Getting Out of Boston

            This week was pretty awesome. After figuring out what had been going wrong with my DNA preps, they all went pretty smoothly. Which was really nice, since I did a lot of genotyping last week. My postdoc is trying to fill some gaps in her data for the paper, and I was in charge of confirming the genotypes of the mice that were part of the experiment. As a result, the first few days of the week were almost entirely consumed by genotyping and running PCR.

            The second half of the week was relatively more exciting. On Wednesday afternoon and Thursday, I spent the day doing a Dot Blot. Dot Blots do pretty much the same thing as Western Blots, which I’ve been running up to this point. The difference lies in the fact that rather than loading the protein samples into a gel and running the gel out to see bands of protein, the dot blot protocol calls for putting a small amount of protein sample directly onto a membrane and then using antibodies to visualize your protein of interest. While this doesn’t allow for protein quantitation, it is a lot faster than the Western Blot, so it’s a good way of seeing whether or not there is any of the protein of interest in a given sample. In case you were wondering, the procedure is called a ‘Dot’ Blot because you are blotting protein onto a membrane, and if there is any of the protein of interest in the sample, it will show up as a dot.

            Because the Dot Blot is a relatively speedy protocol, I was able to finish it on Thursday, and we were able to determine which method of preparation actually yielded the most protein (indicated subjectively by which dot is the darkest on the membrane). As a result, on Friday we started from scratch with the method that the Dot Blot had shown to be most effective.

            We decided that the best method for finding protein was a whole cell extraction. There are various methods for doing this, but the one we ended up using involved playing with liquid nitrogen. Okay, not playing really. I was very responsible with it. But it was fun anyway. Liquid nitrogen is really cool stuff- literally and figuratively. It’s cold enough to burn you if handled improperly, and it freezes tissue samples, pretty much on contact.

            We were using it to freeze some tissue samples and to keep them cold while grinding them up with a mortar and pestle.  It was really interesting how pouring the liquid nitrogen on things didn’t get them wet- we were able to drop some samples in a container full of liquid nitrogen and then just pour them out into a cardboard box without the remaining nitrogen compromising the integrity of the box in the way that water would have. We also dumped some the remnants of the liquid nitrogen on the floor and watched it skitter around a bit until it evaporated. It was really pretty cool- I’d seen demonstrations of liquid nitrogen in some of my classes before, but I’d never actually gotten to use it.

            This weekend was a lot of fun as well. On Saturday, we drove down to Cape Cod and explored a little bit. We stopped by a seafood restaurant for lunch, and I had fish and chips for the first time on the East Coast. Then we headed to a glassblowing museum, which was really interesting. We learned about how glass is made and colored, and we watched a demonstration of glassblowing.

This is the 'ringer' thing they gave us at the restaurant. It's the thing that vibrates when your food is ready, and it was too cute not to take a picture of. :P

            Watching the glassblowing demonstration was very interesting. Even though every movement that the lady demonstrating made was probably very carefully calculated in order to properly form the drinking glass that she was making, she made it seem pretty effortless. She somehow managed to keep up a running commentary, explaining everything she was doing, while simultaneously handling very hot pieces of semi-molten glass. I was very impressed with her ability to handle the glass and mold it into the proper form. Glassblowing is kind of awesome- I have no idea how people manage to make ridiculously arty things, like the Chihuly sculptures or even just handblown drinking glasses. Okay... I know the theory behind it, now, but it’s still kind of hard to fathom. :P

Here are some examples of the lovely glassware that we saw at the museum:

            We also learned really fascinating things about how glass is colored. The museum had glasswork from the 1870’s and onward, and showed different examples of how each piece had been colored by the addition of a heavy metal. For instance, adding gold made red glass, adding copper or cobalt oxide made blue glass, and adding uranium made canary yellow glass. The cool thing about the canary yellow glass is that the addition of uranium gave it low levels of radioactivity. There were two exhibits in the museum that showed this- the first had canary glass set up under a black light, where it glowed in the dark because of the presence of uranium. The second had canary glass set up behind a rotating lead shield. There was a Geiger counter sitting in the exhibit, and as the glass passed it, it clicked vehemently. Since uranium has a half-life of somewhere between 704 million and 4.47 billion years, it’s not altogether surprising that there should still be radioactivity present after a mere 130-odd years.

