Orientated!

Hello Everyone!

Wow I have a lot to tell you. Lots has happened since I last wrote, so I will try to hit the high-lights in order to avoid writing a book!

To follow up on some of the things mentioned in the last entry...first the fleas are gone! My housemate and I launched a "bug-bomb strike" and wiped out the little buggers before they could cause anymore grief. That was a week ago Friday. It seems that they are gone, which is wonderful!! In other good news, my stuff finally arrived last Monday. I am almost completely unpacked and nothing was lost in the move - good news all around. Once I am done unpacking, I will try to put up some pictures on the blog.

Last Sunday I checked out mass at the Newman Center on campus. I am really excited to explore all the opportunities they have for grad students and their student mass. I am hoping to play guitar in the student choir. The only problem is transportation to mass with my guitar...

As I mentioned last, I spent this past week learning all about the graduate school program, figuring out my research rotation, and classes for the fall. Orientation was good, a little tiring, but not as strenuous as I anticipated. Monday was spent meeting tons of people. It was cool to see many familiar faces from my interview weekend. Everyone is really friendly and easy to talk to.

After much deliberation, I decided on my courses for the fall. The flexibility of the program I am in is great, but made it hard to pick classes because there are so many options. I am planning to take a course called "Principles of Genetic Analysis", which is the foundational course for the genetics and molecular biology curriculum that I am thinking of joining. The other course is a pathology course on the mechanisms of disease. Both look very interesting. My schedule will consist of these two courses, a first year group meeting once a week, and then my lab rotations. When I am not in class, I will be in the lab.

This past week I met with two principle investigators (PI's). These are senior researchers whose labs I am considering rotating in and then potentially joining to conduct the research for my thesis. One lab studies a degenerative disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy. They use fruit flies and cell culture for their studies and much of the investigation is centered around studying snRNP processing and transport (these are elements of a cell that are involved in processing DNA before it is expressed by the cell. They help determine how a gene will be expressed). The other lab studies two different things. The one I am interested in is exploring the effects of fiber and intestinal bacteria on colorectal cancer. He uses mice and a variety of bioinformatic approaches (these are used to analyze large amounts of data). One of the labs is large and other is small. I think I will rotate in both labs in order to compare the difference and see which I prefer.

Over the course of the past few days I have met many nice people. There are three more students in my program living in my apartment complex. I have also met some girls who enjoy biking. We are hoping to go exploring together. I am looking forward to this as soon as my bike comes in. I put one on order yesterday.

I think that I am starting to get used to the humidity...gasp! :-)

Well, those are my high-lights for now. Thank you all for the wonderful email replies! I apologize if I haven't replied to you yet, I hope to get on that soon!

I hope you are well!

Peace ~

S