Skip to main content

Recap (Christmas, New Years & Work)

It’s been forever since I last updated my blog! I am apparently not too good at it. It is definitely something I need to get better at! So much has happened since last year!

A quick recap since my last blog!

Christmas: Fortunate for me, the holiday season was not so lonely. Thanks to the wonderful Holiday parties that were thrown by my Lab. Delicious food, great people, and biology jokes what else could I have asked for! On top of that, I received a very generous Christmas gift from my PI :D
                                                                              


New Years: My cousin Nageen finally came back from spending the semester in Australia! She turned 21 on Christmas and we weren’t able to celebrate. So I went to Atlanta to spend time with her and make her 21st birthday memorable. Ofcourse, I also had another reason to go down to Atlanta, my friend Madison, who is spending the year in Guyana teach Math with the World Teach program, was coming back to Atlanta for a few days! And lastly, I can’t forget my best friend from high school, Farzeen! It had been a while since we caught up and it seemed like the perfect time. What better timing than to spend the new years with my 3 closest girl friends, Nageen, Madison, and Farzeen!



 During the new year, I also planned to visit my parents back in NC. It was great. I got some home made food and got to spend time with them. But as exciting as the New Year started, it ended up being just as more frustrating. My flight back to StL was canceled and then my bags were lost. But I survived. Finally Delta found my bags, put them on the plane to StL and I had them after 4 days!

Work: Since I’ve come back from new years, work has been busy! I received my own project along with helping with other projects. As much as I truly enjoy doing research, these experiences are teaching me as to how frustrating it can be. One of the frustrations that I have come across is technology malfunctioning. You can’t trust your data, if you can’t trust the technology that is supposed to give you the data. As scientists, we put so much trust into our state of the art technology that a little shift in parameters or scale throws data off completely.  The question is, where would we be without technology in scientific discovery? And to a certain extent, is technology hindering us?

I shall definitely try to be better at blogging. Things at work are getting more exciting and the new city is full of new experiences and new friendships!

~ Cell-ebraTez


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Operation Mouse

Part of working at such a great research institution is working with mice. While my first experience as I had mentioned earlier in the blog was sacrificing these animals, my experience now is much more exciting and productive towards the scientific community. I have learned to inject mice and collect mouse tissue for further studies.  Around Thanksgiving, someone asked me, "don't you feel bad 'torturing' the animals?" While at first I did not know how respond, but then I think about it and I realize that I had to go through so much training and clearances just to be able to set a foot in the animal facilities. Ever step of the way, humane acts are enforced while dealing with animals. Animal models are essential especially for research that is being translated into therapies for various diseases or for research that is used to better understand various diseases. The best thing I can say is, if not animals then would you prefer s...

Symmetry Biosciences

I went back to Symmetry to say my last goodbyes today since I didn't get a chance to last Tuesday. It was bitter sweet! I am excited for my next journey but will definitely miss the people I have worked with and come to call my friends.  Where should I begin about my experience at Symmetry Biosciences. It has been amazing! Day 1 was scary! The thought of doing a column purification, doing my own reactions or anything chemistry related made me nervous. The only word that seemed familiar to me was TLC (Thin Layer Chromatography). Of which I didn't even know the correct technique but just remembered a technique called TLC from Organic Lab in 2010. I had so much to learn and such little time to perfect it all. Everyone at Symmetry Biosciences has been so helpful and so patient. There have been plenty of times when the scientists were probably tired of my silly questions or couldn't believe I asked a certain question! The first couple of days were the hardest. After that, I ...

Your Everyday Scientist

When I run into people in social settings and the topic of my career or what I do comes up. Most people are surprised when I say “I am a scientist.” On occasion, I’ve also gotten the, “you don’t look like a scientist” comment… So, what does a scientist look like? Most often when you think of a scientist this is what comes to your mind… Do I have to be male, white, old, and unkept, lack a fashion sense to be a scientist? One of the projects I’ve been wanting to work on is making science more fashionable! Most people think that fashion and science don’t mix. Or that scientists cannot be fashionable. To break this stereotype, I’ve been wanting to work on a fashion/science post for a while. I was finally able to make some time for it and got some great volunteers to help me with this project. This was a fun project in which I am featuring my female program-mates who wear multiple hats for me: mentors and friends. Always there to give me advice on grad sch...