The Cell paper is coming along slowly - I've finished a rough draft of the Materials and Methods and the Results sections. My least favourite section - the Discussion - and my favourite section - the Introduction - still remain. They'll be the toughest, I just need to grit my teeth and get through it. I think maybe tomorrow I'll try not to go to bed until I've finished a rough draft of everything, regardless of how long it takes. For now, however, I believe it is bedtime...
Ahhhh... Exams... After several days of nothing but studying mechanisms, staring at reagents and doing practice exams, the Orgo final is finished. It was four hours, tough, and I am relieved it is done. So relieved, in fact, that I accomplished absolutely nothing today - it felt good. Tomorrow I need to buckle down and write my lab report for Cell seminar - and maybe I'll even make my webpage about it presentable enough so I can finally link it.I need to finish all my work by the 19th because Jove is coming home and I want to be free to have fun. We haven't seen him since last spring, so there will be mucho excitement, lots of hugs and maybe even some movie watching =).
I have no business spending my time writing this. Absolutely none. But here I am, and there you go, so enough said.I have to finish up a formal lab report on Diels-Alder synthesis for Organic Chemistry II, plan a presentation of my Seminar Lab project and write a formal paper on it, and study for my Orgo midterm. Not too terrible - at least, that's the mindset I'm currently entertaining. Wait a few minutes and I may be panicing.
I look at the top of this page and realize that I've been doing this for nearly a year - I can't believe that much time has passed already. I only have three semesters left here at Swat, but I know I'm no where near prepared to leave yet. *sigh* back to work.
I really have not been keeping up with my little updates lately. Work has been grabbing me lately and I feel as though I do little else - although naturally that isn't true. I just returned from spending Thanksgiving break with Claudia and her aunt and uncle in New Jersey, which was a lot of fun. I did very little work and lots of sleeping. Now I'm back in Cornell working away on the Orgo paper and seminar discussion that are due at the end of this week. It hardly seems possible that there are less than three weeks left in this semester - I still have a lot more than three weeks of things to do!I'm happy that break is approaching - the semester is beginning to wear me out. I love the things I'm learning and the stuff I'm doing, but my brain is simply tired of being demanded to think so hard all the time. Some R&R with a good book (Tad Williams latest is out in paperback - it's off to Border's as soon as I get home!) or movie and just chilling for a while is definately perscribed.
Claudia and I recieved the sequence of our plasmid today!!! It was sequenced at Rockfeller earlier this week, and we recieved the two sequences of the ends this afternoon. Investigation on the Yeast Genome Database indicates that our DNA region of interest is between between base pairs 699,000 and 710,000 on chromosome IV. A gene named ARO1 is located within this region and looks like a possiblity for our doc6 gene. ARO1 is involved in the formation of amino acids containing aromatic rings, and our doc6- cells are phenotypically Trp-, even though they are genotypically Trp+. Since tryptophan contains an aromatic ring, this suggests that ARO1 may be the gene we are investigating. For a more detailed explanation (or just to figure out what in the world all this means), check out my Seminar lab project webpage.
Last weekend was terrific fun - it was just like old times, a veritable Quad reunion. Movie Night was also a great success - everyone seemed to enjoy the movie and ate all the cookies and fruit that we had laid out. Look for picutres very soon...I've been rather busy lately with Seminar lab - Claudia and I are sending out our plasmid to be sequenced early next week, so we had a to go through a long purification process. We'll soon have the sequence and be able to do all kinds of exciting things! I'm happy.