Official First Week!

So much has happened since I last posted! I've been out and about so much, have seen and done so many things, and probably most importantly, the Amgen program has officially started and I've started in lab. This will also be an exciting post because I should hopefully have lots of pictures!

On Sunday (wow, that was forever ago!) was the 75th Anniversary Festival of the Golden Gate Bridge! A lot of us went into San Francisco for the festival. I missed that city so much! We basically just walked around one of the parks by the waterfront near the bridge and froze because no one dressed warmly enough. We ended up coming back to Berkeley before the fireworks and just watching them from our balcony because we were so cold. Probably a good thing because we heard the busses back were awful and super crowded. Here are some photos:

At the festival

Alcatraz Island

Mountains between Alcatraz (right) and the bridge (left)

Golden Gate Bridge looking very not golden from the sun glare

A mouse I found and befriended!

Golden Gate at sunset

Fireworks over the Golden Gate as seen from our lounge balcony

Later that night, several other girls and I ended up at King Pin Donuts, a little donut shop down the street from the dorm. Anytime you go, they always have fresh, hot glazed donuts that you can get. They're warm and gooey and delicious and wonderful. They also have lots of other flavors. I don't have photos of this because I didn't think to take any in between stuffing my face with the most delicious donuts I've ever had.

Monday, the day before the program started, was relaxed. I took my practice GRE diagnostic test for the prep course which starts next week (that took all morning). In the afternoon I played Settlers of Catan with some of the other girls, and later in the evening most of the girls got together and made doortags (since when we got here the doors were just labeled with Amgen 2012. Now we actually know who's in what room!). Afterwards, we played several games of mafia before breaking to go read all of the papers our lab had sent us as prereadings.

Tuesday was orientation day and the first official day in the program. We got to meet the program heads and got a thick binder full of all of the information we'll need while here. During the course of the morning we learned about lab and program expectations, housing and safety info, social activity info, and various other campus information. Our binder has lots of useful information like copies of all of the powerpoints, our program schedule, maps of the local area and list of things to do, list of resources Berkeley offers or web resources that are good for science research, etc. During the afternoon, we split up into GA groups to walk around campus and briefly get to see our research labs. I got to meet my lab PI (Principal Investigator, the head of the lab) who was really welcoming and I got a wonderful first impression of him! My building is really pretty and has a really cute tree grove behind it.  There are three other scholars besides me who work in my building, which is called the Life Science Addition. On my area of campus, there are a bunch of other science buildings, and I learned generally where they are. It's nice because I always have the chance of running into another Amgen Scholar when I'm going to lunch in the area, and it's just nice to know that people I know are close by. In between lab visits, my group went up the Campanile (or Sather Tower, the bell tower I can see from my room), which was absolutely incredible! Here are some photos from around campus (I'll label what I can but I'm still pretty bad with finding my way around, minus to and from lab!)

A large field of grass.
We don't have this at BU and it's so foreign
to me to see so much grass in one place!

Berkeley's LIBRARY! I've yet to go inside.
I must do that soon as the pictures I see online
 are absolutely beautiful.

Buildings in front of the library 

A seal marking the field in front of the library.
I avoided stepping on it like it was BU.

Valley Life Science Building, from the back. 

Life Science Addition, my building!

Sather Gate and Sproul Plaza 

Fountain in Sproul Plaza and the Cal Student Store

The Golden Gate (once again not looking very golden!)
as seen from the Campanile

Unzoomed view of San Francisco area.
If you look on the right side of the picture,
you can see Valley Life Science and Life Science addition.
They're essentially directly to the left of the field
on the right side of the photo

Bells inside the Campanile 

Me with the San Francisco area in the background,
from the top of the Campanile  

A cute bench outside the Campanile entrance

Funky little trees in the plaza outside the Campanile 

The front of Valley Life Sciences

Campanile agan

ONLY AT BERKELEY

I also have a new cover photo to reflect the fact that I'm at Berkeley! You'll recognize it as the view of the Campanile from the grassy area in front of the library! What better to represent my stay at Berkeley than the famous belltower! Sorry, San Francisco, I know you're right next door, but you're just not Berkeley!

