Loves.

Today I had the longest day ever. 5 hours of classes in the same arctic-chilled room from 9-2 and then research from 2-9 with no lunch break (sorry but the no lunch made the day 10x's worse!)

So anyway, I dragged my body all the way back home to the upper west side in the pouring rain to find this when I got there:

A cute little display of my favorite foods waiting for me!

Yum yum yum! And I was even left with a choice of chewy or crispy chocolate chip cookies. :) It made me so happy after a long day. I have the most thoughtful and best husband ever!

*And notice that my biostatistics book has been pushed far away into the corner so I can enjoy my food and procrastinate as much as possible.

Fresh Food

Still nothing too new this week. This weekend was spent doing laundry (it's been almost 3 weeks since laundry had been done!) and in my research lab...but on the bright side being in lab allowed me to skip a mandatory all-day NYU workshop! (shhh...don't tell!)

But I had a good find this weekend: a fresh food market! It was just 4 blocks north of our street..don't ask me why I didn't find this before! I'm so used to the nasty Hawai'i Foodland fruits and veggies so this place was just amazing to me. I found out later that it is actually one of the best places to get fresh fruit and veggies!

It had fresh EVERYTHING! All of the fruits and veggies there were fresh and just brought in! And they had everything I could think of. And inside of the store they had aisles and aisles of organic food products!

My favorite find of the day was some delicious pineapple. I've been looking for some good pineapple since the move from Hawai'i and though this kind was not QUITE as good, it still really hit the spot! My other good find was some homemade pasta sauce. This store sold a brand that was locally made and for a good price! I bought some and made some pasta for lunch today, and it was so delicious---restaurant quality.

And if I'm not feeling up to walking 4 blocks to this place, there is always Trader Joes across the street. I am in food heaven.

New York really has the food scene going on. I don't think I could live anywhere else without complaining that the food is so much better in New York.

Creeper Whistle

My friend Annie gave me this today to keep the creepers away at night when I'm traveling home:

It sounds like a train is coming when you blow it.

Fried brain.

Well the biochem madness has subsided for the time being, and my brain is fried. I think its going to take me a few days to recover. But now that it's over I have nothing to post about because I did nothing but study/research for the last week.

So now I am sitting in my lab rebelliously doing nothing, because I feel like I deserve some sort of break from my horrific exam yesterday (15 pages, 3 hours long). I should be making Trypsin and PBS stock solutions. No thanks!

Whats weird is that while I have been working in my research lab 40+ hours a week, my PI tells me that I need to work more in order to get everything done in 2 years. How much more can I work that 40 hours while I am taking 7 classes? All of the other first year MS and PhD students are only working about 20 hours a week in their lab. How could I possibly work more than that? arggg.

And today I learned that the "EX" on my antibody serum meant "execution kill," meaning that the antibodies were injected into a rabbit, which was then killed in order to obtain the blood serum. I feel kind of cruel, as I wouldn't have ordered those antibodies if I knew that.

Oh yeah and I had to remind myself that I have a husband. I leave before he wakes up and don't see him until about 9 that night. Every day. And by then I'm doing homework into the night and just collapse into my bed from mental/physical exhaustion.

I'm sorry if you're tired of hearing me talking/complain about grad school. My life is consumed it in and I pretty much have nothing else to talk about anymore. Hopefully things will lighten up this week.

Some positive notes:

-I finally beat my mom at Words With Friends!!!!!!

-I witnessed a tornado in NY this week. The positive thing was that I was indoors when it happened.

-Seth will come all the way across town to my lab to walk me home at night to protect me from creepers (my creeper interactions are for another blog post to come).

-aaaaannnnddd.... Trader Joes just opened across the street. Yay!

Isn't it sad that beating my mom at Words With Friends is at the top of the list of positive things for the week? hehe. It was quite the accomplishment. IN YOUR FACE MOM! ...just kidding... That was the first time I won in like 50 games. Sad, I know.

Cheers.

Shake Shack

I just wanted to quickly post something before school completely takes over the week.

My lab at the Immunology Institute has got me on some time consuming projects. Right now I am looking to see if a protein is associated with V(D)J recombination. I have 3 ways of doing this; through point mutations of both domains of the protein, down regulation of the protein, and using antibodies (but I have to purify them first!) to measure the levels of regulation of the protein! Arg! blah, blah, blah.......

Anyway, I also have my first Biochem exam on Monday (scary!). Biostats hmwk, biochem problem sets, starting 2 more classes, and whatever else my PI wants me to do in the lab leads to a BUSY week. Plus I have to get a lot of things sorted out for this year's financial aid (FAFSA, oh how you cause me so much pain!). So since you won't hear from me until this storm passes, I thought I would quickly post on where we went this weekend.

The Shake Shack is kind of NY's In N Out. Same concept: freshly made food that tastes really good. Plus the Shake Shack claims to use all-natural beef; no hormones or antibiotics added. So we heard that the one in Madison Square Park was the famous one, so we took a trip down there.

I was excited, until I saw the LINE...

All the way around the park! Translation: hour + wait. Psh, no thanks!

So we went home with sad stomachs. But then I remembered someone mentioning there was a location on the upper west side, so we ventured off to find it:

The line was still long (out the door) but it was doable. Plus it was Saturday night, so I couldn't expect anything less.

The burgers were SO good! I would still say that In N Out is better because the Shake Shack burgers were a little greasy. Plus twice as expensive. But still great nonetheless! I will be back, thats for sure.

MmMMMMMmmmMMmmmmm...

(Sorry for the coloring on the pics....all from the iphone!)

We also went to Columbus Circle, Madison Square Garden, and ventured around Madison Square Park. Those pictures will have to wait because I gotta get crackin' on some lab research.

Have a great week! I'll let you know if I make it through alive.