"He missed. I can't believe he bloody missed."

So I realized I've completely neglected to talk about this social sporting phenomenon called the World Cup, which is ridiculous considering it's the second most-discussed topic (after all things science) in the lab. Days generally begin with everyone trickling in, talking about the results of the games that happened while we were all still asleep (Pacific Time is not working well with this World Cup thing, the third match of the day comes on at 11:30 am. Problematic.). At 11:30, people begin to pull ESPN3 up on their computer screens to watch the game. And the trash talk begins.

This morning I really noticed how diverse the Diabetes Center is. At my 9:30 am lab meeting, I counted fourteen people in room, not including us three interns. Out of fourteen people, only three (maybe four, I'm not sure) were born in this country. Only one person of these three has parents that were born in the United States. I suppose this is the main reason for the severity of the trash talk. When I looked around the room before the meeting started I saw:

- Ivan (who's Russian) talking to this petite Brazilian woman from our partner lab about how the United States barely won the morning (Ivan just really likes soccer. I'm not exactly sure what team he's rooting for, because Russia...yeah.).

- The petite Brazilian woman telling the Spaniard woman from her lab that Spain is going to lose to Brazil and the Spaniard woman agreeing.

- French man Christian Vaisse (head of our partner lab, aka the Vaisse lab) and a woman from his lab who is also French, telling Allison (head of my lab, incase you forgot), who's Chinese, that they really aren't upset (They were lying). Christian and this woman, but especially Christian, have made me decide that French accents are my favorite. Specifically male French accents. Specifically when Christian speaks to me I kind of melt.

- This other man from the Vaisse lab pouting silently while listening to Christian, Allison, and French woman talk. I suspect he's also French, although his accent isn't as thick.

- James (British) telling Jamila he prefers wrestling to soccer and that Rooney looks like a yob (British slang for thug, I'm learning a lot)

In addition to people talking about soccer all the time, everyones' lab meeting presentations entail propaganda advertising their support of whatever country they're from. It's a lot to take in.

My favorite FIFA/lab moment happened this past Tuesday. At 11:30 I put the Nigeria vs. South Korea game on and Ivan put the Argentina vs. Greece game on. Ivan and I sit back to back across our bay(our computer screens face each other) and it was just a whole mess of us trying to out watch both games with the sound all the way up. Then, Alyssia (pronounced Alicia; she's from South Korea), who's in a different lab but works one bay over, kicked me out of my desk and refused to move. She has quite the mouth, so the trash talk got intense. At one point, it was Ivan, Louise (who's Swedish; Nigeria has a Swedish coach), Alyssia, and I were jumping up and down screaming at the computers, each other, and who knows what else. It was great, even though Nigeria lost and Alyssia, two days later, still reminds me every hour.

In conclusion I've realized two things:

1) I want to work in a lab as culturally diverse as the Diabetes Center. It's refreshing to hear different languages and accents daily.

2) Americans (like Andrew) don't like soccer. They just want to dominate the world.

This video almost convinced me otherwise. Almost.

That's all. Exciting tales to come!

chinwe

"Do you know the name of this song? It's called The Girl from Empanada."

So I've hit my summer time lull. I have become a woman with a career. And I just 'career' all the time. I suppose this is partly because I don't have a whole slew of people in the Bay Area and partly due to the fact that I loveeeeeeeee my 'career'. Today I learned how to use the microscope and camera to take pictures of my stained slides. It's pretty legit to have access to this super complicated machine and I'm so excited to finally start collecting data. Tomorrow I'm going to actually take my first pictures so hopefully by the end of the week I'll have some photos to show you all, and at that point I'll FINALLY explain my project. Rock and roll, good times ya'll.

What I have gathered at this point from working in the lab is that patience and precision really are key. Although I'm getting better, my identification of different slices of the brain still isn't great. Something I've trained myself to do over the years is, when I can't perfect something settle for an educated guess and not fret about it. Most times this gets me by just fine with school work and what not; however, let me tell you how far this has gotten me in the past few weeks. Of the ten brain I sliced last week, I tried to pick a slice of the same section (section 50) from each of them on Friday so I could stain, look under the microscope, and compare them all to each other. Out of ten slices, three were the correct section but only two were truly perfect matches. Mnhmn. And that's just my slice selection. I've also run into problems with my stains not being strong enough and my genotyping just flat out not working (Which is why I haven't given you a step by step of how it exactly works). Somehow though I'm not totally discouraged. Maybe I really like science. Maybe I'm a patient person. I do ask a lot of questions. When I asked James if I asked a lot of questions, he just laughed at me.

