Festivus 2012!

I did science... It was fun. Festivus time!

Tradition # 1

Throughout the year the grad students have worked hard as any scientist should, but sometimes bad things happen. Those bad things usually take the form of frustratingly terrible data. Just because it can't be published doesn't mean that it's useless, though! At the end of the year we put that data to use as ornaments for our tacky Bad Data Tree! One of the many amazingly whacky and fun traditions of the lab!

Tradition number 2!

Something equally as fun and a lot less silly. Every person who is in the lab is required to make a stocking and decorate it! The decorations are holiday season themed and every year we hang up the stockings of everyone who has ever gone through the lab and everyone in the lab. As stockings went up, our PI recounted various experiences she had with the former labbies and explained to us what they were doing now. And since this was my first year... I decorated my stocking! 

Decor! 

I didn't really include this as a tradition per say because we decorate the lab for pretty much every holiday/season. This is one of our sexy-science freezers  with amazing decor. Nothing goes untouched. We hang up lights, decorate the door, every window.




We also do a potluck with another lab every year as well! It was super fun and it was my first time meeting the other lab, which we have meetings with every other week. I haven't been attending lab meetings because my schedule didn't allow me to, but I will start officially attending next semester! Yay science!

Surprise!


I'll start this off by saying that I was so excited and surprised that I didn't think about taking a picture until after most of them were gone. And I'll follow that by expressing how thankful I am for the labbies that I have, especially my grad-student boss who made me these cupcakes. I'm a vegan, so instead of buying cupcakes, she found a recipe and made them for me and they were absolutely amazing.

Holiday Party
Lastly, we have a holiday party where everyone brings their spouses/children at the end of the year. At the party there is a gag gift exchange where we each go out and buy gifts for the others and then take turns opening them or stealing from others. After that, steal/trade for a maximum of 3 times per gift. Below are the spoils.

 
There were also chocolates in my bag. But I gave them away. Someone stole my first massage-thingy, but I won in the end by getting a bag with a lovely Marilyn Monroe thermus, a bottle of sparkling juice, pack of reinforcements (great for the lab notebook) and my great massage thingy. I won't be back in action until early-mid January, so hold tight. Happy holidays and happy science-ing!

Yay Science! Yay Traffic!

School is out! Well, school has been out for exactly a week now. Finals went well, but were unnecessarily stressful because my professors thought it would be hilarious to change the dates of my finals the day before (it wasn't). But since then, life has been good. I've actually been working mostly-full days at the lab since Monday and it's been nice being able to not have class and just do science and hang out with the labbies.  But that also means driving the should-be 30 minutes there and back and the lovely experience of rush-hour traffic that doubles that driving time. The best part about it is after you're out of the right-out-of-city traffic and you think "this isn't too bad, nothing to complain about." and then 2.5 minutes later BAM no one is moving and you have to wonder how traffic just magically stopped. And those occasions when the truck in front of you changes lanes and then there is a whole new world in front of you free of vehicles where you can almost drive the speed limit before the sudden realization that it's only a 15 second experience.

 <==== Bad data tree. Stay tuned to learn more... Until the next blog.

Timer!!!

With a few people trying to write with a dead-line(self-imposed or otherwise), sometimes last minute experiments need to be conducted and things need to be re-conducted and things get a little chaotic. Not like fires burning, beakers breaking chaotic, but timer going off about every 2.5 minutes chaotic. It gets fun too because after about 5 seconds, you hear a cacophony of labbies yelling "Timer!!!!" and the actual timers.

<== My Timer

While we're on the subject, timers are useful, especially when you set them to the right time. A few weeks ago I was setting up westerns and put them on the hotplate for 5 times as much as I was supposed to... they evaporated. The end.  

Le Google Chromebook

This break has been absolutely lovely. I've had little school work, no stressful studying, and I've gotten to see a lot of my friends from High School. The only source of mild discontent would by my inability to get my hands on a Google Chromebook. I do a lot of walking on Campus, especially between the dorms/dining halls and the lab which is 1.2miles round trip that I make quite often. It's not particularly hard to do unless you have your stupidly heavy laptop strapped to your back along with books and other fun heavy stuff. 

