Tag: grad school

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Al…most…there…

So, I had my last regular exam of the semester today, and I think it went pretty well… That makes 6 exams I’ve completed this semester (and about a million flash cards)… Regardless, I’m done with classes until January 29th (w00t!) and I have a comprehensive final on December 14th. That test is an attempt to get us “thinking integratively” so that we don’t separate each physiological system and think of them from a “whole body” approach. In particular, it’s because we get a preliminary thesis proposal in about a year when we’re given integrative questions, to make sure we know all that there is to know about physiology. Anyway, I can’t decide if this test will be hard or not, ’cause I’ve done relatively well all semester. It’s just that we haven’t had that much practice on such things this semester. Hopefully it doesn’t hurt much.

Otherwise, Brooke and I are preparing to move to Soulard (neighborhood in the City of St. Louis) from our current apartment. For nearly the same amount we’re paying now, we’ll have two floors (plus basement storage), a washer/dryer in the apartment, a much larger deck (on the roof), a wood stove, and within walking distance of bars and restaurants in the Soulard area. The only real downside is that it’ll be on-street parking, so getting out in the winter will be a bit harder. Oh well! Anyway, our lease starts on Dec. 15th, so we’ll have until the end of December to move everything over…

Other than that, life is good… We’re hoping to publish a paper including the research I’ve been doing for the past 9 months, so I’m going to use the month of January (sans classes…) to get some work done. It won’t be too busy, but it’s still rather daunting to take care of the volume of data I’ll be accumulating, let alone what I’ve already accumulated…

Such is life…

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Silly vegans…

So, we’re learning about the GI tract in class now, and we heard about protein digestion today. Here’s some info from a slide presented to us by our professor today:

  • A normal adult requires around 0.75 g/kg body weight per day of highly digestable, high-quality protein
  • A person that’s ~130 lbs (59 kg) would require around 44 g of protein per day
  • A 3.5 oz filet mignon cut of beef contains ~30 g protein and 6 g of fat
  • A cup of peanuts contain 25 g of protein, but 46 g of fat
  • Plant proteins are digested poorly compared to animal proteins
  • Less processed foods are higher in protein content than processed foods

So yeah, I’ve never really believed in the vegan argument that one can get the same amount/quality of protein from non-animal sources, but I can’t say that I’ve ever really delved into the information… Regardless, I found these figures to be rather interesting.

Any rebuttal on this? I don’t know many vegans, but I know some of you do and have probably had this discussion with them before… One argument is that while peanuts and other legumes have fat, it’s more “good fat” than “bad fat.” Sadly, in either case, it’s still “fat” and you’re only supposed to have a certain amount of it per day…

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Happenings…

Brooke and I went and visited Kristen down in Springfield over the weekend… We hadn’t seen her apartment yet, nor had we really seen much of her since the summer, so it was a good opportunity to get out of town and see how she’s doing. We went out to dinner at her local hangout and then went to a piano bar (while the Cards won the World Series), both of which were quite fun. The piano bar largely involved dueling pianos (and a drummer) playing music mostly off of my parents Adult Contemporary radio station in Columbia, but it was still a good time… Thanks for hosting us, Little Sister!

Otherwise, we got back to St. Louis and had a message waiting on the machine from Lou Fusz Toyota… Our Scion xA arrive late-Friday night, so we can go pick it up on Monday. So, finally, I won’t have to drive Brooke’s Altima anymore and I can have my Elantra back… 😉 Now we just have to figure out how/when to get the Altima back up to Hannibal…

On another note, I had a doctor’s appointment on Friday, which was mostly uneventful…but he did notice my blood pressure is a bit high (145/82). The sad thing is that we’ve been learning about anti-hypertensive drugs in school (and I have a test over it tomorrow…that, and kidney function, which is quite related to blood pressure), so I generally have a good idea what high blood pressure means over the long-term. So yeah, I’ve made yet another resolution to try and work out more… I don’t think my eating habits are particularly terrible, especially compared with the national average, and I come in at or below 2000 calories per day… I just don’t exercise…ever… Therefore, I’m going to try and jog 3-4 times a week and bring that blood pressure down. That, and I’m gonna get some blood work done to check out my cholesterol levels, which I probably ought to do at this age anyway… Regardless, I jogged 20 min straight today, which was better than I thought I’d do after not really exercising much since summer. A good start, mehopes…

Time to get back to studying for tomorrow’s exam. Hopefully it doesn’t raise my blood pressure much more…

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I, Borg…

So, I was sitting in class this morning and we were learning about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system(s). Overall, these are part of the autonomic nervous system, which includes the parts of the body that are not under our control, including the heart and the lungs. Generally, the circuitry is relatively simple in concept, yet does include some more complicated features. As in, depending on the system, the sympathetic side of the system will be excitatory (as in, turn “on”) while the parasympathetic will be inhibitory (as in, turn “off”).

My word choice of “circuitry” was on purpose, of course, and that brings me to the point of the posting… I find it rather interesting how I developed interests in two radically different things that are completely related in function: computers and the brain. I’ve been interested in all things “tech” for many a year now, building new computers, installing alternative operating systems, etc…and now I’ve begun a graduate school journey largely focusing on the central nervous system and its function within the body. Just as computers talk in “1s” and “0s” (i.e. binary), the nervous system works very similarly where connections are either made or not made, allowing for basic functions like movement and memory.

I guess I just don’t know whether my interest in these seemingly disparate subjects came from. Was I first fascinated by computer circuits or neuronal circuits? Or, was my interest in some facet inherent to both? Or, on a larger scale, is this how all our interests and hobbies come together? Do people get interested in one subject and then learn about a related one…or do they get interested in some concept that ends up leading to the two different subject areas?