            After visiting the glass museum, we drove a little bit farther to a small town on the Cape. I say small because I’m pretty sure that the only business besides various tourist shops and restaurants was the marine biology lab that seemed to dominate the entire town. It was really pretty though, and very quintessentially small-town on the East Coast. We ended up having a delicious ice cream cone (I’d say it probably rivals Husky Deli, which is saying something). We sat on the beach for a little bit before driving back to Boston. On the return trip, my roommate’s friend, who was driving us, dropped us in Braintree so that he could avoid paying the tolls associated with entering Boston from the freeway. We took the T back into Boston and ate some yummy Thai food at a random restaurant that we picked while we were walking back.

Here's some of the views from the town we stopped in:

            Sunday was a lazy day- pretty much the only productive thing I did was calling my parents for their anniversary (happy belated anniversary, parents!! :D )

In addition to our phone call, I took a two hour long nap and enjoyed some lovely food, cooked by my roommate. I’ll be cooking next Sunday, so look forward to hearing how that goes!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful week!

Technical Difficulties

            Okay... I’m sorry this is so late. This week was rather full of technical difficulties. And unfortunately, technical difficulties occurred in pretty much all my areas of life, so everything is late. (Admittedly, there was perhaps a bit of time mis-management that occurred... but it somehow seems better if I blame everything on technical difficulties).

            On to the stuff I know you’ve been dying to hear- how the combination of construction and biology turned out. What we know is that the drill served its intended purpose, which was to shear the cells and separate the nuclei from the remainder of the cells. (For non-biology people, a very simplified explanation of how animal cells work is that there’s a little pouch encircled by a big pouch. The little pouch is the nucleus, which contains the majority of the genetic information in the cell. The big pouch (the cell) contains everything else.) We were guessing that our protein of interest was contained in the nucleus, which would explain why we hadn’t been seeing it. If the protein were only expressed in the nucleus, it wouldn’t show up in our original tests because the ‘pouch’ of the nucleus would hide it. The goal of the electric drill was basically to break the ‘pouches’ of the cell and nucleus open, respectively, allowing us to see some protein. We know that the drill worked because the pellet of cells kept getting smaller, and our supernatant got more and more viscous, indicating that there was cellular stuff in it.

            Unfortunately, in what I consider the first technical difficulty of the week, none of the protein was visible, even after the drilling. We don’t really know why this is, but we decided, like the good scientists that we are, to move on and continue our tests in new and ever more inventive ways. The good news is that I’m going to be doing fewer Western Blots until we figure out what proteins are actually present in our samples. Knowing how to run a Western Blot is a good skill to have, which is why my postdoc had me doing so many of them. Now that I’m something of a master at Western Blotting (knock on wood), we’re going to do some of the simpler, faster, down-and-dirty protocols that will get us answers quickly, rather than extremely accurately. Once we’ve gotten our quick answers, we’ll go back to the fancy stuff.

            In the second major technical difficulty of the week, I kind of screwed up big time. So I guess it’s not really a technical difficulty, since I directly caused it. But it wasted about three days worth of work... so I’m going to categorize it as a technical difficulty. Back at the beginning of the summer, my postdoc decided that I had something of a Midas touch when running PCR (a method of quickly replicating specific pieces of DNA in order to get enough to run it out in a gel so that you can tell what genotype a sample is (where a sample’s genotype is like its genetic signature)). Basically, she decided that I could run a clean PCR, which was apparently a big deal, and she more or less assigned me to run all the PCRs for the rest of the summer. Since this basically just involves mixing some things in specific proportions and sticking them in a machine to replicate the DNA, I was fine with this assignment. The problem came about when she asked me to prepare the samples for genotyping. All this requires is sticking some tissue samples in some chemicals that will dissolve the tissues, and leaving them overnight in an incubator. Sounds easy. It probably is actually one of the easiest things to do in lab. Which, of course, means that I found a way to mess it up.

