened before! It most likely won't happen again though because especially with my research project, there will be a lot of things to do. But even so, today, I had a lot of things to research on, so it was a easy day for lab work, but lots of things I really need to start reading up on...
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Book 2: The Golden Thread Day 31 (July 7, 2015)
It's been exactly a month since I arrived at DC. I came here feeling so alone and awkward, and though that feeling hasn't completely gone away, more of my lunches are spent talking to people and I don't find most people in my lab intimidating. I used to glue my eyes to a map as I tried to walk to building 35, occasionally getting lost a few times, but now, to go to a new building, I study the map for a few seconds, and then walk without it because I know the general direction I'm supposed to be heading towards. DC is almost my second Chicago and Bethesda is almost my second Vernon Hills. Who knew that in a month, things could change so quickly and I could actually get used to here, the heat, humidity, sun, busy-ness and all?
Today I got to work before my mentor
did by a few hours because I had a lot of lab work. 24 samples! I'm becoming
more efficient with them, so I finished the whole process in under 2
hours, where before, it might have taken me 3 or 4.
My transformation finally worked and we can start performing cell transfection! I received my own "lab coat" and it's all so quasi-professional right now, especially when I did a few steps of a procedure for the first time under the hood in the cell culture room, as my mentor told me what to do. Being left hand has its challenges when the cell culture room is set up to be efficient for right-handed people. Either I'll learn how to use my right hand, or I'll adapt to inconvenience. The former seems more probable...
Submitted my poster title today (poster presentations are all on August 6th) and started (but didn't get very far) on a journal paper for journal club tomorrow (my lab's journal club). It's way over my head. I'm still struggling to finish the introduction...maybe I'll just "skim" it.
Left the office again at 8pm, and I was there since before 10am, so it's been a long day for me.
Monday, July 6, 2015
Book 2: The Golden Thread Day 30 (July 6, 2015)
I had to do so much prep work and then actual lab work today, I was a little tight on time to getting to Journal club. I made it there on time though, and on my way walking there, I passed by Bronte, and so we ended up walking together. Because if two people are late, especially if one of them is presenting today, we're not really late, are we?
Bronte and John presented a paper on Xist, and the room was dark, a little stuffy, and I was so tired, I found myself almost dozing off/zoning out occasionally, though I managed to stay awake throughout the whole talk. Maybe next time I'll bring coffee. It was interesting, certainly a lot of it was over my head because sure, long noncoding RNAs are cool, but I also know nearly nothing about them. Time is limited because I have to allot that between studying protocols of basic lab procedures and reading review/scientific papers slowly for not only two journal clubs, but also in preparation for my research project this summer.
Hetal, Deborah, Christina and I all found some time to sit down in a cubicle and talk (between downtime for all of us in the lab) and it was fun and interesting. It's so odd now, to think back to two weeks ago, when I didn't really know any of them, to now, when Hetal will be leaving this lab around July 17, less than 2 weeks from now, and I'll be leaving in 4 weeks. It was too short being with everyone here, but I have 4 more weeks to make the most out of.
DC area rain is ridiculous. Today's weather was no exception. It was lightly, steadily raining for a good half hour, until suddenly, you hear a "whoosh" sound and the windows are blurry because streams of rain is pouring from the sky. This deluge continues for a good half hour before it finally subsides back to the steady rain it had been for the whole day, on and off. And as the rain falls steadily, the sun comes out. Clearly, the weather is quite odd here.
I stayed so late because my mentor had me do some prepwork for tomorrow. Shireen then gave me a ride to the train station, which was so nice of her. The rain had subsided to a light trickle, so I didn't get very wet. She saved me just over a mile walk and at least 20 minutes!
Today, my mentor had did my transformation experiment, and firstly, he got more than 4 colonies growing in each culture, and secondly, he had at least 40 colonies growing on each culture...what am I doing wrong?
That's science for you. Failure, failure, failure, with the rare appearance of success.
