Goodbye, dear Cambridge

Saying Good-Bye to Cambridge Again
by Xu Zhimo

Very quietly I take my leave
As quietly as I came here;
Quietly I wave good-bye
To the rosy clouds in the western sky.

The golden willows by the riverside
Are young brides in the setting sun;
Their reflections on the shimmering waves
Always linger in the depth of my heart.

The floating heart growing in the sludge
Sways leisurely under the water;
In the gentle waves of Cambridge
I would be a water plant!

That pool under the shade of elm trees
Holds not water but the rainbow from the sky;
Shattered to pieces among the duckweeds
Is the sediment of a rainbow-like dream?

To seek a dream? Just to pole a boat upstream
To where the green grass is more verdant;
Or to have the boat fully loaded with starlight
And sing aloud in the splendour of starlight.

But I cannot sing aloud
Quietness is my farewell music;
Even summer insects heep silence for me
Silent is Cambridge tonight!

Very quietly I take my leave
As quietly as I came here;
Gently I flick my sleeves
Not even a wisp of cloud will I bring away

Finally relaxing...

After my exams were over on Saturday, Chris and I headed straight to London, where we ate a celebratory dinner at a Mediterranean-Morroccan restaurant (tasty!). Afterwards, we hit up a few bars with Elissa and her King's College London buddies. It was a good way to end a stressful term and an even more stressful week leading up to the Tripos exams.

I've spent the last couple of days just chillin', watching David Attenborough documentaries, reading online articles I've put off, painting while listening to podcasts, and packing up my books and papers to mail home.

I've also been wandering around Cambridge, and I discovered Indigo Coffee House perhaps a bit too late. It's a cozy little hole-in-the-wall cafe with mismatching wooden furniture and a hipstery, homey feel. Perhaps I'll get a photo the next time I go wandering around Cambridge with my camera.

A final thought: I think tomorrow I'll go visit the Whipple Museum and then bike down Mill Road. Hopefully it'll be sunnier and warmer tomorrow!

Taking a quick break from revision

My first exam will be happening the day after tomorrow. Scary stuff.

Bucket list of things I need to do before I leave (will be added to):

Visit the Whipple Museum of the History of Science
Go to evensong at King's chapel
Wander down Mill Road again
Go see the Ely cathedral and eat pickled eels in Ely
Visit friends in Oxford

Happy Easter!

Have a few more photos...

Inside the Pembroke college chapel for Easter evensong.

Drinking sherry with friends before heading off to a lovely
Easter dinner in the Old Library

Our lovely Pembroke library at sunset!

Daffodils in the Pembroke garden

Narcissus is their technical name.

Sorry for the lack of updates, everyone. I've been writing up my research report the last couple of weeks, on top of studying for my exams (after coming back from a 2-week trip around Europe). My exams are from June 1-4, which seems like a fair while from now, but it actually isn't a lot of time considering the volumes of information I must be able to vomit into comprehensible, cohesive research review-like essays. Twelve of them.

With regards to my last blog entry: I've been accepted into the NIH Summer Internship Program! I'll be doing research with Dr. Mike Iadarola on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of pain, which is probably the field of research I'll be sticking with for a while. I've got a tiny sublet near Friendship Heights metro station staked out already. Suuuuper excited about living so close to Washingtion D.C. this summer. I've been to D.C. twice for two different conferences, and I must say I've been impressed both times. D.C. seems pretty hip and vibrant (albeit a bit expensive at times, especially near Dupont Circle), and it's well-connected by public transit, which is an extreme plus for someone who is automobile-less like me.

Anyways, enough procrastinating. Back to studying!

Can't focus

Blaahhh. A quick rant: I am having massive issues focusing on my work because I am waiting on a couple researchers to get back to me about working in their labs this summer. One researcher at the NIH who was interested in me forwarded my information to a collaborator, and the collaborator hasn't gotten back to me yet. It's been nearly a week. I even sent him a politely prodding email yesterday. No response. Another researcher at Stanford who is (thankfully) good at prompt replies, is currently trying to get some biotech companies to fund me for the summer. Thus, I have to wait on a response from these biotech companies. I really need some financial support in order to do research at Stanford. Palo Alto is not a cheap place to live, unfortunately.

An update, for once

Disclaimer: this update is for Yisha, a very good friend of mine.