            During the period when she had me start preparing the samples for genotyping, my postdoc decided to have a more ‘hands-off, let her make mistakes’ style of teaching. Which I’m all for, usually. I think it occasionally makes a lot more sense to teach through fixing mistakes than it does to teach by hovering over your student’s every move. In this case, however, I probably could have used a tiny bit more hovering. There’s a specific chemical we use when preparing DNA samples that breaks apart the tissue by essentially dissolving protein bonds, called Proteinase K. It’s kind of like a chemical version of the drill from earlier. I had no clue where to find the Proteinase K when I was first doing the DNA prep. I managed to convince myself that I remembered the Proteinase K having this other name though- ‘ACK’. Since there was a tube labeled ‘ACK’ sitting on the lab bench, I decided that that was right. And I used it to digest my tissue samples. For anyone who’s worked in a lab that lysed cells for any reason, you might recognize ACK as a lysis buffer. Regardless of whether or not you’ve worked in such a lab, I’m hereby informing you that I was not meant to be adding this lysis buffer to my samples. Although it didn’t really ruin the samples, it did mean that I didn’t get any DNA out of them. Coincidentally, after the second time this week that I tried to prep my DNA samples with ACK and nothing happened, we did the protocol that actually required the ACK buffer to lyse some blood cells. At this point I realized what I had done, and proceeded to spend the rest of the day and weekend worrying that my postdoc was going to do whatever the UROP equivalent of firing someone is to me for making stupid mistakes. Luckily for me, when I explained what had happened today, she was mildly shocked at the amount of craziness that had gone into one mistake, but she was actually very nice about the whole thing, and explained about her wanting me to make some mistakes, so I would know they could be fixed. And since we had saved the base sample that I was trying to digest, this was a fixable mistake. I don’t know if we’ll see DNA yet (I’ll find that out tomorrow, with any luck), but I did use the real Proteinase K, so I actually have a chance at getting some results.

            In the non-work-related world, there were also technical difficulties. The webcam on my computer mysteriously stopped working (I can neither confirm nor deny that I may or may not have dropped my computer prior to this occurrence). Unfortunately, this occurred immediately prior to my attempt to skype with my friends who are in various other parts of the world. Luckily, other people who I was with had computers available, so this was not totally disastrous. Unluckily, it precludes me from taking pictures with my computer or using it to video chat until I am willing to give it up for a week to get it fixed. So that’ll probably be a little while.

            Some things this week didn’t have any technical difficulties- on Friday night we got dressed up to go to the MIT Symphony Orchestra’s performance. They played some gorgeous music, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to them. On Saturday, we went to the Commons for more free-concert-y things. There was some good music, and some not-so-good music, but the really cool thing was a performance from the Boston Ballet School. Some of their older students did some dances inspired by various world dance forms, and it was really incredible what they were able to do. We went for lunch at an Asian restaurant, and I had sushi with raw fish for the first time, which was not as gross as I was expecting. Not something I’ll necessarily be seeking out, but not disgusting.

            On Sunday, one of my friends and I went to Revere Beach to see the sand castle competition. Unfortunately, my camera died, so I was unable to take pictures. But in my opinion, the sculptures were awesome. Some of them were seven or eight feet tall, and they were made only out of sand and water. I still have no idea how the artists managed to keep sand sculptures standing for three days when they’re made only of sand and water. But it’s pretty incredible, however they do it. Also while at the beach, I was for some reason mistaken as someone who speaks Spanish. I do speak Spanish, but I’ve never been randomly pointed out as someone who speaks Spanish, probably because I look very Eastern European. I then had a short conversation in Spanish, which was interesting.

            And, since this is so late, I can tell you about what happened on Monday. Work was not overly exciting, other than figuring out what Proteinase K actually was. I took my computer into the Apple Store to see if they could fix my camera quickly, and found out that they couldn’t. The highlight of my day was after work, when I went to the North End with a group of pikans, in search of pastries. Boston’s North End is the Italian district- it’s heavily saturated with Italian restaurants, each boasting a better pizza or pasta dish than the next. We ended up at a little bakery that had pretty much everything- it reminded me of the Salvadorean bakery at home, but with Italian food. My impression was that everything was delicious, and I probably need to go back to try more of the things. On that note, I’m issuing an open invitation to anyone who’s in Boston to come with me- I’ll happily eat more pastries with you. :)

            Unfortunately, it’s now very late, and as a result I should sleep. Given that I just misspelled sleep, I think that actually sleeping is a logical next step. I hope that everyone has a wonderful week!