Bronte and John presented a paper on Xist, and the room was dark, a little stuffy, and I was so tired, I found myself almost dozing off/zoning out occasionally, though I managed to stay awake throughout the whole talk. Maybe next time I'll bring coffee. It was interesting, certainly a lot of it was over my head because sure, long noncoding RNAs are cool, but I also know nearly nothing about them. Time is limited because I have to allot that between studying protocols of basic lab procedures and reading review/scientific papers slowly for not only two journal clubs, but also in preparation for my research project this summer.
Hetal, Deborah, Christina and I all found some time to sit down in a cubicle and talk (between downtime for all of us in the lab) and it was fun and interesting. It's so odd now, to think back to two weeks ago, when I didn't really know any of them, to now, when Hetal will be leaving this lab around July 17, less than 2 weeks from now, and I'll be leaving in 4 weeks. It was too short being with everyone here, but I have 4 more weeks to make the most out of.
DC area rain is ridiculous. Today's weather was no exception. It was lightly, steadily raining for a good half hour, until suddenly, you hear a "whoosh" sound and the windows are blurry because streams of rain is pouring from the sky. This deluge continues for a good half hour before it finally subsides back to the steady rain it had been for the whole day, on and off. And as the rain falls steadily, the sun comes out. Clearly, the weather is quite odd here.
I stayed so late because my mentor had me do some prepwork for tomorrow. Shireen then gave me a ride to the train station, which was so nice of her. The rain had subsided to a light trickle, so I didn't get very wet. She saved me just over a mile walk and at least 20 minutes!
Today, my mentor had did my transformation experiment, and firstly, he got more than 4 colonies growing in each culture, and secondly, he had at least 40 colonies growing on each culture...what am I doing wrong?
That's science for you. Failure, failure, failure, with the rare appearance of success.
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Book 2: The Golden Thread Day 29 (July 5, 2015)
Today was a crazy sightseeing day. Cameron and I rode bikes (hurrah for the public bikesharing system that DC has) down to the Smithsonian area of DC. We first went to see Union Station in DC. Picture taking was hard because there were nets strung up in case plaster falls off, and they are still doing repairs from the earthquake that happened a while back, so scaffolds and zoned off areas were up. (Some pictures will be up probably later on this week).
Afterwards, we walked to see the Capital Dome where Cameron criticized my picture taking because I didn't center my frame. The problems of touring with an architect. I'm only kidding, it's fascinating walking around with him because he knows so much history and will never hesitate to give honest opinion on architecture of buildings.
Afterwards, we walked to the United States Botanical Gardens and I spent an outrageously large amount of time there looking at too many plants. It was interesting, but towards the end, I got too tired of seeing plant after plant after plant. I may create a facebook album and post the link later, but no pictures here, because there are just too many and I'll have to take some time to go through them anyways.
Edit: pictures here.
We crossed the street, heard some music, and saw that the Folklife Festival was going, and it was this Peru festival. We watched some performers play traditional Peruvian music, and then we wandered around tents. I got stuck at this weaving/loom booth for so long, Cameron decided he wanted to go home and I stayed for a while.
I stood there probably for at least half an hour just watching this lady.
Halfway, she started gesturing and fanning herself, and mentioning "caliente" to a few hispanic people watching. This European man walks over and starts conversing with her in fluid Spanish. And after, I ask him if I should get her a cup of water, and he agrees, so I fill up a cup and set it down beside her. She picks it up immediately (after she finishes her row of "stitches") and drinks a little, daintily. Everything about her is graceful. She muscles the loom to make sure all the created patterns are condensed together at the bottom, but she deftly weaves her stick in and out of these numerous strands. It escapes me how she has such immense foresight to know which strands to go "over" and which strands to wrap under her guiding stick, in order to create the larger picture.
It's a long, time-consuming process. Exceedingly slow, but incredibly beautiful. I talked with this man for a little bit after I gave the artisan water, and he recommended me to a book. He was being modest when he deferred my question to if he was fluent in Spanish, saying that he married a Peruvian woman and it's been 50 years now.
I left a little while later, started walking to the metro station, but I got sidetracked numerous times. First it was the Smithsonian Art Sculpture Garden, where I walked around. I saw this fancy building, I crossed the street, only to see that it was the National Archives, which I have been meaning to visit. I looked at the open hours and it closes at 5:30pm. I glance at my watch, which reads exactly 5:30pm. Another weekend I suppose.