Speaking of that photo, I have a fun fact of the day : despite there being many photos out there of the things I've posted (SF skyline, the belltower, buildings on campus, etc), I take all my own pictures that I post here. Take my old cover photo, for example. I've posted it below.

I actually took this photo from Coit Tower when I visited San Francisco in the summer of 2008. If you look at the building right next to the bridge, you'll see that it's actually yellow. That's a reflection of my dad in the window! You can see the reflections of the other windows if you look closely in the sky. 

And then the fun ends (but not really, because I'm here to do work and I'm with a bunch of scientists, and so we all think that being in lab is fun!). Wednesday was my first day in lab. My PI was just as nice as he seemed the previous day. First we talked about the projects I'll be working on this summer. I'm really excited to be working in a neuroscience lab because I'll be exposed to so many new techniques that will be necessary for my future career especially to focus on these techniques in the context of a sensory system, my main interest in neuroscience. My PI then set me up at my desk, gave me all of my safety training, and introduced me to the two main people who I will be working with. I did some background reading for a little while, and then he gave me an assignment. Before I explain that, I'll talk a bit about my projects. Currently in neuroscience, a lot of work is done using fluorescent staining for something (a specific protein, or general things like axons). The brain is then sliced and the stains are visualized. This is useful in looking at things like where a certain main area (like the somatosensory cortex, which is what my lab studies) projects to. It helps answer questions like "what other parts of the brain may be important in the somatosensory system?" However, 2-D models can only tell you so much. My first project is to inject the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) with a fluorescent labeler, which will travel to all the places S1 projects to, and then use a technique which MAKES THE BRAIN TRANSPARENT to then look at the fluorescent labeled projections in 3-D. HOW COOL IS THAT? My second project will be looking at the changes to S1 as a result of sensory experiences. I'll be doing immuno - staining for a protein expressed in a specific type of neuron in S1 whose expression may change in response to a changing sensory stimulation. The initial pre-project assignment I was given was to look at the Allen Brain Map website and make a list of slides of the places that S1 projects to. They already have some 2-D data of labeled projections from S1 with photos of all the brain slices. So, I had to sift through all of those photos, plus those photos in a reference atlas, to figure out all the different brain regions that had been labeled. It's actually really useful to help me familiarize myself with terminology and brain areas that I could potentially see in my research!

To celebrate our first day in lab, most of the scholars took a field trip to a local ice cream and cookie place called CREAM.

At CREAM, you can either get fresh, warm cookies, ice cream, or combine them for a warm-cookie ice cream sandwich. I got white pistachio ice cream on white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies. SO DELICIOUS!

Today, my second day in lab, I watched/kind of helped one of my mentors slice brains for staining, which I believe I'll be helping to do tomorrow. I was supposed to also start the transparent brain procedure, but I ended up getting really into my S1 projection powerpoint, which I ended up finishing in the late afternoon (and I was told to have it done by "sometime next week"). My PI said that he would arrange a meeting between him, me, and other members of the lab to check my work for accuracy, which is really great of him to make sure that I'm on the right track and to be so involved in my learning process and be interested in what I'm doing. It's also great that my unspoken fear was instantly corrected - I thought that he might want me to present what I did at lab meeting (which of course I wouldn't have minded doing), but I was unsure of some of my work and would have been really nervous to present without having it thoroughly checked by someone who knows more about the field than I do. Now I will be able to present with confidence if I'm asked to present what I've done during lab meeting.

This weekend, the GAs are hosting two social events. On Saturday there will be a walking tour of San Francisco. I've been to most of the places we're going on the tour, but I still want to go because I love the city and haven't been to all of those places in years! Sunday will be a hike through Tilden Park, which is right near Berkeley's campus. Everything has been wonderful so far and I'm really looking forward to continuing in lab and getting to explore the area more starting this weekend!

Moved in and Settled!

Greetings from my new dorm room at Berkeley! Move in was pretty smooth, besides the fact that I, as usual, had the largest amount of luggage, which was impossible to drag through doors, into elevators, and up and down stairs. I question whether I will ever fix this overpacking problem.