Spontaneous Adventures

Okay, so first off, work related things. The best thing about work this week was on Wednesday morning when I scanned the latest version of the Western Blot and saw a band where we were expecting it for our protein of interest. After seeing a whole lot of nothing for approximately 5 weeks, it was really nice to get some confirmation that what we were doing was actually working. The way we finally got visible bands was by first doing an Immunoprecipitation assay, which basically purified the protein before we tried to visualize it. As per usual, this didn’t go totally according to plan, since I forgot to add the antibody (which is what binds to the protein and allows it to be purified) the first time we went through the assay. But luckily, I realized it before we tried to do the Western Blot, so not too much time was wasted.

The next day, we started another assay to purify the protein that involved an electric drill. One of the things I did not think I would say about work this summer is that I used a drill in lab. Apparently, the group who developed the protocol we were following decided to use a drill when the conventional lab tools for shearing (breaking apart) the cells did their jobs too well. What essentially ended up happening is we attached a pestle for a mortar and pestle type setup to an electric drill, as if it were the drill bit. We then (very, very carefully) moved the drill up and down in one of the standard lab-issue glass ‘mortars’, if you will (for people who know lab things, I’m talking about attaching a Teflon pestle to an electric drill and homogenizing a tissue sample in the glass tube part of a Dounce Homogenizer). Given that we were doing this at greater than 1,000 rpm in order to properly shear the cells, my postdoc decided the liabilities of letting me work the drill were not worth it. Luckily, nothing broke, so we were fine. But the dangers of running an electric drill at that speed inside a glass object probably warranted some extra caution. It remains to be seen whether this electric drill business was worth it- I’ll be running those samples out tomorrow. I hereby promise to keep you updated on whether or not the crossover between construction and biology works out as we hope.

Another thing I did this week that was (mostly) work-related was take a field trip out to Tufts (which is about five miles away in Medford) to watch a Ph.D. thesis defense. I actually only saw the public part of it, but my postdoc explained the rest to me. Basically what happens is after you finish all of your grad school work and pass all of the qualifying exams and what not (serious oversimplifying here- I’m almost certainly missing some things) you give a presentation on your work that’s open to the public. You then have a last meeting with your thesis committee, who can ask you questions on your work. The thesis committee asks all their questions and then has a private meeting where they decide whether or not you deserve your Ph.D. I believe that the idea is that by this point you have worked out all the kinks in your thesis and deserve your degree. But I imagine that this could be wrong, and I’m pretty sure that waiting for the results of that meeting would be one of the most terrifying things ever. After the closed committee meeting, they either award you your Ph.D., or they don’t, and then you celebrate (or not. But again, I think that this happens rather rarely). Anyway, this usually happens close to the end of the year, and you can then participate in the Doctoral Hooding ceremony that occurs right before Commencement. It’s kind of a big deal. :P It was really cool seeing the presentation the doctoral candidate gave- I even understood most of it! Granted, it was probably written to be understandable by the general audience, but I felt good that I understood some of the more technical things.

Okay, now non-work-things. This week was a bit filled with spontaneity. After dinner on Wednesday, my roommate and I walked over to the sailing pavilion to try to sign up for some free sailing lessons. As it turned out, they were already full for the week. While walking back, we decided we were in the mood for something sweet, and decided to go out for ice cream. On the way to ice cream, we remembered that there was supposed to be free food in the Student Center that night, and decided to detour that way to see if there was anything delicious. Much to our surprise, we ran into two of our friends there- one that I haven’t seen since the end of school, and one who was leaving for the weekend the next morning. It was a pretty good surprise. Plus, Dunkin’ Donuts had put out their un-sold doughnuts from the day, so we got free sweet things, which is always good when you’re a college student. While we were chatting with our friends, one of the guys from pika, the house I’m living at for the summer, randomly appeared and mentioned that he was headed to the weekly swing dance, and asked if we wanted to join. Since it’s summer and there was nothing else to do that night, we went. I had forgotten how exhausting swing dancing can be- I was very out of breath after just a few dances. I also forgot pretty much everything I ever knew about swing dancing, so there was a very steep learning curve. It was very fun though, so we think we’re probably going to go back again. :)  

In an attempt to do fun things on Saturday morning, my roommate and I took the T (Boston’s subway) up to Medford.  We got slightly lost and didn’t end up finding what we had intended to, but we got a lot of good walking in, and ended up seeing a lot more of Medford than I would probably have ever seen otherwise. I’d probably say that Medford is to Cambridge as West Seattle is to Seattle. Since Cambridge is already like the West Seattle of Boston, the idea I’m trying to get across here is that Medford is pretty small and residential. While wandering around, we happened upon a garage sale, at which I bought six bamboo spoon/serving utensil things for a dollar. (B2 people, we can now serve salad with something other than my pasta spoon. Rejoice! :P )