Visited the Smithsonian Museum of American History, only had an hour there and so I didn't get to see much, but I'll allot a whole day in the near future to revisit because there's just too much jampacked into one building.
I walked through the Reagan International Trade Center plaza area, and the architecture is so antique and beautiful. I saw a few people riding segeways in circles within an area coned off, which is a daily occurrence, actually, but it felt a little odd, since the plaza was empty and quiet, besides them.
Visited 8 places, walked between all 8, and it's been an eventful day, albeit a little too much so. Back to work tomorrow, and next week, week 5, is supposed to get a little crazy!
Afterwards, we walked to see the Capital Dome where Cameron criticized my picture taking because I didn't center my frame. The problems of touring with an architect. I'm only kidding, it's fascinating walking around with him because he knows so much history and will never hesitate to give honest opinion on architecture of buildings.
excuse the ugly scaffolding. and huge bandage.
The almost-Cameron-approved photo
Afterwards, we walked to the United States Botanical Gardens and I spent an outrageously large amount of time there looking at too many plants. It was interesting, but towards the end, I got too tired of seeing plant after plant after plant. I may create a facebook album and post the link later, but no pictures here, because there are just too many and I'll have to take some time to go through them anyways.
Edit: pictures here.
We crossed the street, heard some music, and saw that the Folklife Festival was going, and it was this Peru festival. We watched some performers play traditional Peruvian music, and then we wandered around tents. I got stuck at this weaving/loom booth for so long, Cameron decided he wanted to go home and I stayed for a while.
I stood there probably for at least half an hour just watching this lady.
Halfway, she started gesturing and fanning herself, and mentioning "caliente" to a few hispanic people watching. This European man walks over and starts conversing with her in fluid Spanish. And after, I ask him if I should get her a cup of water, and he agrees, so I fill up a cup and set it down beside her. She picks it up immediately (after she finishes her row of "stitches") and drinks a little, daintily. Everything about her is graceful. She muscles the loom to make sure all the created patterns are condensed together at the bottom, but she deftly weaves her stick in and out of these numerous strands. It escapes me how she has such immense foresight to know which strands to go "over" and which strands to wrap under her guiding stick, in order to create the larger picture.
It's a long, time-consuming process. Exceedingly slow, but incredibly beautiful. I talked with this man for a little bit after I gave the artisan water, and he recommended me to a book. He was being modest when he deferred my question to if he was fluent in Spanish, saying that he married a Peruvian woman and it's been 50 years now.
I left a little while later, started walking to the metro station, but I got sidetracked numerous times. First it was the Smithsonian Art Sculpture Garden, where I walked around. I saw this fancy building, I crossed the street, only to see that it was the National Archives, which I have been meaning to visit. I looked at the open hours and it closes at 5:30pm. I glance at my watch, which reads exactly 5:30pm. Another weekend I suppose.
Visited the Smithsonian Museum of American History, only had an hour there and so I didn't get to see much, but I'll allot a whole day in the near future to revisit because there's just too much jampacked into one building.
I walked through the Reagan International Trade Center plaza area, and the architecture is so antique and beautiful. I saw a few people riding segeways in circles within an area coned off, which is a daily occurrence, actually, but it felt a little odd, since the plaza was empty and quiet, besides them.
Visited 8 places, walked between all 8, and it's been an eventful day, albeit a little too much so. Back to work tomorrow, and next week, week 5, is supposed to get a little crazy!
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Book 2: The Golden Thread Day 28 (July 4, 2015)
I ran/walked 4.5 miles today, and never before have I missed Chicago so strongly. Running up and down hills here, with all the exhaustion and windedness I experienced, made me long for the flatness of Chicago and the Midwest. Not to mention, I got a little lost and ended up running more than I had planned...
To add to more tiredness, cleaning for a party, busy during while cutting watermelon and putting out food, and cleaning up after...it was exhausting.
A little awkward because I didn't really know anyone who came (they were friends of Black and Cameron). Which meant I hid in the kitchen and made myself busy there for a good part of the beginning to avoid having to go see the guests.