I spent most of my afternoon/evening meeting and having introductions with the other Scholars that are here. I ended up taking a shuttle from SFO with two other girls from the program, and after we got here we wandered around a bit before heading to dinner. It was pretty empty since we got there right when it opened, and we all did the easiest thing possible and ate pizza. I'm interested though to explore all the other food options and wonder when it will start getting as bad as I'm told it's supposed to be. We ended up seeing three other girls from the program just as we were finishing our dessert, and hung out with them for a little while in the dining hall before wandering to Walgreens for things people didn't pack, and then back to the dorms to try and meet everyone else that had moved in.

The rest of my time in between all the introductions was spent unpacking and hanging out in my room. The dorms here are probably the typical freshman dorms, much like Warren or West for my BU followers. My room is a triple, but I only have one roommate (who I will meet in the morning). I'm on the seventh floor, and let me say that the most incredible thing about my room is the view. Next year's Charles River view in my apartment in Boston is going to have a pretty hard time topping this one:

Unzoomed photo of my view during the afternoon

Sather Tower at sunset as seen from my room

I don't have pictures of this, but pretty far off to the side in the view is some body of water (probably the Bay?).

Like I mentioned above, my room is pretty much typical dorm style:

I have the right side of the room, with the single bunked bed and a double desk underneath. I had a LOT of furniture rearranging to do because the bed ladder wouldn't fit on the bed where the desk is. Unfortunately, on the back side of the bed, I have a dresser and a small shelf. Everything was always going to block something and it ended up that convenient ladder positions would prevent the dresser drawers from opening at all. I finally ended up figuring something out with minimal blockage:

I'm very happy with the layout, and I don't mind having to climb through furniture to get to my ladder. I'm just glad that I could minimize blockades and have a little alleyway to walk through, and have all of my things easily accessible. I have all of my necessary girly hair products and beauty things organized on top of the dresser and shelf, nothing is really that blocked (except that the shelves, which are half in the closet, prevent the sliding closet door from opening all the way, but that's not a big deal), and the ladder is actually secured onto the bed, and I can thus get onto my bed without risk of the ladder slipping. However, speaking of my bed, it's actually really rickety. Every time I climb onto my bed I'm super afraid that I'm going to shake it too hard and fall. 

I've also made my bed area super homey. I have Clappy and Pikachu, in addition to Nemo and Bubbles (who I bought at the Disney Store last week). I always bring my calendar when I travel for extended periods of time, and for this trip, I also decided to bring my postcard collage since it was easy to carry. My bed is now super homey. It was a struggle to get it that way though! The whole next-to-bed area is a giant cork board, and I now have blisters all over my fingers from struggling with the pushpins. I'm happy with the result though!

There are other miscellaneous things I had to do, like get everything wired. Luckily, the room is small enough / my cords were just long enough that everything can reach both the desk and bed. Hooray for workspace choices! 

After I'd finished unpacking and organizing everything, I read the little welcome packet I got when I checked in. 

It's very handy because it has things like important phone numbers, a color campus maps with things like the dining areas highlighted, and general resource information. Also included in the info packet was something I'm always shocked is a legitimately important issue, even though I know it's common out West - earthquakes.

I know they're very common out here, but being from the East Coast, I guess it just never occurred to me that preparing for earthquakes is as common and important out West as something like a fire drill. I've only experienced an earthquake once (which was ironically on the East Coast), so I guess it's good that I'm aware about what to do in the event of an earthquake now that I'm living in an earthquake - prone area. 

Tomorrow two GAs are having a get together over coffee to help everyone meet and get to know each other. From what I've gathered, people are very interested in going to the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge, so I'm hoping that actually happens! We have the entire weekend free for Memorial Day, so I'm looking forward to hanging out, getting to know everyone better, and exploring Berkeley! 

A quick note before I LEAVE FOR BERKELEY

This post should actually not exist or be titled "REENA GO REPACK ALL OF YOUR THINGS," because in the week I've been with my family my suitcases have exploded, all of my things are all over the place and disorganized, and I have still not bothered to really consider the fact that I should really start repacking and reorganizing my things to ensure a smooth move. Oops.

