home!
Wow, I haven't updated this thing in a while! Last week was incredible exciting as well as stressful, so it's great to be home right now, being pampered (sorta) by my parents. Here's a quick run-down of what I've been up to.
I got a cold this past monday and was feeling pretty crappy--had a sore throat that kept me from sleeping, followed by losing my voice on tues. Fortunately, I had my pharmacy friend to give me meds. So I had to give a talk this past wednesday for my grad class, neurobiology of diseases. The paper that I presented was super interesting--it was about how maternal rat behavior, more specifically, licking and grooming of the pups, can change the DNA methylation status of the pups! Isn't that incredible? External environmental cues can alter permenant changes in the genome! The pups of the more attentive moms grow up to have a more moderate response to stress, and they turn out to be attentive moms themselves. The paper was really cool and I had a great time preparing for the talk. Unforutnately, my post-dinner talk wasn't all that exciting. People were dozing off as usual. And after the first 30 minutes, I stopped caring and basically just started reading what was on the slides.
Then after I got home at 9pm, I started to get a little stressed about my cancer exam the next morning. At that point, I've almsot read the whole syllabus once and haven't committed anything to memory. But then, I decided to study/hangout for a few hours. By midnight, the serious studying has begun. By 2:30 am, i was really tired so i took a 1.5 hour long nap. Waking up at 4am tired, worried, and worst of all, feverish was a miserable expereince. I finally sorta "finished" studying at 5am but felt like I knew nothing. Had a moment of panic when i took the practice test and felt that I still knew nothing, but I was relieved when I actually did fairly well on the practice test. Went to the exam at 8am, got really feverish during the test, but finished in 2 hours. THEN I WAS DONE =) happiness ensued
So I packed and flew back to colorado for my mini-break. It's been a while since I've been home, and it felt great to be back in golden. Not much excitement, but just really great home-cooked meal, my own comfy bed, and the ability to bum around watching tv, reading books, and of course, catching up on glamour =P. I helped my mom make Ma Hua yesterday. Ma Hua are these really yummy chinese pretzels that I LOVE to eat. We made a lot but I kept eating them as I made them. I'm going to bring some back with me to SF to share. Then, I got to see my best friend from home. We hung out, had a really good talk, and caught each other up with our lives. It felt great to share stories with my friend, and just to be there for each other like the good old times.
Oh, I got to watch finding neverland last night and closer this afternoon. Finding neverland was such a great movie, touching, tender, made me laugh, made me cry, and made me believe. I highly recommend. Closer was... cynical, cruel, emotional, sad, bittersweet, and interesting. It was very well-done and the acting made the movie what it is. But the plot was twisted and none of the characters were necessarily redeeming, definitely intriguing though.
Anyways, I'm going to read a little Angels and Demons before I head to bed. More updates later. =)
I got a cold this past monday and was feeling pretty crappy--had a sore throat that kept me from sleeping, followed by losing my voice on tues. Fortunately, I had my pharmacy friend to give me meds. So I had to give a talk this past wednesday for my grad class, neurobiology of diseases. The paper that I presented was super interesting--it was about how maternal rat behavior, more specifically, licking and grooming of the pups, can change the DNA methylation status of the pups! Isn't that incredible? External environmental cues can alter permenant changes in the genome! The pups of the more attentive moms grow up to have a more moderate response to stress, and they turn out to be attentive moms themselves. The paper was really cool and I had a great time preparing for the talk. Unforutnately, my post-dinner talk wasn't all that exciting. People were dozing off as usual. And after the first 30 minutes, I stopped caring and basically just started reading what was on the slides.
Then after I got home at 9pm, I started to get a little stressed about my cancer exam the next morning. At that point, I've almsot read the whole syllabus once and haven't committed anything to memory. But then, I decided to study/hangout for a few hours. By midnight, the serious studying has begun. By 2:30 am, i was really tired so i took a 1.5 hour long nap. Waking up at 4am tired, worried, and worst of all, feverish was a miserable expereince. I finally sorta "finished" studying at 5am but felt like I knew nothing. Had a moment of panic when i took the practice test and felt that I still knew nothing, but I was relieved when I actually did fairly well on the practice test. Went to the exam at 8am, got really feverish during the test, but finished in 2 hours. THEN I WAS DONE =) happiness ensued
So I packed and flew back to colorado for my mini-break. It's been a while since I've been home, and it felt great to be back in golden. Not much excitement, but just really great home-cooked meal, my own comfy bed, and the ability to bum around watching tv, reading books, and of course, catching up on glamour =P. I helped my mom make Ma Hua yesterday. Ma Hua are these really yummy chinese pretzels that I LOVE to eat. We made a lot but I kept eating them as I made them. I'm going to bring some back with me to SF to share. Then, I got to see my best friend from home. We hung out, had a really good talk, and caught each other up with our lives. It felt great to share stories with my friend, and just to be there for each other like the good old times.
Oh, I got to watch finding neverland last night and closer this afternoon. Finding neverland was such a great movie, touching, tender, made me laugh, made me cry, and made me believe. I highly recommend. Closer was... cynical, cruel, emotional, sad, bittersweet, and interesting. It was very well-done and the acting made the movie what it is. But the plot was twisted and none of the characters were necessarily redeeming, definitely intriguing though.
Anyways, I'm going to read a little Angels and Demons before I head to bed. More updates later. =)