Takeover of local sweet shops has officially begun

As if my every other day trip to King Pin donuts wasn't enough, this week has been particularly heavy on going to local treat places. Surprisingly, I haven't been to a single cupcake shop while I've been here! But, I really enjoy getting to know all of the other local sweet-treat-eateries, and love that I can find little places which have amazing treats, as cupcakes aren't everything in the dessert world!

I'll give the usual general update about how my past few days have been, but of course everyone will notice how much sugar I've consumed in the past few days.

On Wednesday, I had my first individual GA meeting to discuss updates on goings-on in lab as well as to go over a written assignment we had. It required me leaving the lab an hour before I usually do (5:15pm for a 5:30 meeting). The meeting didn't take more than 10 minutes, and since I ended up getting there early, I was done at 5:35pm. Things around here are generally closed by 6pm, so I was excited about all the possible things I could go see in the time I'm usually still in lab. So many things to choose from! Eventually, I decided that while nothing was running away and I'd fit in time to see everything eventually, I wanted to go inside Doe Library.

I cannot even describe what I felt when I walked into that library. It was like walking into the Boston Public Library, or the Library of Congress. I was completely in awe at how beautiful it was. I was overcome with the usual surge of jealousy that I feel when I see anything pretty on this campus, jealousy that I don't go to a school which has such amazing facilities, or architecture, or anything. Berkeley students have daily access to things like a drop dead gorgeous library, which is such a rarity in my life. I'm of course thankful that I have access to these facilities when I'm here this summer, but now that I've been exposed to it and realize what an amazing thing it is to have access to it, I'm going to be that much more sad when I have to leave it all behind at the end of the summer. Everything amazing is going to be snatched away from me and I'm going to have to go back to lame BU. All I'll be thinking about is that I only have a year left before I WILL end up somewhere just as spectacular as Berkeley for graduate school.

Here are some pictures from inside the library. I didn't take that many as it was close to closing time and there were very few people, so every little sound I made was noticed.

Exit from the reading room

The reading room

The end of the lobby, before going up the stairs
to the reading room

Wednesday was clearly a day for doing things I've been wanting to do at Berkeley for a while, as I also went to an ice cream shop that I was told is absolutely amazing, Ici's. It's about a 10-15 minute walk from the dorm (which is why no one had gone with me, CREAM is closer), but it is absolutely worth that distance (and the long line you have to wait in, which is apparently always present). They have unique flavors which are rotated daily, and they are INCREDIBLE. I got rose vanilla and honey graham cracker in a handmade cones. Which, by the way, are also incredible. I will never be able to eat another ice cream cone because the cones here are THAT good. The ice cream too, was just incredible. I don't know how else to describe it but with positive things and that I wish I could live there and eat their ice cream all the time.  They also have various delicious looking brittles (like pumpkin spice) and meringues (like rose hazelnut, or something crazy like that), which I must try, but will be difficult because that also requires me resisting getting ice cream.

Waiting in line!

Finally at the beginning of the line!

Flavor board on the tree. Photobomb! 

All of the ice cream so neatly displayed!

My cone

That's all for Wednesday's updates. Thursday, I went to lab late because we had a seminar speaker in the morning. Dr. Richmond Sarpong was speaking to us about his work in natural products (things that are derived from plants or other natural resources which can be used for important medicines). It is important to study mechanisms of producing these compounds in lab so that they can be widely accessible. I thought that I wasn't going to enjoy the lecture at all / not get anything out of it because I am not a chemistry person, at all. However, I was completely mistaken. He was able to explain everything to us in general terms, and gave a broad overview of the science without really going into all the chemistry details (except when all the chemistry geeks in the program started asking him specific questions about synthesis pathways). I found the lecture extremely interesting and informative, and it was really great to be introduced to a new topic in such a way that I actually became interested in it.

When I got to lab, I checked up on my mouse brains that were in the solution to make them transparent. There was a noticeable difference in them and the outermost part of the brain was definitely clear! It's been in solution since Wednesday afternoon, and I'm definitely noticing changes. The paper that originally published this method said that "brains were left in solution for  > 2 days" so we weren't sure how long it would actually take. When I checked yesterday (Friday, it's now 1:30am in California), they were getting more transparent, but there is still a lot of brain to go. I'll have to go in over the weekend to check up on them / photo - document the progress.

Speaking of Friday, there are several other updates to Friday that I'll write about before going to sleep.