I can't believe the week is already over and I'm leaving for Berkeley this afternoon. I've lost track of all the new info Berkeley has sent. If you look in my inbox, there are several family-related emails, one email from someone at BU, and the rest are Berkeley-related. Some important things that I've got are a campus map (don't want to get lost, Berkeley seems a lot more complicated than BU's single street!), a list of activities for the summer + the calendar of events, shuttle assignments for this afternoon (I'll be meeting one of my fellow scholars at SFO and we'll take a shuttle together to campus), and roommate assignments!

I would have written more posts over the course of the last week updating on all that is Berkeley related, but I was too busy playing with the nephew who is the reason I came out to CA early. Speaking of him, that's really a good incentive to get packing! He's currently taking his morning nap, and I should finish packing ASAP so that when he wakes up I can play with him! It's also especially important that I see him as much as possible before I leave, because he's wearing his little Cal shirt in support of my going there today.

To all of my die-hard followers (*coughnatashacough*), expect to hear from me again once all of my responsibilities are complete and I have successfully moved in at Berkeley!

My Address!

My address as of this coming Saturday, the 26th, when I officially move into Berkeley! Mail me things!

Reena Clements
c/o Amgen Scholars Program
Unit 1 Residence Halls
2650 Durant Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94720

PS: I love sending and receiving snail mail! If you would like a postcard or letter or any other type of snail mail, message me your address and I will send you something!

The 3AM Packing Nightmare

So the title of this post is actually extremely misleading, as I just finished packing! The entire process was a nightmare, as is usual with my packing. I really do consider all of the things I'm bringing with me necessary! This post will be a photo-story of my night. It will be amusing or scary, depending on who you are and how you perceive serious overpacking. Hopefully I can look back on this and laugh at how crazy I am!

So this first picture is of my room before I started packing or did anything. This is how it looked when I brought back all my stuff from Boston, and I left it like that for a week. Yes, for a week, I actually preferred to walk over things and have no floor space than unpack and organize things. There are actually more things off to the right, but they're not visible in the picture. 

Somehow, when looking through random papers in my purse that just sit there and don't get organized or taken out, I found the packing list I used for my summer in NC last year! Good thing, because I used my past self's organization and list of things you need when moving via airplane to write this year's list. I even color coded it! It was definitely helpful to have the old list. In the process of actually starting to pack, each category actually ended up getting longer with things I'd forgotten, whoops!

At 8pm or so, when I decided it was time to start packing, I started on the non-clothing portion of my checked luggage, and this was it. It's not really much - the pile is essentially a third shoes, a third towels, and a third hair products. 

And then we go to my real problem area - me bringing WAY too many clothes because apparently, they're all absolutely necessary. The empty suitcase at the bottom is the one I brought back from Boston, the laundry basket was to move things into to sort them, and the suitcase on the top left is a bigger one that I was moving the clothes into. Clothes that didn't make it to the big suitcase made it to the "I don't need to take this!!!" pile, which you can see forming next to my shoe. 

What I neglected to mention when discussing the previous picture is that I brought back a suitcase and two small duffel bags worth of clothes back from Boston, in addition to a medium sized duffel of misc things that I didn't know where else to put when I was moving out of my apartment. All of those bags had to be unpacked and sorted. The result is what you see under my shelves - I decided to just make a huge pile of stuff that was in those bags that I didn't need. 

Then came the Dark Ages. It involved packing and sorting, trying to use a medium duffel as my second bag, me realizing I forgot to pack all of my dress clothes and sweaters and subsequently realizing I just had way too much stuff, needing to search the house for a bigger duffel, unpacking and repacking AGAIN, weighing, moving things around, and finally finishing. There is no photographic proof that the Dark Ages ever existed. 

This is the light at the end of the Dark Ages. All my things packed (somewhat) nicely into a very large suitcase and a very large duffel bag, both weighing about 35-40 lbs each (the bathroom scale I swiped for my room for the night isn't very accurate!). 