Anyways, I am quite inebriated right now. In fact, I probably wouldn't be typing this up if I wasn't schwasted from imbibing an entire bottle of fine Italian wine. I have realized, for a while now, that nothing productive gets accomplished after a formal dinner. Getting pennied is such a fantastic way of making sure you are too drunk to get any real work done. Much better (and classier) than beer pong, at least.

What's been going on in my life, you ask? Well, tons of work, as always. I'm perpetually a week behind my lecture material. Cambridge is quite a hard taskmaster. I'm always a bit envious of my fellow Brunonians who study abroad at other institutions and go traipsing across continental Europe every weekend. I mean, there's a reason why LSE is also known as "let's see Europe." Damn them. There's always scientific research papers I need to read, and I have to write at least one neuroscience-based essay week (which, I guess, for humanities students it's not too bad, but for science students it's unusual).

Yesterday, I participated in my first university-level athletics sporting event (ever). I've only been fencing since the beginning of Michaelmas term last October, and somehow I managed to get on the Varsity women's 2nd team for fencing at Cambridge. There weren't enough female intermediate fencers to fill the 2nd team, so they had to drag two women beginners this year into the Varsity 2nd team.

I'm starting to really feel the neuro-depressant effects of alcohol on my central nervous system now, so bear with me. I'm trying hard to stay awake.

Fencing for Cambridge was a great experience because, I mean, for a study-abroad student, it's pretty impressive to be playing a sport for the university against Oxford (as opposed to simply competing between colleges). Unfotunately, Oxford won the fencing tournament this year by 8 points, which is not a lot, considering that each individual fencing round (for example, "women's 2nd sabre") consists of 45 points. I really felt outclassed by most of my opponents, however, despite whatever the beginner's coach says (Richard Morris is so cute though... too bad he's gay and taken). What I found especially hilarious was that I had to fight on the women's sabre team, considering I only learned how to fence sabre the  the day before the tournament. I've only had a substantial amount of practice with the foil (although I did fight decently on the women's 2nd foil team).

I fought a match with an experienced sabreist who scored 5 consecutive points against me in less than two minutes. It was comedic, to say the least.

Umm, what else has happened? The previous weekend I presented a poster at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). This was mildly amusing because I received a travel grant from Pembroke College that partially paid for a plane ticket back to the United States. I went with two other British students, who upon exiting the airport in Washington D.C., was like, "Woooaahhh it's like being in Hollywood movie." They marveled at the sight of our huge roads, our huge cars, and—occasionally—our huge citizens.

It's okay, I told them, because I sometimes feel like I'm in a Harry Potter movie when I'm in England.

I got to be really good friends with a girl named Tara over the course of that weekend. We ate meals together at really "American" restaurants like Johnny Rockets, a legit Chinese restaurant in D.C. Chinatown, a Wafflehouse for breakfast, and Firehook Bakery. She's such a supercool and supernice biochemistry student. We got free cookie cutters shaped like various NASA satellites at the conference, and we plan on baking satellite-shaped sweet biscuits some upcoming weekend.

UGH WHY DOES WINE TASTE SO GOOD BUT MAKE ME SO DRUNK. I JUST GET SLEEPY WHEN I'M DRUNK AND I HATE IT.

What else... um. I had "Halfway Hall" yesterday evening at Pembroke. They normaly invite the 2nd year students for Halfway Hall (because it's halfway through their 3-year degree programs), but they're nice enough to invite the full-year study-abroad students too. I was seated with the other study-abroad students. The main course was venison, but it tasted like liver.  On the bright side, the dessert—peanut butter brownie with ice cream—was heavenly. There was a bop at the junior parlour afterwards (i.e. a party), and I managed to muster enough shamelessness to dance to a few songs. Some drunken girls kept dragging me to the dance floor, and I obliged. Dancing is fun anyways. At one point, I was dancing in a circle, arms-around-shoulders, with a bunch of guys, and one of them asked, "AT WHAT FREQUENCY ARE WE SUPPOSED TO OSCILLATE?" I love the nerdiness of Cambridge.

So now we are in the 6th week (out of 8 weeks) of Lent term at Cambridge. After the 8th and last week of Lent term, there is a 5-week-long Easter vacastion. I plan to travel across continental Europe during that time with a couple other American study-abroad students. In particular, I would like to hit up Paris, Florence, wine country in Italy, Berlin, and any city in Turkey. I need to start booking tickets soon, however.

Okay, I am getting extremely sleepy now. My wine has won the battle. Good night, my friends!