But let's talk the food. The food tasted amazing. Lots of spicy food (yum), and there was fresh fruit! At 9pm, we all went up to the rooftop and watched fireworks from there. Seeing the horizon, unbroken, across all the buildings, I felt on top of the world, both metaphorically and actually. It was a humid day (it was only cool because it had rained several times on and off today) and consequently, the fireworks looked muffled because of the fog (smog?) from the humidity (and pollution?). There were random points of fireworks from all directions, but the largest one was the "real" DC fireworks show, and these fireworks exploded far above the horizon of buildings.
There were the traditional fireworks. The circles, even the weeping willows and the shimmering lights. There were the stars that zigzagged and others that were pops of color. However, I saw fireworks I had never seen before, such as those in the shapes of the letters U and S (I didn't see an A) and smiley face fireworks.
I didn't dare approach the edge of the building, because we were on the 7th floor of the apartment and I'm terribly afraid of heights. Thankfully there was only a very gentle breeze, which put my fears somewhat at ease, but I still made sure to stay a good 6 feet away from the edge.
It was a good night. Long day, long night, but it was a 4th of July well-spent, even if I didn't go to downtown DC for a parade or fireworks show.
Some very poor-quality pictures below.
View of the buildings
I tried to take pictures of the fireworks...
To add to more tiredness, cleaning for a party, busy during while cutting watermelon and putting out food, and cleaning up after...it was exhausting.
A little awkward because I didn't really know anyone who came (they were friends of Black and Cameron). Which meant I hid in the kitchen and made myself busy there for a good part of the beginning to avoid having to go see the guests.
But let's talk the food. The food tasted amazing. Lots of spicy food (yum), and there was fresh fruit! At 9pm, we all went up to the rooftop and watched fireworks from there. Seeing the horizon, unbroken, across all the buildings, I felt on top of the world, both metaphorically and actually. It was a humid day (it was only cool because it had rained several times on and off today) and consequently, the fireworks looked muffled because of the fog (smog?) from the humidity (and pollution?). There were random points of fireworks from all directions, but the largest one was the "real" DC fireworks show, and these fireworks exploded far above the horizon of buildings.
There were the traditional fireworks. The circles, even the weeping willows and the shimmering lights. There were the stars that zigzagged and others that were pops of color. However, I saw fireworks I had never seen before, such as those in the shapes of the letters U and S (I didn't see an A) and smiley face fireworks.
I didn't dare approach the edge of the building, because we were on the 7th floor of the apartment and I'm terribly afraid of heights. Thankfully there was only a very gentle breeze, which put my fears somewhat at ease, but I still made sure to stay a good 6 feet away from the edge.
It was a good night. Long day, long night, but it was a 4th of July well-spent, even if I didn't go to downtown DC for a parade or fireworks show.
Some very poor-quality pictures below.
View of the buildings
I tried to take pictures of the fireworks...
Friday, July 3, 2015
Book 2: The Golden Thread Day 27 (July 3, 2015)
Hui has been staying over at our house for the past week, and thus, evenings have been extremely fun as we 4 eat dinner, take walks, and watch Netflix together.
Today, we went to the National Building Museum, where, though eccentric, was such a learning experience. It absolutely hurts realizing that almost all of these plans have not been translated from paper to construction, because not only are they aesthetically pleasing, they solve heat problems, overcrowding problems, energy problems...though constructing them will take so much time, money, and waste, the paybacks would be so much greater.
Although, one plan, called the Dry Line for Manhattan, I thought was absolutely brilliant, and very realistic. It sought to solve the flooding problem, since parts of Manhattan were built on marsh/water, through creating parks with elevated sidewalks and plants and gardens that would be able to act as a barrier for any water or flooding, and this would form the dryline.
There were 4 floors and by the time I got to the fourth floor, I had my back against the wall, terrified of the railing that was only extended 5 feet out. My one consolation was that the 3rd floor extended further out, so if I did fall, hopefully I'd land on the 3rd floor safely. To see pictures from the museum, click here.
We then took a quick stroll across the street, where we came across the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, which reminded me of the Vietnam War Memorial because of the names engraved into stone. It makes logical sense that the memorial would constantly be updated because, well, police officers do die, whether on the job or because of old age, but seeing the sheer amount of names, the bottom lines darker than those on the top (because they were newer), I was hit by the grave realization that...those memorial is still being updated, people are dying, and these names are real people with families, with stories, people who lived and breathed and laughed and cried, someone I, had they not died so soon, might have walked by on the street. Nothing like a place and time for putting things into perspective.