Things are getting excitinggggg in the next few weeksssss:

1) This coming weekend - PRIDE PRIDE PRIDE I'm so flippin' excited I don't know what do with myself or what to say. Be PREPARED for a ridiculous amount of scandalous photos.

2) Four weekends from now - my family AND trbj! I love that people I love are coming to visit me and meet each other (FINALLY).

3) Maybe a week after that - Back to Santa Barbara, which should be warmer than this place (Thank baby J) which means beachhhhh. I mean, I plan on being at the beach for ten straight days when I get home but this will be a nice reminder of what real weather feels like.

Other than Pride, I'm most excited just to see my family. It's kinda freaking me out how much of a family person I'm becoming. I was just telling my mom the other day (After we had probably the best conversation we've ever had), I don't think I'll be able to live far away from my family in a part of the country (or outside the country) where I wouldn't be able to visit often. At least until I have a family of my own. Maybe. I've always said I was never going back to SoFla (certainly never going back to Coral Springs), but I'm starting to think I would like to live in Miami.

Good news! In an English pub, during the Brasil vs. Côte d'Ivoire match, I decided what I will name my first son (in the event that I inadvertently have a baby boy without having time to put serious, serious thought into his name). The future is imminent, best be prepared.

Texas caught up with me this past week. I got in touch with friends from all the way back in first grade and turns out, even with age, they're just really nice guys. And they remember the craziest things about us in elementary school. One of them might even come out to SF for a day, just to do lunch and so I can see how tall he really is.

I forget this everyday (and then get really excited when I remember), but Gabe is also coming to SF sometime soon. It's so funny which high school friendships have thrived and how strong they are. I love it.

Other than that, things are chill and life is great. I'm thinking of doing something my mother probably won't like very much, but I'm just going to leave it at that for now since she's for sure reading this. Haha.

Pictures from Fisherman's Wharf/Ghirardelli Square as soon as Jasmine gets her life together. That's alllll.

chinwee

Postscript - Go see Toy Story 3. No, you will not be the only person in the theater over six. No, you will not be embarrassed when you cry at the end. Yes, you will thoroughly enjoy it.

Post postscript - The boys are back in six days. I can't wait.

"Sitting in the aisle is like being in an entirely different world!"

After four days on my beloved East Coast, I'm back in San Francisco. Though I spent the majority of those four days on the worst sleep schedule ever/more sleep deprived than I can begin to tell you, I think I really needed Charleston. Although it's not a huge city with a huge name, Charleston holds so much for me. Seeing the city on this trip was interesting. Just like in D.C., they've gentrified the hell out of Charleston. Ms. Hayes (TRBJ's dear mother) always talks about how much D.C. has changed since she was a little girl, but it's hard to feel the oddity of seeing corporations and money take over until you see the changes yourself, in a place that you're emotionally tied to. Every time I've visited Charleston, it has been to see family (my mother's side). Despite the losses, I was surprised (but so relieved) to find that feeling of being surrounded by loved ones that the city has imprinted on me has remained just as strong. For that, I have a good few people to thank.

In four short days, I attended a funeral and a wedding and realized some things. My concerns about not being affected by death were completely ridiculous because the minute I set foot in that church Wednesday morning, the tears were just flowing. What made me cry harder was my uncles. My mom has three younger brothers and I know every single one of them loved their mother more than anything in the world. I sat behind the three of them during the funeral and seeing them shed tears was so difficult. For once in my life, I did not want to be crying but it was impossible to stop. It's an interesting feeling.

Even though I was severely leaking from the eyes, I kept a close eye on my mother (she sat all the way at the other end of the pew from my family because she had to get up and speak). Even though we get into it every once in awhile, I can't stand to see her cry (In case you haven't realized, seeing other people cry is a bit difficult for me). Let me tell you, that woman is strong. So, so strong. Not a tear on her face. Not before speaking, not during speaking, not after speaking. Just an expression that displayed a true appreciation for the life of a loved one. I've never been so proud to have that woman for my mother.

