''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.