Monday 7/2

On Monday morning I drove back to Skidmore and met with Bernie and Nicole at ten.  I brought Nicole around the lab, showed her around, and told her the jist of my research projects.  I also introduced her to Bah and had him explain his research to her.  Then Bernie arrived, and he met with us and discussed possible research projects for Nicole to do.  Eventually she decided on doing a nesting experiment with the lead mice and the BTBR mice.  I will be helping her with it throughout the course of the five weeks.  It’s a nice fun little experiment and it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Nicole went to class and I went to lunch, and after her class and a much needed nap we headed back to the lab to do mouse inventory.  We needed to figure out how many mice Nicole could use for her experiment while still having enough to put in the running wheels for the second half of the lead mice.  So it ended up being a lottttt of mouse counting.

The task was too much for one day, so we headed for dinner and left the rest for the next morning.

And that was my exciting Monday!  It doesn’t seem like a lot on paper, but trust me, it was exhausting!

Saturday 6/30 & Sunday 7/1

**Sorry about the really long delay on this week’s posts!  This was a really busy week and a half (as you will soon learn) and I’m trying to catch up with my posts.  Hopefully I won’t leave out much! Thanks for reading!**

Saturday was a really big day!  I had to wake up super early in order to get to the bus to NYC on time.  Even so, we were some of the last people on the bus, so none of us got to sit by each other.  Cody and I sat across from each other, but Nikki, Jordan, Jill and Kelly were kind of far apart.  But it didn’t matter, because we were headed to NEW YORK CITY!

The bus ride was only about 3 hours long, and it went by pretty quickly, although I got a little bus-sick as per usual.  We arrived right outside of the Fashion Institute, where Nikki and I posed with Barbie.

After that, we all took a potty break and decided to walk around a bit before we met up with Nikki’s friend Cynthia.  Once we got Cynthia from the train station, we went to Times Square and walked around a lot.  It was really really hot!  Cody and I split off from the group and went out to lunch at this random Italian place we stumbled upon.  We had the best pizza ever!

Later we met up with the rest of our group and we went to Central Park.  It was really fun, despite the heat.  We got to go to Strawberry Fields, which was my favorite part of the trip.

Here’s Cody and I at the memorial for John Lennon

We also saw a big fountain and walked around the park a lot.  For dinner, we all went to this really good falafel place where I tried falafel for the first time and had the most delicious hummus I have ever tasted.  Before we knew it, it was time to go home.  When we were getting on the bus I spotted Nicole, my friend from school that was to be working in my lab with me.  It was so coincidental that we met up!  Overall, we had a great trip and I had lots of fun!

Here’s all of us, minus Cynthia

On Sunday, my legs were exhausted from all of the walking around.  My parents went on a trip to Oneida Lake, so I was all alone.  Cody came over to spend time with me for a while and then we went to my grandma’s house to visit.  Later we went to Cody’s house for dinner and then I went back home and got a good night’s rest for my trip back to Skidmore.

Friday 6/29

This morning I woke up and was so relieved as I had stayed up late working on my poster and I was finally done!  I packed up my stuff to go home for the weekend and then I went to the dining hall to eat.  Soon afterwards I headed off to the lab, where Bernie and I went over my final poster and tweaked it a little.  And shortly after I left and arrived home!

It was nice to see my cat daisy and my family.  We had some yummy pizza for dinner and Cody came over too.  Then Cody and I picked up our friends Nik and Rose to go to the movies.  It was Rose’s last night in gloversville because she is moving away. I’ll miss her!

We saw the movie “Ted” and I thought it was horrible.

It had its funny moments but as a whole it was not good at all.  Cody, on the other hand, loved it. Of course.

But regardless of the movie quality we had a nice night out and it was nice to see Rose one last time.  We went home and then got all ready to go to New York City!!! Yay!!

Thursday 6/28

This morning I had to go to the summer research halfway point meeting with all the students doing summer research.  I had to get up really early (for me) and take a shower and get ready and stuff beforehand.  And when I got there I found there were scones and coffee and such.  We mixed ourselves up and I purposely sat at a table where I didn’t know a single person.  We all got to talking and everyone had some really interesting research.  Our table had a really diverse subject matter–every kind of research from microfluidics to math modeling to tapestry weaving.  I ended up making a friend from my table, a senior named Jen, and I sat with her and her research partner at lunch.  They were both really nice and friendly.

