Today is the first day of the blog. I'm actually supposed to start on Sunday but I figured that there were some good things happening today that--if you care enough to read about a week in my life--are worth capturing. On tap for the day:
1. Lab
2. Libraries and Exam
3. Black Graduate Student Association
4. the rest of the night
The day started a little rocky. Before drifting off to sleep on Thursday evening, I thought I had set my alarm for a reasonable time (7:42 am) which would allow me the time to get up, do a little jog, and then get to lab by 10 am. So you can imagine my surprise when I woke up and saw that the clock read 9:12. I apparently set my alarm for pm instead of am. No harm done, just meant that there was no jogging today. So after showering and making lunch, I made my way to lab by 10:15 am.
Lab
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I've been working in the lab of Dr. Ed Engleman this quarter. The lab is located at the blood center (which is about 1.5 miles off campus) which makes getting to lab on days when I have class a little tough. Here's me in my lab coat, getting ready to go to the animal room.
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We've been trying to determine how the environment of tumors ("tumor microenvironment") affects the signaling and function of immune cells (lymphocytes) because there's a wealth of evidence that lymphocyte signaling is impaired in the tumor microenvironment.
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However, we've been having some difficulty in getting the tumors growing (and even if you are not a scientist, you could see why this might be a necessity for studying how the tumor environment affects lymphocyte signaling), so the rotation has been sort of slow. But finally, we've been able to get tumors growing in some of the mice, see (it's the blueish lump on the side of the mouse)...
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Today, I'm culturing mouse bone marrow to make dendritic cells (which are very important for the immune system) so that we can look at signaling in these cells. As such, this means I'll have to kill a mouse to isolate its femurs (thigh bones) to get the bone marrow. I'll spare you the gruesome pics (it's only the first day, I don't want to scare any of you off), but here's the end result (3 dishes of cells that'll go in the incubator for the next week)...
So the lab work is done for the day, now off to my next big adventure: exam.
Libraries and exam
In my advanced immunology class, we have a take home exam to do. It's only 2 questions thankfully, and I have until Tuesday to get it done (the final has 5 questions and we have 5 days to do it).
Usually, when I have major assignments to do, I go to the law library b/c it's really one of the prettiest libraries that I've ever seen. They have these uber comfortable ergonomic chairs, and it's only a 3-5 min bike ride from my apartment (unlike the med library which is more of a 10 min ride).
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So you can imagine my disgust when I was unable to access the law library b/c this is their exam period. Here's the sign that marked my rejection...
This started a journey to find a place to study. The first library I went to had really sketchy wireless and as the internet is a must when trying to complete these exams, I ended up at the med school library after all (40 mins after leaving my apartment).
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I spent most of the afternoon (1:30-4:45) working on one question, but was stifled by a complete lack of productivity (i.e., 4 sentences typed and they weren't even that good), so I decided to cut my losses and try again later. After stopping by to talk to Anika Green (more on her later days), I made my way to one of the things that look forward to most on Stanford's Campus, the monthly Black Graduate Student Association (BGSA) meeting.
BGSA
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I very much look forward to these meetings. In addition to the free food (which is one of the perks of grad school, LOTS of free food which will be evident over the course of this week), there's fellowship and it's an all around good time.
On the agenda today, we had a presentation from a grad student working with the grad student's counsel (GSC) to improve diversity efforts (women and underrepresented minorities) at the graduate student level.
While Stanford is a great place to study and in general has a "diverse" student body (i.e. lots of internationals, and gender equity in a number of schools in terms of student population), diversity in terms of underrepresented minorities in grad school is lacking. To be fair, none of the top-tier grad schools where I interviewed last year does a good job in this area, but that is not a reason to be satisfied with our low numbers.
The School of Medicine does pretty well with respect to gender diversity (about 50/50), but racial diversity is an entirely different matter: black students make up 2.8% of the grad student population (237/8176) university-wide so clearly there's a lot of work to do.
Also on the agenda was a talk by a food activist named Bryant Terry who wrote a book called "Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen." He was definitely a passionate brother, which is something that I respect.
The rest of the night
After BGSA, I had to put myself back to work due to my earlier lack of productivity. Thankfully, by 10:30 pm I was able to put together a reasonable answer to the exam question which had stumped me earlier. To reward myself, I went out with some of my fellow grad student friends to the Caribbean Student Association's party which was on campus. Though I had my doubts, it was one of the better parties that I've been to in my 10 months out here.
Posted at 11:00 PM
