That pretty much sums up everything for the past month. Things got retarded busy as the semester came to a close and hasn't let up since. July's not looking too great either. I guess I'll have to explain. I have a few minutes to type something up and prove I'm still alive or something. Afterwards, it's back to the salt mines for backbreaking (not brokebacking) labor. Curse my ambition!

As last semsester wound down, I found myself caught in the usual final exam/presentation mode. However, whenever this happens at the end of Spring, it always feels much, much harder to get any work done. (And picking up an X360 didn't help too much.) I blame the American schooling system. For years and years we've been trained to accept Summer as three months of laziness. From kindergarten until receiving a bachelor's degree, we've pretty had entire summers' worth of freetime. So it is no surprise that getting your ass in gear over the summer isn't easy. I blame the schools.

A couple of people have asked me what I was doing on 6-6-6. You know what? I was studying for an exam on 6-6-7, 6-7-6, 7-6-6 or whatever date format you prefer. The next day. The exam was for 'Intro to Immunology' and it was completely unfair just like the exam before then. (Oh man, I haven't been typing here in a while.)

Well, the last, last exam was unfair to the majority of the class. What I mean by this is that the first question on the exam was worth 29 points (of 100) and it asked from the Common Lymphoid Progenitor, describe T cell development, where these events occur, which surface cell markers are expressed and when, and in which compartments do positive and negative selection occur.

This question was pretty unfair to the Virologists in the class. (And luckily,) I'm an immunologist. The only reason why I know the cell surface markers and development in detail is because I had to look for them in lab. B220, CD44, CD25, CD4, CD8, CD3, bone marrow, thymal cortex, thymal medulla, cortico-medullary junction, afferent lymphatics, efferent lymphatics, DN1, DN2, DN3, DN4, DP, SP, etc... Immunologists HAVE to know this stuff since this is a foundation of the majority of acquired immunology research. Whereas the Virologists don't really have to know this in as much detail.

T cell development was breifly covered in lecture but it was so glossed over, there was no indication it would be important to know for the exam. So yeah, it was unfair. As expected, there was a large spread between two populations on the grading scale. You can tell where the immunologists and the virologists are on the graph and I'm sure it was that one question that caused the great divide. We all got a guilt trip over that.


Then the last exam was more of a really, really bad question situation. It was a series of tough questions. The only reason they were tough was because they were never covered in lecture. Try explaining the redox apoptosis pathway in T cells and compensatory responses without ever studying it before. I don't know what the hell that was all about. I believe that question is going to get thrown out.

I'm so glad that class is over.

For Advanced Immunology, we had to do presentations at the end of the semester. The topic I picked was "Major Histocompatability Complex evasion mechanisms of Herpes Simplex Virus type 1". As I mentioned before, I consider myself an immunologist over a virologist so I wasn't really inclined to present a specific topic. I picked something that was kinda related to my rotation project at the time (MHCI) and a random virus. Pavi went before me and she finished 30 minutes early which allowed me to show off my Japan pictures for a while as we waited for some people to show up for my presentation. The presentation went well. Jenny threw garbage at me right before I started. What's up with that? The funny thing was that I thought it was Renee and I threw the garbage back at her. Oops.


Well to vent out some of this stress, I picked up a copy of Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires for Xbox 360. There's nothing better than personally beating up an army of Chinese people from the second century to relieve your stress. I'm so glad there's no slowdown on the 360 version and the graphics are sharp to boot. It was only $30, so why not? Chan, you know you want a piece of this.


I've also been looking for a new place to live. The floors here are paper thin and it's driving me nuts. There's a place in the north side that I'm interested in. However, there may be a problem when it comes to parking my car. In Syracuse, there's a stupid Even/Odd Day parking rule when it comes to streetside parking. Only one side of the street can have parked cars and it switches sides every day at 6pm. If I have to park streetside, I don't think I'll be able to make it back most of the time to switch sides. Maybe I'll have to start looking again... blah.


So with the semester over, it's time to start working in our permanent labs. This is where I'm insane. I'm really interested in plasmacytoid dendritic cells whch are a non-myeloid dendritic cell subtype recently discovered and research on them is exploding right now. I can thank Dr. Princiotta for getting me hooked on them. Anyway, there's a link connecting plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC) and CD25+ CD4+ T regulatory cells to cause anergy or tolerance. The focus in my lab right now (Dr. Kittur's) is allograft acceptance and I believe we'll find a lot of answers in the pDCs. However, nobody else in the lab is sure about what they are or what they do. Nobody is. So, I have to make myself the pDC expert in the lab. So since I've started, I've been pouring over papers and papers trying to absorb everything about pDC that I can. Also, when I did a quick PubMed search of pDCs and tolerance, there was a whopping total of 6 papers. There's a lot of work to be done in this area of immunity and I want to be a part of it. That's what makes me insane. Eventually, a thesis project will come into focus at the end of all this and I'll finally be able to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing (and nobody else in the lab does). Damn my ambition! It will be the end of me.


I did manage to attend a couple of social funcions and I have pictures from one. On June 2^nd, Pavi had her going away party. Yeah, Pavi decided that she was too cool for us and diched us for sunny Arizona State University. We'll miss her and I'm sure we left a lasting impression on her (which may be more like a scarring trauma). Nobody can ever replace our international 24 and Krispy Kreme soldier.

