Finally hit the 1hr mark of continuous rowing. 13.6km. 1104 Calories burned. Let’s see if I can keep this up….
Category: Event Log
A new year, a new semester, a “new” rotation….so much has changed in the past few weeks.
Brought 2010 to a crazy close with finals due two days before christmas and then spent the next 48 hours in transit from St. Louis through DC/Baltimore to Connecticut.
As has been our yearly tradition, we joined up with my mom’s sister and her family for christmas. From enjoying amazing food made from scratch by my aunt and playing in the snow, it was definitely a merry time of celebration.
An extra bonus for our return to MD was a stop by this Japanese Market in NJ. I know there’s a high chance that the food I had wasn’t as good as if it would have been if prepared in Japan, but this was the best bowl of ramen I have ever had. Pork belly, spicy miso soup base, black fungus, green onions, bamboo shoots, and sesame seeds in the soup….all for a decent price and very filling meal.
(I know I was stupid in not taking a picture of the stuff before mixing it up, but this still gives a good hint of how awesome the meal was)
Then came the most exciting part of the year: picking up my little brother from the airport as he returned from his semester abroad at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. It has been somewhat maddening this past fall not being able to “randomly” pick up the phone and call him or not being able to IM him without considering the drastic time zone differences.
Oh, and did I mention him bringing back all these goodies from Hong Kong? Yea, we like our foods.
For the actual transition into the New Years, we celebrated it with another branch of my mom’s family. No joke, the story behind this discovery is one of serendipity and joy. To rapidly shorten the story, one of my dad’s colleagues turned out to be a close cousin from my mom’s maternal side of her family. So we had a traditional dinner celebrating the winter holidays: chinese Hot Pot (火鍋, or 打邊爐 as we cantonese people like to call it).
Not the hot pot, but the appetizer that we had out before starting the dinner.
Here it is. Not as epic as the thanksgiving set-up I put up earlier, but still a very hearty meal.
After the actual toasting as the ball dropped, my family watched a movie together on Netflix. All I’ll say is that the movie we watched is a solid reminder for lab safety and vigilance (opening a centrifuge as it’s just about to stop and reaching in while it’s still in motion is a BAD idea).
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So now I’m back in St. Louis at my new lab working in familiar territory but with a different focus and new protocols. Getting ready for classes that should be “easier” this semester and a very fun recruiting season. Hopefully more thoughtful posts to come soon.
This weekend marks the second homecoming I’ve been to as an alumnus of a school. Once for my high school, and now once (possibly the first of more to come) for my undergraduate school. It was a great weekend. It was also something I needed greatly.
(PS: I know you all aren’t here in this pic and that I didn’t see you this weekend. Still, brings back memories.)
For the past two months at graduate school I have been missing my old friends, roommates, and colleagues from my undergraduate career. Through all the time that we spent together, it hurt (and hurts) that I couldn’t see them in so long. This weekend was a very refreshing time to see my old friends once more briefly. Let’s start a recount of the weekend, eh?
First, was able to enjoy a meal of St. Louis’ Pi pizza before departing the city. It’s not chicago deep dish, but it’s a good runner up in my opinion. Drove (though more chauffered) five hours with my fellow Vanderbilt alum to Nashville under what was one of the more beautiful drives I have made. After arriving in Nashville, hightailed it to the AACF large group/potluck that evening. Perfect place for a homecoming gathering. There I met some new people, but also had a chance to reconnect with many of my younger brothers and sisters and a few unexpected (but very welcome) friends. It was quite something being able to see many of you, though it definitely wasn’t long enough. Afterwards, met up with more friends and then proceeded to head as a group to a local Nashville bar. Mind you, this friday was probably one of the better weekends to go since most people in the city were probably at Vanderbilt for the fall concert (Quake). There, we had some good conversations over a few beers before heading back to grab my stuff before I turned in for the night.
Saturday was quite a restful day. Spent most of it with one of my old roommates getting some chores done but also had time to hang out with other friends (including getting some bubble tea). Later, cooked some chicken and other things while we “watched” the homecoming game with friends. Sadly…Vandy football burned their advantages during the second half, loosing opportunities to score and defend. Oh well, there’s always another game, and more seasons to come. I highly doubt that Vandy football will lose funding anytime soon. Met up with one of my old friends who’s now at VUSoM. Heh, I can empathize with his pain and workload of studying. Later that night, hung out with my old suite (different place from where we lived the year before) and enjoyed some good conversations with my brothers. I really miss being able to sit and chat at the end of a day with close friends (this will probably change within the next year). Just before a few of us went to sleep, three of us had a moment where we prayed together like we did earlier this year. Having that opportunity was a blessing I’ve been needing for a while.
Sunday was both welcome and sad. Went to my old church in Nashville, though I couldn’t stay for the entire time. It was good seeing old faces and new at my old church. Met up with more friends over coffee. The rest of the afternoon was fairly relaxing, though the clouds reflected my mood a bit. The drive back was actually a bit more interesting with traffic coming to a standstill because of an accident. From the little I saw as I drived by, the roof of a SUV was cut off to extract the passengers (who may have been airlifted to the local hospital). The rest of the drive was uneventful and quite relaxing. In the final approach to St. Louis, the night sky was being lit up with lightning bolts. In a way, a fitting end to a satisfying weekend.
Okay, I’ve taken enough time to write this up and pull photos from things I’ve taken in the past. Time to wash up and get crackin’ on that homework…(yes. there’s homework in grad school for those of you who thought you’ll escape more homework by going to grad school).
I know I haven’t been posting here for a while, but I’ve been trying to keep up with classes, reading, and labwork.
It definitely has been a fun few weeks in class and also many fun social events. Let’s get the academic stuff out of the way, shall we?
