beautiful bands.

If I had a picture I would put it here. But, I don't. I forgot to email it to myself. Today, I finally finished isolating one of the five genes I'm targeting for all of my 33 samples. SUCCESS!! The bands on the gel were so beautiful, in the right place on the gel. Now, I just have to sequence them and hope there's no contamination. Ribosomal gene 16S is finished. Well, until I get another batch of extractions. But hopefully that won't be for awhile. For this set I just have to finish H3, 28S, 18S, PEPCK, and possibly CO1. No biggie, right? And probably none of you very few readers have any idea what I'm talking about. Oh, well. I seriously am that big of a nerd. And proud of it! :)

simple acts.

"We are each called to reach out to others. On rare occasions that can happen on a grand scale. But most of the time it happens in simple acts of kindness of one person to another. Those are the events that really matter." -Francis S. Collins

This coming from a man who was head of the human genome project. The sole project that completely changed the course of science and the way we think about life as a whole. This man is incredible. He's now the director of the NSF (National Science Foundation). Today's "pearl" is this quote and the simple ways people serve others. Something as simple as saying thank you. Or doing the dishes. Or holding the door open. Or saying, "You know what, you CAN do this. Go for it!" Or by simply believing in you without having to say anything at all. (P.S. I know these aren't complete sentences, bear with me). Each day is filled with opportunities to reach out to others and truly change the world.

lazy sundays.

I love Sundays. After church the day is just there to relax and enjoy a break from the busy schedule that school brings. Today was filled with many delightful little pearls. Hanna and I drew spring-y pictures with chalk on our apartment sidewalk with the chalk my mom sent me. We all ate delicious food cooked by Jocelyn, the next Julia Childs. Hanna, Joe, and I sat in the sun while doing our New Testament questions for class tomorrow. Then Joe invited us over for authentic food from Ghana with a bunch of his friends. It was DELICIOUS. And now, I'm sitting down to enjoy one of the best movies ever, "Stardust." The end to another awesome weekend that seems to have flown by entirely too fast. Someone once asked me what superpower I would want if I could have any? I said I had no idea. Her ideal superpower was to be able to control time. Genius, right? So, I've decided to steal that and have it be my new answer for ideal superpowers. But until then, I'll just live every minute for itself. :)

friends.

Friends are pearls. They come in all shapes, colors, and sizes but they are all pearls. Last night two of my friends and I went to see a high school-aged theater group put on "Les Miserables." It was AWESOME. I LOVE that play and they did such a great job. I love musical theater. Today, a bunch of my friends and I went to the Holi festival of colors at the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple. We threw colored chalk all over each other. It was a lot of fun. Without friends, life would be super boring.

Me and my awesome roommate! (aren't we just so cute?!)

my shoes. I love this picture for some reason.

Part of our group of chalk-throwers.

genetics.

Have you ever stopped to think about how that meter-long strand of DNA inside each of your cells controls pretty much everything about you? You have your physical appearance because of your DNA. The only way your body operates is by the reading of your DNA. It's pretty incredible. For me, it just proves even more that there is a God that is watching out for us and loves us. How could something so precise and perfectly compatible come together all on its own? It couldn't. One of my favorite books is "The Language of God" by Francis S. Collins. He was the head of the human genome project. He's an incredible man. Today, I studied for and took a test for my genetics class. It ended up being about 6 hours of straight genetics. And the best part? I loved every second of it. That's when you know you are in the right major. The way that life incredibly falls together is beautiful and studying that through learning genetics is fascinating.

when hard work pays off.

Yesterday and today were very long days. Yesterday I was finishing up my poster and today I presented it. But, it's a beautiful thing when hard work pays off. I felt like the poster session went really well. It was by no means perfect but it definitely was a really good experience and I learned a TON about phylogenentic analysis. It was awesome. The other posters were all really cool. I had no idea such diverse research was happening here. I mean, I knew there was a lot but there are ground-breaking things going on here! Here's a picture my awesome roommate support club took of me. Thanks for coming guys! :)

To end the day I went to a lecture by my mom's awesome tennis partner, Marilyn. She's a retired professor and was once the dean of graduate studies. She's so cute. Her lecture was really good and I went to say hi to her after which was fun. I love how she calls me 'kiddo.' Haha, she's a little grandmotherly, I love it. That's all for today. Over and out.

picture books.

Today was incredibly rough. I had class from 8-10 where the professor informed us that we were all terrible students and asked if he should just return to his office, only because we didn't understand an incredibly complicated figure in a cell biology paper. After class I went to work on my poster to present my research to find out that my data had crashed the program on the super computer and the poster printing machine was broken. After working that out I worked on the poster until physics at 12:30. Physics is hard. Enough said. Following physics I continued to work on my poster for several hours. I finally came up with an awesome title: "Dirt Diggers and Gourmet Dinners: Phylogenetic relationships of anomuran crabs (Decapoda)". Sweet, huh? Anyway, after all this I happened across this awesome picture book. It's cute :) And that my friends, is what is beautiful about today.

the most beautiful sport in the world.

Tennis. The most beautiful sport in the world. And I am taking a tennis class right now, aren't I lucky?! Today was SO fun. We were working on volleys and overheads which are my favorite because you get to hit amazing winners all the time! Plus, it's still warm and spring quite possibly may be upon us. (despite rumors of snow tomorrow) Tennis is incredible. Billie Jean King said it best, "Tennis is the perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of tranquility." It is so true. Perfect stress relief. Maybe I'll have to go play again today because the untimely gas leak in the lab building on campus ruined my plans for the afternoon and caused extra stress. tennis = happiness.

Fishing for Pearls

I've been meaning to make a blog for months but haven't been able to figure out what I should blog about and what to name it. I finally came to "fishing for pearls." I'm not really sure where it came from. Somewhere in this crazy idea-filled head of mine. My idea is that I will blog about the beautiful things in life, the "pearls." Although I will probably get off topic entirely too much but I think blogging will be a fun adventure.

So, today is probably the most beautiful day this college town has seen all year. The sun is shining, it's almost 60º, and it looks as if winter is finally behind us and spring is coming. (knock on wood, you never know with this town) Two of my roommates and I made a DELICIOUS lupper/linner/any combination of the words lunch and dinner. Regardless of the name, it was divine food. We had lemon-herb chicken, oven-roasted potatoes, fried zucchini & squash, and grapes. Is your mouth watering yet? It was wonderful. Today: pearls of amazing weather and delicious food. I love springtime, I'm so glad it's finally here. :)