Then the mayhem began. My mom's best friend from eighth grade, my Aunt Clae had her wedding on Saturday morning. Although it was a small (but sooo beautiful) wedding, Aunt Clae had my mother and their other best friend (my Aunt Betty; also their friend from eighth grade) as bride's maids. Since I love matrimony, I decided to tag along on Friday to run last minute errands. One of the errands happened to be my mother getting her eyebrows threaded for the first time. Let me tell you, it was a fiasco. The three of them were hilarious; my mom was being a diva, my Aunts were hovering, and all three of them were loud. Really loud. I wouldn't say I was mortified, but I was more than happy to run over to Wal-Mart to pick up some stuff while they wilded out. What I loved, was seeing my mom, with friends she's had for most of her life; just so happy to be alive and be loved by these women. Sometime during wedding mania, my Aunt Betty called my mom, thirty seconds after they parted ways for a few hours, just to let her know they had been friends for over thirty years. That made me so happy. I don't know if I'll still be friends with people I'm friends with from eighth grade, and it's really unlikely we'll be that close; however, the three of them make me think about the friendships I have. In thirty years, we'll have some really great stories...I can't wait.

If you know me at all, you know I hate goodbyes but I've always loved getting away from homey. When my dad took me to the airport Sunday morning, the tears returned and shocked the hell out of me. I really didn't want to say goodbye to him, not one bit. When he saw my face, being his stoic self, my dad said, "It's all apart of the experience." The experience. I noticed that almost as soon as I got to Oberlin, I was very proud to say I was from SoFla (something I've never laid claim to before). Come Winter Term, I was even excited to return home (Big shocker Gabe, I know. Oh, the love seat) to visit. At the end of second semester, I would have given my right arm to spend one night in my bed; and, my first week in San Francisco, I legitimately missed my family. Despite the circumstances, I was excited to be in Charleston just to see them. I wonder if I would have felt this way if I stayed in-state for school. I'm thinking, probably not. I love that I'm seeing the country, meeting people from different places, and developing a real appreciation for where and what family I'm from. If this is the result of distance, I'll take it and welcome it with open arms.

On one of my flights back to San Francisco, I decided to not be a neurotic creature of habit and chose to sit in an aisle seat instead of next to the window. I always choose the window. I ended up watching the lady across the aisle from me drink half a case of Beck's (which she had stocked up in her purse) and having a really great conversation with the woman sitting next to me (Beautiful, in the Air Force, lives in Honolulu, Louisiana accent, beautiful coffee drinking baby boy named Lake, BUT married. Just my luck.). I even used the bathroom on a plane for the first time in my entire life.

After being out of the lab for three days, it felt good to get back today. I did some immunofluorescence with James, which is pretty much taking pictures of the brain sections once they've been stained with cool colors. Once I start taking my own pictures, I'll post a few and explain a little more.

GO SEE THE A-TEAM. The trailer looked pretty stupid to me, but it was SO GOOD. Not only was it hella good, but the combination of the previews and movie officially has me in love with good-looking Hollywood men. Bradley Cooper, Tom Cruise, Hayden Christen, Matt Dillon, Jay Hernandez, Chris Brown, Michael Ealy (Look up the trailer for Takers, and you'll die. Team, we're seeing this during pre-seaon, just so you know). I love my boys, I really do.

Those last few paragraphs were a bit random, I know, but it's 1:40 and this girl is quite tired. Go see The A-Team. Haha.

chinwe

“When you’re slicing these brains, you remember that number seventy-nine.”