Right now, I mainly have the brain transparency experiment running. All that currently requires is to sit in solution, and to remove the brains once a day to take a picture to document the clearing process. Thus, I didn't have much other stuff to do in lab yesterday. I took the time to start and complete most of my GRE homework for my next class (I have some written assignments, which were in the GRE book I happened to not bring with me to lab, and a prep workshop for the next class left to do). In terms of lab work, my PI actually gave me a THIRD project on staining for cytochrome oxidase in the barrel region of the somatosensory cortex in response to deprivation of sensory experience. The experiments have actually already been done, but he wanted me to run the population statistics on them, since that hasn't been done yet. We all know how I LOVELOVELOVE stats, so I made myself a guide sheet and started on those as well. Unfortunately most of my day was spent on GRE prep (and ten minutes photographing brains), so I didn't do much of the analysis today. However, I have the protocol worked out and written down, so I hope to at least finish 75% of it over the weekend so I have something to show on Monday.

Outside of my lab, Friday was an extremely good day. After work, I met my roommate to go out to a local sweet-treat place I'd passed downtown once called Cinnaholic, a VEGAN cinnamon roll place! If you look at their menu, you'll see what a unique place this is. I spent at least ten minutes deciding what kind of frosting to get! My goal is to keep going back and try all the frostings (much like trying all the cookie/ice cream combos at CREAM), and this is of course a reasonable goal since it's a five minute walk from my lab. I ended up getting a cinnamon roll with Irish Cream frosting and almonds and cookie dough on top:

Deliciousness in a little box.

My mouth was in HEAVEN.

Being at the end of the work day, my roommate and I were starving and were happy to go out for cinnamon rolls. But, go figure, we never learned from childhood dinner customs to not eat dessert first, and when we tried to go to dinner right after Cinnaholic, it wasn't fun. I certainly wasn't hungry anymore, and had to hunt around for the lightest thing being served (which ended up being a light pasta salad). The dinner conversation somehow got to sweets and ice cream places. One of the guys actually just got here a few days ago because his school just finished, so he hasn't been out to all the local places like King Pin or CREAM that all the other scholars have established that we go to all the time! Why I did this is beyond me, especially after filling up on the cinnamon roll and barely eating dinner, I offered to take him out for ice cream so that he'd experience all the places we've been constantly going to. Somehow, I also managed to steer the conversation to convince him to go to Ici's instead of CREAM. My roommate was also there, and I've been asking her for the longest time if we can go to Ici's (and she wasn't the one I went with on Wednesday), so I convinced her to come with us! After she had also had the cinnamon roll and barely eaten dinner. I am such a bad influence! So I ended up there for the second time in two days. I told myself I was going to resist getting ice cream and try a brittle, but obviously that one didn't happen.

The menu! Everything looks so good! 

Han (my roommate) and I happily
waiting to get our ice cream!

My cone - brown sugar gingersnap!

I really need to start avoiding sweets....nahhhhhh.

The last Friday update is that a lot of the people in my lab were going out to see a movie, to which they invited me. I accepted because right now, even though I "know" them kind of, I still just sit at my desk in the corner and am really quiet, so it'd be a nice thing to go on an outing with them. We went to see Prometheus, and I knew nothing about it and haven't seen any of the other movies in the Aliens or Predators series. I went in with no expectations and no idea what the movie was about at all, besides that aliens and action were somehow involved, and I enjoyed it. I wish I knew a bit more about the backstory though. I tried to look it up on Wikipedia when I got home, but got so confused with all the different movies that there are. I shall soon try (whenever I have time!) to actually figure out what order I'm supposed to watch them in, and try to do that so I understand what the rest of the story is from Prometheus.

Several other girls were actually going to the movies too (but to see a different one), and our movies started and ended at the same time, so it was good that I had a group of people to go and come back with. On the way back, we were of course all hungry, so guess where we ended up? That's right, King Pin! (Which is open til 3am to cater to all the drunk college students). And who would we happen to meet there but the five people who had gone to the LMFAO concert in Oakland and were also on their way back to the dorms? I actually managed to resist this time and not get anything (that's a new one), but had a small bite of one of the other girl's fresh hot apple fritter.

This weekend with the Amgen group, I will be going to Muir Woods! I believe I've been there once before (or if it wasn't there, it was some forest filled with abnormally giant trees only found in California). That's in the morning (today, Saturday) and I'm really excited for this trip! The rest of the weekend I'll be spending relaxing visiting family as well as scrambling to finish my GRE homework and data analysis for lab. I've finished updating on all the happenings of my week since Wednesday, and sleep is now calling so that I can be refreshed for Muir Woods in the morning!!!