WAKE UP IN THE MORNING
and wonder why I'm a science student

(Seriously, the humanities students don't get any 9AM lectures. Damn them.)

Tea matters

Now that I am home, and now that I've re-tasted various American brands of Earl Grey tea, I've come to the disappointing conclusion that American brands of Earl Grey are really weak sauce. Compared to the swooningly fragrant loose leaf Earl Grey that I purchased through the Cambridge Tea Society, all the teas from American companies taste flat. Just flat.

I'm seriously stocking up on quality British tea before I leave Cambridge. And digestives.

Some candies I've sampled

Tunnock's chocolate mallow teacakes! Made in Scotland!

The mallow is made from egg whites instead of gelatin, so it's silkier
and airier than American marshmallows. I guess that makes them
more like a meringue. Pretty tasty stuff.

Kinder chocolates aren't actually British, but you can't find these in
America easily.

Creamy white-chocolatey, condensed-milky filling. It's okay.

Another smart-alecky reply

Okay, I admit that I love being smart-alecky, and remembering my smart-alecky comments. It's a guilty pleasure of mine. Sorry! A few weeks ago, I was in a conversation about a recent, well-publicized scientific breakthrough in figuring out how to make cells stop aging (i.e. getting one step closer to making "immortal cells").

I had quipped, "So, what? Nature already figured out immortality. It's called cancer."

Though, in retrospect, I think the more appropriate quip should have been about lobsters. Some researchers argue that if lobsters weren't eaten by predators (including humans) or didn't succumb to infectious disease, they'd live forever by the same mechanism that those scientists used on mice.

Immaturity never gets old

One time, I was studying with a friend and this precious exchange occurred:

Chris: Relativity can suck my dick.
Me: Are you sure it's sucking your dick... or are you just moving in and out of its mouth?

I'm normally not this clever, I swear.

Favorite photos from Michaelmas term

Brown FML

Yeah, the one about calling Providence taxi by accident and confusedly trying to negotiate a pick-up time until I realized that I was talking to someone in the wrong time zone?

That's me. True story.

Wasted like £1 on the international call too. Jeeesh.

Here's a long one...

I must apologize to anyone following my blog and wondering which edge of the planet I fell off from. Michaelmas term ended last Friday, December 4. Actually—before I go any further—you know what's sad? I had an internal debate about writing the above statements British-style, meaning it would look like this (differences italicized):

I must apologise to anyone following my blog and wondering which edge of the planet I fell off from. Michaelmas term ended last Friday, 4 December.

So yes, I'm beginning to warm up to the British ways of spelling and syntax. Using 's' instead of 'z' seems more... elegant? Putting the day before the month makes more sense? Don't even get me started on the imperial system versus the metric system (although, admittedly, I still can't think in Celsius).

Anyways, term finally came to an end. Now I actually have some time to catch up and breathe after 8 weeks of nonstop information overload. Because there are no exams until June, the lecturers just keep on piling knowledge on your plate, expecting you to somehow miraculously retain it all. This is what medical school must feel like. It's both a curse and a blessing that each term only lasts for 8 weeks: vast quantities of information is crammed into 8 weeks—but only 8 merciful weeks.

Of course, it's not as horrible as I make it seem. I may have studied long hours, reading papers until my eyes bled, trying to eke out essays I was never properly prepared to write when I was at Brown—but on the whole, this past term has been extremely enjoyable and I look forward to the next term (though not the one after that: "exam term"). Outside of lectures and work, I had plenty of sanity-saving diversions. I learned how to fence, went on fungal forays and photoshoots, helped out with Cambridge Triple Helix events, traveled around London, explored the streets of Cambridge, pennied people senseless at formal dinners, chilled at student jazz sessions, socialized over tea at Tea Society meetings and department tea rooms, invited friends over for wine and cheese or Irish coffee, attended organ concerts, sang Christmas carols with the college chaplain, stayed up late playing bananagrams, and fell asleep many times cuddling with a dedicated cuddle-buddy.

Oh, before I start forgetting all the funny ways British people say certain things, I will try to list all the differences I've encountered in person:

• Beta, omega, theta = "bee-tah", "o-mee-gah", "thee-tah"
• Tomato = "Toe-MAH-toe"
• Aluminum = "Ah-lu-MIN-ium"
• Vitamins = "VITT-a-mins"
• Stand in line = "Stand in the queue"
• To vacuum = "To hoover"
• The letter Z = "The letter zed"

And British students don't make "that's what she said" jokes. I kind of miss them.