Afterwards, (hurrah for Hui having a car) Hui and Black went to work for a little, while Cameron and I wandered the streets of Bethesda. We spent a while sipping coffee (mine iced and his hot) while sitting outside a boulangerie (a fancy french word for a bakery), and talking about architecture, since we had just visited the National Building Museum, but also about Europe and his experiences while living there, and then just about lots of wide-reaching topics. After Cameron finished his coffee (he insisted on sitting at the cafe until his coffee was gone), we wandered around Bethesda, entering some stores, walking by others, enjoying the weather. This week, the weather has been cooperative and absolutely gorgeous. It has not gone much above 80 degrees, and today was no exception. Overall not that sunny, and there was even a gentle, cool breeze that made the 80 degree weather even better! For pictures, click here. (The first 8 pictures are taken in Bethesda.)
We then went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory in Rockville, and oh man we ate until we could eat no more. We ordered 6 appetizers and it was a lot. We then ordered a White Chocolate and Raspberry Truffle cheesecake, only one slice, and between the four of us, we managed to barely finish it. And they gave us two swirls of whipped cream? Normally I wouldn't complain but it was a bit of a struggle to finish it.
We drove to a Costco (it is so helpful to have a car...that means we can actually buy things without having to worry about how the heck we're going to bring them all back), and I definitely loaded up on fruits. I got to pick a watermelon, and I am convinced it is a crisp, delicious one, but we'll see if my choosing skills are true tomorrow when we cut it open. (I don't want to go through fruit withdrawals again and relive the first three weeks I spent in DC with no fruit. Cherries, strawberries, grapes, plums, peaches, apples, and watermelon, hooray!)
Hui and Black went to a Chinese supermarket to buy groceries: Cameron and I realized we wouldn't be of much use in a Chinese supermarket, so we walked to "downtown" Rockville, and meandered around. (For pictures, visit the album linked in the paragraph about Bethesda, and the last 11 pictures are from Rockville). We walked by an entrance framed by trees, and I impulsively ran towards it, forcing Cameron had to come along. It was a lucky find, a small circular enclosure, fenced in by trees. Metal benches spanned half of the circle, and each one had a backing, engraved with a quote. It was a quiet, secluded place, but there was a stillness to it; I can't imagine the park ever being filled with laughing children running around. Cameron and I read the "plaque" that described the place, and though it was dedicated to September 11, 2001, we're unsure as to whether that refers to 9/11, or another incident that happened in Montgomery County that I'm unaware of.
We visited Dawson Square, walked down the two streets that are really the heart of Rockville (where you can find more than 6 people on), and relaxed as we waited to get picked up (they have trees all strung up with white lights and the atmosphere is so magical).
On the drive home through Bethesda, there were fireworks going off, and I tried to take pictures, but they're horrible because the car was moving, but also because picture quality worsens at night. Oh well, they were lovely to watch. I won't show my failed, blurry attempts because they don't even capture the brilliance or grandeur of these giant sparkles.
It's been a long day, and I'm full of food, sleepy, and exhausted (from all the walking I did to soothe my unhappy stomach. It was mad that I gave it too much food). A very busy day, full of unexpected sightseeing. The DC/MD area is a big place and I have much more to discover. More adventures await tomorrow!
Today, we went to the National Building Museum, where, though eccentric, was such a learning experience. It absolutely hurts realizing that almost all of these plans have not been translated from paper to construction, because not only are they aesthetically pleasing, they solve heat problems, overcrowding problems, energy problems...though constructing them will take so much time, money, and waste, the paybacks would be so much greater.
Although, one plan, called the Dry Line for Manhattan, I thought was absolutely brilliant, and very realistic. It sought to solve the flooding problem, since parts of Manhattan were built on marsh/water, through creating parks with elevated sidewalks and plants and gardens that would be able to act as a barrier for any water or flooding, and this would form the dryline.