So I was told that US Airways would be offering free wi-fi on-board their aircrafts for the month of June but the bamas lied; therefore, I’m currently writing this up on Microsoft Word. Just imagine me on a plane at 11 pm Pacific time (seat 31F, next to a preteen who’s flying for the first time) while you read this.
Today (Tuesday, June 8th) was the most difficult day I’ve had at work yet. I must admit I was in a really bad mood when I woke up this morning, and the fact that I watched Lady Gaga’s new video relatively soon after waking up did not help (in fact it made me nauseous). I dragged myself to the lab and started off the morning by doing some genotyping (process of determing the cell make up of the animals, to put it simply) with James. I really like working with James. I’m not sure why, but I feel much more relaxed with him. Also, the things we’ve been doing (Monday we did staining, which is pretty much the process of taking the sections of brains I’ve sliced and staining different structures different colors with various antibodies just so we can see them better) are much more chemistry based, like involving dilutions and creating solutions and whatnot, and I’m in my element, ya’ll.
I should probably explain that the reason I’m working with James is because Jamila went to Europe for some conference this week. That’s something I definitely didn’t realize was apart of research work, travel. These people travel quite a bit. Last week at Andrew’s birthday lunch, a tech who used to work in my lab (Liz, who is super friendly and quiteee cute) was talking about how she got this great, spontaneous opportunity to go to Indonesia for a conference in the fall. I thought this was absolutely awesome. One thing I think about that often frightens me is the possibility that once I have a career, and especially a family, there will no longer be time for me to travel. The realization that these people go all over the world, without being ambassadors or anything like that, definitely has me leaning toward a Ph.D. and research.
After lunch, James and I then dived into perfusion.
Okay, I probably should have given you all a heads up before this moment, but this for real is super gross and if you get freaked out by death or blood in any way, you should REALLY stop reading or skip a couple paragraphs now.
When I was telling you about slicing brains I don’t know if I mention it or not, but there’s absolutely no blood. This is because all the mice are perfused before their internal organs are removed. Perfusion is the act of (to put it bluntly) bleeding out the animal before removing whatever organs are needed. I’m not going to lie, I totally see it from a science point of view, but when I try to step outside of what I think the whole process just kinda of screams ‘inhumane’ to me.
First, the mouse is anesthetized, and when it no longer jumps when you pinch its feet, you know to proceed (We were taking a blood sample in addition to everything I’m about to describe, so at this point we pricked their cheeks and drew blood. I felt like Dexter. I also feel like Dexter when I put the slides of brain slices in my slide boxes.). After that, the mouse is pinned down on it’s back so all of it’s limbs are spread wide and the abdomen is showing. Then, using forceps and scissors you cut away the skin that’s covering the abdomen as well as the top of the ribcage. I think this is probably the worst part. The animal is still alive and their hearts start beating so fast that it makes their mouth open and close and jerks their entire body around.
The animal is pretty much dead at this point, but sometimes the heart continues to beat for a few more seconds. At this point, we stick what looks like a mouse size IV into the heart. This pumps first PBS (which is a basic wash solution we use for a lot of things) and then PFA (which is a diluted formaldehyde solution) into the body. The PBS flushes the entire system; aka the blood (as well as urine and whatnot) starts to just run out of the body and pool in the tray we were using (We did two mice at a time for a total of ten and cleaned up after they were all done, picture that.). The PFA, in addition to further cleaning out the system, makes the bodies incredibly stiff. This is my second least favorite part. When the PFA is being pumped into the body, the hips kind of pulse and the tail starts to wring around kind of slowly and rigidly. I can’t even describe it correctly; it’s just flipping creepy. Each standard sized mouse is on the pump for about twenty minutes (the ob/ob mice, which are the mice without leptin, are more obese so they take a little bit longer).
Once the mouse is stiff, you can cut out any organ you want. James collected livers, which are easy and just come out with one snip. But of course, I’m studying brains and those are a bit more difficult. In order to collect the brain, you must completely decapitate the mouse with scissors (At this point, James had me check that the female mice that had been ovariectomized, and had the procedure done properly. It was really gross.). Then you take the head, peel back the skin, cut the back of the skull off which a razor blade, and cut the rest of the skull off piece by piece with the razor. My third least favorite part simply because of how awful removing the skull sounds. I’ll spare you, but it’s truly horrific.
I did this for about four hours today. It’s really just a delightful process. Something about it really worries me though. For those of you don’t know why I’m on a plane (or who aren’t friends with my mother on Facebook), my grandmother passed away last week and I’m in route to the east coast to attend her funeral and pay my respects. The thing that kind of worries me is, first, that I haven’t been super emotional this past week, in addition, to the fact that I was completely surrounded by death today but it didn’t really affect me or link my brain to my grandmother in any way (Sarah, if you’re reading, I know this sentence is grammatically incorrect, please bear with me.). Part of me thinks I’m really good at disconnecting work from life and part of me thinks it’s not normal that death doesn’t affect me like it does some people I know. I don’t know.
The highlight of my day came when James and I got to the mice that been ovariectomized. James does some things really different than other people. Usually when you anesthetize an animal, you hold then on their back and inject them in the stomach. James thinks this scares them more than necessary, so he grabs them back the tail and injects in them in the butt. I don’t know what happened, either this one girl was scared witless or James hit her bladder, but she peed and DAMN did that piss have range. She managed to pee all over James’s face and in his mouth. I died, absolutely died, as James dropped everything (including the mouse) and ran to the bathroom to wash his face. For the next fifteen minutes, every other sentence was, “Bloody hell, that bitch! Damnit, how dare you?! (James curses a lot, but the fact that it’s all in this great British accent just makes me giggle.)” It was great. My theory lies in that, since female mice essentially become males when you remove their ovaries, they inherit the ability to pee crazy far distances (a second ovariectomized mouse peed hella far, but James had learned his lesson and aimed her butt away from his face).
What I got most out of spending four hours with James was a little insight on his thoughts about Ph.D. versus M.D. While he told me that he thoroughly enjoys research, a part of him wishes he got his M.D. Apparently there are more grants available to people who have their M.D., as well as there being things like specific professor positions where you must have your M.D. to apply. Ultimately, he says it comes down to whether I want to work with people or not. I’m all of a sudden really unsure, I was super into the idea of psychiatry but I really like this research stuff. I don’t know. Upside, Indonesia. Downside, mice with full bladders. Choices, choices. I feel like I have plenty of time to decide, but it’s definitely been on the brain.
So much to think about, so much to say. That’s all for now, people.

