Odds and Ends

It's been a while.

In a nutshell...
New apartment. New ward. New calling.
Old lab. Old friends. Old job.

Regarding School...
I petitioned back in September to be made a PhD student instead of a Masters student. By opting not to finish my MS and jump straight to PhD, and by opting to stay at BYU instead of graduating and going elsewhere for my PhD, I save myself about 4 years. Seemed like a pretty obvious choice to me.

I have been unofficially accepted.... (aka: all the faculty in my department congratulated me and welcomed me aboard as a doctoral candidate, but I'm still waiting on the actual acceptance letter from the university...)

Regarding Research...
The microscope images I spent 9 months on finally worked out. It was a beautiful moment.

Mouse myotubes (C2C12); Mitochondrial staining with MitoTracker Red

A paper I authored was accepted for publication. I will be presenting said paper at a conference next week.

I was introduced to this little gem in a class today, and decided to share it in honor of all the qPCR (quantitative polymerase chain reaction) I've done this week:

So now you all know the truth. That's how I spend my time....

Regarding Everything Else...
I'm going home this weekend to see Andrakay, who will be in town for the Distinguished Young Women of Idaho program in which her younger sister is participating. I haven't seen her since she got married last August, so I'm very excited for that :)

I'm also excited to watch General Conference with my family this weekend! I hope wherever you are, you get a chance to watch/listen/read too!

Mad Science

Ladies and Gentlemen! I give you...

MITOCHONDRIA!

This image was taken with a transmission electron microscope in a lab on Brigham Young University campus. It is from a mouse skeletal muscle cell that I cultured in my lab. Muwahahaha!

Good News :)

The following email just appeared in my inbox. The result was lots of screaming and jumping and screaming and  dancing. And a little more screaming.

Dear Melissa,

After an extensive review by two committees followed by careful deliberation by Dean Wynn Stirling, you have been chosen to receive the Graduate Research Fellowship award in the amount of $15,000.  Attached please find your award letter discussing the conditions of this award.  Please let me know if you have any questions regarding the attached letter or the fellowship award in general.

Congratulations on this great accomplishment.  Less than 30% of the applications we received were awarded monies, so you are to be commended for your excellent proposal.

Have a nice day.

YYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(More screaming and dancing. I'm sure the entire 5th floor of the Widstoe building is now aware of my elation!)

Photo Montage

Hunger Games Premiere

My Lab

Samantha's Bridal Shower

Elder Smith's Easter Eggs

Bleeding Me Dry

According to 'The Free Dictionary,' the idiom 'to bleed someone dry' means 'to use up everything someone has available.'


I donated blood again last Thursday. That makes 3 out of 6 times. Halfway done!


But between you and me...the actual loss of blood isn't draining me nearly as much as the stress due to and preparation for my oral exam. Which will take place this Friday. Which is giving me ulcers. Or nightmares. Or both.


Which probably seems silly, since anyone that knows me knows that talking is one of my favorite and most developed hobbies. So an oral exam seems right up my alley. *deep breath*


The exam involves me and three old guys with PhDs sitting in a conference room for as long as it takes to determine whether or not I have any idea what I'm talking about. Any topic that was covered in any required class I've taken in the last 5 years is free game. Which makes me wish I'd spent much less time asleep in molecular biology and much less time flirting in genetics.

*more deep breaths*

I'm sure it will be fine. The consequence for failing is just getting kicked out of my program. No big deal.

Maybe I should bring the old guys a bribe....

Plan F

Sometimes I let myself get a little bent out of shape about how far my life has deviated from my original planned course. Let's recap the plan, shall we?

The Original Plan:
-Go to BYU.
-Major in art.
      a) never take another math class. ever.
      b) avoid science classes like the plague.
-Travel the world (most specifically, go to London).
-Get married.
-Graduate.
-Start a family.
-Stay home. Raise children. Be an artist.

How It Actually Went Down:
-Go to BYU.
-Major in Physiology and Developmental Biology.
      a) take calculus. get first ever B. but not last.
      b) 83.5 science credits and counting.
-Decide to go to medical school.
-Change mind about medical school. Decide to go to PA school instead.
-Travel the world (study abroad to London. trips to Paris and Barcelona).
-Change mind about PA school. Decide to work after bachelors degree.
-Change mind about working. Apply to physiology masters program.
-Break up with boyfriend of 3.5 years.
-Graduate.
-Get accepted to physiology masters program.
-Break up with pre-med boyfriend.
-Break up with civil engineer boyfriend.
-Decide all boys are lame.
**Present Day**

A recent lament of mine prompted my roommate to post the following on my facebook wall:

So I counted. And I'm officially on Plan F. I'm actually feeling pretty excited about Plan F.