…or maybe this is just a stupid question… Regardless, these are thoughts I had in class and figured I’d share them… 😛

P.S. The subject heading is, of course, a Star Trek reference, where the “Borg” are a synthetic race of cyborgs representing the perfect marriage of organic life and machine. The more I learn about the nervous system, the more you realize that Man and Machine are more similar than we would otherwise realize…

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What else is there?

Haven’t posted recently, mostly because there hasn’t been much going on besides the same ol’, same ol’… I’ve just been keeping up with Biostatistics for the past 5 weeks, and getting some experiments done before the school year starts up on August 21st.

I guess I’m generally ready for classes to start, but only to an extent. While I’m perfectly fine getting to work around 9:30 and leaving by 4:00, I’m also ready to get into learning a bit more about my chosen field, as well as moving on with my research beyond where it currently lies. I’ve actually been getting some pretty good data, recently, so hopefully that continues (otherwise…well…graduation may be “delayed”…).

Anyway, this week marks the end of Biostats (woo hoo!). Brooke’s also got a few interviews for jobs, so hopefully that goes well. Otherwise, I’ve got from August 9th to the 20th to be lazy and worthless…maybe I’ll drop into Columbia and see what’s going on there (you know…frisbee golf and the like)…

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*sigh*

I must say…I’m being paid to sit here in Biostatistics class…

…but I don’t think I’m being paid enough…

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Why we publish…

So, whenever our department at school has a seminar speaker in town, we (the grad students) get to have lunch with them and chit-chat about what we do, what they do, research in general, etc. This guy, Dr. Christopher Ellis, is from the University of Western Ontario and is in the Department of Medical Biophysics. Anyway, coming from Canada, he’s exposed to a relatively different research and academic environment than we are, so he had a few fresh perspectives on scientific research in general.

The thing that struck me most, though, was a story he told us about a class awhile back where he asked graduate students: “Why do we publish papers?” He said the responses were very interesting, ranging from “To get grants” to “To get a good postdoctoral fellowship (i.e. job).” He couldn’t remember if anyone said “To further our understanding of science.”

His point, as he then told us, was this: researchers create knowledge, and that’s something to be admired and respected.? While promotions and funding are important, we should never forget that we’re finding new things out that no one has done before.

Regardless, I had just never heard to anyone refer to research as “creating knowledge.” Certainly an interesting concept, realizing that for all the knowledge and information that there is on Wikipedia and in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, there’s still more to be found.

Sounded pretty cool to me, I guess… 😛

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And then, an update…

So I’m at the lab, killing time until my 96-well plate is ready to be read… Figured now was as good a time as any to update the world on happenings…

Brooke and I went up to Hannibal for last weekend to visit with family and friends… Saturday was really good in that we got to shoot off fireworks, had an excellent dinner via Brooke’s Mom, and I got a lovely sunburn whilst laying on a raft in their pool. Overall, a successful weekend! My parents came into St. Louis on Monday night for some BBQ and we made some really good ribs. Brooke put them in the crock pot for a good 6 hours along with brown sugar, paprika, and just about everything else on the spice rack. They were some of the best ribs I’ve ever had, honestly…very tender and tasty… It was also good to be my parents for once! We didn’t really do anything for the actual 4th of July holiday, however. The weather wasn’t terribly cooperative in St. Louis…but we didn’t really feel like going anywhere, either. It ended up being a relaxing day, which is all I could really ask for.

Otherwise, my Biostatistics class started on Monday (yes, July 3rd…seriously…who starts a summer class the day before the 4th?!). While I’m telling myself that extended knowledge of statistics is useful for my chosen career path, I just have to wonder if reminders of Confidence Intervals, hypothesis testing, and SPSS are really worth 3.5 hours of class twice a week… Needless to say, I’ll be ranting about this waste of time for the duration of the class (another 5 weeks remain…).

I guess it’s time for the weekend again… I think Brooke is heading up to Louisiana, MO (Ma’s garage sale…) on Friday, so I’ll need entertainment Friday night (’cause Sci-Fi Friday doesn’t start up until next weekend). Keep me posted.

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Good week(end)…

So, we went on a float trip last Thursday with my lab…went pretty well and we generally avoided the tremendous downpour that descended upon St. Louis later in the afternoon.? The temperature was nearly perfect for floating (on the Huzzah River) and the sun stayed mostly behind the clouds.

Anyway, Brooke and I spent our First Anniversary going to Hermann for the weekend, again.? We drove in on Friday and went to dinner at the Stone Hill restaurant…good eats there, yo…? The next day, we went to Stone Hill and Hermannhoff for tasting, and then to the Robller Winery for more tasting and some blues music, which was pretty nice.? Then, we went to see the town production of “Damn Yankees,” which we’d never seen before…and honestly, it could have been a bit better…but hey, it was good entertainment.

Regardless, we had a good weekend, even without TV (not that we would have had it here…) and came back with four bottles of wine…and, the best part being, that we only spent some of our tax refund on the weekend…w00t!

Now, we’ll see if this past weekend lives up to next weekend… 😉

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Glad That’s Over…

Well, I finished the last of my Fontbonne classes last Thursday and just checked my grades and will be leaving that part of my education with a 4.0. Now, my mom could verify this for you, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t had all As since about 2nd grade and two semesters in a row is pretty crazy. The really terrible part is that this was the most expensive, but easiest educational endeavor I’ve ever encountered, and it has been frustrating the whole way through. You could check the archives of my Blogger site to really see, but I guess in the end, I’ve just been lucky before with Hannibal and Truman and hopefully I won’t keep being disillusioned with higher education in the future…