Chinwe

“Whoa, look at all this fog! We must be at a really high altitude.”

After one week of work, I have sliced six brains and am well on my way to becoming a slicing expert. Yesterday when I was working on brains four, five, and six, I finally figured out to make perfect, perfect slices. I’m not gonna lie, even Jamila said they were beautiful. Now my problem lies in that, I’m not exactly an expert when it comes to identifying the sections of the brain. In fact, I’m really bad at it. Ideally, you’re supposed to have about fifty slides with two slices on each slide for each brain (one hundred slices per brain) and the slices are supposed to be from about sections thirty-six to fifty-seven (I know that means nothing to you all.). My slices are all over the place. I end up starting at section twenty-two and doing thirty slides of useless crap before realizing I’ve just arrived at the section I needed to start at. I don’t know, I guess I didn’t expect it to be easy.

Outside of the slicing, I’ve actually started to kinda make friends with the people in my lab even though they’re all so much older than me. Yesterday happened to be Andrew’s birthday so our entire lab went out to lunch at this bombtastic Thai place (As much as I’m staying true to the east coast, I must say that San Francisco has the best Thai food I’ve ever had. Ever. And if you really know me, you know I love Thai food. Love it.). So I’ll give you a quick run down of the lab:
Andrew – Birthday boy. Hardly a boy, Andrew is post doctorate, is married, and has an almost four-month-old baby.
Allison – Lab supervisor. Every box in the lab has her last name on it and more than half of the articles I’ve read to give me background information for my project were published by her. Just to give you an idea of how important she is.
Helen – Other intern. Cute, small, Burmese, and is currently attending medical school in Michigan.
Louise – Shy and Swedish. Also post doctorate, her boyfriend works on the twelfth floor or something. She’s very nice and I like talking to her a lot. And I really like her accent.
Ivan – After Helen and I, the youngest person in the lab. He’s Russian and is about to turn twenty-four. He might be my favorite person, because he consistantly talks to me like I’m a person and not like I’m nineteen. And he’s funny.
James – Post doctorate. Quite British and quite gay (I don’t mean that in a bad way at all, but really that’s the only way to describe him.). He’s possibly my favorite person to observe in action. He’s absolutely hilarious, in a super British kind of way.
Jamila – My mentor. Post doctorate. Very…blunt. About everything. Her and James are two peas in a pod. They are so entertaining to watch.

