Thursday, October 23, 2008

Ready... Almost

Tomorrow I take my first exam in almost 3 years...

I think I'm about as prepared as I'm going to be, and that's a good feeling. Perhaps I could have done more, but at this point I think I just need to sleep and let my dreams help me learn (no, really).

In other news, it's dropped below freezing temperatures several times in the last few days. When I got up this morning it was a balmy 35 degrees. I still rode my bike to class though, complete with gloves and beanie. To all those who said I wouldn't enjoy the cold, my joy is still going strong. Check back after a few months of this, but I can't see growing tired of this.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Momentous joy!

After four months, I'm finally in a lab again. It was great taking a break, but I also felt like part of me was missing when I wasn't pipetting something.

The way it works is that I get to try out at least 3 labs (called rotations) before deciding where I will do my thesis work. Since the vast majority of my time over the next 5-6 years will be spent in lab (classes are actually a minute part of getting a PhD in biology), it's a pretty important decision. I've joined the lab of Judy Lieberman, and I'll be working (at least for my rotation) on micro-RNAs. More on what that is later, but now I have to study for my molecular biology mid-term and I'm woefully behind.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Slacking and catch-up

Ok, I meant to have this thing updated a while ago, and it's just not happening, so I'll just outline the last 2 months, put up some pictures and then start from the current time.

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During my week in Santa Cruz, I also took my cousin Tanja to San Francisco, went across the Golden Gate Bridge, had clam-chowder in a bread bowl on the wharf, and managed to get lost even while using a fancy GPS. (tanja, you need to post pictures when you get them).

The next week I down to Baja California with my brother and his friends Andres and Aurthur. We got stranded in Puento Conejo due to a tropical storm that wiped out the highway leading to our original destination, Scorpion Bay. I still had a great time though, camping on the beach, hanging with my brother, waking up before dawn to go surfing before the wind picked up, eating tacos, playing with scorpions, etc. We took 900 pictures, but I've uploaded a selection here.






I arrived in Boston on Sept 1st, and have been slowly getting accustomed to living on the east coast (I realized on friday that I can no longer judge what I need to wear just by looking out my window - it was bright and sunny but around 50 degrees). I started classes on the 15th of September, and I've had to get used to being in classes again and not working. It's wierd finding myself at home, with a bunch of time on my hands, but actually having a lot of stuff to do.

Last weekend I went to New Hampshire (you can drive less than 2 hours and be in another state... it's weird) to canvass for the Obama campaign with my roommate M.E. (say Emmy). It was a lot of fun, though I don't know if we really accomplished much (most of the houses we went to had no one home). The fall foliage was beautiful though.







My roommates are great, and my classmates are great and I've been having a great time. I just got back from New Hampshire where we had our immunology program retreat. There were a bunch of great talks (a few not-so-great talks too) and I got a better sense of what some of the labs here at Harvard are doing so I can make better decisions about where to do my rotations (we get to try out several labs before choosing where to do our thesis work, which is the bulk of the degree).

On Saturday I joined a group of students and post-docs on a hike up Loon mountain. It's a ski resort in the winter, and we essentially just walked up the slope.


I'd never really seen a ski-slope without the snow before. At the top there was a magnificent lake...


and we were so tired from the ordeal that we ended up just taking the gondola back down.


I'm back in Boston now and trying (in vain) to motivate myself to study for mid-terms.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Surfing at Pleasure Point - back in Santa Cruz

Baja was fast approaching, and I hadn't been on a surfboard in months. During the week I was in Santa Cruz, we did manage to get out on the water a couple times. We went to Pleasure Point, and Steve and Andres brought the camera along so we could practice and even get some photos for imagineawave.com.


Steve and Dre paddle off to the Hook for strength training... I'm in no shape to make the trek.


Steve on the nose


Dre drops in on Steve...


That's Arthur - another friend from high-school that's going with us to Baja. Dre drops in on him too...


And he drops in on me...


He manages to catch his own waves sometimes though