After lunch I headed back to the lab to show Bernie all the hard work I did on my poster.  He gave me a few suggestions but overall thought it was very good.  I still have a lot of work to do though! I hope to finish it by tomorrow.  Bernie showed me how to create a composite actogram so I could show the average activity for a specific group.  I made those and then printed them out. Bernie had to meet with another professor so I decided that I would work outside.  I grabbed my computer and sat in an adirondack chair next to the library.

 

When I got too hot I went inside and worked some more.  I took a break to have a popsicle too!

So by the time I wrote this post, I have my poster almost finished.  I just have to finish writing my discussion/conclusion and I’m golden.  It was so much work but definitely worth it. Now I’m just excited for the weekend!!!!

Wednesday 6/27

The first exciting thing to happen today was journal club.  I didn’t my hands on the article until 10 minutes before it started so I didn’t get a chance to read more than the abstract, but I learned a lot from the presentation.  The paper and the presentation discussed the use of zebrafish as model organisms to study fetal alcohol syndrome and the effects of ethanol on the development of zebrafish.  It was really interesting, plus we got to have journal club in a room I never knew existed filled with cages and tanks containing fish, birds, and lizards.

After journal club ended I went to the lab and discussed a bunch of stuff with Bernie.  Turns out next week we are getting a new student researcher for the rest of the summer and I get to teach her about circadian rhythms and stuff.  And furthermore, it turns out I already know her.  Her name is Nicole and she was in my freshman seminar.  That’s pretty fun news.

To familiarize her with circadian rhythms, we may have a little fun with actiwatches, little wristband “watches” that you wear to find out your own circadian rhythm.  I’m so excited at the prospect of creating my very own actogram!!! I’m such a nerd.

I haven’t seen them yet, but I think these are the actiwatches!

After I met with Bernie I decided to get started with my poster for the BTBR mice, considering all the data is already analyzed.  I am wayyy to ambitious though, I got on a roll and I’ve been working on it for at least 6 or 7 hours.  I have the intro planned out, and the methods and results nearly done already. I’m so tired, and I have a busy day tomorrow.  Sorry for the shortness of this post, but it’s time for bed.  Goodnight!

Tuesday 6/26

Today was a pretty normal day, despite the far from normal weather.  It was chilly out today, at least compared with the weather we have been used to having.  I woke up in time for breakfast, which I guess was a bit unusual, but that’s about it.

After breakfast I went to the lab and started analyzing the data.  I analyzed the lead LD data and the BTBR DD data.  It ended up taking pretty much all day.  I took breaks for lunch and dinner, and I eventually finished it all.  All the actograms were printed and the statistics were analyzed.  We decided to put the BTBRs in LL, so technically I won’t be completely done with that experiment for at least another 10 days.

So for the rest of the week I’ll just be working on posters and such.  And trying to find a quiet place to work on campus.  There are a bunch of kids on campus for a variety of camps hosted on campus.  So hopefully I will be able to work somewhere that isn’t my room or the lab without a lot of noise and distraction.  That’s all for today, thanks for reading!

Monday 6/25

This morning I got up and thought everything would go smoothly.  I planned to get back to Skidmore around 1.  Of course I should know that my plans never work out.

I did some laundry right when I woke up, but then Cody came over and I couldn’t help but just relax with him.  Cody made me some really delicious french toast, and I folded laundry.  Then it started to look nasty outside.  Mother nature did not want me to get back to school on time.  My mom wanted me to wait until the storm passed until I left, so it looked like I would be stuck home for a while.  Cody had to go home unexpectedly and I was left to pack up my stuff.  Once I was ready to leave, I realized I couldn’t do so.

I had left my wallet with Cody the day before, and I needed it back before I could go to Skidmore because it had my SkidCard in it, my key to my dormroom.  So I was delayed yet again because I had to make a trip up to Bleeker to get my wallet.

Eventually, I finally got to Skidmore.  I went straight to the lab and started analyzing the data for the lead mice’s LD cycle.  Luckily, the computer we use to collect data has a backup power supply, because there was a scheduled maintenance power outage.  The Dana Science Center has a backup generator too, so at least I was able to work on the computers during it.  After I had completed the long and boring process of converting 32 files, Bernie and I realized that we accidentally cut off a day’s worth of data.  What does that mean? It means I had to do it all over again.  What a pain in the butt that was.

Tomorrow morning I am going to finish analyzing all the data.  Wish me luck!

Graduation Weekend (6/22-6/24)

This was just about the busiest weekend ever.