And then there’s me. I really do like them all, I think I’ll just start to feel more comfortable when my age stops coming up like, “Wait, you’re only nineteen?! Oh man, we need to watch what we say.”
I left work late and as soon as I got back to the house, Megan whisked me away to go hang out with Emiliano, who’s way up there on my list of favorite Obies. We met up with Emiliano and friends, Ryan and Mickey, at this fast food joint called In N’ Out that only exists in California. The thing about In N’ Out is that it only serves burgers. You all should know my thing about red meat (I don’t eat it). However, Megan has been telling me about In N’ Out since first semester and since I’m all the way in California you’ll never guess what I’ve done. Yes, yes I had an In N’ Out Burger. In fact, last night I had my second In N’ Out burger in two weeks. That’s more red meat than I’ve ever had in the past two years. It’s kind of shocking. I can’t wait to tell my family.
After In N’ Out, we all drove up to this place called The Headlands, which is pretty much this huge cliff that people can drive up on, look out onto the Bay, and see Alcatraz (which I plan on taking a ferry to see), the city and all the subsequent surrounding cities (Berkeley, Oakland, etc.). There was more fog than I’ve ever seen before in my whole life (The fog here is amazing, honestly it’s one of my favorite things about the city. I wish I could describe what it feels like to stand in it.), but in the few minutes where it wasn’t a complete sheet of white, we got a pretty sweet photo.
Standing up there in all the fog really solidified a lot of thoughts I’ve been having for the past few days. I think this is the happiest I’ve been in the past six years. In part, I have my friends to thank for that, new and old. The last year has led me to many really genuine and fantastic people from all over the country, as well, as strengthen my friendships with a few people from home. The other part can be attributed to something I think I’ve found in myself. I feel like I’m finally able to graze with my fingertips the things I want to accomplish and the person I want to be. And it feels good to know that all comes from within; that my success in life is well within reach and the happiness I acquire because of that isn’t attributed to anyone but myself.
For those of you who like sappy teenage girl novels, I’m currently reading Just Listen by Sarah Dessen. If you haven’t read it, you should. One of the main themes of the novel is music, which reminded me that I needed to make a mix tape for my new assistant volleyball coach. While I was going through my music, I came across a song I haven’t heard in a really long time. In the novel, one of the characters mentions that no matter how much life changes songs never will. You’ll always be able to go back and listen to a certain song and have it evoke a certain feeling or memory. It was odd for me to think about a time period that seems so long ago, but I believe I enjoyed it. Try it. (The song was Caring is Creepy by The Shins. If you haven’t heard it, rectify that situation.)
Sorry if I got too deep for you. I’ll try to stay in the kiddie pool next time, children.


just chinwe


post script – I tried to photo document Chinwe vs. Nature. This was as far as I got.

Then my camera died. Which I think is okay because some man was looking at me funny and I was also trying to eat a pear and be on time. I think I give up, but at least you got a little glimpse at what I see when I leave everyday.

"There's a way to do it with scissors so you don't have to feel the skull crack."

Okay. Just a heads up, if brains and blood and small animals make you queasy, you probably shouldn't read this.

So things are already pretty intense. I woke up and made my way to the lab around 11. I swear I meant to video my route to work but today it was more like Chinwe vs. Nature vs. Time (I was running late in case you just don't get it). The first thing we did today was work on identifying brain sections. People, it's really hard. Usually the brains are sectioned from front to back (anterior to posterior), and as you go from one end to the other the structures within the brain change shape depending on which section you're in. So I took this book called The Mouse Atlas, which is filled with 'maps' of every section of mice brains, and tried to identify pictures of sections based on the shapes of the structures (I know I'm being vague but honestly, I don't even have all the names down and I don't want to confuse people). I also had to identify if they were young or old, and if they were ob/ob mice (Mice that don't have leptin, which is a hormone that inhibits appetite). It's pretty hard, not gonna lie. I've gotten to the point where I can narrow each slice down to being one of two sections with help from The Mouse Atlas and I can tell young from old when I don't have to take ob/ob mice into consideration. That's going to take some time. It's all going to take some time.

And then, I sliced my first brain. It was a female ob/ob mouse brain (I'm going to be working with all females, no complaints there haha) and it already had a small chunk missing so there was no pressure to do well (That was probably a result of a botched brain-removal job, something I will be learning soon). I'm so thankful Jamila gave me this one as my first brain because honestly, I completely destroyed the sucker. What happens is the brain is in some kind of frozen fluid so it looks like a little ice cube and you glue it to a surface and then mount it on what looks like that thing they slice deli meat with at the grocery store. Then you have this piece of glass that looks like a really thick microscope slide and a really long razor blade. When you turn this huge handle on the side of the machine, it lowers the surface that the brain is mounted on so it brushes across the razor and takes a slice off the brain. The glass is there to keep the slice from wrinkling and from flying off the razor. Then you take a microscope slide and press it down on the slice and it sticks to the slide. It's a little bit more complicated than that and there's a whole list of 'don'ts' (which I learned the hard way) but that's the general idea. Just so you have an idea of how good I am at this, at one point I accidentally moved the mounted brain too close to the blade and when I was trying to fix it I shaved off the biggest, most uneven chunk of brain ever. I butchered it so badly that my next ten or so slices looked like swiss cheese. Swiss brain cheese.

