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Sunday, August 9, 2015

Epilogue: Settling Dust Day 62 (August 9, 2015)

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.