(Which is one of the reasons that I have this ominous feeling....like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. If it sounds good and I feel excited about it, historically speaking...it's not for me. When did I become such a cynic?)

So here it is.  Plan F:

I am going to get a PhD.

I'll be spending the summer investigating labs around the country that do obesity/metabolism research and deciding where I want to apply/who I want to research with. Applications are due in December. The goal is somewhere East Coast.

Maybe when I get there I'll meet Mr. Right. Maybe not. At this point, I don't really care because I'm just psyched at the idea of a doctorate. I haven't decided whether or not I want to do a postdoctoral fellowship (necessary if I want to have my own lab someday) or just be done after PhD. I've got plenty of time to decide though.

So there you have it. My new life plan. I think (hope!) it's a keeper! And with it, my new motto:

The calendar hanging in my bedroom. Design from here.

Dear Guy in Endocrinology,

As the semester has progressed, it has become increasingly evident that you are an intellectual. How accomplished you must feel. As your fellow student, I am continually humbled by the breadth, depth and scope of your knowledge. I feel especially impressed when you correct the professor. He probably doesn't really understand endocrinology, despite his being a pioneer in the field. Your year of experience working in a pharmacy makes his 40+ years of science look pretty pathetic, if you ask me.

One of my favorite things is when you ask questions for the sole purpose of emphasizing your astounding intellect. You know the ones; they usually begin, "Dr. W____, given A, B and C, we must surely be able to conclude Y and Z. Isn't that correct?" On the rare occasion that he disagrees with your conclusions, I am glad that you spend our class time arguing with him. How dare he insinuate that your knowledge and critical thinking skills could be fallible? What does he think, that you're grasping at physiologic straws in an attempt to demonstrate your superiority to your peers? Oh the audacity. Who does he think he is anyway, the department chair?

But the very best part of associating with you is when you condescend to correct my physiology. I always feel so star-struck when you do that, so honored that you would even consider my blunders (numerous as they are) worth taking your precious time to correct. Like today, for instance. The magnanimous way that you set me straight as we discussed the etiology of type I diabetes was art. Pure art. Especially when one considers that just one semester ago, I was teaching you the basics of diabetes as your pathophysiology TA. I happily consider myself surpassed.

My hat is off to you, outspoken endocrinology guy. I cannot help but be secretly jealous of your awesomeness. I suspect you run into this secret jealousy often, and it's probably the reason you're the only unmarried male in the class.  Your receding hairline, smug self-assuredness and repellent personality probably have nothing to do with it.

Let me know when you cure cancer.

Sincerely,
Melissa

Has Your Mind Been Blown Lately?

In true biology-nerd form, I'd like to share a video today called "The Inner Life of the Cell." It's an animated representation of what's going on in the cells of your body at this very moment. And if it doesn't blow your mind, you might want to investigate as to whether or not your mind was installed upside-down. Just saying.

To be quite honest, I have loved this video for years, and am a bit surprised at myself for waiting this long to share the awesomeness.

Although there is no way for me to completely explain this movie, I'm going to try a little.  The movie starts out inside a blood vessel.  The red blood cells travel up the middle, and the white blood cells are rolling along the sides.  This movie shows what happens when a white blood cell receives a signal to leave the blood stream (a process known as diapedesis).  Most of the little blobs that float around and stick to each other and everything else are proteins.  The stuff that looks like scaffolding is called 'cytoskeleton' and it basically is scaffolding...  The long, thin, stringy things are called mRNAs and are the directions for how to make new proteins.  And yes, there totally is a little guy that walks along the cytoskeleton delivering stuff to the cell membrane.  He's called 'kinesin.'

How much do you remember about cells from fifth grade?  Organelle pop quiz anyone?  The nucleus was at 1:30.  Did you spot the mitochondria hanging out at 1:56? And there's some golgi body action at 2:14.

