For the past three months, I've been working in Dr. Zayzafoon's Lab investigating S100A4 protein and it's effect on the prostate cancer cell line C4-2B. It was a great ride, with of all the scientific drama you should expect from a budding scientist in the room with a bunch of expensive equipment. I screwed up many western blots (a technique we use to look at protein levels), learned a lot about the scientific process, made some excellent new friends, and maybe did one or two successful western blots. :)
I have a lot of people to thank for making my rotation a success.
Dr. Majd Zayzafoonfor taking me into his lab and being an enlightening, caring mentor
Min-Kyungfor letting me use her reagents, data, and other information and giving cell lines on multiple occasions and also for adding sunshine to the lab!
Jennifer for being a fun and entertaining benchmate, and for answering more question than I can shake a stick at.
Kayiu for being full of humor, and lending us all the benefit of his experience because we were constantly asking him things.
Niroop, who became one of my best friends in Birmingham, for being a all around great help the lab and friend in and outside the lab.
Laurel, also a good friend, for teaching techniques without me even asking her and answering all kinds a questions while also encouraging me in the dark ages of western blotting.
Vishnu, who wasn't even in my lab, but was almost like a second mentor. I owe him a lot for the information he was willing to give me and all the advice as well.
Now that I've completed my first rotation, I'm very glad to be starting my next one January 7th with Dr. Joanne Murphy-Ullrich. I'll be working on extracellular matrix proteins and cell death due to a lack of adhesion. Does the sound of that make you as excited as it makes me?
Soon, it will be the end of my third week of graduate school, and something that I've been looking forward to for a long time is about to happen. I'm going to be entering my first lab rotation!
This Monday, I start doing real rubber-gloved scientific work in an honest-to-god laboratory doing actual straight up science--not just technician work, but my own mini-project. And, as if that weren't incredible enough, if my data is usable strong and I learn the entire project and write my own article on what I found, my professor will name me as a co-author on the actual paper for the whole project! As in: A real scientific journal, suckas! Unbelievable!
I was incredibly lucky to find a rotation like this, and for those who don't know, a lab rotation is like dating a laboratory for three months to gain experience to see how you like the work. If you're on track, you do three of these before you start on your thesis, at which point you choose a lab to stay in for good. So this is going to be my first foray into real scientific work. It's all about to start, so find your helmets and review your evac plans!
There's been a pretty long radio silence since I last posted, but that's only because I was getting ready for and moving to Birmingham. Since then, I've had some incredible adventures and visited some pretty awesome things, all of which I hope to address later on, but for right now, I just want to share the experience of my long, long drive. This drive comes to you in seven parts. That's right, seven parts. Ride with me as I travel the entire distance between North Carolina and Birmingham.
Make sure to watch them on youtube, too, with video annotations!
Shaw is an awesome character that I wish I had gotten to hang out with more than I did over the last couple years. This weekend, though, I got to visit him in Greenvile, NC and see what he's been up to. Right now that includes putting together an RC plane, which I was privilaged enough to see in the works.
We had amazing pizza and the best sausage dip I think I've had in my whole life at a place called Basil's. To my knowledge there's only one, so you'll have to pilgramage to try it if you're not nearby. When we got back we watched a Bunch of movies that included
21,
Into the Wild,
Hot Fuzz,
and Batman Begins;
and on top of all that, we had a mountain of a delicious, mouthwatering cake called Tres Leches. It was so good, we ate almost an entire cake by ourselves. Shaw gave me the recipe, and I might post a recipie for it here if it all goes well. It's very easy to make, but you have to be sure to add the right amount of love.
It was great getting to see Shaw again. Soon, he'll be moving too, so I'm really glad we got to hang out.
David has been a good friend of mine since my sophomore year at Campbell and a roommate my junior year, which is widely considered to be my favorite one. We had the best room on campus in the best "dorm" of anywhere I've ever seen. You would have to see it to believe it.
So David and I decided to go see The Dark Night in the Imax, and it was spectacular. If there were ever a movie worthy of the Imax and worthy of Imax prices, this is the one (I give it five out of five stars, and Google agrees with me).
After that, we ate at Rockola in Garner (an old haunt), and then I got some silky smooth delicious frozen wonder custard from Goodberrys Frozen Custard. I'm really going to miss that place.
