It is high time that I send you an update from Tar Heel Country. If I had an entry posted for each time I thought about posting an entry there would be about 5 additional entries on here...the best laid plans! So I debated whether I should write a lot of little entries or one long one. I decided to go with one, hopefully this won't get too long. Here I go, the highlights of the past three weeks, with pictures!
In mid-October I went to the UNC vs. Notre Dame football game! It was an excellent game, suspenseful to the end. It all came down to the last seconds, UNC was up and Notre Dame had the ball yards from their end zone. A few minutes, time outs, and yellow flags later, UNC held on and won the game 29 to 24!
Final score!
Leanna (my housemate) and I standing in front of the stretching team! We sat together in the UNC student section.Last weekend I went to a pumpkin carving party! It was great fun. Just a small group of graduate students with pumpkins and creativity. The girl whose house the party was at lives less then a mile from my apartment. It is amazing how many of us live so close together. Below is my pumpkin, I was going for an autumn leaves theme!
Pumpkin guts!
The group! Left to right - Corey, Megan, Andy, Me, Adam, and Mary.
The finished products!
Last Wednesday I went to an amazing concert! The band Great Big Sea played in Raleigh. Don't worry if you haven't heard of them, I hadn't either until about 5 hours before the concert. A guy from the Newman Center choir invited me because he had an extra ticket. They are a band from Newfoundland. They play traditional folk music and some of their own stuff. It has a Celtic rock flare to it - meaning that the beat is awesome. My hands were sore from clapping almost non-stop. They were great with the audience and they played for about 2.5 hours. I liked their music so much that I bought a CD. Here are a couple U-Tube links to some of my favorite songs. They are also very talented and play numerous instruments!http://www.youtube.com/watch?
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For Halloween yesterday I went to a party at a faculty member's house with another girl from my apartment complex. It was nice, fairly low key. I dressed up as a cat - my last minute costume idea. I will try in the future to avoid last minute Halloween costume shopping. I do not recommend it...it was crazy! Check out my poor attempt at cat whiskers below!
I am still in school. :) Classes and lab work continue. I managed to survive another round of exams last weekend. Actually I am planning out my classes for next semester and my next lab rotation too! I will keep you posted on the rotation. Right now I think I will be taking a class on complex genetic traits (as opposed to traits that are influenced by one gene i.e. the gene that causes Huntington disease). I will also take a molecular biology course that focuses on the steps involved in gene expression from the RNA level to DNA modifications that change whether or not a gene is available to be expressed (epigenetics). Both look exciting. Something interesting I learned about last week was how Golden Retrievers are being used to study the human genetic disease muscular dystrophy. Apparently these dogs get a spontaneous genetic mutation that results in a similar condition to that seen in humans with Duchenne Muscular Dystrohpy. These animals are used to test potential disease treatments and explore the differences in symptoms seen across individuals that occur with the same gene mutation. Typically one would assume if the gene mutation is the same that the phenotype (the physical characteristic produced by the gene) would be the same. In muscular dystrophy this is not the case. It was really interesting to hear about how these dogs are used to study the disease. I am glad that they do not induce the mutation in the dogs, they just use one that is already there. I don't think I could work with the poor dogs, but hopefully they will produce results that help people.
This coming week I will finally be orientated at the humane society. Last time I went, I realized that I had signed up to volunteer at the wrong shelter! Oops...apparently there are two shelters in the area and I neglected to look at the address when I signed up.
It finally feels like fall here. We have had a couple of heavy frosts and the leaves are turning gorgeous colors! I am planning to take some pictures of the leaves soon. Today we had beautiful 70 degree weather and I think there is more to come tomorrow too!
I hope that this finds you all doing well!
Cheers!
Sarah
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