Sorry if you don't feel as jazzed about all that as I do.  But seriously, the next time you're feeling sorry for yourself, remember that God gave you a really incredible body.  One three-minute animation doesn't even begin to cover how cool it really is.  And if that doesn't help you feel better about life, call me and we'll talk about kidneys.  Or hearts.  Or nerves.  Or brains.  Because if you woke up this morning and you were alive, there's no reason to not feel like the luckiest person on earth.

In a completely unrelated vein, I was also informed about this cool website called Credit Karma where you can check your credit report and score for *free* as often as you want.  It's the first site like that; most of the time you have to pay, or you're limited in the number of times you can check.  Some people think that the more you check your credit report, the more it hurts your score.  That's not true.  It only hurts your score when other people check your credit report (i.e., when you apply for a new line of credit.)  Credit Karma also gives you a breakdown of why your score is the way it is, where you are potentially losing points, and how you rank compared to the average American, as well as other Americans in your demographic. Go take a look!

PS:  I heard about this site from my personal finance professor, so don't worry, it really is legit.

(I feel very much like Suzanne, blogging about credit reports and all...)

When Life Hands You Tomatoes

As soon as I hit 'publish' at the end of this post, I fully intend to turn off the computer, breathe an enormous sigh of relief that I survived the day, and fall straight into bed.  It's just been one of those days, you know?

I spent over eight hours between yesterday and today doing an experiment in my lab called a 'Western blot.'  I know that doesn't mean anything to anyone.  Before your eyes glaze over, I will say this much: the point of a Western blot is to separate different proteins by their sizes.  It's a long and detail-filled process.  It requires a lot of precision and exact timing.  And it was the first one I'd ever done by myself (after having only watched someone else once.)  The blot I did was for someone else's thesis.  She's been having a really hard time getting data to write her thesis, and the tissue I was using for this blot was kinda important.  So no pressure for my first solo, right?

These are what Western blots are supposed to look like after you develop them:

And this is what the film I developed today looked like:

Hmmmm....one of these things is not like the other? Just for kicks, lets get a close-up of that top one especially:

And that, my friends, is what an epic fail looks like. No lanes. No bands. Just large, nebulous blobs of nothing. Definitely no protein of interest.  Remember in my last post when I said my enormous ego would be back to normal after a few failed experiments?  Actually, it only took one.  Consider my bubble burst.

So I did what any self-respecting failure of a scientist would do.  I moped.  And then I cooked.  Because when life hands you tomatoes, make tomato soup.  With basil.  And use this recipe.

I also baked chocolate chips cookies. Baking cookies always makes me feel better.

That, and knowing that pretty much everyone who matters in my life has no idea what a Western blot even is, regardless of how much I try to explain it. So in the grand scheme of things, whether or not I'm good at it probably doesn't even matter :)

{Except it might matter for the next two years while I'm trying to gather data to write a thesis, but other than that....nope.}

Graduate School and Other Impressive Accomplishments

I officially started Graduate School this week.  I feel like Graduate School should be capitalized, mostly because when I walk around campus as a Graduate Student, I feel like I merit capital letters.  My ego has grown exponentially in the last four days.  I suspect that a few failed experiments and sleepless nights will put the world back to rights, but until then....

Graduate Student.

Doesn't get old.

Also, today I found out that there are 'Donut Days' for Graduate Students every Thursday.  Loving all the perks.  It just gets better and better.

I found out that I am the TA for Pathophysiology this semester.  I am quite excited about it, although it's a little nerve-wracking to see all those impressionable undergraduate faces staring up at me, expecting me to know all the answers.  Just because I'm a Graduate Student, you know?  But the thing is, I still put my pants on one leg at a time, just like they do.  We Graduate Students, we're just people too.  Brilliant people.

......

Alright.  I'm done now.  (But it really is kinda a cool feeling.  Just saying.)

Here are a few photos from life this last little while. A little DIY artwork...still not sure I love it:

Step 1: Apply newspaper

Step 2: Make letters out of tape

Step 3: Paint it all black (not shown) and then peel off the tape

Finished product. Good? I don't know.

Trusty thermos of hot chocolate to take to school in the morning.

Really cool safety video I had to watch to remind me not to eat chemicals, mix unknown substances together, or stick my head in the fume hood.  Whew.  Good thing too.  I always forget those things.  Which is why I'm smart enough to be a Graduate Student.