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…
Year One: Complete
I took my last exam of the year this morning…was pretty obnoxious and relatively hard to tell how we all did. It certainly didn’t start out well, for any of us…So, this test was in my Special Topics class, where we read papers and discuss them and their importance. Last Thursday, we were told we likely weren’t going to have this test. We come in the following Monday to find out that we are having it now, much to our dismay… Anyway, the test was this morning…and it was an oral exam…i.e. the professor points to us, has us walk up to the board, and answer the question(s)… That part sucked royally, but it sucked for most everyone, so it’s not like any one person did that much worse than everyone else.
Regardless, that was it. One year of graduate school down. Three and a half to go. 😛 I’m very much looking forward to getting some research work done over the summer, without having classes to worry about…and I’m looking forward to only having pharmacology/physiology classes to take next semester, rather than having to learn biochemistry, immunology, metabolism, etc. anymore…
I’m also looking forward to, in the short term, doing mostly nothing for a weekend. Next weekend, B and I are going to Columbia for Susan’s wedding (congrats!) and then we’re going back over Memorial Day because Brooke’s aunt is having people over…so yeah, more busy weekends on the way… Hopefully I can concentrate on watching some movies this weekend that I’ve been meaning to…
Either way, classes are done. Now I’m a “Second Year.” w00t!
Didn’t see that comin’…
So, I’m in this class called “Special Topics in Biomedical Sciences II” where you read papers and discuss them. The papers generally follow along with what we’re getting in our lecture class, so it’s consequently divided up into “units,” of sorts, each with a test at the end. Well, our “Systems” (as in, systems of the body) exam was last Thursday. The grade is based 50% on participation and 50% on the exam for each section; participation is handled in a Socratic style, where the students have to each talk about the paper and what it means, how the experiments were done, etc.
Honestly, I was sure I did well on the exam, but I wasn’t too sure on my participation. We did the first few sessions as a full group, rather than dividing up into two smaller groups (which, all of the class agrees, is preferable)… In the first few sessions, I don’t think I really talked that much…I almost went and talked to Dr. Samson about how I was doing, ’cause I wasn’t really being called on or directed to describe any portions of the paper like some other students were.
Well, we got our grades back today for participation and the exam. I got the high score, overall.
😛
…now, if I can just buffer the grade in the lecture class a bit…hmmmmm…
Didn't see that comin'…
So, I’m in this class called “Special Topics in Biomedical Sciences II” where you read papers and discuss them. The papers generally follow along with what we’re getting in our lecture class, so it’s consequently divided up into “units,” of sorts, each with a test at the end. Well, our “Systems” (as in, systems of the body) exam was last Thursday. The grade is based 50% on participation and 50% on the exam for each section; participation is handled in a Socratic style, where the students have to each talk about the paper and what it means, how the experiments were done, etc.
Honestly, I was sure I did well on the exam, but I wasn’t too sure on my participation. We did the first few sessions as a full group, rather than dividing up into two smaller groups (which, all of the class agrees, is preferable)… In the first few sessions, I don’t think I really talked that much…I almost went and talked to Dr. Samson about how I was doing, ’cause I wasn’t really being called on or directed to describe any portions of the paper like some other students were.
Well, we got our grades back today for participation and the exam. I got the high score, overall.
😛
…now, if I can just buffer the grade in the lecture class a bit…hmmmmm…
…is the semester over yet?