Of course this is me giving myself to buy a less than 2.5 lb(1.1kg) Chromebook, which I've wanted for quite a while now. I actually said I would buy myself one if I got the lab job, but I instead bought a Nexus 7 because I just couldn't justify getting the older, more expensive Chromebook. Now that they are at a reasonable price it seems as though everyone had the same inhibitions as I did, as they are now flying off of the shelves. They are sold out in the closest 8 BestBuy stores, the BestBuy website, Amazon, and even the Google Play Store. I will give up my hunt for the Chromebook for the next 2 weeks as the semester is coming to an end. I have a week of classes and then finals (yay!), abd hopefully they will be back in stock in time for me to relax my post-finals brain with a new toy. 

<--- I want it. 

Off the Bench

Sorry about no posts this week, but I've had a ridiculous amount of school work and my grad student took me off of the bench. Next week is also my Thanksgiving break, so again, I won't be posting... at least not about lab. I DID however, get my safety glasses and beaker mug in, so here's a picture of them to keep you occupied.

 <---- Mine

You're an UNDERGRAD?

To start off, for those of you who haven't seen the PhD movie, go and see it. It's a funny independent film based off of the well-known PhD comics. There's this one particular scene where a PhD student appears to be falling for this guy and then he alludes to the fact that he's an undergraduate student and everything stops and she just gives him this "I can't be seen with you" look. Hilarious.

Last week was a really great week for me. Went to a Biology Graduate Student Association (BGSA) town-hall style meeting where they voiced their concerns and whatnot, showing me what I hopefully don't have to look forward to in 3.5 years. It was really helpful in feeling all biology student-y and I felt like a special undergraduate infiltrator in their meeting. The Boss-lady also took us out for drinks(Coke for me) and appetizers for a few hours and it was nice having the whole lab together having fun and talking. In other last week news, I completed my first legitimate  experiment successfully with unexpected results that my grad student is extremely excited about, I bought this sexy beaker mug which will come in later this week, and I had my first Saturday at the lab.

 <---- Not mine... but it will be (I'll take a picture then)

Terrible Gel Day

Some people have bad hair days... not me. I barely have any hair to work with, so it would be pretty difficult. What I do get, however, are horrible gel days. Have you ever been making a gel to run a western, lower gel complete, making the upper gel, and then the lab phone rings? Normally this isn't a problem, but for some reason yesterday, when I returned to the gel, I had completely forgotten what I had and had not already put in. My lower is still solidifying so I make another upper gel. I put everything in except for the TEMED and go to do other work while my lowers finish up. Being the super-intelligent person that I am, after my lowers finished up and I had poured off the water and pipette the upper before realizing that I had totally forgotten the TEMED. Take 3 everything went alright, but I'm not just talking about this awful gel day, I'm going to rant about ALL awful gel days. So if you're a leaky, cob-webbed, awfully formed gel with an upper too small for the combs, and a lower too low to look normal, I hate you.

<-Gel from Hell. Also not mine. (I promise I'll start taking my own pics soon)

Since I'm complaining, I might as well tell my nose how much  I hate it when it decides to get itchy while I'm working in the bio-safety cabinet. It's like "Bro, I know you're working, but can you scratch me?" and it only happens when I'm otherwise occupied doing other things such as working with things that I'd rather not get on my face. Kind of like my jerk immune system that decided to take a break during the weekend where I had the most work to do, like my nose, they see me being busy as an opportunity to go rogue.

In the spirit of what I was taught, it's time to appreciate the little things in life that make your day... like when you have just enough reagent to complete an experiment or just enough loading dye or media so you don't have to make anymore today. Here's to the little things that don't go wrong, the gels that aren't from the pit of hell, the cells that accept the plasmids you transfect, and things that don't explode unless you're around to see it. Also, doing my first legit experiments. It's exciting. Yay science!

Saved by the System

You know that awkward moment when you accidentally transfer your Western gel to a piece of filter paper as opposed to the nitrocellulose? Yeah, I experienced that today of all days, which happened to be the day of a demo that we were having for a new type of Western reader.

 <-- Not Mine

The good news is, due to poor package handling on the part of a packaging/mailing service that I will not name, the demo did not happen. Apparently the reader was not only broken a few days earlier by said service, but did not arrive at the supposed destination today. How they broke equipment in specialized packaging that was meant to be able to drop 4 feet and survive and labeled fragile, I do not know. With that said, I do not really care, I just thank the universe for doing me a favor.

They Say a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words.