Friday afternoon I drove home for the weekend.  When I got home, I hung out with Cody and some of his friends for a while, and then when my mom got out of work I went home to spend some time with her.  Later I invited my friend Mary Grace over and we had a lot of fun catching up.  We ordered pizza and Cody met up with us for dinner.  After I brought Mary Grace home, I went to Cody’s house and we watched The Best of Chris Farley.  Good thing Cody’s graduating high school so he doesn’t have to end up living in a van down by the river.

You’re gonna be doing a lot of doobie rolling when you’re living in a van down by the river!

Then Saturday was Cody’s Graduation!  I am so proud of Cody and all he has accomplished.  He graduated first in his class, was president of his class all four years, and won the Principal’s award, one of GHS’s highest honors.  Cody’s valedictorian speech was great, even though he didn’t mention me in it enough (or at all 😛 ).

I’m so proud of him!

After graduation I went out to lunch with Cody’s family and then we took a break before we headed off to Cody’s friend Zach’s graduation party.  We had a long ride ahead of us (3 hours there and back) but Cody and I enjoyed ourselves in the car singing our heads off, making jokes about town names we passed along the way, and talking a lot.  We had a lot of fun at the party too.  There was great food and we really enjoyed ourselves.

On Sunday our day was even crazier.  We had four graduation parties to go to.  We went to Cody’s teammate Matt’s party first, then headed over to our friend Stephanie’s party.  It was nice seeing people at both parties that I haven’t seen in a while.  We had to stop back up at Cody’s house and then we went to our friend Armondo’s party, where a lot of Cody’s friends were found lurking about…

Lastly, we went to our friend Courtney’s party at the lake.  We had a lot of fun even though we got there as the party was winding down.  We hung out on the beach and everyone had a lot of fun.  Plus we buried Angela.

I ended up having an amazing weekend home, and I didn’t want to leave.  But alas, I arrived safely at Skidmore on Monday afternoon.  But more on that later…

Thursday 6/21

This morning I finally got up early enough for breakfast in d-hall!  Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything especially good, so I grabbed a muffin and headed back to my room to read some journal articles.

When lunchtime came along, I went to d-hall and luckily they had my favorite chicken quesadillas. Yum!  After lunch I went straight to the lab and checked on the mice, re-ran some more statistics, and talked with Bernie.  We decided to breed more BTBR mice for the school year, so we paired up males and females in new cages and got them all set up.

After that, Cody arrived on campus and I went to meet him.  He was hungry so we went to the Spa to get him a sandwich and I got to introduce him to some of the people I work with for work study during the school year.  Then we went back to my room and tried to keep cool while we waited to meet Cody’s sister at the mall.

Cody’s sister Nicki and I went around shopping for a dress for her to wear to Cody’s graduation.  Eventually she found a really cute dress and we had a lot of fun shopping around and looking at clothes.  But I don’t think Cody enjoyed it too much…  It’s okay though, he found a Buddy Holly CD and a movie to buy, so it wasn’t a total waste for him.  Plus, we all kept cool.

After we came back from the mall, Cody and I went to Dairy Haus, an ice cream shop right aroud the corner from Skidmore.  It was the first time I had ever been there but I was really impressed.  I got a cone of homemade chocolate almond ice cream and it was absolutely delicious.  It was just what I needed on such a hot day.

Melty, but delicious.

Tomorrow I’m headed back home for Cody’s graduation, so I might not be able to keep up my posts, but thanks for reading!

Wednesday 6/20

This morning I used every internal excuse in the book to keep me in my room all morning, because it was HOT!  I mean, it was hot in my room, but it was at least 15 degrees warmer and sunny outside.  So I became a shut-in for the morning so I wouldn’t want to die of heat at the end of the day.  I read and found journal articles, cleaned my room, and did pretty much anything productive I could think of that I could do inside.  When I finally did venture outside for need of nourishment, I walked out the door and the heat hit me like a wave.  I got lunch and then headed over to the lab.

I leafed through the statistics that we had prepared the day before and started analyzing them, looking for significant data.  Then I went over what I had found with Bernie, and we realized that we needed to check to see if any of the wheels had been double counting so the data would be more accurate.  After some fiddling around in the dark room, we realized that some were, and one was even triple counting.  So that meant we had to edit all the data and re-run all the statistics.  But once that was done, we were done for the day.  I headed back to my room and waited for Cody, who was in Saratoga for the day for a job interview.

Cody and I hung out in my room for a bit (in the cool) until we were hungry for dinner.  We went to Friday’s and had a really yummy meal and a fun time.  After dinner, Cody had to go home and I watched tv for a while and just relaxed after a long day.  And that’s about it, thanks for reading!