A weekend without school

This last week has been so awesome, but yet so strange! I got Thanksgiving and the entire weekend off from school, and it was so weird to not have to go into lab or have to do some sort of assignment/study for multiple days! You better believe I took full advantage of my free time! Noelle was out here, so did all sorts of fun things!

I swear the majority of what we did was eat. I was going to go to the Macy's thanksgiving day parade, but it was SOOOOOO crowded and you couldn't see anything anyway, so I just started on Thanksgiving dinner instead. Noelle braved the crowds though, so maybe I'll steal a few pictures from her to post later. Thanksgiving consisted of tons of yummy food, football (not by choice..hehe), and seeing Harry Potter in the BIGGEST IMAX theater I have ever seen (it was awesome by the way).



We also ate at the most delicious Thai restaurant on Amsterdam:


Best pad thai ever. I usually don't like pad thai too much but they added the perfect amount of spiciness and flavor!





We also went out to try Magnolia's thanksgiving cupcakes, delicious cannolis, and a waffle from Wafels and Dinges food truck! (yum).


Black Friday here was a mess (Remember the employee who was killed? That was in NY!) so it wasn't worth going out shopping in the morning--- we made our way to the Natural History museum instead. It was fun! It was pretty crowded (isn't everything?), but it was worth going! They had so many awesome exhibits too see.




The best was the Hall of the Pacific Peoples!


Actually it wasn't the best. It was actually really lame. They could learn a lesson or two from the PCC. :)

Ocean room:


Probably my favorite thing about the museum (besides finding a stuffed neuron souvenir from the brain exhibit!) was this dinosaur origami Christmas tree!



I wanted to steal one and take it home with me!


And of course we did lots of shopping!
We went to the seasonal Union Square market place where they have a lot of fun booths/tables selling the most random and unique things!


And of course we hit up the biggest and best H&M and the 5 story F21.


I'm still recovering from all of the food/shopping/walking we did! It was fun having you here Noelle!

It definitely is hard to go back to school after a break like that. I'm already dying and its just been a day and a half back! Now is the final stretch through intensive lab work/finals/papers/all the fun that comes with finishing up school. I'm pretty much going to live in the lab for the next 3 weeks, but that will make Christmas break that much better when it comes. Let the final stretch begin!

**Or let it begin tomorrow because the Rockefeller tree lighting is tonight and I have to go! :)

..

Statue of Liberty

Finally made our way out to see the Statue of Liberty.

Its actually smaller than I thought!

Tons of more pics of last week to come. :)

Apple face

This is what I got when I asked Seth to grab me an apple from the fridge:

He says it tastes better when its cut into a face.

:)

As of late

As usual, my life is full of hectic grad school problems.

But I'm tired of being so stressed out all of the time!! So, since I did well on my last exam, I've decided to take it easy for the next week or so since Thanksgiving is coming up. I feel like I need it. And I've also selfishly decided that I deserve it!

So in the last week, I've made a point to get out of the library/lab and go out!

Last weekend, Seth and I went to go see MegaMind (btw the premiere was at the theatre right by our house a few weeks ago! Seth got to get a peek at Will Ferrell, but there were so many people around and I am the size of a midget, so I didn't see anything.), but when we got in the theatre, the only seats left were the ones in the very front row...ugh! So we got our money back and ventured around Lincoln Center for a while.

The steps at Lincoln Center have different sayings in different languages that flash on and off, and it was pretty hard to get a picture of them. The iphone has failed me.

After grabbing some dinner we stopped of at the gigantic Barnes and Noble by our house and ended up looking at pictures of bulldogs. Boy, do I miss my fatty. I picked up some sweet books as well (though I have no time to read) with the hopes that I will read them someday (Christmas break, maybe?).

And yes, I will be making Magnolia bakery cupcake goodness and pretending they are my own...ha!

Anyway, for the last two weeks I've been working on a gene regulation experiment only to turn up with no results yesterday...so instead of discussing my results with my PI (who's been a little on the unhappy side lately because our lab has been slow to produce results), I took off early to take a walk in central park with my hubs.

Whenever I go into central park, I immediately think of Fatty. Look how many people there are walking their dogs! I can just imagine rolling Fatty around central park in a red wagon because he's too fat/tired to walk himself. [sigh].