There were 4 floors and by the time I got to the fourth floor, I had my back against the wall, terrified of the railing that was only extended 5 feet out. My one consolation was that the 3rd floor extended further out, so if I did fall, hopefully I'd land on the 3rd floor safely. To see pictures from the museum, click here.
We then took a quick stroll across the street, where we came across the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, which reminded me of the Vietnam War Memorial because of the names engraved into stone. It makes logical sense that the memorial would constantly be updated because, well, police officers do die, whether on the job or because of old age, but seeing the sheer amount of names, the bottom lines darker than those on the top (because they were newer), I was hit by the grave realization that...those memorial is still being updated, people are dying, and these names are real people with families, with stories, people who lived and breathed and laughed and cried, someone I, had they not died so soon, might have walked by on the street. Nothing like a place and time for putting things into perspective.
Afterwards, (hurrah for Hui having a car) Hui and Black went to work for a little, while Cameron and I wandered the streets of Bethesda. We spent a while sipping coffee (mine iced and his hot) while sitting outside a boulangerie (a fancy french word for a bakery), and talking about architecture, since we had just visited the National Building Museum, but also about Europe and his experiences while living there, and then just about lots of wide-reaching topics. After Cameron finished his coffee (he insisted on sitting at the cafe until his coffee was gone), we wandered around Bethesda, entering some stores, walking by others, enjoying the weather. This week, the weather has been cooperative and absolutely gorgeous. It has not gone much above 80 degrees, and today was no exception. Overall not that sunny, and there was even a gentle, cool breeze that made the 80 degree weather even better! For pictures, click here. (The first 8 pictures are taken in Bethesda.)
We then went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory in Rockville, and oh man we ate until we could eat no more. We ordered 6 appetizers and it was a lot. We then ordered a White Chocolate and Raspberry Truffle cheesecake, only one slice, and between the four of us, we managed to barely finish it. And they gave us two swirls of whipped cream? Normally I wouldn't complain but it was a bit of a struggle to finish it.
I remembered to take a picture after we had struggled halfway through the cheesecake. Two dollops of whip cream? Let's just pretend that calories don't exist for today.
We drove to a Costco (it is so helpful to have a car...that means we can actually buy things without having to worry about how the heck we're going to bring them all back), and I definitely loaded up on fruits. I got to pick a watermelon, and I am convinced it is a crisp, delicious one, but we'll see if my choosing skills are true tomorrow when we cut it open. (I don't want to go through fruit withdrawals again and relive the first three weeks I spent in DC with no fruit. Cherries, strawberries, grapes, plums, peaches, apples, and watermelon, hooray!)
Hui and Black went to a Chinese supermarket to buy groceries: Cameron and I realized we wouldn't be of much use in a Chinese supermarket, so we walked to "downtown" Rockville, and meandered around. (For pictures, visit the album linked in the paragraph about Bethesda, and the last 11 pictures are from Rockville). We walked by an entrance framed by trees, and I impulsively ran towards it, forcing Cameron had to come along. It was a lucky find, a small circular enclosure, fenced in by trees. Metal benches spanned half of the circle, and each one had a backing, engraved with a quote. It was a quiet, secluded place, but there was a stillness to it; I can't imagine the park ever being filled with laughing children running around. Cameron and I read the "plaque" that described the place, and though it was dedicated to September 11, 2001, we're unsure as to whether that refers to 9/11, or another incident that happened in Montgomery County that I'm unaware of.
We visited Dawson Square, walked down the two streets that are really the heart of Rockville (where you can find more than 6 people on), and relaxed as we waited to get picked up (they have trees all strung up with white lights and the atmosphere is so magical).
On the drive home through Bethesda, there were fireworks going off, and I tried to take pictures, but they're horrible because the car was moving, but also because picture quality worsens at night. Oh well, they were lovely to watch. I won't show my failed, blurry attempts because they don't even capture the brilliance or grandeur of these giant sparkles.
It's been a long day, and I'm full of food, sleepy, and exhausted (from all the walking I did to soothe my unhappy stomach. It was mad that I gave it too much food). A very busy day, full of unexpected sightseeing. The DC/MD area is a big place and I have much more to discover. More adventures await tomorrow!
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