It was great to spend some time with Dave. I'm really going to miss him.
Have you ever seen David and Batman at the same place at the same time?
I just had a wonderful weekend with my Mom visiting my Virginian grandparents, aunts, uncle, and cousins. We got to go Yard Saling, celebrate my Mother's birthday, eat tons of food, and talk a lot about the old times. My grandparents, MeMama and Papa as we call them, have been two of the most unfailingly loving people in my life, matched for that only by my parents, I think. No matter how much we disagree on things (which we do sometimes), the big thing is that we love each other no matter what, and that's something we definitely all agree on. I'm going to miss them a lot.
Aunt Patty, Uncle David, and Aunt Janice were kind and awesome enough to spend a lot of time with me this weekend, too, coming with us on our adventures. Kenzi and Kyle, my cousins, also added their exuberant energies to the visit, and to top everything off, we all went to the Olive Garden for Sunday supper! I even found a great desk for my Alabama condo at Staples during the trip. This was an awesome goodbye adventure.
One of my favorite things to do is to listen to my grandparents tell me about how things were when they were young. In just the span of a few decades, thewhole world has changed, and so much of common knowledge has been turned on its head. My grandfather told me about the days he worked on the farm with his brothers and how they grew their own food. His family hardly ever had money, he said, but they never went hungry. It's impressive to me to hear about how much respect and knowledge he and his family held for the land they tended and that tended them. I even felt a little jealous of that kind of life. Even though we have technology, comfort, and convenience today that my grandfather could never have predicted back then, I don't think we're necessarily happier. Do we have more fun surfing the internet than my grandfather did playing football with a burlap sack full of rags?
But even though a lot has changed, I think a lot has stayed the same, too, and when I think of things that continue on, one of the things I think about is how happiness always seems to have come from the inside out, not the other way around based on how easy things are. Even though we have a lot more technology and convenience around us today, we still seem to have a lot of the same struggles past generations did before us. Like, for instance, people still judge others for being different than they are. Politics is still confusing. Poverty and hunger still hurts people around the world even though there's enough to go around. These and other things are issues that technology alone can't address; we have to address them in our principles first. As a scientist, I think it's easy for me to put a lot of hope in the acquisition of new knowledge, and that's going to being us a lot, no doubt about it, but we still have lot yet to conquer in the human spirit, and that's something more to do with meditation than experimentation.
Even in my twenties, my granddad's stories still fill my eyes with wonder and really give me a genuine hope that we can still do a lot of good just by the way the act and think, which has very little to do with modernness at all. We just need to remember that to whom much is given, much is expected, and that our time has given us some pretty awesome things.
The most unbelievable thing happened to me today: UAB is going to buy me a Mac!
I received an email this morning from Randy Seay, the IBS graduate program manager at UAB, and he asked me if I had a laptop. I've been saving to buy an Apple MacBook, and since I was waiting for the next iteration, I hadn't bought one yet, so I told so. He quickly emailed me back and told me not to buy a laptop because the University is going to purchase one for me.
Wow! This is great news! Well, isn't it? But even though I'm being offered essentially a completely free computer, one detail made it slightly complicated: I was certain it wouldn't be an Mac. Remember, I have been looking forward to getting an Apple for years, and I've been saving up for it since last year. So I had a huge dilemma on my hands! Should I continue my plans and buy a MacBook, or should I accept the Dell and save $1,200 that could be used to help me get started in Alabama. I was dangerously low in my budget, and taking the Dell would solve that problem completely.
It was like being tempted by Satan in the desert. "Why don't you just turn the stones to bread, Chase. All you have to do is give up you soul!"
Well, I asked Randy if there was any way to subsidize the purchase of a different brand other than Dell, that I had my heart set on something already. He said there wasn't, but he did ask me to tell him about the laptop I wanted, so I wrote him back about the MacBook; its price, its features, and that it may be updated soon. I also noted that the real complication for me wasn't really the specs, which I'm sure Dell could have matched, but that I wanted Apple's unique operating system; those little and big things that make an Apple so nice to own and use. A few minutes later I got this reply:
"I believe I can order this computer for you. I need to place the order before August 12th, so let me know if the computer configuration changes."