I've been meaning to go into central park to take some shots of the leaves changing colors, but I think I'm a little late...a lot of the trees are already bare! It was probably a lot prettier about 2 weeks ago or so.

One thing I love about NYC are all of the street performers/artists. We found a guy just standing around making gigantic bubbles. I was taking a picture of him when I finally realized that one of the bubbles was inches away from my face. I was too busy looking through my camera lens when one burst on me!

Right before the bubble explosion:

The best thing about fall are all of the LEAVES!

I just want to roll around in them! Don't worry I resisted the urge.

I love all of the color change here! I'm so happy that I finally get to experience a fall season with color change, layering, scarves, jackets, and hot apple cider! It's the best. I could seriously walk around central park forever. It's the most gorgeous place.

When the sun starts to go down, the lake is the best place to be. You can see the Loeb Boathouse in the distance! *still need to go there!*

A few more shots of central park because I can't get enough of the scenery:

Enough pictures for you? Sorry, I've been spastically gathering pictures throughout the week and then spilling them all out into one post lately.

Oh and today I stopped of at the Herald Square Macys. Funny thing is I've never thought much of Macys. But their flagship store in Herald square is incredible. I don't know why I didn't take a picture of their extensively decorated store front, with dancing people dressed up as fairies, lights, and animated story book window scenes. But the inside looked like this:

EEeeee! So Christmasy! The holidays are getting me excited.

OHHH, and as for the chocolate show, I feel lame to tell you that we didn't end up going....my PI had me come into the lab on Saturday. Lame lame lame I know, but my friend Antonia grabbed me some of the most delicious chocolate ever. The bite is from my chocolate loving husband, who found my stash.

Thoughts for a Friday

As I sit here as an enslaved grad student in my Immunology lab (and pretend that I am doing DNA sequencing analysis while I am actually blogging), I am going to gather my thoughts for this week.

1. No lab results = depressing week!

I spent the entire week doing an experiment that measures protein levels of a down-regulated gene...and I can't get my actin control to work...which means that I can't interpret the blot of my protein extracts...which means I have to start over. bllaaaaaahhh!! A week's worth of work/time down the drain. Tis the life of a researcher, right? I should probably get used to lab failure. But still, it was slightly sad to put so much time into no results. And my PI wasn't too thrilled either.

2. Wrong class!

Yesterday I went to the upper west side YMCA to take a zumba class. I was all excited since I haven't taken a zumba class since Luana's AWESOME class in Hawai'i! I'm new to the Y, so I just wandered around until I found the group exercise studio, and went to the front of the group. So then the instructor gets up and says, "Who doesn't know that this isn't the Zumba class and that the instructor is gone until next week?" I looked around and no one else did anything...so I was too embarrassed to leave since I was standing in the front, and I just stayed. Turns out, it was an Indian folk dance class!! hahaha! I stayed and danced for the entire hour and a half! I guess I got a new experience out of it. It was actually kind of fun, even though I probably looked pretty stupid and out of place.

3. MSSM hospital stairs are my new enemy.

There are these stairs that go from the Icahn research institute to the hospital that have this little "ledge" that sticks up from the front. I have tripped on them THREE times this week. Are these things a health hazard? Am I just not picking up my feet? I hate those things. Its come to the point where its hard for me to get embarrassed from tripping and falling on my face because it happens so often.

4. Chocolate Show

[see last post]

My mouth is watering just thinking about all of the chocolate that I am going to eat tomorrow!

5. YogaWorks

My friend Annie showed me this little studio called YogaWorks...and I am in love! They have this fantastic studio that teaches all sorts of yoga...including Ashtanga, which is what I practiced in Hawaii! Its my favorite type of yoga, and I know it well since I've been practicing it regularly, so I was so excited to try a class. My first class was awesome..it kind of made me feel at home in a way, so I will be going back often! Yoga has become my saving grace from the craziness of life, if you know what I mean.

6.NYC: best food ever!

I have officially determined that NYC has the best food EVER. I've probably said this a million times by now. But seriously I am finding a delicious new place to eat every few days. I went from one extreme to the other: remote pacific island --->busiest city in the country. And I love it. I recently discovered Crumbs bakery, and though it is amazingly yummy, it doesn't compare to Magnolia Bakery (my kryptonite).

