On tap for the day:
1. Gym and Class
2. Seminar Dinner and homework
Gym and Class
Tuesday mornings I usually go to the gym, and today was no exception. My classes start at 11 am on Tuesday and Thursday, and since my lab is off campus, it's pretty difficult to get there and get anything done with classes most of the day. As such, I usually don't have too much to do on Tuesday/Thursday mornings.
Stanford recently built a new gym (Arillaga Center) which is pretty nice (though there aren't any locker rooms which doesn't make sense to me). I like going in the morning to beat the evening rush of (mostly) undergrads which makes it impossible to get on any of the machines. Plus it's a good way to start the day, and I've realized that if I don't work out in the morning, it just doesn't happen (then my clothes stop fitting, which is no good). Though I never got around to taking a picture of the place, I cheated and found one online.
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After working out, it's shower time and then off to class. Tuesday and Thursday from 11-12:30, I have Advanced Immunology II, and then from 2:15-3:10, I have biotechniques. These classes both follow a similar format of a lecture on Tuesday followed by a discussion of papers that we've been assigned on Thursday. Usually, we have to write a critique for a paper for biotechniques for Thursday's class, but thankfully this week we don't :)
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Today in Adv. Immuno II, Peter Lee, a cancer researcher came to discuss the role of the immune system in cancer regulation.
After class, I went to the biosciences office. Biosciences is the administrative entity that covers all of the PhD programs in the biological sciences here at Stanford.
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Additionally, this office houses some of my favorite people at Stanford. There's Valeesa, who is also a southerner :), who gives the best hugs, and has a genteel manner about her. She's all around a lovely person.
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Then there's Anika Green, the Assistant Dean for Graduate Education and Director of Biosciences Diversity Programs. Anika and I go waaaay back.
In fact, she was my academic advisor for the first two years at my undergraduate institution (UMBC). It's cool having someone here who's known me for more than the past 10 months and I can talk to her about pretty much anything (whether things are going well or not so well), so I can definitely say it's a blessing having her out here and Stanford is lucky to have her. I usually stop by to chat with her once a week or so, and as I had 1.5 hours in between my classes, this was a good time.
The office also houses our program administrator Maureen Panganiban, who is great and can get just about anything done for us when we need it (and if she can't she at least points us in the right direction). Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of her here.
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After lunch, it was back to more classes :biotechniques, and then seminar discussion. The immunology program has a student-run seminar series that brings a different speaker to Stanford each week to talk about their immunology-related research (this year, speakers were from Harvard, NIH, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, University of Toronto, Yale, Stanford and more).
As first years, we meet with an older student to discuss a recent publication from the week's speaker. Since the weather was so nice, we decided to meet outside...
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After seminar discussion, it's off to seminar. Before seminar, though there's pre-seminar "tea" in which not only is there tea, but tons of sweets (which does nothing for me who does my best to avoid them, but c'mon, a man only has so much will power)...
Seminar, this week's speaker was Stanford's own Magali Fointaine MD/PhD, discussing islet transplantation for treatment of Type I diabetes.
Seminar Dinner and Homework
Normally, at this point I would go home, cook, then read the paper for Thursday's biotechniques class, and try to finish the critique. However, as there's no critique this week, I decided to go to Seminar Dinner. Note: Seminar Dinner is not a weekly occurence, more like a 1-2X/per quarter thing.
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The Immunology program sponsors dinner for 4 students to take the seminar speaker out for dinner after completing their talk. A student can usually go 1-2X per quarter if they want, and since there was an open spot and I had no major work for the night, I decided to go.
These dinners are nice b/c they allow me to eat at places that my stipend doesn't quite afford. Tonight we went to Cafe Riache in Palo Alto, a pretty good Italian restaurant.
After dinner, I did have to do some work for my science education class. After doing the readings and the assignment, I watched Law & Order: SVU, then did a little more reading, and then off to bed.
Posted at 11:00 PM
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