Unbelievable. I didn't even push or pressure, but just because they wanted to, my graduate university, UAB, has offered to do their best to buy me my top choice of laptop (a friggin' Mac!), and not only that, but the money this will save is going to allow me to enjoy a much easier transition from my life in North Carolina to a new one in Alabama. I guess that's what my friend Travis would call "Synchronicity". It makes me feel really good about the program I've chosen and shows me how much UAB is willing to work with me to make my years there enjoyable and productive. I can't thank them enough for being so kind, and I especially thank Randy for doing everything he could to make sure I got the best possible option.
I just had a great weekend. Ever since Sunday, when I got off from work, I've been able to visit and talk to a lot of the people that I really wanted to see before I move to Alabama with even more to come. This past weekend I was lucky enough to visit four great friends of mine in Greensboro: Anna Garret, Danielle Dollan, Rachael Traylor, and Josh Canup. I even got to meet someone new, a friend of Anna's named Edward, who loves to take pictures. All really great people.
We spend a lot of our time just talking and having a great time. We relaxed a lot, walked around in a humongous park, spent a beautiful afternoon downtown and in the bookstore, and I got to eat some great meals prepared by Anna, Rachael, and Danielle. I want to thank them, not just for the hospitality they showed me this weekend, but for the love and friendship they've given me over the past four years. I'm really going to miss them, and I look forward to the interaction we'll continue to have in the future.
I had a great 4th of July this year with Mike, a Campbell friend who lives very nearby, and today we went all over.
First stop was the Farmer's Market. Even though I know, when stop to think about fun and excitement, the first thing that comes to mind isn't probably your local Farmer's Market, but that's a terrible shame because we had a blast going up and down the fruitful isles seeing the locally grown goodness, and trying samples of peaches and 25-cent honey tubes. I bought two loaves of homemade sourdough bread for $5.00! The baker's name and number are right on the loaf, so I think I might give him a call and tell him what a great job he's doing. It also rained unexpectedly--like cats and dogs--but that only lasted for a few minutes, so we kept on enjoying our fun-filled day.
On our way out of the market, I got lost a little, so we wound up at a movie theater that I've never seen before. Perfect! We decided to catch the manatee of a movie that, personally, I've really been dying to see. WALL-E! Now, it's a fact that Pixar are absolute geniuses when it comes to creating movies that make me laugh, tear up, and completely fall into the story, so it should have come at no surprise that this movie was no exception. It's a worthy, worthy addition to Pixar's already spectacular line of movies. Don't deprive yourself. Go see it!
Later we had a traditional 4th of July hotdogs and Hamburgers chow down at my parents' house and played some Frisbee before it was time to pack in the car and drive to the Adcock farm for some socializing with the who's-who of Fuquay and some dazzling fireworks. Mike was looking forward to fireworks all day, and he was not disappointed. Tired and full of food and goodies, we dropped Mike back off at this house, and turned in. What a great national day!
Great news! I just got my diploma yesterday in the mail! It's a great feeling to finally have it, knowing I've worked so long and hard to get the thing that's printed on it: "The Degree of Bachelors of Science", a BS. Strangely enough, it doesn't have my major written anywhere on it, but that's okay; I have Biochemistry tattooed on my heart (besides, now I can say I've mastered all of science indiscriminately, including psychology).
In addition to the thrill of just getting my diploma, I now also have something nice to put in that super high-quality, super-expensive diploma frame that my parents gave me for graduation. It's taken a couple months, but they're finally together. Now I can display my degree in effluent elegance a for the rest of my life, and I will never again have to worry about how to fill that empty void between the lion's head and thirty-year scotch over the fireplace.
Furthermore, for when I'm out on the town and, perhaps, happen to make an impossibly unintelligent comment, caught in need of proof of my academic qualifications, I've also been issued a "Pocket-ploma", a laminated card-sized copy of my official intelligence certification to whip out for inspection at a moment's notice. Never be without your papers.
Here are some more pictures:
Happy to finally have everything in its proper place. Framed and in my hands.
Even the imaginary room animals got in on the bid. Action Ninja Monkey could hardly keep in his excitement, while Affirming Wall Face was just smiling eyeball to eyeball the whole time, simply bursting with pride. Even the Vaguely Ironic Witch of the Closet stopped by to see the newly arrived NON-imaginary addition to the home.