After all the walking around, we were pretty tired and hungry, so we decided to take the T into downtown and eat some dim sum. I felt a bit out of place, given that we were in the middle of Chinatown, and I was very blatantly not Asian (shocker, I know.). I obviously looked very out of place as well, since upon sitting down, I was immediately given a fork. Of course this meant that I determinedly refused to look at the thing for the entire meal, because I’m stubborn like that. I also ended up leaving all of the ordering to my roommate, who speaks fluent Chinese. This was a very good decision, as it turned out, because she made some excellent choices. It did rekindle my desire to speak lots of different languages though, so that I can take people by surprise in situations such as these, and understand and contribute to what's going on around me. Anyway, my first experience with dim sum in Boston was awesome, and definitely something I wouldn’t mind repeating at some point.

Full on good food, we headed over to the Boston Commons, where there’s a big festival going on right now. If I didn’t know better, I would say that Boston is determined to remind me that there’s more to life than science and hard facts. Basically, the Commons was full of random musical and performing acts that were designed to showcase local talent. Additionally, there were some big-name acts, like Los Lonely Boys and Los Lobos. We saw parts of each of their shows, although neither was as good as I remembered them from listening to the radio when I was younger. There’s probably some nostalgia mixed in there though, so I would definitely not say that that’s an objective opinion.

Sunday morning, we headed out on the T again to explore the SoWa Open Market, in Boston’s South End. There’s a vintage market that takes place year-round (basically an indoor flea market type setup, but only with vintage things), and during the summer there’s an outdoor craft fair and farmers’ market. There’s also a long line of food trucks that hangs out over there, although we didn’t try any of those, having just eaten breakfast. After wandering through SoWa, we walked back toward downtown Boston. After deciding that we wanted some froyo (frozen yogurt), we wandered through the Prudential Center (one of Boston’s mall-type things) and did some window-shopping. It was pretty hot outside, so the air conditioning was much appreciated. After that, we headed back down to the Commons to watch a hip-hop show, which was pretty incredible. I have zero idea how people can dance so fluidly, but I’m pretty sure I’ll never be able to move quite as gracefully as they were doing.

That pretty much sums up my week... The only other thing left to say is something that I think everyone reading this on a regular basis already knows: One month left until I’m flying home for a week! As much fun as my summer in Boston has been so far, and as much fun as I’m sure it will continue to be, I’m very excited to be home in Seattle for a week. Mostly to see my dog. :P (Just kidding, I’m mostly excited to see the people. But you’ve got to admit, Lacey will probably be a whole different level of excited to see me! :D ) I hope everyone is doing well, and I can’t wait to see everyone at whatever point we’re reunited!

Life Imitates Art?

            Nothing really interesting happened at work this week... So instead I’m going to talk about the not-work-y things I did. :) Interestingly, a lot of them ended up involving art, which isn’t something I normally deal with. These aren’t necessarily art in the traditional sense of the term (paintings and sculptures and such) but rather art in the broader sense that I’ve been considering a good deal- art in the sense that everything is art to someone. Basically, I’m choosing to define art as something that can be appreciated on different levels, based on your understanding of the piece. In this way, anything can be art- good food, fireworks, a particularly lovely garden, or words that move you profoundly.

            The first pieces of art that I experienced this week occurred on the Fourth of July. I had the day off of work, which was a welcome break in the middle of the week. My roommate and I got up that morning and made cookies, which I thought were delicious. We then spent the better part of the day hanging out in the common areas- eating food and chatting (and cleaning a ceiling fan, because I decided that any extra air flow would be welcome on a 90+ degree day with somewhere around 80% humidity). It was a very chill morning/early afternoon, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We knew that space to watch the fireworks fills up pretty quickly though, so we headed over to the river at about 2 pm to meet up with some friends and wait for the show to start.

            During our 7.5 hour wait, we ate, chatted, and played card games. I now know the basics of poker... not enough to actually play anything for money, but if you wanted to practice with, say, M&M’s, I’d be down for that. It was surprisingly fun- I was expecting to be bored after about an hour, but there was enough gong on that that was practically impossible.

