Great things come in express mail packages

In case you didn’t already realize that I am the hugest nerd ever, I figured I would just provide a little story to cement that opinion. It’s been a pretty stressful week over here in PhD-land, and next week will surely be worse, mostly filled with studying, so my apologies for the lack of humiliatingly interesting lab stories which I was full of this summer – after this round of exams, I will be spending even more time in lab (is that possible?!) so I’m sure there will be more to report. I’m sure things will have a much more humorous twist once exams are through and I stop being so ridiculously stressed out all the time. Regardless, after a long day in lab and class on Wednesday, I returned back to my apartment and immediately retreated into my room and settled down at my desk for several hours of studying for the oncology exam. My roommate knocked on the door, and asked if I saw the package from Mark that had arrived for me. I immediately jumped up, ran over to pick it up, practically bouncing off the walls – totally ecstatic. You, like my roommate, are probably wondering what kind of fabulous object was waiting for me inside the very large envelope. It was no surprise – I knew exactly what it was – which was why I was indeed so excited. Some kind of fabulous gift to brighten my stressful week? Something extra-special that only my very best friend would know to send? Something even better – Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry!! Yes, I did get this excited over a textbook. A biochemistry textbook, none-the-less. The textbook which we use for our biochemistry class, Voet and Voet’s ­Biochemistry is very hard to understand, and everyone in class who took biochemistry previously (which is everyone in the class except me and one other TBio student) had used Lehninger undergrad and kept talking about how much better it was at explaining the basics and was an excellent supplement to our textbook. Well, having used Lehninger as an undergrad, said best friend already had the book lying around, and mailed it to me, potentially saving my biochemistry grade and exponentially increasing my comprehension of biochemistry (thanks again, Mark!! You’re the greatest!). Truly, I don’t think I’ve ever been that excited to receive something in the mail – like I said, I am definitely the hugest nerd ever.

In other news, I have decided that I should have gone to medical school, because the activities are much more fun. Last night, a typical Friday night for me, I was slaving away in the lab when all of a sudden, ‘80s music was blasting in surround sound. What the heck is going on? Finally I realize that it is the first and second year medical student annual powder puff football game, and it is time for the M08 and M09 pep rally, at which extraordinarily loud ‘80s music is apparently required. After finishing up in lab, I moved to the library to work on the changes to the paper I co-authored on breast cancer and alcohol which had come back from the journal with reviews, and sitting in the nearly-deserted library (the only other individuals in the entire library were two of the masters’ students in my program, studying diligently for biochemistry), and all I could hear were the cheering medical students outside. Upon wandering out to visit a few of the medical students at the end of the game, I found myself wondering yet again what I thought would be so appealing about the PhD process. If I ever come up with a good answer, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Among other useless facts, I actually learned something interesting in biochemistry yesterday. Our professor was saying how 20 or so years ago, he was at a biochemistry conference in Kansas City, and there was a ‘punked out’ graduate student presenting his poster. He stopped to talk to the graduate student, and was then invited to listen to the graduate student’s band play in town that evening. He went to listen to the small, still pretty much unknown group – Offspring. So something else to file away with all those other strange-but-true facts – Dexter Holland, the lead singer of Offspring, has a PhD in molecular biology.