Being an undergrad requires that I learn a lot of stuff before I can be remotely effective in the lab... being a Freshman means that i have to learn A LOT of stuff before I can be remotely effective in lab. This week my grad student has started giving me papers to read about the specific proteins we are studying and the system and pathways in which they operate.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I don't think this picture can quite accurately represent how daunting it is to see these approximately 30 papers in front of me. I'm excited to finally begin learning about the system more so than just working on technique and I don't have to read them all quickly. However, knowing that I am at some point going to get through them all is both exciting and a little nerve wracking because I know that, especially at first, that I am going to have to look things up to understand it, which will require me to look things up to understand those things and so on and so on. Well, I have to go become more acquainted with CIITA and my list of things I want to do before I turn 18. Happy Science-ing!

I lied...again

This is a picture from the lab building. I was walking in the other day to print something and this just struck me. In all honesty, this was the first sunrise I've ever watched. I've seen them, but I've never just sat there and looked at one and even though some of the city was in the way, it was still a beautiful experience. I also feel as though it is representative of what I've been feeling for the last few days. I've been feeling better about the position that I'm in as far as life goes. I'm 17 in a great lab with great people and I'm learning A LOT.

I've also been looking for a good format for this blog, but I haven't really been comfortable with anything that I've tried so far, but I've been inspired by The Sugar Scientist (a blog) to start chronicling my undergraduate life and the problems that I've been having and just my thoughts. I think this one will actually work out, but we'll have to see how it goes. I'm excited for this and I hope you all are as well. I will post regularly, but on no schedule, contrary to what I said in the last post. Cheers!

A Little Bit of a Change and a lot of Science

I've decided that I'm going to start moving this blog in a less personal direction and start covering events in the news that relate to... well... girls, cars, and science. Mostly science, but the other 2 will of course be included. I still planning on doing My Life of Science Part 2, however, a few months ago, I took a big step and I feel as though it wouldn't be right to write Part 2 without more experience. That big step?

The Big Step- Yes, it does need its own title. 

In early August, I got my first lab job at an Immunology lab at Georgia State University. It is a very exciting time for me and as I said earlier, this experience is something that I think is essential to describe in Part 2 along with my internship from last year. This means that My Life of Sciences Part 2 will be a ways off.

This is the real post promising to post more from now on. I've included a bit into my schedule and I will start posting on Tuesday, Thursdays, and Saturdays. 

Thank you for your support and I will try my best to deliver. 

My life of Science: Part 1

I've been thinking a lot today about my future and with that, comes a lot of thought about my past. This is a more personal post about my science history and my constantly developing interest in the biological fields.

My first real experience with science occurred at the American Museum of Natural History. I was in kindergarten and we were on a field trip to the museum and at the time, I didn't really care for anything. I was the typical kindergartener, field trips were fun, science was pretty cool because it apparently made things explode, school was fun, and I couldn't focus to save my life. In saying that, I really had no idea what I wanted to be. Most kids probably think about something like Rock star or firefighter or whatever their parents do, but if you were to ask me, I would tell you that I had no idea.

Anyways, at the museum there was a point where I just wandered off. Well, more accurately, i got left behind. One of the exhibits attracted my attention and when I went to move on, I realized that in my absent-mindedness, I hadn't kept up with the group. The most terrifying feeling as a 5-year-old is being left alone in some giant place with no one there to really help you. You're not supposed to talk to strangers and besides, you might get in trouble for it anyway. My solution was to wander around and hopefully find one of the teachers from my school and one of the classes. Walking around the museum, I stumbled into the dinosaur exhibits... and I was absolutely amazed. These really really big bones of these really really big lizards that lived a really really really long time ago. Long story short, I temporarily gave up on my search for my class and just appreciated the remnants of these beasts, trying to pronounce the complicated names. I eventually found another classroom and made my way back to my class, but my brief journey in the museum wasn't important. The most significant thing I got out of that experience was the seed of curiosity which would later grow into a love for science.

Even though I had focused my attention on Paleontology, over the next few years I would gain a passion and appreciation for science as a whole. I would read as much as I could from the school library, taking pride in pronouncing the names for the librarians when they would ask me how to pronounce "Icthyosaurus" and "Deinonychus". When I ran out of books on dinosaurs, I began to look at astronomy and at some point I began to read about spiders and reptiles. When I was in about 3rd grade, my interests became much more physical. It started with bug catchers, catching random spiders, trying to identify them using books from the public library. When I was 7 or 8, my parents bought me a tarantula, he was named after my best friend at the time, Jamari. The same year, for my birthday, I got my first telescope. Some of my best childhood memories involve bringing the tarantula to school with me for a short time, telling the class about it or staying out with my mother, looking at the moon or mars when it came close enough. 

Throughout the next few years, I would get more powerful telescopes. When I was 10 or 11, I got my first microscope and I would continue to read and learn as much as I could about science. 