I've run out of meaningful things to say for now, although I may touch upon the subject of killing mice in a subsequent post. In short: I have to decapitate baby mice for my research project, and although I can do it without fainting or crying, I still feel pretty bad about it.

Part II project

Project allocations came out last week, and I got my second choice—Peter McNaughton's lab! Put simply, my project will involve transfecting a gene for a particular pain-modulating ion channel into mouse knockouts of the same gene. This is to make sure that the ion channel does what we think it does, which means restoring pain-modulation to the nerve cells.

Not a bad project, I must say. Now that I've met with the PI, I'm actually quite glad that I got this project over my first choice—because of all the cool things I will learn how to do! This includes:

• Dissecting dorsal root ganglia out of mouse spinal cords
• Culturing neurons
• Transfecting DNA into neurons
• Using confocal microscopy to image the neurons
• (If time permits) patch clamping neurons and recording their activity

I asked for a wet lab, I got a damn wet lab all right. When one of the post-docs took me on a tour around the lab, he showed me the old electrophysiology rig that Alan Hodgkin used! Craaaazy. I must admit that I feel a bit anxious though. Based on my conversation with Dr. McNaughton, it seems he is holding me to high intellectual and technical standards, which makes me worry that he might think me too dull later on.

...I hope I can meet his standards?

Things I miss and don't

Things I miss:

• Raw apple cider (i.e. the non-alcoholic version you get at farmer's markets)
• The mulled cider you make from raw apple cider
• Pumpkin pie
• New England clam chowder
• Clam cakes
• Maple syrup
• Pancakes. Like, real pancakes. Not the stuff they serve here cold, in a bowl, with custard.
• S'mores nights in front of the King House fireplace
• Ovens (and baking sugary, buttery treats with friends at 1am)
• Group-studying with friends until the wee hours in the morning
• The Blue Room
• Brown student theatre (PW, how I miss thee!)
• RISD

Things I don't miss at all:

• The all-pervasive cloud of pot smoke in dorm halls
• Pants-drenching, fierce New England rain
• My Brown mailbox, which was always too damn high for me
• Smelly, musty dorm carpets (they vacuum ours every week)
• Overcooked mystery meat at the Ratty
• Overcooked almost-everything at the Ratty

Fifth week blues

I think I might be experiencing some of what people around here call the "fifth-week blues." I generally can keep up with lecture material, but when I try to write an essay, I find that I've never felt so goddamn dumb in my life.

It's not always so bad. On my last essay, when I finished scrawling the last word on it, I felt as if I discovered a little law of the universe. It's actually quite exhilarating when I understand things.

Of course, I have to run into a brick wall several times over before it happens. Discovering little laws of the universe is hard.

A passing thought

During a talk given by a neuroscience researcher this afternoon (with tea and cakes, of course), a thought passed through my mind: Here at Cambridge, I feel like I'm at a Society for Neuroscience conference— every single day.

All neuro, all the time. It's great.

I wish essays weren't such a pain to write, though.

Projects!

This is going to be a boring update, but I just want to jot down a few things for my own satisfaction.

I've submitted my choices for the research project I wish to work on during Lent Term. I didn't end up arranging my own project because the projects they offered on the list were quite good, and I am just so damn busy. Here are the projects I have chosen, in order of preference:

1. Matthias Landgraf - Title: Cellular interactions and synapse development in a locomotor network
2. Peter McNaughton - Title unknown (probably a topic on TRPA1 channels and/or pain)
3. Amy L. Milton, Barry J. Everitt -  Title: What is the role of dopamine in CS-fear memory reconsolidation?
3. Zara Bergstrom - Title: EEG correlates of strategic processes in episodic memory retrieval

Landgraf's project is a strong first choice for me, since I really want to work in a wet lab that isn't just cell cultures. He does experiments on Drosophila—yes, I know fruit flies are not the most exciting or cuddly animal model—but it's with optogenetics! For those of you who don't know what that means, it basically means: shine a light on the animal, activate specific nerve cells, and watch the animal freeze/walk in circles/walk normally/spasm/etc. So damn cool. Optogenetics is a relatively new technique, so loads of new experiments are just waiting to be thought of! Dr. Landgraf seems like a pretty cool guy and his lab cohorts are great too.

Plus, his lab is across the street from Pembroke College. That means if I need to do any late-night or early-morning work, I don't need to make a 10-minute commute. I can just roll out of bed.