Now onto my carry on luggage! Besides things like my computer and it's associated wires, and the things I already put into the carry on bag before taking this picture (calculators, cards, calendar, other misc wires, a textbook, etc) this is pretty much it! 

And this is the carry on mostly packed! I'm bringing the duffel for flying to LA mid summer for the Amgen Scholars conference (no way I'm checking one of the huge bags for a three day trip!!). I ended up putting stuff in my backpack and then putting it in the duffel because I didn't think I'd have enough space in my backpack for what I wrote on my carry on list, plus my backpack is in the process of breaking, so I didn't want to put it under too much stuff stress. I believe all I have left to put in it is my laptop. The rest of the small things that are laying around my room (camera, iPod, cell phone) plus the stuff I'll pack tomorrow morning (toothbrush, glasses, etc) can either fit in crevices in the duffel or just into my purse. 

And now, I've probably convinced everyone I'm crazy! But hopefully this post was somewhat amusing to read :). 

It still hasn't fully hit me that I'm leaving so soon, and am on my way to what will hopefully be one of the greatest most memorable summers I've had to date. I'll be sitting in the airport/on the plane thinking "I can't believe I'm here, I can't believe this is actually happening!". For the thousandth time, I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Four Days to Takeoff!

Those of you who know me well know that I love keeping countdowns of days (hours and minutes, when available) left until important events in my life. While there are still 11 days left until my summer at Berkeley starts, I fly out to San Francisco this Friday, which means that I have to have everything in order and taken care of within the next few days, and there's so much to do!!! Even though school finished and I came back to NJ for a little bit, finals stress is catching up with me. I should probably just grow fur and a tail the amount I've been sleeping, because at this point I'm pretty much a cat! So, unfortunately, I haven't done much since school ended.

Today, however, that changed! This morning I curled up in bed with my neuroscience textbook for a little while! The program requires that our labs have sent us background reading for our projects so that we're not completely lost when we get there or spend time learning about our project when we could actually just be jumping right into research. My homework consisted of two review papers, two journal articles, and familiarizing myself with the tactile system in a neuroscience text. I read the reviews and journal papers right away in case I had really pressing questions, but saved the book reading until school was finished. Being the overachiever that I am, and given that I really miss molecular neuro, which I haven't taken in depth since the beginning of sophomore year due to my brief focus on marine science, I'm reading much more than is necessary in the text. I'm currently working on the chapter focusing on the development of the nervous system and the brain, next I will move onto all of the sensory systems, then read about behavior, and if I didn't get a good enough idea about it from reading all of that, I'll go back and look at the chapter on neurotransmitters. I'm sad that I've forgotten a lot of the things I had learned in my Cells and Systems Neuro course (which I used this text for), but it's all slowly coming back to me and I'm SO excited to be preparing for this neuroscience research experience. I was reading all throughout waiting times during my various doctors appointments today, too. My dentist told me I should give my mind a break, to which I replied that a two day break was enough and I was excited to go back to learning!

I got some additional information from Berkeley today regarding the program. Berkeley provides a GRE prep course for those who are interested, solely for Amgen Scholars. I was originally planning on studying on my own and maybe taking a class and then taking the GRE before I left for wherever I'd be for the summer (this was back in January when I didn't know where I'd be). But, with the high stress semester I had, there was no time to study, and it's a great opportunity that Berkeley provides this class for the Scholars. Since it's a class just for the Scholars, I'll be with people similar to me and hopefully being in that type of environment will push me to improve even more. I'll take the test at the end of the summer.

I also found out the name of my Graduate Assistant (GA). Each Scholar is assigned a GA to help out with social and academic components as well as support for all the other aspects of the program. They help  to make sure you're on track with your research during the summer and help you through any roadblocks. GAs are basically like peer mentors to help guide you. It will be especially helpful for me to hear my GA's take on graduate school, applications, etc, especially since I probably will end up applying to Berkeley for my graduate studies. The email from the program director said our GA will contact us soon, and I haven't heard from mine yet but I'm looking forward to hearing from her and learning about her!

