of sun burns
I've finally thrown in the towel.
Despite all the gross sunscreen that I slab on myself every time I swim or run, I am finally sun burned. Like burned burned. I got really excited the past few days because the weather's been so awesome so I keep going to the pool or the hills to run. Plus it gives me an excuse not to do homework or anything that requires me to lift a finger (literally), such as replying to emails. Today, we learned how to rescue drowning victims in the pool that have head, neck or spine injuries. We were warned that it was difficult, but everyone was like nah how bad can it be. Well, it's really PRETTY COMPLICATED. I felt like I was some kind of acrobatic swimmer, diving in and out and twisting myself into weird positions to try to hold the victim's head while moving them on a backboard. After 2 hours in the sun, my face is now visibly red despite the tan I put on the past weeks and I have to hide in my freaking hot apartment to stay out of the sun.
Aaarrggh.... Never mind. I will only save cute people in the future if I ever become a professional lifeguard (ok, the odds of me becoming one is ridiculously low but obama talked about the audacity to hope, right?)
Actually, I've been working on some pretty cool stuff. Last week, I actually learned about antibiotic resistance in my pathogenesis class. When it comes to a topic like this, we all think we know everything about it. I mean, come on, bacteria are becoming resistant to our antibiotics. Period. What else is there to learn? Plus I've always been biased. I see infectious agents as something that I would like to fight with the immune system, so I've never really understood them outside the context of immunology. Julie was describing to us simple stuff like how antibiotics typically lose efficacy in a few years, and then she started describing the mechanisms of resistance, which really wowed me (those bacteria really know their stuff), and how every new antibiotic we develop is doomed to be useless really quickly, especially with different strains of bacteria mating and exchanging their resistance genes. I think the magnitude of the problem only hit me when she described the study that "added insult to injury": apparently, some bacteria can now not only survive in antibiotics, but they can even METABOLIZE the antibiotics for their own energy needs! OMFG! Isn't that depressing? I feel like our world is really coming to an end soon, and thank god ellen degeneres and her really hot girlfriend are getting married because I feel like there is still some hope left and did you guys watch ellen's interview of mcCain? (I thought I was going to cry... ok, I know big boys don't cry, courtesy of fergie the duchess)
Anyway, for my project proposal, I've decided to study how sexual behavior affects immune functions. David had us read a paper in which male flies that were mated to multiple female flies tended to succumb to bacterial infections more quickly, as compared to non-mated male flies. The group also demonstrated that this is not a "resource" issue, since providing an excess of food did not negate this phenomenon at all. So, I thought it would be a good idea to dissect the molecular mechanisms that control this loss in immune function, and presumably it would have some kind of weird repercussions on humans (imagine me going on tv telling people not to have sex if they think they might be falling sick, which by the way is different from having sex if you think you are sick already since that's detrimental to your partner) and I could maybe sell some stupid pills that counter sex-induced-loss-of-immunity which I reckon would become a bestseller overnight (though I would really prefer to solve the hair balding problem for half the human population first) and I would be as rich as Bill Gates and I would quit grad school and hire my professors to work for me while I go swimming everyday...
Ok, enough babbling. Gonna skip my genetics class tomorrow and go to some beach in santa cruz hopefully. WOO HOO!
P.S. Happy wedding to ya Pp! Wish I could be there!
Despite all the gross sunscreen that I slab on myself every time I swim or run, I am finally sun burned. Like burned burned. I got really excited the past few days because the weather's been so awesome so I keep going to the pool or the hills to run. Plus it gives me an excuse not to do homework or anything that requires me to lift a finger (literally), such as replying to emails. Today, we learned how to rescue drowning victims in the pool that have head, neck or spine injuries. We were warned that it was difficult, but everyone was like nah how bad can it be. Well, it's really PRETTY COMPLICATED. I felt like I was some kind of acrobatic swimmer, diving in and out and twisting myself into weird positions to try to hold the victim's head while moving them on a backboard. After 2 hours in the sun, my face is now visibly red despite the tan I put on the past weeks and I have to hide in my freaking hot apartment to stay out of the sun.
Aaarrggh.... Never mind. I will only save cute people in the future if I ever become a professional lifeguard (ok, the odds of me becoming one is ridiculously low but obama talked about the audacity to hope, right?)
Actually, I've been working on some pretty cool stuff. Last week, I actually learned about antibiotic resistance in my pathogenesis class. When it comes to a topic like this, we all think we know everything about it. I mean, come on, bacteria are becoming resistant to our antibiotics. Period. What else is there to learn? Plus I've always been biased. I see infectious agents as something that I would like to fight with the immune system, so I've never really understood them outside the context of immunology. Julie was describing to us simple stuff like how antibiotics typically lose efficacy in a few years, and then she started describing the mechanisms of resistance, which really wowed me (those bacteria really know their stuff), and how every new antibiotic we develop is doomed to be useless really quickly, especially with different strains of bacteria mating and exchanging their resistance genes. I think the magnitude of the problem only hit me when she described the study that "added insult to injury": apparently, some bacteria can now not only survive in antibiotics, but they can even METABOLIZE the antibiotics for their own energy needs! OMFG! Isn't that depressing? I feel like our world is really coming to an end soon, and thank god ellen degeneres and her really hot girlfriend are getting married because I feel like there is still some hope left and did you guys watch ellen's interview of mcCain? (I thought I was going to cry... ok, I know big boys don't cry, courtesy of fergie the duchess)
Anyway, for my project proposal, I've decided to study how sexual behavior affects immune functions. David had us read a paper in which male flies that were mated to multiple female flies tended to succumb to bacterial infections more quickly, as compared to non-mated male flies. The group also demonstrated that this is not a "resource" issue, since providing an excess of food did not negate this phenomenon at all. So, I thought it would be a good idea to dissect the molecular mechanisms that control this loss in immune function, and presumably it would have some kind of weird repercussions on humans (imagine me going on tv telling people not to have sex if they think they might be falling sick, which by the way is different from having sex if you think you are sick already since that's detrimental to your partner) and I could maybe sell some stupid pills that counter sex-induced-loss-of-immunity which I reckon would become a bestseller overnight (though I would really prefer to solve the hair balding problem for half the human population first) and I would be as rich as Bill Gates and I would quit grad school and hire my professors to work for me while I go swimming everyday...
Ok, enough babbling. Gonna skip my genetics class tomorrow and go to some beach in santa cruz hopefully. WOO HOO!
P.S. Happy wedding to ya Pp! Wish I could be there!