A week in review

Whew, there's been a lot this week, but it's finally Friday and I can just chill. (I apologize for any run-on sentences...my brain can only take so much on a Friday evening).

This week was a little stressful because I had two assignments due at 9 am this morning. Those of you in school may scoff at me, but what can I say - I'm a grad student. I'm usually pretty good about organizing myself in such a way that in a week when I have multiple assignments due at the same time, most things can be completed in a timely fashion. I say mostly because, as is becoming the trend lately, I start early on one assignment and get it completed, but when it comes to the last assignement my discipline starts to fall by the way-side and it takes me twice as long to get tht one assignment done as it does ALL of the assignments preceding it! Does this happen to anyone else? It's like your energy just whittles down until you're just barely scraping by. Anyway, one assignment for this week was a written critique of a cell bio paper looking at the mechanism underlying the substrate ordering in protein degradation by APCs in mitosis. It was actually pretty interesting, but so long. I was very proud of myself when I completed it by Monday night. However, my last assignment wasn't finished until midnight yesterday. For this assignment we had to come up with an original idea that addresses a key question in cell bio, research it and write a "letter of intent" detailing the question we would be investigating (including background) as well as 2-3 aims and the experiments we would do to investigate these aims. (This letter of intent will eventually morph into a written proposal with an oral defense worth 40% of my total grade). I had the hardest time coming up with an idea/question to ask! I really wanted to do something related to my rotation project so that any research I had to do would directly benefit me for my rotation presentation. But, my rotation project is very heavily pathogenesis focused (as it should be for someone in microbiology & immunology), and so I had to use the basic principles of my project but apply them to a more "cell bio - like" processes. Hmmm, easier said than done. I really wanted to look at miRNAs (rotation project) and their regulation of the cell cycle; however, my school doesn't appear to have a subscription to those journals with good papers in them for this topic. Of course, I found out yesterday as I sequestered myself in the library that there's a neat feature called "doc express" that will obtain any journal article that the school doesn't have a subscription for. Great! But it takes 3-5 days to receive the article. Did I mention that my assignment was due the next day? So, I decided to look at miRNA regulation of apoptosis instead. Everytime I came up with a good idea, I did a lit search and found out that someone else also had this idea and published their results in June 2005. Anyway, long story short. I came up with something, but who knows if it's good. I'm just glad that the assignment is turned in for now (and can only hope that my topic/question won't come back to bite me in th butt later when it comes time to write the proposal and give the defense).

Second interesting thing of the week...speed dating! So, it was my roommate's 25th birthday on Wednesday and she really wanted to do speed dating. For all of you that need a speed-dating refresher course, it goes something like this: there are equal numbers of girls and guys and you talk with each guy (or girl) for 3 min. In that time you have to decide whether or not you want to pursue an interest in this person, but no personal info like last names, phone numbers, addresses, etc can be exchanged. At the end of the night you put a check by the names of the people that you are interested. Only if you and your "interest" have checked off each other's names will you get their personal info (determined by the mediator). As it so happened, there was a speed-dating event on campus on Wednesday night and we just so happened to secure to spots (although that was in doubt for a while). Let's just say this - it was "interesting" and it takes all kinds.

Third thing. Tonight is the start of the Winter Olympics in Tourino!!!! I'm so excited! This is my treat for the week. Surprsingly, not many people here are into the Olympics. I had a rather lively discussion with my roommate about the purpose of the Olympics and why everyone should be excited about it. Well, let's just say that we've agreed to disagree. I've discussed the Olympics this week with nearly everyone I know and I'm the only one who knew that the Olympics started today let alone was excited about them! When I asked the new post-doc in my lab if she was an Olympics fan, she begrudginly said yes but quickly declared that she was not an "Olympic fanatic." When I queried her about what makes a "Olympic fanatic" she said, "someone that absolutely HAS to watch the Olympics." Well in that case, I'm a self-declared "Olympic fanatic!" I just love the Olympics, and the winter olympics more than the summer ones. I will watch ANY winter olympic sport, literally, but my all-time fav is short-track speed skating, People are always surprised when I say that. I think they expect me to say figure skating, and while I like figure skating, short-track speed skating is what really rocks my boat. It's so exciting - face paced and dangerous! I love to watch for the moment when the atheletes make their move and send people crashing into the ice. It's just great (as long as I'm only a spectator of course)!. The opening ceremonies tonight should be good. I've heard a rumor from the TODAY show that that roller blades are involved. So cool!

I realized this week that my rommate and I have (or will) become somewhat of social butterflies this month. We had games night last weekend. We did speed dating this week. We're going out to dinner and to the Vagina Monologues on Saturday ngiht. We're going to the ballet in two weeks ("Rodeo" choreographed by Agnes de Mille will be performed and I can't wait to see it live!), and to a grad student formal just a week after that. (This is a lot for us, but we're definitely looking forward to it). Well, I've finally run out of steam and my stomach's starting to growl, so I'm going to grab some food and chill before the opening ceremonies begin. Good Night and Good Luck!