I've been chatting a lot with the other scholars through Facebook. Like I mentioned in my first post, I love exploring all the sweet-eateries in new cities, and when I mentioned that to the other Scholars, everyone got really excited about it! Besides the ever popular Ghirardelli Chocolate Shop, many other names of recommended places have come up which I'm very excited to try! I'm also really looking forward to the non-eating activities that have begun to pop up. Several of the girls have mentioned concerts, which I usually love to go to, but I don't know these artists very well, so I'm still thinking about whether or not I want to go. The 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge is the weekend we arrive at Berkeley, and I believe there was a general consensus (read as: likes on the suggester of this activity's post) for those of us who are there early enough that weekend to go and check it out. And of course, to get to know the other Scholars better, there's nothing better than a friendly game of Apples to Apples. I've always brought this game along whenever I go to programs, and everyone loves it, so I'm excited to play and get a good laugh of red card choices! Based on all of the posts and conversations, it really seems like a great bunch of people to be around this summer!

The last point I'll mention in this post is PACKING. Regardless of where I'm going, I take way too many things with me. Usually this has never been a problem, since wherever I'm going is close enough to drive to. That changed last summer when I flew to NC. Somehow, for the first time, I managed to pack what I considered to be "just the essentials" into one very large suitcase and one very large duffel bag, which weighed just under 50 pounds each. Coming back home, I ended up having the same suitcase situation plus I mailed back a 20 pound box. Guess I collected too much stuff down there, whoops. I haven't bothered to unpack or organize anything since coming back from Boston, so there are piles of things all over the floor in my room which need to be sorted and repacked before I leave on Friday. I'm absolutely thrilled thinking about having to do that! I don't know what sorts of things besides my clothes to bring, and I'm worried that I'll forget something silly which I might end up needing! Really not much more to say on the subject besides reiterating the fact that my packing is a tad bit out of control.

I'll finish this post with one last short story and two photos. I love stuffed animals. At college, my bed is half filled with stuffed animals, and I actually get sad and miss the ones I have to leave in NJ simply due to space constraints in dorm rooms! Anyway. During the time I was 7, I got two special stuffed animals (in addition to the many I already had at that point in my life!). One is a squirrel from the field trip to the zoo, named Clappy for her velcro hands, the other a Pikachu from the mall as a birthday present. Clappy and Pikachu are best friends, and for whatever reason, I'm more attached to them than most of my other stuffed animals (besides Lumpy, my giant heffalump, but he's unfortunately really big and would be impossible to bring on a plane! Also, yes, you did read that correctly, I do indeed have a giant heffalump!). Anyway - due to this attachment, Clappy and Pikachu have come with me on almost every vacation or trip I've ever taken. Yes, they are essentials, and they poke their heads out of my purse when I travel! And, just like me, they're in love with flying. We can't wait for Friday :).

Deciding on Berkeley

I hope that my blogging experience will be just as much something personal for me to share my journeys and adventures this summer as it will be something that my friends and family look forward to and enjoy reading. So, this one's for you, readers. I'd like to give a little background on the past couple of months, through the application process and accepting Berkeley's internship offer, as well as info about the program so that those of you who maybe don't know a lot about it right now can get some insight into both the program and why it is really important for me. If there is anything that you want to know or feel that I left out, please leave a comment and I will be happy to answer any questions/respond to anything you have to say!

Over winter break, I spent countless hours searching for potential internship programs. My main interests lie in sensory biology. I am fascinated with the transduction of environmental signals and how organisms process these signals to cause behavioral changes. I hope to work with a marine model system, as I am also interested in broader questions pertaining to how the sensory systems evolved from our aquatic ancestors to what we are today. However, (I feel that) my research experiences have been a bit scattered so far. I have previously interned at the NIH studying genetics, Duke University Marine Lab studying genetics of circadian rhythms in a crab system, a sensory biology lab here at BU where I'm looking at behavioral indicators of specific sensory perceptions, as well as participation in the BU Marine Program's Marine Semester. Most of my background has been in genetics, since I didn't realize I wanted to do marine-neuroscience until relatively recently. My experience at DUML was awesome though, in that I got to look at the molecular mechanisms behind a type of behavior I hadn't worked with before.