Before the summer really started and while I was talking to him about summer jobs, Travis Hellstrom suggested to me that I try to find work at the biggest company I could possibly find. The reason for that is because big companies are overloaded with money and full of employee policy so that they pay good money, and the benefits are huge if you're willing, as we are, to work when normal middle-aged humans would rather be napping by a fire. Naturally, I managed to do the exact opposite.
I work at a place called Nil's Bakery & Cafe, a little eatery in the historic commercial district of downtown Varina run by a Turkish husband and wife, Mustafa and Sibel. I am their one and only employee. I feel extremely privileged because I feel like I have a chance to support exactly the kind of business I love: the kind that I can see. Not to mention the free surprise pastries they give me nearly every day (today it was lemon squares).
What I like so much about this place is that it isn't anything like a McDonald's. It's owned and operated by the people I see and work with every day. They personally serve their customers themselves, and I bet they would laugh if I mentioned anything like a "Nil's Corporate Headquarters". Instead, Mustafa and Sibel are where the rubber hits the road, working with all the energy they have to serve the people in the community, and they make their money by doing a good job of it, without using cajoling advertisement.
It's hard work owning your own business , and they put in exponentially more work than they ask of anyone else (Mustafa puts in at least 11 hours a day, six days a week), but they love the bakery as an extension of themselves. It's a contagious love, too, because even though I've only been working a few days, I already care about it too.
Already this has been, hands-down, the best summer job I've ever had, and I still have a long way to go.
Lately I've been getting interested in local history. Not necessarily local to me; at least not at first; but I began to get fascinated because I recently found a place to live in Birmingham, where I will be moving inside of two months.
Now that I know where I'm going to live in Birmingham, the specific address, I took a whole new look at that attractions map that UAB sent me in the mail almost a month ago. I found where my condo's going to be, and I circled it in red sharpie. Right under the circle I made, I noticed a very tiny drawing printed in the map labeled "Temple of Sibyl", and after looking it up on Google Maps, I found out it's only about a mile south of my room. It looked really interesting to me, even though there wasn't another word on the informative map about it. Who the heck was "Sibyl", anyhow?
After doing a lot of research I learned that the structure was built in 1929 by an great and eccentric ex-mayor of Birmingham named George Ward, on his estate on which he had built a huge circular home after an ancient temple in Tivoli, Italy (near Roam), originally built to the goddess of home and hearth, Vesta. So he named his home Vestavia, and it was so prominent in the landscape, that the entire area around his mansion became known as Vestavia Hills, and to this day, that's the name of the town. On the crest of a tall hill, like the crown of his estate, Ward built what he called Sibyl Temple, which was a beautiful gazebo that matched his home's roman architecture. A sibyl is a prophetess, and the particular one honored by this structure's inspiring building was the Tiburtine Sibyl, who prophesied in the temple next to Vesta's, but Vesta's temple is known for both Vesta and the Sibyl.
However, the structure wasn't just a gazebo. George Ward fully intended it to be his memorial headstone. He even built a crypt for himself in a cave underneath the hill of the structure, but he would never lay to rest there because of a change in the law. He was buried in a regular cemetery, and I bet his vengeful spirit is none too happy about it! But wait, it gets better.
After his death, George Ward's estate fell into disrepair, and the land was bought up. The entire house was demolished to make way for Vestavia Hills Baptists Church, a church named after a town named after the building they destroyed to make their church. In their infinite generosity and historical reverence, however, the church donated the gazebo to the town instead of destroying it too. The Temple of Sibyl was moved in the 1970's to it's current location, one mile south of my condo. Now it's a historical landmark and one of the town's most precious and important structures. It's the last remaining piece of George Ward's marvelous Vestavia.
You can't make this stuff up!
If you ever get a chance, I encourage you to google your home town. Knowing your local history makes your town so much richer to live in. I researched Fuquay--even little Fuquay-Varina!--and found some pretty amazing stuff. The internet makes it so easy, and the payoff is huge. I lived in Fuquay for most of my life, and I never took the time to read about it until now.
I've been a graduate of Campbell University for a couple weeks now, and, being that I am a graduate, I find that I now have a lot of responsibilities. I have to find a place to live. I have to make a budget. I have to get my health records. I have to get my balls fondled for a physical. I have to eat a lot of ice cream and play a lot of guitar. I have to write new songs and play the Wii with my little bro and also ride the Raleigh nightlife with my twin bro. I have to go on adventures. I have to laugh constantly. And I also have to read boring, dense, ridiculous tax forms. This is the life of a graduate. It's full of responsibility! I guess, along with my degree in Biochemistry, I also received a certain degree of freedom (with a minor in accountability).
