Day 2

I spent all of yesterday reading the zebrafish manual and learning (or trying to learn) how to care for them, their embryology, and necessary staining techniques. Oh, and digging up long-forgotten genetics and molecular biology topics. I'm going to be helping out a second year grad student on mapping a gene called mi40. When mutated, it screws up the placement of UV photoreceptors in the zebrafish retina.

At least I think all the above information is correct... searching "mi40 UV photoreceptor mutation in zebrafish" on PubMed yields a listing of papers on UV photoreceptor development, but nothing on the mi40 gene, even though there is a poster about it outside the lab.

Other than that, today I got to prep the fish for map crosses; in other words, I separated the fish according to sex and put each fish in their own tank. Then we feed them for a week, or until they get big enough for us to determine their sex with certainty. Apparently males are supposed to have slimmer yellow bellies, while females are more silver and look pregnant all the time. The problem here is that males that eat a lot of food also look pregnant.

So I still feel completely lost as to what I'm doing; there's so much stuff to learn in too short of a time period...

17th Grade Orientation

Today was the last day in the plant lab, and thus the last day as "not yet a grad student." Moving upstairs for the rest of the summer isn't much of a physical change, although it means getting used to the techniques used by a different set of people, a new lab manager with a new style, and the biggest one, being much more proactive about my own work. Not like I don't suggest things to try when screening primers in the plant lab; there wasn't as much pressure to understand exactly how a particular experiment fit into the larger picture. And definitely no pressure to read as much primary literature as possible and do critiques.

I'll miss a lot of the things that come with working in Chris's lab, like...

• the lab candy
• coming into lab and realizing that Hope just bought a gazillion pairs of primers...that all need to be diluted...
• ...and tested
• the "toxic room" (aka electrophoresis room)
• swapping dumb stories with Hope, or with anyone who has a story to share
• the centrifuge story (which is partially my fault)
• Sandra's singing
• Shalene and Susana singing along to Sandra's ringtone (yeah...)

So we'll see how tomorrow (technically today, in a few hours) goes. It almost feels like the first day of school...back in kindergarten.

half a month

...before the start of lab rotations. I've been so lazy; in mid-May I made this half-assed promise to myself that I'd read several papers a week to get background information, jot down questions, and get possible inspiration for thesis projects. And the reality? I think I read quite a few, but only enough to make up for the month of May, at the rate of "several" per week.

As a lame attempt to justify my laziness, I've been trying to squeeze in as much time as possible to see people who are going to be leaving AA before they actually do. It seems like most people are leaving at the end of June, if not, then the end of July... and scattered all over the place too. One of my friends is seriously considering taking up a teaching job in DC; another is moving to Ohio, taking a trip to Spain, then starting her grad degree in psych in September. A few more will be in med school, others are traveling the world, coming back, then scrambling to get their first "real" job.

Makes me realize how much I need a road trip of some sort...just as a last hurrah. :-)

At this point I have mixed feelings about starting grad school. In a way, I'm looking forward to it, since it's in something I've loved for the past 5 years, but I'm also a bit nervous. There's that worry about "what if someone else gets to my thesis idea first" or "I can't narrow down a project because everything sounds cool." But more than anything is... am I ready to let science consume my life?

zebrafish summer + letting go

A little less than a month and a half before grad school starts...and the first project will be on zebrafish. Either cell fate determination or stem cells/regeneration, both in the eye. The prof says zebrafish can regain their sight (when blinded with hot copper wire) within a week.

On a totally different note, I had this dream last night, and all the elements in the dream were pointing to a need to purge my old way of thinking and to make a change in my life. I distinctly remember that during the dream I was concerned with an issue outside of grad school, something I've been trying to figure out for the past month.

I guess I'll just have to stop stalling then...

on learning

So I have to make a decision in 11 days as to where I'll be doing lab rotations this summer: it's down to zebrafish v. mice. For background info, both labs gave me a bunch of papers to read. Set 1 is on mouse development, specifically of the pituitary, and set 2 is on the zebrafish eye.

In any case, I've been trying to read these papers (plus a few more I found on fruit fly development), and I understand the gist of them, but unfortunately there are parts that go completely over my head. Basically, I don't know anything. Which makes me wonder... what were the last four years for?

Reading these papers makes me feel so incompetent. :-(

entering the Transition Summer

So... Saturday was graduation and marked the official end of undergrad.

I took my parents and my sister to a departmental reception hosted by the biology department, and made my dad meet several of the people I was /I will be working with. Let's just say he was surprised that I wasn't shy. But you'd think four years of college would change people so they wouldn't be, right? Doesn't college force you out of the shell, if you had one to start with?

There's two months before of start of grad school lab rotations. Two months of freedom. Well, sorta. I'll be in the mol ecol lab until June 30, and leading physics study groups for spring half-term. Then I switch labs on July 1 and start working on fish. Or mice. Need to make a decision in half a month...

Summer is gonna be interesting. Congratulations, class of 2008!

five more years

Here's to five more years of school beyond college. It's 1:13am, and there's so much running through my mind now that graduation is so close. Even though the past four years in itself was a transition, I've named this "The Transition Years" because it marks the brink between getting a college degree and finding a "real" job, which will probably happen... when I'm 30?

Oh, and I chose spots as the background because it reminds me of a microarray. ;-)