Thus, my goal this summer was to get a really rewarding experience that would expose me to neuroscience research. I applied to mostly REUs (the same NSF funded experience that I did last summer, since they're hosted at colleges nationwide, each college having their own program), mostly marine science but many with a focus on neuroscience or molecular biology. And then along came by discovery of Amgen. The Amgen Scholars Program is funded by the Amgen Foundation and is held at ten US universities and 3 European universities. It's much more of a biotechnology focused program than REUs, which span all the areas of science one could possibly think of (or close to it!). I didn't know much about Amgen Scholars before I investigated it as a possible internship choice. All I knew before last winter was that my cousin had participated at the program in Berkeley several summers ago and absolutely loved it. So I began to look at the different Amgen sites to see if there were any potential faculty mentors whose research interests matched mine. I ended up finding a mentor I REALLY liked at Berkeley who studies vision in crustaceans, who I didn't actually get placed to work with, but he's the reason I set my heart on going to Berkeley, and considered it my first choice summer internship. I found that many other professors were conducting really interesting neuroscience research which I knew I would enjoy, even if it wasn't necessarily in a marine system. I realized Amgen was an amazing option to get my feet wet in neuroscience research. So I ended up applying to Berkeley and San Diego's Amgen sites, as well as 7 or 8 REUs (I don't remember the exact count!!!).

Every year since I applied to college way back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth (yes, I have growing up issues!), I've told myself that I would finish my applications during the school break before school started. That, of course, has never happened. And let me put it out there, I've found internship application periods much more stressful than college applications were. If you start looking during winter break and start working right away in early January, you have generally 4-8 weeks to get applications in depending on the program, and it's essentially the same amount of work, if not more, as college applications (more depending on the nature of the application and personal statements required).  Luckily, I've been doing this for a while, so writing personal statements comes relatively easy now that I've had a lot of experience with them, and I always keep my resume updated. I would also like to add in a word of thanks to my wonderful editor, who is very dear to me, and has always been there to lend a helping hand and deal with my crazy application processes essentially since I started applying anywhere! Amgen applications were due at the beginning of February, while the rest had scattered due dates throughout February and early March. It was a busy beginning of semester!

I certainly wasn't expecting what happened last year to happen again this year. Duke Marine Lab's REU was by far my first choice. The application was due on Feb 14, and I remember waking up from a nap mid afternoon on Feb 21, half asleeply pulling out my phone to check my email, to find that I had been accepted to their program. Certainly wasn't half asleep anymore after reading that! I did wait to hear from other programs before committing to Duke, but deep down I knew I'd end up there. After officially accepting their offer I stalked the webcam constantly , got really excited for the program, and proceeded to have an amazing summer.

Most programs say they'll let you know by early-mid March (Berkeley specifically said they'd start notifying March 1). So it was weird for me to have all my plans in the air, not knowing where I'd be, for a really long time after submitting my applications, much longer than I waited last year! Spring break began, and I still hadn't heard back from any program. At that point I'd lost hope for getting an Amgen Scholars position, but figured anything could happen and processing the high volume of applicants could just be taking longer than originally expected, and that there were still two weeks left before the end of March! Then, the Monday of spring break came, March 12th. It was around 7:30-8pm at night, and I was in the kitchen stir frying some onions for the risotto I was making for dinner. I heard my phone vibrate more than 3 times in a row (meaning I'm getting a call, not a text), so I went to check it. The cool thing about my phone is that it'll display a state for numbers not in my contacts based on whatever the area code is. Guess where the number was from that was calling me? CALIFORNIA. Looking back that moment should have been more exciting than it was, I actually just thought it was one of my family members calling me from a number I didn't have (I have lots of family in the Bay Area). So I pick up, and it's BERKELEY calling to TELL ME I HAD AN OFFER OF ACCEPTANCE TO THE AMGEN SCHOLARS PROGRAM. This is when this years story becomes more exciting than last years, because I dropped everything to start dancing around my room while maintaining a calm voice to hear about and ask questions about all of the program information and details (since I was still on the phone!!!). Dinner was not cooked until several hours after that, despite the phone call not being more than a half hour or so long. Someone was just wayyyyy too excited!