Lab so far has been both enjoyable and frustrating. It’s really interesting working in another lab of mostly asian post docs and an asian PI. To give you some brief info, the lab has been working on characterizing the neurons dedicated to carrying the itch sensation (separate from the neurons carrying pain as previously hypothesized in literature). It’s a completely new area that I’m starting to familiarize myself with (reading background literature and doing google searches). However, it is frustrating to learn new techniques that don’t seem to be working even though I’ve been following all protocols to the dot. I hope next week can bring a change to this.
Classes have been getting more and more enjoyable than when they started. Most of the information I’ve been hearing in class is review and I’m getting used to the pacing of the class. Each class also has a discussion section where we review, present, and critique current literature (the oldest paper we’ve criticized so far has been march 2010 to my recollection). With each paper come new challenges from learning how to ask critical questions regarding some of the scientific principles behind the rationale to the format and to the style of writing. I think I’m getting the hang of it. Hopefully I can further improve this ability to scrutinize and decipher other people’s work (some of which look and feel like a foreign language at a first glance).
Socially, it’s been very fun. Two weekends ago, there were a whole number of festivals in St. Louis. I went to the Greek, Blues music, and Japanese festivals (in that order) over the course of two days. Besides enjoying company with newly acquainted friends and friends from afar, it was fun seeing these festivals and seeing the people there. Here’s a quick recap of the three:
Greek Festival
It was fun to have the food there, but I also had on good word from a trustworthy source that they toned down the spices used for many of the dishes. That was saddening, but it was still worth it to hang out with an old friend.
Blues Festival
It was cool listening to all the live blues groups play (and it’s a very wide variety of styles too).
Japanese Festival
Actually spent my entire afternoon here. It was fun walking around the botanical gardens with friends and seeing different aspects of Japan’s culture at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens (which I have a free membership to as a grad student).
So concludes that recap. Now back to labwork and science!
“Brewing espresso…unlike other methods of brewing coffee…IS rocket science…”
– Kevin Knox and Julie Sheldon Huffaker ‘Coffee Basics: A Quick and Easy Guide’
This past week has been quite a start to the next phase of my life. A quick recap of the past few days:
08/15
I moved into my dorm at my school six days ago with the help of my dad. After moving most of my items from my car to my room, we grabbed dinner with my dad’s college friend at a local chinese restaurant, which actually was very good to my surprise. The 乾炒牛河 (beef chow fun for you english readers) temporarily took me back to Hong Kong in my mind. A very good first day and introduction to this city.
08/16
Finished not only moving everything up into my room, but also got necessary supplies for my room (lamp, bed risers, mini fridge…). Set up I estimated to be 90% complete. Dropped off my dad at the Metrolink stop and then rushed to a meeting then a small presentation for the fish labs. Then went back to my room to finish putting everything in my room where it should be.
08/17
Just continued to set up my dorm room. Met up with two fellow Vandy alum and grabbed more chinese food. St. Louis really is a good place for chinese food. This time grabbed some more mandarin style foods, but had some dim-sum dishes as well. Let’s just say I’ll be heading out there for lunch on the weekends…
08/18
The start of our pre-orientation seminars. I was able to meet more of my fellow first years (who are from all over the country). The two seminars presented some tips on how to be a successful graduate student with a student panel. Then we had a small miniature lecture on Notch signaling that gave us a good idea of how fast and how in depth the lectures will be. I think that’ll be fun! Later, we went to a local bar and grabbed some food to munch while getting to know one another.
08/19
Met up with a different professor, who may be a good lab that I can do my first rotation in. We’ll see how this pans out. Day two of the pre-orientation seminars. This time, we had a seminar on scientific writing and then one on time management. From the scientific writing seminar…I am finally free to use the same word repeatedly in a sentence (mind you it refers to a specific subject like hamster =! small mammal)!!! And the time management seminar was helpful in getting us to think about how to structure and break down our days. Grabbed dinner again with two vandy alum and went back to show them the chinese restaurant I had on sunday. Soo good…
08/20
By far the craziest and most fun of days. Grabbed a quick lunch with a HS buddy who I haven’t seen in AGES. Then finished up with a seminar on public speaking and then a small course on what’s expected of us during graduate schools. Oh, and in between the seminars a bunch of us went up to the penthouse level in my dorm to play some pool. Afterwards, we went to a blues bar to listen to some live music, which was very enjoyable with the company. Then comes more of the memory making. It started to pour rain down while we were there and it didn’t seem to let up. Unfortunately we were cutting it close to the last metrolink train back to central west end. Thus we decided to run through the rain and ended up being thoroughly soaked. To make matters worse, the westbound metrolink was being delayed due to a power out and they couldn’t give us a time approximating how soon the train will be coming. In the end, we got on the train twenty minutes past the last scheduled westbound train was supposed to leave. And thus ended my day. Well…not before I had a bowl of ramen (the 出前一丁 brand) to warm me up and fill my stomach.
08/21
And so we reach today. Spent some time at the Soulard Farmer’s market. T’was a very fun experience. Got all the snacks and vegetables I need for the next week or so for less than 10 dollars! wrote most of this post, then went out to check a used bike sale, and then went to explore some of the asian markets on Olive street. And now here we are.
What to make of all this? It’s been a crazy week trying to:
1.) learn and adjust to living in the center of a city like St. Louis
2.) figure my daily schedule out
3.) prepare myself mentally and (hopefully) physically for the rigors in the few years to come
4.) reach out and find new friends in this community of scientists, scholars, and students.
Well, signing off. I’ve spent enough time working on this. Now to wash and dry my clothes. Peace out. Hopefully I’ll find something more interesting to post here next time.
Journeying.... 