“I’m telling you, all roads, all roads lead to Oberlin.”

This past weekend was the pinnacle of my entire summer. One week ago, I was sitting in the San Francisco International Airport awaiting the arrival of my family. Let me tell you, the arrival gate is a great place. The best arrivals of the night:

This girl was sitting across from us and waiting and waiting and finally, this Marine comes out of the terminal. She jumps into his arms, they hug, and she refuses to let go. At first I thought she was his sister, but I’m pretty sure nobody kisses their sister like that.
Then, there was this little man and his dad. And this little man was dressed to impress. He had to be picking up a woman. Unfortunately, my family showed up before said woman (presumably his mother haha) made an appearance.
Having my family here was fantastic, really. They’re just as batty as ever, but still great people. It was nice to have them here, but still have my own space. After work Thursday, we went to the Golden Gate Bridge and Twin Peaks, cutesy touristy stuff.

Friday, I took the last vacation day I could manage and we drove up to Napa. It was a nice day trip, mostly for my parents to do some wine tasting. Really, just being around them was great.

The real fun started on Saturday when my best friend, Taylor, arrived. Home girl actually came out to the West Coast for Brave New Voices in Los Angeles, but she was sweet enough to swing through. That evening, the whole lot of us (my family, Megan’s family, Taylor) had dinner at Megan’s mom’s house.

I only have that one picture from the night and there’s no way it accurately portrays the amount of love in the house that night. So much love.
Sunday, Megan, Taylor, Aldo (Megan’s brother), and I did a mural tour in The Mission, which I believe is my favorite part of San Francisco. It’s warm, there’s beautiful artwork all over the buildings, and it’s a predominantly Spanish speaking area.

So pretty much, it’s either going to be The Castro or The Mission for me.
After an odd poetry/one art play reading thing and a short walk down Haight Street, we retired to the house for the night. Aldo went to dinner with his father, my mother came over, and out came the wine and champagne. The drinks were quite good, but the conversation was great. We talked about religion, the state of our various love lives, and decided that all road ultimately lead to Oberlin. All of them, ya heard?
Now it’s Wednesday night and I’m currently watching Miss Congeniality with Megan and Emiliano (classic). Taylor headed to L.A. Monday afternoon, and family headed back east that same night. I miss them, but it won’t be long before I’m sleeping in my own bed. Next week is my last week of work and before then I have to write an abstract of my project (due Monday), finish and prepare a Powerpoint presentation for lab meeting next Thursday, create and print my poster, and ultimately prepare my presentation for this shadigs in Atlanta. Oh, and I don’t have results yet. So the rest of this week/beginning of this week should be interesting. Go me.
The summer’s almost over, but there’s still more fun to be had and many people I love to be seen.

chinwee

"What's your name? What's your size?"

I'm so busy.
I took last Friday off, went to Santa Barbara for the weekend (watched the World Cup, which was SOO satisfactory), and now that I'm back I feel like I'm running out of time to finish everything.

The sweetest thing about the last few weeks was Gabe coming to visit. Don't get me wrong, I love my Oberlin people, but those friendships that survive from home are so great. A month from today I'll be home. I'm really excited to see a couple people.

Here's the blog entry from the OCVB blog, it know it's cheating but at least it's entertaining to see me as a super peppy volleyball player.

My family comes tonight. My best friend, voice of reason, SISTER, comes Friday. Atlanta sooner, home later.

chinwe

"Let me guess, another dude just grabbed your butt?"

I'm slacking, I know, I know. But honest to Allah, this past weekend completely drained me.

Pride was awesome. Just awesome. First of all, Megan's godmother's co workers, Claudia and Shelley, are just fantastic people for taking me in for the weekend. Megan and company took a small vacation, but I decided to stay in SF since I was a little behind on work from my South Carolina trip and G-d knows I would never forgive myself if I missed Pride. So Saturday morning I went with Claudia and Shelley to one of their friend's houses for a party. This is where I got my first real look at San Francisco lesbians with partners and babies. We all know how much I love babies. I loved it. Loved it. Except for the small gay man with frosted tips who kept talking about his fear of carbs. People are so interesting.