First Weekend of Organized Social Activities and General Updates

This past weekend was full of amazing social activities planned by the GAs!

Saturday we went on a walking tour in San Francisco. It was actually pretty cool because we started at the Embarcadero, which is the plaza where the hotel I stayed at the last time I was in SF is! It was exciting to be in a familiar place.

Me in 2008

Me in 2012

Since we were there on a Saturday, the huge craft-esque market was happening in the plaza. Mostly it's a lot of handmade jewelry and other knick knacks, like plush llamas (first random thing I thought of that I saw there!). Others that I can remember are little hand puzzles or flutes, windspinners, etc. I love the market! I probably could have spent hours browsing around, but we had limited time so I didn't look too closely in case I had the awful temptation to buy everything.

Our next stop was just across the street at the Ferry Building (if you remember from my first post, I have a photo of it from a high floor in the hotel I mentioned earlier). Unfortunately, this time I was not several stories in the air, so I only have ground views.

Ferry Building!

Another one of those "West Coast" signs.

Around the Ferry Building, there is a HUGE farmer's market, and inside there are lots of specialty shops. I found an awesome exotic mushroom place!

So many different cool mushrooms!

After exploring the Ferry Building area, we walked down the Embarcadero to our next destination...

View of Transamerica Pyramid Building

...Pier 39! For those of you that aren't familiar with this particular San Francisco attraction, it's where all the sea lions hang out! 

Cool crab statue at Pier 39!

Sea lions!

After spending our entire allotted time watching and aww'ing over the sea lions (clearly much more interesting, exciting, and worthy of our time than things like shopping or eating), we said goodbye and headed a few piers down to Fisherman's Wharf. This area is home to Boudin's, San Francisco's famous sourdough bread place. By the way, they have animal breads there. 

Mini turtles, prebaking.

My lunch - vegetarian soup in a sourdough
breadbowl. I love San Francisco!

I bought a mini turtle!

After finishing our lunch, we continued onwards to GHIRARDELLI SQUARE. I was already stuffed from my wonderful lunch at Boudin's, so buying a giant ice cream sundae was probably not the best of ideas. A lot of the people in the group had never been to Ghirardelli Square before, so it was fun to watch them run around like kids in candy stores (literally, since we were technically in a candy store). I would like to go back at some point in the summer and buy some of the specialty flavors of chocolate, but I didn't when I was there because I already have an enormous amount of chocolate in my room that I brought from Boston. 

My roommate, Han, and I, at Ghirardelli Square.

Chocolate mixing machines!

After further stuffing our faces with all the ice cream and chocolate, our next destination was Lombard St, famous for having a section which is the crookedest street in the world. Just a side note before we get to that - San Francisco is known for having incredibly steep hills. On the walking tour up til this point, we had been on flat ground. To get to the crooked part of Lombard St, we had to venture up into the hilly portion of the city.

This is only two blocks up from Ghirardelli Square, and
look how high we are already!

Looking down onto Lombard St. So crooked!

Lombard St from the bottom

After surviving many more hills after the visit to Lombard St, we ventured to Chinatown. A lot of the girls got tea or shopped, but the group of girls I was with walked straight through and just window browsed, except for several exotic statue stores which we went in. Price tags on most items were over one hundred grand.

A lamppost.

Entrance gate. 

After passing through Chinatown, the girls I was with and I went to a toy store on Market St that I'd been to the last time I was in San Francisco. They have lots of awesome and diverse board games and toys. We tried to buy Tamagotchis, but unfortunately they were all sold out. NEXT TIME.

By the time we had finished our adventure at the toy store, everyone else was finished exploring Chinatown, so we headed home. I found this cool clock at the base of a lamppost on the way to the train station.

For those of you that aren't jaded by the coolness factor of cable cars, here's one at the end of the line being turned around. Also, who am I kidding, no one could ever be too jaded by the coolness of cable cars. THEY'RE SO AWESOME. 

I found this poster in the subway. I couldn't not take a photo of it. 

Coming back from the train station, the fastest way back to the dorm is to cut through campus. The end of campus you enter from has a University of California sign. Since, of course, the University of California is the best school system ever and the best campus I've ever been at, and I love Berkeley like crazy, I had to have a photoshoot with the sign. 

