My Week (Photos!)

Monday night was Burns' Night which is a Scottish holiday in honor of the Scottish bard Robert Burns, so after my History of Medicine class (which I actually dropped in order to take Genetics, Nature and Society, but which I am still attending when I can because the subject matter is really interesting) my flat had a Burns' Night supper. Although we didn't have a traditional supper of haggis, tatties (potatoes), and neeps (turnips)--as Tesco was totally cleared out of these items--we did have a delicious supper of spaghetti, wine, cake, tea, and gummy candies. We listened to music and played the game where everyone gets a card with a famous person/character and they have to stick it on their forehead and ask questions to try and figure out who they are. I was Big Bird and Michael Jackson. It was lots of fun.

Tuesday was my long day with two Molecular Cell Biology lectures, one BioTech lecture, a BioTech practical, and a History of Medicine lecture. In MCB we changed lecturers during the second lecture and we are now talking about cell signaling which plays an important role in gene expression and is far more interesting then the cytoskeleton. In BioTech we also got a new lecturer who is much better than the first. He has a dry, British sense of humor and is incredibly knowledgeable. The only downside is that sometimes he gives us so much information during lectures it is hard for my hand to keep up. After class we had practical. Once again the protocol was horribly written. We "ran" a PCR. By run a PCR I mean we lysed cells and then added them to a pre-prepared master mix. I didn't even get to see the PCR machine. The rest of the practical was looking at plates and the yogurt we had made.

On Wednesday Lee and I bought tickets to go see Grizzly Bear in March. The venue is probably about a block away from my flat at most. Afterward we had some tea and then went to get Indian food at this kitchen connected to a mosque cleverly named the Mosque Kitchen. The seating area is a courtyard filled with long plastic tables and chairs, and the cold air served to increase the amount of steam rising off my giant bowl of hot food. Everyone's food looked so delicious (mine sure was!) and nice with steam rising off of it. I didn't finish my portion of saag aloo at lunch, but I did finish it for dinner that night. Later that day Lee and I went to play on The Meadows playground (which is apparently built over a bubonic plague graveyard?). There is a zip line, which was lots of fun.

Thursday I had my Nature, Genetics, and Society class in the afternoon. Currently we are talking about who should be involved in technological decision making and how we can increase and improve communication between scientists and the public. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy this class?

Friday was another busy day. I decided to walk to the King's Buildings that morning (it's a 30 minute walk) because I was worried the bus might run late and I wanted to get there on time for my 9:00 MCB practical. The MCB practical is proving much better than the BioTech practical. Granted all we have done so far is pipette solutions from one tube to another, but I feel a lot less coddled. Also we are going to do a Western Blot! Then again I shouldn't get too excited as this might actually mean the demonstrators are going to run the Western Blot for us. Another down side is that some of the people in my lab group are incompetent. One of the girls tried to set a p 20 pipetter to 60 µL. The 20 on top means it can only go to 20 µL. When I told her that she said, "Oh, well then I will just use this one three times." My response was to hand her the p 100 already set to 60 µL. I worry because this is a third year honors practical. Practical was followed by lecture and another practical. Then at 1:30 I had a BioTech lecture followed by a Biotech practical. The BioTech lab that day was excellent. It was simply a wrap up of what we had done over the entire unit and lasted approximately 25 minutes. It was really hard, however, looking at a gel that someone else had run using my PCR product.

On Saturday I decided I wanted to go on a long walk around Edinburgh. The sun was shining and when I stuck my arm out the window it felt so nice outside. Lee came along too, but what started out as a nice walk turned into the coldest moments of my life. We didn't walk for too long as we got distracted by a street performer on the Royal Mile (he was quite funny), and by the end of his performance we were so cold we ran to a nearby cathedral and ducked in... to the cafe. Why a cathedral has a cafe I don't really know, but we were able to make our way from the cafe to the actual cathedral, which had the gorgeous stained glass. Unfortunately, if you wanted to take pictures you had to pay £2, so we just wandered. We didn't spend enough time warming up in there and the moment we walked out I was chilled to the bone again. My toes were so cold I couldn't feel them anymore, so I rushed back to my flat and snuggled in my bed. Lee stopped by his flat and then brought over tea and Jaffa Cakes to warm me up and make me less cold and cranky. Here are some pictures I took on our short walk:

Old College

Old College + Zombie for fun

Pie Shop!

Obligatory red telephone booth photo. Except I chose the first one I saw which happened to be covered in graffiti and smell like piss.

The Royal Mile

The Royal Mile

Later that night I baked with Aby and then Aby, Phoebe, Su, Aby's friend Rhiannan, and I all sat down and had tea, cupcakes, and peanut butter cookies as well as a nice chat. Here is what the table looked like:


Afterward Aby, Rhinnan and I watched a movie together. So despite the cold, Saturday turned into a nice day.

Today has been cleaning and homework. To come, pictures of my room, the deal with grocery stores, Irn Bru, and Jelly Babies!