            At about 7 pm, the Boston Pops (part of Boston’s Symphony Orchestra) started their show. They first played backup for a number of guest artists, including Howie Day, who sang ‘Collide’, and various other native New England and Boston artists who sang patriotic songs or songs they had written. My favorite comment from this part of the show was from the little boy sitting behind us- one of the artists was singing Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’, and the little boy said “Mom! This song’s from Shrek!” It was pretty adorable. The Pops continued playing after the singing was done. At about 9 o’clock, they began playing the 1812 Overture, which concludes with cannon fire. In this case, the cannons fired, and the first set of fireworks went off soon afterward. I love the theme of the 1812 Overture, so it was awesome to hear it played. And the fireworks were quite lovely as well. :)

            After about a five-minute pause, the actual fireworks show began. Other than the times we’ve gone down to Lake Tapps to light fireworks with family, I’ve never been very close to a fireworks show. On the 4^th, we were probably less than 500 meters away. Being able to feel the reverberations from the fireworks was fun. There were quite a few people, although it wasn’t nearly as packed as the Boston side of the river was. For reference, the event website for the 4^th of July lists the average amount of people who come to the Boston side of the river as 500,000, while the amount on the Cambridge side is 'only' 200,000. The fireworks were really lovely, especially set to orchestra music. I can’t do them justice at all, but they were gorgeous. I did get some pictures, but again, they can't do the show justice. Fireworks are just so pretty!

            There were also a couple of hacks on the Green Building. For the non-MIT folks, hacks are basically pranks people pull at MIT that aren't destructive in any way, and are mostly just meant for the enjoyment of those who pull them and those who are lucky enough to observe them. The Green Building is the tallest building on campus (and in all of Cambridge), which makes it one of the perfect places for hacking. The first hack, which I didn't manage to get a picture of, was the fact that the Green Building would light up its windows in a pattern that seemed to correlate with the music the Pops were playing. The second one, at the end of the show, has been done before, but it's still really pretty. The windows of the Green Building were lit up in an American flag pattern:

Not all the windows were lit up, so it's not perfect, but it's still really awesome that someone is able to do this.

            So that was the first set of art that I experienced- wonderful music and a gorgeous fireworks show. It’s incredible to think of how much work must have gone into each of those things to make them what they were- the hours of practice from the musicians, as well as all the time and effort that went into organizing the show; and the amount of time and engineering it must have taken to design chemical processes such that explosions erupt into smiley faces and stars and firebursts that seem to fall from the sky like weeping willows. I’m not sure who was the first person to come up with fireworks, but I have to say that I greatly appreciate their work.

            On Saturday, there was a heat advisory (it was 98°F by 11 am) so I was told that doing things outside was probably not the best plan I’d ever had. As a result, I ended up going to the Museum of Fine Arts (also known as the MFA) in Boston. The MFA is massive- there’s no possible way to see all of it in a day. There are three floors (plus a basement) and various wings- more art than you could possibly hope to even glance at in a day. Luckily, MIT funds memberships for all of its students, so I can go back to see the things I missed. :)

            It’s hard to say what my favorite parts of the MFA were- there’s just so much to see, and it’s all incredible. I took pictures of some of my favorite pieces, which are below, but there are still some that I left out because pictures weren’t feasible (they were behind glass or too small or too big to photograph). I think my favorite painting (which I didn’t actually get a picture of, because it was too crowded) was one from Monet’s series of paintings of the Rouen Cathedral. Cathedrals are already one of my favorite pieces of architecture because of their detail and grandiose nature. And Monet’s depiction of the cathedral was characteristically wonderful. I love everything he paints- the soft brushstrokes that contrast with the incredible accuracy of what he’s painting. If I had to choose a favorite artist, Monet would be pretty high on the list.

           It's easier to talk about the other pieces of art one by one, so I'm going to do that: 

           Normally I'm not a huge fan of modern art. I'm kind of a traditionalist in a lot of things, and visual art is one of them. But the modern art at the MFA made me stop and think, which isn't something I usually experience when I'm visiting an art museum (You may have noticed I'm really bad at appreciating art... Maybe it's part of growing up, but I think I'm learning to appreciate it a lot more than I have in the past. Emphasis on 'learning to'. So bear with me, this may be something of a bumpy ride :P ) Anyway, this was the first piece in the museum that really made me stop for a second. In case you can't read it, it says "ALL ART HAS BEEN CONTEMPORARY". I thought that was interesting, and also very true. Everything we do today was, at some point, a completely new concept. It's weird to think that things being developed now that seem so incredible will be commonplace for the next generation. It's also weird to think that at one point, things that we view as traditional, like Tchaikovsky's music or Monet's painting style, were new and unknown to their peers.  