The next day, those of us that weren't too sore from all the walking in San Francisco went hiking in Tilden Park, which is up in the hills near Berkeley. We roamed around on the trails for several hours, passing through woods, pastures, and a lake. Lots of people brought their dogs there and were playing fetch with them in the lake! Also, West Coast woods smell a lot different (but much nicer, because of the eucalyptus trees!) than East Coast woods. Another reason to love being in California! 

Up near this area is also the UC Berkeley Botanic Gardens, which I hear is incredible. I have also been told that there are bunnies available for petting in this area, and while I assume they're at the "farm" signs I saw when I was up in Tilden Park, I have not actually seen any. I must investigate this as soon as possible. 

That's all for weekend activities. Time for general updates on my life. 

As I may have mentioned previously, Amgen hosts a symposium for all of the summer sites at UCLA at the end of July. I'll get to meet the ~230 other Amgen Scholars who are at schools all over the country (non California ones include MIT, Columbia, and Washington U in St. Louis). I got my invite to register for it yesterday. Mainly it was my name, contact info, and summer project. I also got to sign up for two talks I'm interested in attending. The talk theme this year is drug discovery, which is completely beyond my field and something that I was never really interested in. But they had session options on designing clinical trials, and being a math nerd, I figured it would be cool to look at it from a statistics perspective. Although there were two clinical trial sessions, I told myself I should incorporate a little bit of diversity in my life, and put my second option as one of the biology protein-related talks on drug discovery. I'm not particularly surprised that the topic is not completely in my field, as Amgen is a biotech company, and most Scholars accepted are working in chemistry, molecular biology, or biochemistry. There are very few neuroscientists (I think there are only 2 or 3 besides myself at my program). Last in the reservation form were five optional questions to "get to know the Amgen class of 2012." Included in these were questions such as "If you could meet any scientist, past or present, who would it be?" and "What do you think is the greatest scientific discovery of the past fifty years?". I answered Euler and the discovery of deep-sea hydrothermal vents for those. The math and marine science nerds in me were coming out. 

My GRE prep course also started yesterday night. It still hasn't hit me how real it is that grad school applications are coming up so soon. Our first session was math, and I got to learn about lots of no-math-required tricks that you're "supposed to" use to help improve your efficiency and accuracy while taking the GRE. My "whenever it sees numbers or variables start performing lots of math on it" brain was extremely displeased, and while yes, I can do most of the questions faster with math than taking the time to think about and evaluate a shortcut method, some of the tips were actually pretty useful. 

Today, an extremely rare event happened - the Transit of Venus. It's essentially the same thing as a solar eclipse, but on a much smaller scale, since Venus is only a little dot on the face of the sun. This isn't happening again for over 100 years, and I got to see it today! One of my labmates had eclipse glasses, so I got a really cool photo.

Venus is the little dot at around 1:00 on the sun. 

I'll finish with a general quirk about life that's been happening to me for the past few work days. Usually when I walk somewhere by myself, I bring my iPod and listen to music while I walk. I hadn't been doing that a lot here since I was always walking to/from lab or the dining hall with other people. As we've all gotten settled to our labs though, we all leave at different times, so I've been walking back to the dorm/dining hall for dinner by myself, and have thus brought my iPod with me to lab for the walk back. The first time I walked back alone, I noticed something weird - I felt like NO ONE I walked past was wearing headphones or listening to music. Some were, but not many. I felt like an out of place self-absorbed East Coaster not taking the time to appreciate a simple walk home. This fact was confirmed when something strange happened. In the middle of listening to music, I heard something in the background. I took a headphone out to discover that the bells from the Campanile were chiming (not the hourly chimes - actual song-esque chimes that belltowers chime). I realized I was on a legitimate college campus which has a belltower that regularly (or seemingly regularly) plays music besides the hourly chimes. My headphones were instantly out, my music was off, and I listened to bells while appreciating my surroundings for the walk home. I was amazed and so happy that I could have a simple walk home through campus while listening to the bells chime. It's so STRANGE to me that this can be normal for people who go to schools with real campuses, and I am just so happy (and still in shock) that I have the opportunity to be in such an awesome place where I can have real campus experiences. The fact that I walk by a creek with several small (1-3 ft) waterfalls, tree groves, and rolling hills of grass on my walk back isn't such an awful thing either! (All of course, while listening to the bells). Somehow, the bell chiming when I leave lab has occurred several days in a row, even though I've been lab at different times every day, so now even though my iPod is in my bag, I listen to bells on my walk back.

I'm going to miss Berkeley so much when I have to leave :(.