Well, I’ve got one more exam in my main class to complete, then two exams (one tomorrow, coincidentally…) in my “special topics” class, neither of which should be terribly stressful.? So yeah, my semester is mostly over…? Along with that, I now have keys to Dr. Macarthur’s lab and will be getting started on some tissue culture work next Monday, so I finally get to delve into some research, rather than just wasting away in classes…
Regardless, I’m on the “home stretch” to be done with my first year of graduate school, which is nuts…? The year went really quickly, it seems…? Heck, I’ve been married for almost 10 months!? …and how blissful they’ve been 😛
Anyway, I’m glad the semester’s almost done, as I’m sure many of you are, too (except Kristen, perhaps!).? Just gotta make it a few…more…weeks…
Tomorrow night in Kirksville, though…that’ll help tremendously… 😉
Happenings…
So, sorry the site’s been down (to all 2 of you who read it regularly… :-P). Yahoo! Domains has been rather obnoxious in keeping the IP address updated of my server…oh well…
Regardless, things have been good recently. A quick run-down:
1). Last Monday was my last day of rotating through Dr. Macarthur’s lab. Seeing as I had a good time whilst there, I’ve decided to stay there on a permanent basis for the remainder of my Ph.D. Therefore, I’ve added a new page to the site dedicated to the shenanigans that will be my research and related experiences. I plan on keeping it updated with what I’m up to on that front, for those who care…otherwise, for now, I’ve got a basic description of what I was up to during the rotation posted; after I figure out what exactly I’m doing for my project, I’ll get that up there…
2). We went up to Louisiana, MO this past weekend after finding out that Brooke’s grandma was moving. She’s moving from the house that Brooke’s Mom (and Aunts…) grew up in into a trailer in a nice park (not a “white trash” park…a nice park…). Overall, it’ll be a lot easier to maintain and to get around in, so it’s probably a good idea. Ma’s gonna have back surgery this coming Thursday in Columbia, so B and I are going there on Friday to see how she’s doing.
3). I’ve got an exam this coming Friday…thankfully, I’ve got my afternoons off, so I’ve got plenty of time to study. This exam is over pharmacology and neuroscience, so it’s most definitely along the lines of nifty things I want to be learning. On the other hand…I’ve got a lot of memorization to get done before then…grrrrrrrrr…
4). Anything else? Not that I can think of… Oh, the band at church is making me sing now. Hopefully not often. …’cause I suck, certainly when compared to my younger sibling… 😛
Yeah, that’s good for now. w00t. Actually…one last thing:
5). Officially, Brooke, Sharon, Missy and I are coming up to Kirksville for Maundy Thursday…primarily so we can go to the Dukum, ’cause we miss it terribly and none of us have anything to do on Good Friday. They’re still doing the $5 deal, yes?
Alright…for real…nothing else going on…really… 😛
Under pressure…
So, I’ve got that presentation on Wednesday…and I’ve got to pre-present it for Dr. Samson tomorrow to make sure I’m on the right track…which I hopefully am. I’ve been working on it a lot today and, no doubt, I’ll continue working on it until late tonight…
This thing worries me. Not because of the material. Not because I’ll be presenting it in front of Ph.Ds who will ask me questions. Not because the grade for the semester is made up of this one presentation. Nope. Because, for the most part, this is the first presentation that I have where anyone can attend and see how I do. If I do a great job, then the professors who are watching will think that much more of me. If I don’t do well, then it could very well set the tone for the remainder of my graduate career.
No pressure…
So, I was sitting in class…
…and Dr. Ryerse was talking to us about Gap Junctions. Basically, these are connections between cells that are made up of proteins. Think of them like connecting two pieces of cloth with a hollow rivet… They are very important in a variety of cellular functions, but perhaps most importantly, in synchronizing all of the cells in the heart (and muscle in general) to make one single contraction and pump our blood.
Anyway, in talking about these, he brought up a few points (most of which I can’t remember…) that got me thinking about how much of ourselves we know nothing about. In the physical sense, our bodies “just work”…but how and why? I mean, we go walking around every day and the general public doesn’t know (or care…) about how the cells in our heart know how to contract at the same time and pump our blood.But we’ve been working on “science,” in the general sense of the word, for thousands of years yet we’ve only scratched the surface.
Shouldn’t we care about these things? Shouldn’t we be more interested in learning all that there is to know about our bodies, so we know how to fix the problems there, rather than the problems between bodies in foreign countries? If I remember right, Bush plans on cutting a variety of programs, generally social, educational and scientific interests, in favor of more money to finance his Iraq vendetta. Does this make sense?
I guess it’s just human nature, but here’s the point: people don’t care how something works, only that it continues to work. People don’t care about science until it affects them. Funding for scientific endeavours is only readily available to people working on health-related fields, while funding for other research (such as ecology, sociology, etc.) is harder to come by. We save the minimal amount of funding to pay for “important” things like helping fix lung cancer (caused by cigarettes) or funding faster propulsion (so we can blow up other countries) or funding research into lower emission vehicles (because we have to drive big SUVs rather than using the smaller vehicles we already have).
