Archive for November, 2006
Honorary “excuse” post
Yes, it is true, I haven’t posted in about a million years. This is my opportunity to say “don’t worry! I’m alive” and also to procrastinate a little bit in the meantime. Due to the recent fun-fun-fun times of spending about 12 hours a day glued to my computer at work, researching and reading like a mad woman (thank god for Google), I haven’t felt inclined to spending more time in front of the computer when I get home. I swear my bed is calling me. It feels more and more comfortable with every passing day…one day I think I’m just going to sink completely inside the two feet of pillow-top and never escape. Wow, that makes my bed sound so evil, but really it is sorta like a little piece of heaven. Okay, so now that I’ve spoken about my bed for a few sentences, it might just show JUST how tempting it is (and how over-computerized I am).
Anyways, so what’s new and exciting these days? Well in the extra time I’ve been spending away from the computer, I’ve spent reading our book club novel “The namesake”, since my counterpart in book-clubbing crime is ALREADY DONE reading. I need to get to work on it….or spend more time on the subway (it’s a great place to finish novels, since I keep falling asleep instead of reading in my super-comfy bed).
In other exciting news, the One of a Kind Show is on this week!!!!!!! I’m planning on going this Saturday, which means I will be super-broke in the upcoming weeks. It’s a great excuse to get some “personal” Christmas shopping done. Does anyone else have this problem – you go Xmas shopping for your friends, family…and yourself? Sometimes I like things that I buy for other people so much that I buy two. More often than not.
Lastly, has everyone tried these insanely expensive mushrooms “Truffles“? White truffles? A co-worker told me about her recent visit to a fancy-schmancy Toronto restaurant (which I obviously would have to sell a child or an organ to afford), Splendido, where she had a risotto with 1 g of white truffle…costing $20 for the one gram ALONE! Does anyone else find this insane? However, apparently these truffles are so rare that they have to use pigs or dogs to find them. I must try one (or 1 ug of one).
‘Tis all for tonight. Until next week, when I shall hopefully be able to rant about my One of a Kind exploits…! First stop planned: The Old Island Stamp company.
Freaky tuesday
I just got home from seeing the token traumatizing movie of the week (last week’s being Borat, of course!!!!) – The Last King of Scotland. It was disturbing, but more so in the fact that it was an accurate (maybe even toned-down) depiction of the disturbing reality that was Idi Amin in Uganda. I found it personally interesting as my mom grew up in Uganda and was one of the “Asians” that was forced to leave the country under Amin; and seeing this movie helped me to realize how serious the situation actually was. Scary, to say the least. I didn’t know that Kerry Washington was in the film, which was a pleasant surprise after seeing her in Un Dimache a Kigali at the Toronto film fest this past September…another one of them “disturbing reality” type movies, and also based on a novel. Anyways, after seeing this movie I found my way home in a trauma-induced zombie like state – you know the kind where you are consumed by your thoughts / questions / everything, and consequently the outside world sort of fades into background noise? In this manner, I happened to wander into my building and enter an elevator where the lights were off.
Moral of the week: Do not go into elevators where there is no light. It is probably not a good sign.
For some reason, I was convinced by a random european guy in the elevator with me that “this happens all the time” and it is totally functional and normal. Let’s just say I was no longer convinced by this fact when the elevator stopped somewhere between the 4th and 5th floors, fell a few feet, then proceeded to stop again between the 9th and 10th floors, fall another few feet, until it continued to the 10th floor and the both of us quickly exited the elevator-of-death. Ay caramba. It was an interesting night.
PHYSIOLOGY!
In lieu of the recent science-rant themed posts, I thought I would take a minute to clarify my program of study. Most people (who exist in the non-scientific realm) appear to be a little bit confused about what exactly “Physiology” is. No, it is not physiotherapy. Not kinesiology either. I am not learning to be a registered massage therapist (and even if I were, I wouldn’t give you a massage. Think Seinfeld). According to Merriam Webster, Physiology is:
Pronunciation: "fi-zE-'รค-l&-jE
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin physiologia natural science, from Greek, from physi- + -logia -logy
1 : a branch of biology that deals with the functions and activities of life or of living matter (as organs, tissues, or cells) and of the physical and chemical phenomena involved — compare ANATOMY
2 : the organic processes and phenomena of an organism or any of its parts or of a particular bodily process
The graduate association for Physiology students at U of T is currently accepting votes for t-shirt designs, one of which includes the following:
Hope this may have helped to clear up the apparent confusion that is Physiology :) If you’d like to vote for our t-shirt design (and then BUY SOME!!! Or, at the very least, enjoy pictures of yours truly wearing the stylish Physiology gear) click here.