After the party, we made our way to Dolores Park where, the day before the Pride Parade, the entire San Francisco lesbian population chills for hours before marching through the streets dancing and just being free (Dyke March). After 'bird-watching' for a few hours, Claudia and Shelley headed back to the house and I decided to hang around and do the march while waiting for Emiliano to get in the city. So I'm walking around and this woman with a shaved head approaches me and tells me how much she loves my hair. I wish with every fiber of my being I remembered her name. What I do remember is that she's an aspiring comedian and she's really not very funny, just kinda crazy. Her friend group consisted of this super blonde girl who was super friendly but completely distraught over the fact that she was too sober to not be annoyed by baldy, a short gym teacher named Minova who almost got into a physical fight with some people over shrubbery, and a much older woman named Laura who had a beard. Surprise, surprise the fact that I was nineteen was a big hoop-la to them. Laura was my favorite, we ended up walking together for most of the march and she told me a lot about the lesbian community and movement in San Francisco. People are SO interesting.

It took a bit of time and a couple taxi rides (my very first by myself!) but I managed to meet Emiliano at the house, change, and have the two of us get back to the Castro. If you don't know what the Castro is, look it up. Anyway, what happens the night before the actual parade is this thing called Pink Party, which is a party on Castro Street with music and debauchery that lasts all night. It was wild. Wildddd. Early in the night, Emiliano and I found ourselves dancing next to one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen. She was clearly very close to my age and we were eye-ing the shit out of each other. BUT, I just had to be my shy self and not say anything. If you were the girl with the amazing hair and hoop earrings, you should contact me ASAP. ASAP.

Unfortunately the night ended early, when three people were shot (actually right in the area where I was eye-ing the beautiful girl, scary). News Article

Stephen Powell dated a friend of Megan's in high school. It's a sad world we live in where people think guns settle disputes.

After we walked across a good part of the city and managed to hail a cab, Emiliano and I arrived back at the house and five minutes later I was dead asleep. Out for the count.

Sunday morning, Emiliano met his friend Mya for breakfast while I went to Claudia's for a brunch she throws every pride. Favorite part of brunch: Maren, a two year old I met on Saturday, decided she really liked me all of a sudden, gave me a hugeee hug, and proceeded to plop herself in my lap and prove to me she knew the entire alphabet. When I asked her to say the alphabet backwards, I think she decided she didn't like me as much; but, I still got a giant hug goodbye. Someone give me a child.

The parade was dope, but by the afternoon I'd had enough of the techno music and the crazies. The Backstreet Boys DID perform but I decided to skip out and watch True Blood at Claudia's instead. And I'm okay with that. If you saw the amount of people that were there and were experiencing the immense pain I was feeling in my feet, you would have done the same.

After all that, it's taken me most of the week to get my life back together. It's July and I'm starting to prepare for my presentation here at the end of the month and the one in Atlanta in August. James and Jamila sat me down yesterday and asked me rapid fire questions for ten minutes. I have a lot to look over.

I can't believe I only have a month left. I'm starting to get attached to the lab (especially Ivan, he's my buddy) and I'm going to have to leave soon enough. On the bright side, I've found a place where you can creep on all the people I work with yourself -- Hereee

Haha, expect a super science-y entry soon, I need to familiarize myself with this material and people probably want to finally know what I'm doing here.

So, I have these four female friends, four of my best friends ever. They couldn't all be more different, but they all have this thing in common. They are the last four people on the face of G-d's green earth who would ever, ever date anyone. I mean, there's nothing wrong with them, but for various reasons they just don't swim in the deep end of the pool. Until now. It has happened. We're one down, and she's got it bad. Don't get me wrong, I've never been happier for her in my life, but I'm just issuing a warning to you common folk. If it can happen to one, it can happen to all. Nostradamus is real people, be prepared.

On a more mature note, I've realized how much I love snail mail and I've become an expert at sending it. If you've given me your address, you best be checking your mailbox. If you want old fashioned paper/postcard love, give it to me! I'll for sure, for sure write you.

Other than that, I'm just coasting. The 4th should be good, I'm going to see Gabe (who's finally in California) in the next few days, Santa Barbara again in a week, FAMILY AND TRBJ a few days after that. Life is good.

I must go now, we're waking up in six hours to watch the Netherlands v. Brasil game at a bar before work. Hahaha. I'm going to be wearing green and yellow (Marcelo!), but it really doesn't matter who wins this game because España is going to annihilate whoever they play in the finals. Por supuesto.

love to you all- chinwe

Postscript - I just began Crepúsculo (Twilight in Español!). I need not forget everything I've learned/must be fluent next summer! Details forthcoming!

"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