 

From the time in that museum, up until the beginning of 8th grade, I fully intended on becoming a paleontologist. For the first 3 or 4 of those years, I would tell my parents how I planned to live in a mobile home and just go on digs looking for bones, maybe discover new species. However, as I got older, particularly in 8th grade, I thought how I would like to have a family one day and how the traveling would affect my family. This was not the primary reason for me pulling away from Paleontology, but one of my rationalizations. The main reason was the addition of a new activity to science club at my middle school, the F1 in Schools team. The main goal of the competition was to design and market cars created using CAD (Computer Aided Design) software and I was the designer. I had to make the car as fast as possible and it forced me to do a significant amount of research in the field of aeronautics. We placed second in the state competition and went on to nationals in Florida, which I must admit, was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Although after that, my interests once again changed, it is something that I will never forget and it's an opportunity that I hope many others will enjoy. 

I feel as though I need to come to a resting place for tonight's post. I will finish this up within the next few days, hopefully tomorrow. I hope this has been enjoyable so far, if so, I will try to have part 2 up as soon as possible. I feel as though my high school science career is just as interesting, if not more so. 

This was the last car I designed for the F1 in Schools competition. Nationals at Denver , CO in 2009, my 9th grade year. 

To be continued...

Higgs Boson

For those of you who haven't heard, the Higgs Boson discovery was announced yesterday by CERN scientists. Stated as simply as possible, the Higgs Boson Particle is the particle that gives all other particles their mass, which is a big deal. The particle was theorized to exist by Mr. Peter Higgs in the 1960's and approximately 50 years later, the elusive particle has been found by science.

The media popularly refers to the Higgs Boson as the "God-particle", which has many people offended. Throughout the past 24 or so hours, I've seen various individuals arguing that science is attempting to disprove god and this kind of research should be "condemned" and so on. Statements like these make me quite sad as the goal of science is not to disprove religion or anything even close, but the goal of science it to understand our world and disproving religion is not even on the list of the problems that scientists have to tackle. If you choose to understand yourself and find meaning in your world through religion, that is your choice and it's just that, a choice. This type of choice cannot be right or wrong, it's just how you choose to live your life. At the same time, I expect the same level of respect from you in that I am allowed to seek enlightenment through science.

Also, the announcement was made in Comic Sans, which makes it awesome.

What has School Done to Me?

Being summer break and all, I should be doing nothing. I should be relaxing, sleeping all day, and playing video games. However, I find myself doing being productive. Today I went to the library and checked out a book on bacteria... to learn!! It's awful I know, but I can't help it. During the school year when I don't work I get this overwhelming feeling of guilt and it has bled over into my summer. On the bright side, I don't feel like a lazy bum, but at the same time I feel as though I should be slacking off. Ah well. Bacteria are cool anyway.

In Other News

For those who do not know, through careful observation, I have determined a surprisingly large amount of people who drive Infinities are meany-pants(es?). On the way to the Library, I was telling my sister about how Infiniti drivers had earphones in while the drove, cut people of relentlessly, and had a tendency to take up like 12 spots when they parked. When we get to the library, what do we see?

I have to admit, it's a really nice car. Parking job? Not so much. 

Science!

In addition to my other productiveness, I tried to do an analysis of the genetics of bending from Avatar: The Last Air Bender and The Legend of Korra. I was disappointed with the results. Due to the carelessness (most likely probably literally not even caring), there actually are no genetic patterns.

 <== Not Mine. 

That is all for today and I hope everyone is having an amazing life.  

Rant on stuff

Sometimes something unexpected happens and it grows on you. You're happy, things are new, things are nice, and nothing can take that away from you. That is, until something actually does.  Motivated by either heartbreak or anger, you work and you get it back. It might take days, it might take weeks, it might take months, but however long it takes it's well worth it because you worked for it. You try to hold on to it. Not too loosely or it might fall and not too tightly or it might slip out of your hands. The truth is, few things last forever. Enjoy your experiences, but don't dwell on them. Don't lament your loses, but celebrate the new opportunities. You're allowed to miss it, to reminisce, but you're also obligated to move on. Live life, learn lessons, have fun. If it's the worst thing that will ever happen to you... you're probably in good shape.

Long Live the Blog!

So I have decided that I'm going to actually start using this. If someone reads it at this point, you get to hear the awfully amazing randomness that is Ronald Shanderson. I didn't think of anything for today, so my rantings will happen tomorrow morning =D. I was thinking about starting a vlog... hmm... Good Night all.