We got free ice cream cake today in celebration of Raquel’s birthday! Ice cream on the job. It’s funny how having ice cream cake in the middle of a workday can become one of the highlights of today. Who knew work could be so… delicious. On a side note, I think I’m allergic to something at UCSF. I think it’s dust, but it’s not like I can stop breathing in order to not inhale dust. I’ll try Claritin/Aller-clear tomorrow and see if they work.
Journal Club was tough today. The paper on actin was difficult for me. I had a hard time identifying the main point and recognizing the structure of and methods mentioned in the paper. After being “bamboozled” by the main point, as Andrew said, I have a better clue for identifying the point of a paper from just the abstract.
I participated more during Delquin and Ben’s presentation on receptors and GPCRs today because the information was at least familiar to me. They did scratch away more of the surface of the material and went deeper into the concepts involved with cell signaling. I walked away with a more solid foundation in cell signaling and GPCRs.
When Ben asked for ideas and experiments to show that certain GPCRs cause chemotaxis, I felt like we were moving into more unexplored territory. Very few concepts were certain, but that made me want to throw out ideas. I noticed that drawing pictures (or looking at what other people draw) really helps me be more creative and come up with new ideas.