Anyway, onto the pictures.

Food, beer, wine, snacks and desserts. Good stuff.

We usually end up watching Friends at Amber's.

Even while wrestling for control of the knife they paused for a moment to smile.

Melissa brought the cake for Pavi.

Apparently, this happens to Jeanine occasionally and Melissa looks frozen in fear.

A perspective on Justin which most of us aren't used to seeing: top-down.

Time to cut the cake.




Since everybody else was doing it, I guess I just had to join the bandwagon and do it myself. I got Pavi a going away present. It wasn't something in a fancy box, it wasn't something that cost a lot, it wasn't something that's valuable to the world. I gave her a stack of thirty or so photographs that had pictures from various times we were all hanging out with Pavi. Since she was around for a couple of days after her party, I also threw in some pictures from there as well. She smacked me around the next day and said I made her cry. Yeah, I guess I have that effect on the ladies. I'm horrible.


Melissa's spending two weeks in Ireland right now. Before she flew out, she held a little get-together on the 15^th at Jess' place. In my permanent lab, the guy who previously had my desk is an MD urologist. It surprized me a little to see a giant box of sterile urine specimen containers under my desk. I'm not sure why I did this, but I brought two of them to Melissa's shindig. Man, they were more fun than I had anticipated. One I half-filled with beer and left in Jess' bathroom. Melissa took a sharpie and wrote my name and date on it. In retaliation, while she was on the karaoke mic in a 'squat' position, I slid the second specimen cup under her. It was the most hilarous thing in the world, especially when you're drunk. It was a small gathering. Jess, Melissa, Justin, Amanda, Brandy, Dave and I were in attendence.

Whatever happened to the half-full specimen cup with beer with my name on it, you ask? Jess is keeping it in her fridge for whatever reason. Possibly, she's waiting for that roomate of hers to move in and passively discover said amber-colored surprize next to the milk. Maybe she should set up a hidden camera.


Friday the 16^th was the GSA picnic. Hot dogs, Hamburgers, tons of cookies, two kegs and 80-degree weather are all positive signs of fun times. There's an inter-department softball game and I signed up to play. However, I got suckered into playing volleyball with a bunch of girls by Kristina. When Microbiology started their game, they didn't even call me. Bah! Well, it turned out they had too many players on the team so most of the game was spent sitting and waiting for some participants. I must've played volleyball for about 4 hours. I remember getting suckered around 1pm and when I put my watch back on after playing, it was 5pm. Jeebus.

Well, I did get to meet some incoming grad students and some serf, uh SURF students. The incoming grads are calling themselves 'first years' which I guess pushes my class into the 'second years' position. OH MAH GAHHH!!! Time flies when you're stuck in a lab, I guess. They seem to be a nice bunch, at least the students I've met so far. I remember 75% of the names of the students that have introduced themselves to me. I believe that's pretty good considering my track record.

The worst part of the picnic had to be when they ran out of cups. I had to ghettorig a cup out of a plate by folding it into itself. It was when I was coming back parched from volleyball too. Dehydration hurts.

After the picnic, Jon shuttled the kegs and other leftovers to his house and a party thus ensued to kill them. Good times. It's times like these when I wish I had a smaller 'party' camera. Bah, money.

I am soo sunburned from the picnic. Ugh.


My webspace here has been upgrated to 10gb from 1.5gb. I'm not sure how I survived with 100mb the entire time I was on the UW space. According to my site statistics, I'm already using about 300mb of space and that includes everything from nostalgia pictures to friendspace. The Japan pictures alone eat up 80mb of space. I've been able to post thumbnails with every picture with this extra storage. I'm sure the Caribbean Cruise post from a couple years ago was really annoying to navigate without thumbs. Oops.


I bought three T-shirts from Thinkgeek yesterday. I hope they come in soon.


This Friday, Thien and I are having a Filipino Party. That's short for 'Filipinos cooking for Thien Party'. It's a long story, so here's the abridged version. Thien had a Christmas party which was a potluck. I made Adobo. However Thien didn't really get to eat it since Greg went to town on the Adobo. So he kept bugging me when I'll make adobo again for him. I kept replying with 'When are you going to have another party.' This Filipino party is the result of weeks of bickering. So yeah, it should be good. I believe at least three Filipinos are going to be cooking. That should feed about 500 people.


Isaia's in Rhode Island and there's not enough free time to meet up. Boo.


Next month looks busy as well. On July 15^th I have a wine festival to attend. My boss is sending me to Boston for the weekend of the 22-23, I think. I need to move sometime at the end of the month. I need to visit Heather who's moving to Ithaca to attend Cornell at the end of the month. Also, there's a concert that the guys are going to and I'm interested. Ugh, busy busy.

I'm also 80'd out. Ever since discovering this list of hundreds of 80s music videos, I've been watching them like it's crack. Good times.


music: A-Ha - Take On Me
So needless to say, I'm odds and ends
But that's me, stumbling away
Slowly learning that life is O.K.
Say after me,
"It's no better to be safe than sorry."