I'm going to be moving to Alabama the first part of August. By then, I have to have my life packed in a suitcase.
Student Government Association, or SGA, is how students at Campbell, and other university campuses, get to have a say in what happens at the University, including such matters Winter and Spring Formal (very important to many students), along and other important student events and minor policy.
In my time at Campbell, though, SGA has been pretty ineffective. Students don't really care about it because, no matter who gets elected president or what decisions are made, it never seems to change anyone's life very much.
Part of the problem is the apathy of the students. There's very little communication. As students, we want change sort of, but we're unwilling to make any shift in our lives that would place us at any SGA meetings. The only time students get informed at all is during elections, and normally from candidates in suits that corner us at dinner with stickers and business cards, which is resentful.
What I would like is a website accessible from Campbell's homepage with streaming video posts, or a Youtube channel, of all the speeches and lobbies that happen at SGA meetings, with labels, tags, and the ability to leave comments. I think it would have a number of effects:
Students could get informed about issues and the process in a no-pressure situation.
The information would be coming straight from the mouth of the issue supporters in SGA, not though the Campbell Times newspaper, which is often unreliable.
There would always be an available history of the evolution of issues in video archives.
Students could leave easy feedback in the form of comments to specific issues.
Campus politicians and lobbyists would be held accountable to the students for what they say during the meetings.
Technology makes this cheap and relatively easy, and I think it would make the meetings more transparent, which they ought to be. With such ease of involvement and the ability to really respond to issues as if you were there, I think SGA could be more effective, and more in the public mind of the students they serve.
I received an email this morning notifying me that I've been officially invited into the University of Alabama at Birmingham's (UAB) Integrative Biomedical Sciences (IBS) graduate program. Wow! I just got back from the interview two days ago! My decision whether or not to join has to be made by April 15th, but I was very impressed by UAB, both in my research here and during my recent interview. Now I'm pretty sure it's where I want to go, but I still have one last interview.
I'm going to try and reschedule my Arkansas interview to this weekend so I can make a decision based on having seen both schools, but UAMS is really in for a hard sell if they expect to beat out UAB. This is great news!
I stayed on the tenth floor of the beautiful Doubletree hotel in Birmingham, and when I checked in, they gave me an unbelievable cookie.
We ate at the Macaroni Grill with UAB grad students, but the conversation was so interesting I could hardly think of food. We talked and laughed for hours.
The next day, I interviewed with five faculty members, and had a wonderful conversation with each of them, especially Dr. Lamartiniere, the program director. I could hardly contain myself! I must have asked those faculty more questions by a factor of ten than they asked me. I couldn't hear enough.
Near the end of my last interview, tornado sirens started blaring in the city, and I was driven straight to the airport after we were finished talking. When I got home, I was very happy about how everything went. If you want a more detailed run-down, click here.
It's getting closer and closer to graduation day, and I am excited all over about it! But it's also extremely scary. This could be the biggest step I've ever taken toward an independent life, and now I have to worry about how I'm going to support myself and how I'm going to put my degree to good use. The worst part of graduating can be not knowing where you're going to go or what you're going to do.
Well, I know what I'd like to do and even where I'd like to go, but now I can feel a lot better because I know I am one step closer to getting there. I've been asked to come for an interview at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB)! I'll be arriving April 3rd and staying through the 4th. Wow! The neat part is, UAB will pay for everything: plane ride, my hotel stay, and all my food! What?! That's nuts! I'll be sure to write an entry about it when it happens.
That's wonderful news! And on top of that, just today I received an email back from the University of Arkansas of Medical Sciences (UAMS), and they also seemed interested in having me visit. I'll keep you posted.
UPDATE: UAMS has indeed invited me to an interview! I will be going to Arkansas April 18th-19th. Wish me luck!
For my last spring break, some great friends and I took a trip across to Jockey's Ridge State Park at Nags Head, NC in the Outer Banks!
It's the biggest and probably the most fun sand dune in eastern North America, and we spent our day sledding down the sandy slopes and soaking in the vista.