7. My sister is coming out for Thanksgiving

I feel like I've hyped up the food so much, Noelle (the foodie of the family) is coming out to visit the food....I mean me. Wait, no I don't---she really is coming out for the food! haha! We will probably consume everything in a matter of days. Plus A group of our friends are having a Pre-Thanksgiving- Thanksgiving dinner..so there will be a lot of food around in the next few weeks.

Welp, thats it. You get a gold star if you made it through this whole post.

I should probably get some work done. Have a great weekend!

Chocolate show?

I just heard that there is a CHOCOLATE show here in New York city, running from yesterday through Sunday at the Metropolitan!

[Photos taken from Chocolate Show Website]

Seriously?! A show completely dedicated to chocolate? You better believe that I'll be there!

They claim to be the largest show in the US that is dedicated to chocolate.

Events include sampling tons and tons of types of chocolates and chocolate products, as well as cooking demonstrations and a chocolate fashion show.

YUM! I will let you know how it goes!

Woes of the colorblind

Just when I thought my colorblind problems were over...

I stumbled upon microarrays...

(Full paper here)

We have a required class called Journal Club where we discuss papers that are relevant to the current module we are studying. Each person is required to speak about the data of at least 1 figure and how that contributes to the overall findings of the paper....

But what are you supposed to do if you can't read/interpret the figures because they are all in GREEN AND RED?

Answer: You sit behind the TA so she doesn't see you and forgets that you haven't presented on a figure. Problem solved. :)

ING NYC Marathon!

...was today!

Turns out, the finish line was 2 blocks from our house in Central Park, so the traffic and amount of people was intense.

This year the marathon hit all 5 of the boroughs; starting in Staten Island, and going through Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, Harlem, and then ending in central park.

We got a sneak peek of the finish line the day before:

I wonder how you can get passes to sit up here at the finish line..? That would be pretty awesome.

Today it was hard to get through the crowds to watch the end of the marathon, but Seth managed to squeeze in and took some pictures/video.

Isn't this picture awesome? I love the ghost effect!!

Can you believe someone could run 26.2 miles in 02:08:14? Crazy! It makes me want to be able to run that fast!

Oh and I found this picture on Seth's phone. I thought it was pretty, so I stuck it up on here. I love this city.

Cold weather is here!

I am officially starting to experience my first cold winter.

It's only about 37 -50 degrees here, but its COLD to me. COOOOLLLLDDD! Plus its all rainy and windy a lot of the time, which makes it worse!

But I lovvvvvve the change in wardrobe, i.e. jackets, sweaters, scarves, boots, etc.....things I only get to wear when I visit California for Christmas. Its about 37 degrees when I leave for school in the morning, so I layer up with sweaters and scarves, grab a delicious, hot caramel apple spice, and make my way to the upper east side.

And the scenery here is absolutely gorgeous; seeing the leaves change and fall, and all of the holiday decorations are starting to come up.

Ice skating at Rockefeller Center has started, and I can't wait to go! I also can't wait for the lighting of Christmas trees and elaborate decorations to be set up. I feel like I couldn't be in a better city for the holidays. (I could do without the snow though....not looking forward to that).

Anyway, this week I went to a "Dino DNA" party....in simpler terms it was a nerd party with my fellow graduate classmates where we watched Jurassic Park on the tiniest tv ever and "oooohed and ahhhhhed" at the parts where they talked about Dinosaur DNA....hehe.

It was a lot of fun, but I have to admit it has been strange to go from a school where all my friends were LDS to a school where I am the only member. So being the only sober person at these parties..??...not totally my scene, but I feel like I have to make an effort to get to know these people since we are going to be in the same program together for 2 years. All in all, it was fun to take a break from school and hang out with my classmates (even though I just watched a lot of people get trashed!) I didn't want to commute back to the upper west side in the wee hours of the morning (a few weeks ago there was a stabbing at the 96 st train station), so I ended up crashing at my friend Annie's place for the night, and we ended up having tons of fun. What would I do without good friends like that?

This weekend, Pattie and David are here! We've had some great fun so far...even though I had to get up at 7 today to go to lab to finish up some gene regulation experiments (curse lab work on Saturdays!) The NYC marathon is tomorrow, and it ends in Central Park which is just 2 blocks from our apartment, so maybe we'll check it out.

side note: In celebration of my "late Halloween," I feasted on one of these from Magnolia:

I can't wait for the Thanksgiving ones!