         I know I literally just said I wasn't a huge fan of modern art in the last paragraph, and here I am, throwing another piece at you (fair warning- the next few are also modern art). This one was really interesting though. I don't have a whole analysis for it, but I'll explain what the piece is, and maybe someone who's better at appreciating art than I am can explain it to me. :) Basically, the artist designed this piece to eventually die out- literally. Originally, the lightbulbs spelled out the word "Intent". Since the piece was installed, they've been burning out, and all of the lightbulbs are predicted to be burnt out by the end of this year.

         Here's another one that's a bit difficult to read- it says "With You I Breathe". The description of the work that was posted said that the artist had been working with neon lights for a while, and had recently begun to make the lights into phrases in her own handwriting. The way the sign interpreted the work was that it had a dual meaning- the 'you' in the phrase could be referring to a significant other, someone who shares your life. It could also refer to the world at large, and refer to the fact that we're all connected in one way or another, even if it's only in that we breathe from the same atmosphere.

          This one's also difficult to read (sorry, I seem to have a thing for wordy, difficult to read things...). What it says though, is "The object, sentence, and work completes itself while what is read constructs what is seen." This brings to mind a quote that my dad is relatively fond of: "Your perception is your reality". No matter what is put down on a page, or a canvas, or sheets of music, there is some amount of interpretation that will be done by the person observing the piece. This observation and interpretation is inevitable- I'm doing it right now. And it brings me back to the idea that art can mean what people think it means. Different people with different life experiences will see things differently. And that's one of the things that makes art really amazing- it can be interpreted in many different ways, and none of those ways is wrong.

         So... this isn't actually a work of art. It's the sign that explains one of the works of art. The work itself is an open book with one page, on which is written "Abnehmendes Licht ist zunehmendes Dunkel", which is also the title of the work. Originally, I wanted to take a picture so that I could remember the title and translate it later, but then I realized that it was translated underneath. Once I could read it, I realized that the title was practically a work of art in and of itself- it's pretty poetic, if you ask me. The idea that "waning light is waxing darkness" is a little sad, at least until your remember that the opposite is also true. I read a quote recently that said something along the lines of "The greatest truths are those for which the opposite is also a great truth". I don't know if that's true, but I like the idea that opposing ideas can both be great truths. 

                                     

            Since I don't really play any string instruments, I can't possibly hope to appreciate this one fully- but I know that someone *cough* little sister *cough* will probably appreciate this work of art for what it is. That violin is a Stradivarius, one of the most well recognized names in musical instruments. I'm sure that in its day, before it was hidden behind a glass box, that violin wrought some beautiful art of its own.

             This behemoth is a Chihuly- it kind of reminded me of home, so I had to take a picture. When I say behemoth, I actually mean it- that sculpture of glass weighs over 10,000 pounds and is 42 feet tall. I had to stand on a second floor staircase to get this picture.

            The highlight in this room was supposedly the Pollock on the back wall (it's on the left if you're wondering), but I was more taken by this statue. I didn't read the sign, so I'm not sure what it's actually mean to depict. But it was striking, and both simple and complex, and I needed a picture. And since I've somehow managed to convince you to read this far, I wanted to share that picture with you :)

This picture, and the one below, are both architecture from outside the museum. I loved the colors of this building, and the way it wasn't just your typical skyscraper. It had personality. I also liked that it was only about two blocks away from the more traditional brick buildings and the church that's below this block of text. It's fun to see how architecture embodies the new and old parts of the city in such close quarters.
















            


               That was the majority of the art that I encountered this week. We also went canoeing on the Charles, which was wonderful. It was awesome to get back on the water, even in a different manner than I'm used to. And, I finally got to take some of the pictures I've wanted to take since I got here- unobstructed views of various parts of the city. Some of those are below too, for your viewing pleasure.  :)

The classic shot of MIT's dome (a bit obstructed by trees, but still pretty neat)

Boston's skyline... How am I so lucky to have lived in such beautiful cities?

            Anywho, that wraps up this week's blog post. I hope everyone had as lovely a week as I did! :)