Seriously, I think if the USA just saved a third of the money being poured into Iraq and other worthless ventures (congressional salaries, military stockpiling, tax cuts for the rich, etc.) and instead put it into general scientific (physics, biology, chemistry…) and social (arts, humanities…) research, the world would get a lot better really quickly.
At the very least, we, as a culture, would be seen as less hypocritical in the eyes of our enemies…’cause that’d solve a lot of other problems…
…it’s amazing what thoughts can come out of a discussion on gap junctions, eh?
One more rotation…
So on Monday afternoon, I’m starting my fourth (and final?) rotation with Dr. Heather Macarthur. I’m actually pretty excited about this rotation since, for the first time, I’m doing research in stuff I’m pretty interested in. I wanted to go to SLU because of the research going on in Dr. Westfall’s lab, and Dr. Macarthur works really closely with him…thus, the research is similar…
Here’s the rundown: Parkinson’s Disease is characterized by a loss of motor control because (so far as we know) neurons localized in your brain (acround the cerebellum and nucleus accumbens…I think…) die for some reason. It is thought that one way these neurons die is due to oxidative stress. For those of you who know anything about chemistry, there are things called “free radicals,” which are analogues of known compounds that are missing an electron…hence, they “want” to bind with something else by any means necessary. In the body, these free radicals can do a lot of damage and can end up damaging or killing a given cell. We take antioxidants (and we have natural ones in our bodies…) to prevent damage by free radicals…surely you’ve heard of those…
Well, dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is important in controlling our body movements in our brain (among other functions). Apparently, there is a “version” of dopamine known as dopaminochrome that is essentially a dopamine free radical… If this stuff accumulates in your brain, it can kill off the cells it inhabits…and in Parkinson’s patients, it is possible that this molecule ends up accumulating where dopamine is normally localized.
(side note: as Dr. Macarthur pointed out to me, we normally think of Parkinson’s patients as moving uncontrollably. Actually, Parkinson’s patients would normally not be able to move at all, but the drugs we give them flood the cells with dopamine, causing more uncontrollable movement. I didn’t know that…thought it was interesting… :-P)
Anyway, Dr. Macarthur’s lab works with dopaminochrome in rats, detecting it and analyzing its effects. Actually, they use a drug that causes Parkinson’s-like effects in rats or cell lines, which allows for testing. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll end up doing in her lab, but I think I’ll be messing with an HPLC (high pressure liquid chromatography) that’s been modified to detect dopaminochrome in a variety of situations… If all goes well, then I’ll be doing this stuff for the next 4 years until I get a Ph.D… 😛
This semester…
So yeah, Christmas Break wasn’t long enough…I had to go to class last week on Wednesday, so I avoided doing anything else for school besides that…something of a boycott, I guess. But anyway, I’m thinking it’s time I get back into the swing of things and start on some school work.
The next semester will encompass a few new aspects of graduate school for me to deal with. First of all, I have to give a 30-45 min. presentation on February 22nd. Considering that I hate public speaking, this kinda freaks me out…at least I have 1.5 months to prepare, I guess. Secondly, I have one more required rotation through a lab before I need to pick one to do my Ph.D. research in. You can do more rotations if need be, but I’ve got to have something picked by next fall. The three rotations I’ve complete thus far haven’t really stood out as places where I’d be particularly happy, so I’m hoping to pick a good one next. Either way, I’ll need to pick one of those in the next few weeks as well. As far as classes go, I’m doing essentially the same stuff this semester as I did last semester, except that I’m taking an ethics course as well…that, and I’m giving a presentation rather than just watching one.
Otherwise, everything is “same old, same old”… Brooke is doing classes entirely at night now, which allows her to substitute teach every day… She’s also still working at Kenrick 8 Theater, so I’m hoping to score more free movies if at all possible…
Anyway, long story short, I’m expecting a semester very much similar to the last one. Quite different from undergrad, when I’d take some different classes, new teachers, etc. But this one will be much the same as the last. Guess I’m not complaining much…but a little variety would be nice… Let’s just hope I can make it ’til Spring Break…