Summer in Boston: An Introduction

            This is probably the longest time I’ve been away from home... like ever. And my family (and friends from home) are potentially starting to forget what I sound like :P (My fault- I don’t call you guys enough!) In all seriousness though, it’s kind of difficult to keep in touch with everyone, what with school, and now UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program- basically it means that I’m working in one of the labs on campus over the summer, and getting paid for it). As a result, I’m going to try writing about things as a method of sharing- I’m better at wording things when I can read them over anyway. :)

            So, I guess we can consider this update number one! Let’s see... Basic stuff: I’m working in the Samson Lab on campus. Although Professor Samson is the head of the lab, I don’t really see her much- I’m working directly with one of the postdocs employed by the lab. What we’re researching is how chronic inflammation affects cancer development. I’m not sure how much more specific I can be, since I know there’s a paper of some sort in the works, but that covers the basics.

            Over the summer, I’m staying at pika, a cooperative Independent Living Group (ILG, in MIT-speak), which is about a 20 minute walk from campus. It’s been a lot of fun so far- everyone is really nice, and they have awesome ideas; basically everyone is really, really cool. The ‘cooperative’ part means that you have to do some work around the house every week: usually this means either cooking dinner or cleaning up from dinner once a week, as well as cleaning some other part of the house every week. I haven’t cooked so far, since I don’t get home until past 5:30 most days, and dinner is at 7 pm (plus cooking for 40+ people is something of a daunting task...) but I definitely want to try it at some point.

This is pika- I didn't take this picture, but it's a nice shot :)

UROP-wise, I’ve learned a lot so far. Since I have little-to-no background with lab work, I’ve kind of had to build my knowledge up from nothing... which has been something of an adventure in seeing how many things I can do wrong in one week. I’m getting a bit better though (knock on wood) so there’s some hope. :P The things I’ve discovered so far about working in a lab are that doing things is fun, but reading about doing things is significantly less fun. There are an unfathomable amount of papers that have been written about any given research topic- protocols, and analyses of results, and pretty much anything you can think of. Real researchers read A LOT... it’s necessary to see if people have already done what you’re planning to do before you do it so that you don’t end up wasting a lot of time. Papers will also give you a hint about where you might be going wrong, which is something that happens with startling frequency.

As much as time drags on when there are papers to read, it flies by when I’m doing actual lab work. I’m still significantly less efficient at any procedure than any of the grad students or postdocs in my lab, but I’m getting there. The amount of things you have to know in order to do any procedure is incredible! All of the necessary knowledge kind of makes my brain hurt at the end of the day. But it’s a good hurt- learning is a lot more fun when it’s applied rather than theoretical, at least in my opinion.

Since it’s late, and I have to be up early tomorrow morning, I’m going to stop there for now. I’m not sure how often I’m going to post something here, but hopefully it will be fairly often, and there will hopefully be fun things to tell you about and pictures to share. (Yes, Mom, I know I promised you pictures...) Let me know if there are things you're curious about, and I'll try to talk about them!

Until next time,

Alycia