I know I'm talking about this in a totally nonchalant way, but the slicing really isn't as bad as it might sound. You want grotesque? So I'm putting away my tools at the end of the day, and I walked by someone's lab desk and there's this mouse. And this mouse has been decapitated and the head was kind of crushed and is just chillin' there next to the body. The entire abdomen was open and all the organs were visible. And this was all located in a small pool of blood. Just chillin'. I had a moment where I needed to stop and remember what I signed up for. The good news is, I am prevented by law from killing any mice. So all of you that were worried about that, there you go. The most I'll have to do is remove the brain from a freshly decapitated mouse, which I mentioned earlier. I don't know if that's much better, but I know I'm going to have to go the whole nine yards eventually. It's apart of the career path.

Tomorrow, Chinwe vs. Nature (and probably vs. Time because I have to be there at 9:30 for lab meeting), I promiseee.

Oh, anndddddd:

I'm official! Apparently there's a sweet view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the library, and now that I have an ID I can actually go in and check it out. Perhaps I'll do that tomorrow as well.

CHINwe

''So i'm obviously not a city kid, right?"

I just need to take a moment and say, I got the sweetest internship in the continental United States, if not the world. Today was my first day, and I must admit when I woke up this morning I was ten times more nervous than I was excited. I have come to realize that when I'm nervous about going to meet someone by myself or navigating my way around some place new (i.e. San Francisco), I get the disgusting feeling of absolutely not wanting to do anything but lay in bed. Therefore, I waited until the last minute this morning to shower, eat breakfast, and verify my directions. Still, I managed to be running ahead of schedule.

Not gonna lie, the best part of my day was walking up Parnassus Avenue. I know that means nothing to most of the people reading this, but from where I start walking up Parnassus to UCSF is just one big hill. This sounds really stupid, especially since there are steeper hills in the city, but I had a really nice Chinwe vs. Nature moment that kinda calmed me down and made me stop dreading what I was about to get into.

After taking a bus across the city to sign papers at a different campus, I finally got to go up to the lab. I'm working on the tenth floor of the Medical Sciences building so I'm really going to have to suck up all my issues with elevators, at least for the summer. Stairs are just really not an option. The lab is a real, legit laboratory, not a Chemistry 102 lab and I loveeeee it. I've never been so nerded out about anything before in my whole life. There's boxes and bottles and beakers literally everywhere and it's awesome. I met with my lab supervisor, Allison (the cutest little woman but so full of life), and we talked about the lab and about what I'm supposed to get out of this summer. Pretty much she told me not to get frustrated when my experiment fails the first twenty times. Someone remind me okay?

At the end of our chat, I went to grab lunch before my mentor arrived and who do I run into as soon as I walk out of the Medical Sciences building?! Erin Berggg. And what is Erin Berg doing? Sitting and thinking about how he lost my phone number and couldn't contact me when we are living in the same city, and working at the same university. Turns out, we're working on the same floor in neighboring departments! Oberlin follows you everywhere people.

An hour later, I finally met Jamila. Jamila is the postdoc who I will be working most closely with this summer. She did her undergrad at UC Berkeley, got her Ph.D. at Harvard, and is now working at UCSF as well as teaching in the Bay area. It already kind of blows my mind how intelligent she is. The project we're working on is...complicated, but Jamila just breezed through it like she was talking about daytime television or something. Even if she's just talking about how to work the scanner or where to put outgoing mail, she just sounds really smart. Not only that, but she's pretty funny and believes in life outside of the lab. I'm hella impressed.

Let's see, once I got off work, I went shopping on Haight St. with Megan (Thift store heaven. HEAVEN.) and decided to be really ambitious and start working out today. Mmmkinda failed. I ended up going for a twenty minute run around the general area where I'm living and I've come to the conclusion that at the end of the summer I'm either going to be in the best shape of my life or be dead. The hills people. Oh my hell. That's all I can say, we'll discuss when I finally have a productive workout (which should be soon because I need to have a productive workout SOON).

So I'm exhausted. and cold (I'm bundled up in my bed right now, this place is so cold.). BUT, I would say that I had a rather productive day. Okay, I have a crap-ton of reading in this endocrinology book that I must do before tomorrow and I want to watch Glee (!!!), so peace. I'm sorry about the lack of pictures, but I was too busy trying to find my way to be a stupid tourist. Maybe tomorrow or later this week I'll video my route to work so you can all experience my Chinwe vs. Nature moment (and hear me gasping for breath).

chinweee

postscript - Tomorrow, there will be mice. Thirty-one to be exact.