If I were an Enzyme...

It’s a beautiful day out today, it’s Friday afternoon, it looks like I’ll only have minimal bench work to do this weekend… things are really looking up for a change. Maybe my fantastic mood is some strange inverse Friday the 13^th luck… but whatever it is, I’ll take it! I think it’s more a combination of this week flying past and the sudden change in the weather. I’m not sure why, but the weeks when I’m in the lab the most really fly by, and considering my Monday-Thursday hours spent in lab total comes to 46, this week has been zooming. It definitely feels more like a Wednesday than a Friday. And as for the weather… Happy Autumn, everyone! After starting out in the 80s this week, it has finally dropped into the 50s, and I couldn’t be more pleased. I love fall weather. Today was officially the day for the First Sweater of the Year (I decided to give the honors to a cashmere/angora mix navy blue, light blue, and green argyle v-neck sweater from J. Crew) and when I left my apartment this morning, I could see the condensation of my breath in the air. Walking across the Key Bridge, the Washington monument stood out in the distance and the Potomac River glistened under the bridge. Really, I could not ask for more perfect weather, and hopefully I’ll be able to do something outdoors and touristy this weekend (my parents will be down to visit for the day) like the zoo or checking out the newly opened National Gardens.

Also thought I would pass along the lab humor for the day… I woke up this morning and found an email from my best friend containing the image below (Thanks, Mark!).
My research deals with helicases (although more specifically I work with RNA helicases) and I’ve been doing a lot of helicase reading lately in preparation for a journal club which I am presenting next week. I showed this to a friend in the lab who also got a kick out of it, and we printed out a copy and hung it between our desks. I guess there is no requirement that Ph.D. students have to be mature, just hard working (and as I type this, there are jokes cracking in the background my friend’s attempts to grow spermatocytes in culture… suggestions along the lines of ‘play them some Marvin Gaye’ and ‘just be gentle and caressing’ – further proof that scientists may be intelligent, but just don’t mature – at least in this lab).

On that note, I am going to finish up working on this presentation for journal club, work a bit on an ethics paper, maybe take a look at a take-home cancer genetics exam – and try to leave the lab a bit on the early side this afternoon so I can enjoy the evening and this fabulous mood!