Over the next couple of days I heard back from two other top choice programs, one acceptance and one waitlist. But just like with Duke, I'd known from the start I would be going to Berkeley if I was accepted. So, one week after that phone call, I accepted the offer of admission to The UC Berkeley Amgen Scholars Program.

Over the next few weeks, I filled out numerous forms, booked my flights, discovered and stalked their webcam (which I of course DON'T still do), "met" my fellow scholars through our Facebook group, and filled out a roommate survey. Most importantly, I found out who my mentor will be this summer! They don't actually tell you who you're getting placed with until sometime after you accept their offer of admission, but I knew that I would love whoever I did end getting placed with. I'll be working with Dr. Dan Feldman  on a project in which the general idea is to study the tactile sense of rodents via the whisker system, which is implicated in things such as texture discrimination. I'm really looking forward to working on this project and to be exposed to an area of sensory biology in which I've never worked!

I couldn't be more excited for this amazing opportunity that I've been offered, to be able to learn and explore so much about my areas of interest, get to know better one of my favorite geographic locations in the world, and most importantly, to be able to experience personal self-exploration and growth, and to challenge myself in ways I probably wouldn't have dreamed would ever be possible.

9 days to California, 17 til I move to Berkeley!

Intro and Background. I'm such a scientist!

Hello, world! As you probably have gathered from the about me, this will be my blog where I can write all about my adventures this coming summer at UC Berkeley where I will be a participant in the Amgen Scholars summer research program. My internet self is a little shy since I haven't ever (personally) blogged much, and I've stopped posting like the plague to my Facebook page as of last December. I am part of a blog at school (The Nerve Blog), which you can visit to read all sorts of things in the field of neuroscience, including posts by me!

Last summer, I was an awarded an NSF REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) at the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort, NC. I had one of the most enriching summers of my life. DUML is special, I felt, in that they really focused on "learning by doing." There were so many times that I felt like I wasn't spending enough time in lab, but instead going on too many field trips! I was exposed to so many different local habitats like marshes and nearby islands, and got to visit places like The North Carolina Aquariums and The Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Hospital. I got to interact with some of the most inspirational people I've ever met in my life (specifically at the sea turtle hospital!). Long story short, I had an incredible time. The one thing I do regret though is not keeping some sort of record (besides in photographs or writing my experimental procedures in my lab notebook) of what I did during the summer.  I wish I had kept some sort of blog to be able to write details of all the amazing experiences I had, not only to look back on but to be able to share with friends and family during the course of the summer. I will thus be keeping a blog during my upcoming summer experience.

Out of the many blogging sites in the vast realm of the internet, I was about to create an account on another website, but then discovered that I can run Blogger off of my email. No need to have social media accounts on so many websites when I can consolidate them and run them off of one account! So here I am, on Blogger, which now joins my Google account along with my GMail/BU mail accounts, my Youtube account and Google+ profile. Google really is taking over the world my internet usage. Awesome!

I've been to California many times before (specifically San Francisco twice, in 2003 and 2008), but have never lived there or gotten to explore all the local nooks of the city. One of my favorite things to do in new cities is explore all of the local cupcake shops, bakeries, or anything really having to do with yummy desserts - thus, the Ghirardelli Chocolate Shop as my profile picture! This summer is especially important to me because I would really love to go to graduate school on the west coast, so I hope to meet new people in the (geographic) area who are in my field, and make connections so that when the time comes to apply next fall, I won't be completely directionless!

Just so I don't make this first post too long (...or take away from study time for finals, which I really, really should be doing right now, since it's the last week of school and we're in reading period!), I will end my intro post here. I am going to continue to write in the upcoming weeks updating on all of my pre-departure excitement. I fly out in just over two weeks to visit family in the area, and after spending a week with them, I will move to Berkeley where I will spend the rest of my summer (well, 10 weeks of it!).

Here's to a wonderful summer of making new friends, having a great research experience, and basically just having the time of my life! :)

View from our hotel during Summer 2008 visit to San Francisco