Frustration embodied
Argh! Do you ever feel like no matter what you do, you keep hitting a dead end?! Well, anyone who has ever done research will definitely know what I’m talking about – unless you are really lucky. I just came into lab (and yes, it is 12am…that is midnight) to check on my beautiful babies (aka my cells), and they were all dead. Again. Again! We keep having issues with our incubator (basically like the oven for our cells to grow in), and as wonderful as that is…it sets me back in my project like weeks. Months maybe (as seen from recent experience). Cell culture is fun and interesting (when your cells are alive), but god it’s frustrating.
I just got back from seeing Wicked – it was great! Or so I think. We were about a million miles away from the stage, but I believe it was amazing nonetheless. The Canon theatre was suprisingly beautiful. The vocal talent of the lead actresses (the “witches”!!!) was extremely impressive…I love musicals where the people can actually sing (the one reason that The Lion King irked me so much…those children might have been cute, but alas). Anyways, despite the excitement I couldn’t stop myself from planning my experimental protocol for tonight / tomorrow, and now the freaking cells are dead. If there was an occasion where I would like to swear, it would be now. Many, many, many times over.
Ah, the joys of having a blog to release some pent-up frustration :)
“1, 2, 3…serenity now”
Presentation OVER!
What is it about public speaking that is so intimidating? Although now after, quite possibly, the millionth presentation of my M.Sc. career, it ain’t so bad after all (and yes, that is gramatically correct). The worst part of it is the questions – the damn clinical questions – that are more like an exam than a question period. I almost want to go study in a foreign country so I can use the language barrier as an excuse for my lack of “eloquency”. Today my presentation was followed by a clinician who was speaking about helicopter transport of patients between hospitals in Ontario. Obviously, he totally had the “cool technology” advantage with his cute little helicopter pictures. I think my cell-cell interaction / cell-signaling / molecular structure pictures were equally as exciting, of course.
Figure showing progressive internalization of LPS (lipopolysaccharide) into alveolar epithelial cells (shown here, A549 cells – an alveolar epithelial-like cell line). Lee J., Del Sorbo L, Uhlig S, Porro G, Whitehead T, Voglis S, Liu M, Slutsky A, Zhang H. Intracellular Adhesion Molecule-1 Mediates Cellular Cross-Talk between Parenchymal and Immune Cells after Lipopolysaccharide Neutralization. J Immunol 2004, 172:608-616
Tomorrow I am going to a SAMPLE SALE (to spend whatever is left of my stipend after rent / food / wonderful tuition) and going to see Wicked!!!!!!! Extremely excited. I must go to eat my horribly unnutritious dinner (I am currently accepting applications for a personal chef) of “the eggo waffle” and to do some more work…enjoy the picture!
The book-club begins!
Due to work and other such “real-life” commitments, this entry will be kept short and sweet. We are beginning a new novel: The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri.
Soon to come…a reading schedule and commentary… feel free to read along with us!
Advertising these days…
If anyone has been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that I posted a while ago about the freaky people on Yonge St. Well…NEVERMIND! I take it back. The freakiest thing that I have encountered on Yonge St has by FAR got to be the advertising.
Every morning on my way to work, I walk down Yonge past Yonge & Dundas Square, heralded as the location with the highest per-something advertisements, etc, etc. As wonderful as that is (I am SO up to date on the clothing in the Guess / Urban Outfitters / Aldo / Buffalo store display windows), there is this new – hugemongeous – billboard above Sears that has this massive penguin saying: “Don’t be afraid….I LOVE YOU!” At first, I thought it was funny. But seriously, you’ve got to be kidding me. It totally, completely freaks me out every day. I wish I had a camera so I could post a picture of it – maybe one of those things you have to see yourself.
SECONDLY, and also falling in the ‘funny yet scary’ category, was this horribly ridiculous truck I saw parked off of Yonge today on the way back from work. It was filled with sand and fake palm trees, and other such beach-y paraphanelia, and (logically)…three scantily-clad people dancing around in bathing suits. It was hilarious! And so, so, so wrong. Apparently, they were advertising travelling to Mexico. I hope they were getting paid a lot of money.
AND on a completely different note, my new favourite saying…
“If I were an enzyme, I would be DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes”
