Escape the city, this was really what I needed after all the work in the lab, and all the fast ticking New York minutes. The plan was to take the train halfway to Princeton, and then bike the last part to Princeton and eat an ice cream there (you always have to reward yourself!). We (Jun - from my lab, Kate - Jun's girlfriend, Kleopatra - from another lab, and I) started on early Sunday morning to catch the train. We were unlucky, no bikes were allowed in the train because of Memorial Day weekend.
Plan B:
I will give you a short description of this sweaty bike tour, I think the pictures say the rest! We went all the way up along the Hudson River to the George Washington Bridge. The weather was splendid, warm, bright, sunny, hot,and.. well, you get the idea. We were sweating before we could say 'sweat', and we had to refresh our layer of sun cream very often! But no complains here, we've been waiting so long for the summer to come!
We crossed the Hudson River on the GW Bridge, with beautiful views on the island of Manhattan! Now we were in New Jersey, out of NYC, out of the crowd, in another state. (Now I can tick of 2 states ;)). We followed the Hudson River up north, and we girls wanted to rest, take pictures, drink, drink, drink, and pee on top of every little hill! (Poor Jun had to wait for us all the time..).
On the way back we popped into a 'Royal Diner' to eat a not so royal salad. To return to Manhattan we decided to take the ferry, which was a terrific plan. Great views on all the (ugly) sky scrapers on the little island of Manhattan. Pretty strange actually that so many people live on such a small piece of land. NJ was real empty. And green!
We covered 42 sweaty sunny miles and this made me realize: I miss my bike(s).
Monday, May 30, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Research
The definition of research according to the Cambridge Dictionary is 'a detailed study of a subject especially in order to discover (new) information or reach a (new) understanding'. If you start thinking about the word 'research' you will most probably end up dividing the word into two parts: 're' and 'search'. Are we scientists so dumb that we can't find (new) information just by searching? Do we really have to search for it again? Anyway, if I search for the origin of the word 'research' I find some useful information. Research comes from the Old French word 'recercher' which simply means 'search'. Stupid English people! But maybe I shouldn't think about this so much, and just perform good research. And indeed, I usually look more than once into the matter! Maybe they're not that stupid after all!
All this research - how many times can I use this word in only one blog? - was the reason why I really didn't have time to do anything else. At a certain stage I was working 18 hours a day and I slept the other 6 hours. I hear you thinking, why? I have two answers to that question. The first is, because I'm a big time nerd and love my work. The second answer is probably more true though: because I had a deadline to beat. (And you can imagine, if you have to research everything, that can take a while ;) ).
So it went like this: since early March I'm working on synthesizing my very own nanoparticle (I can't go into too much detail here - I'm sorry). Making the nanoparticles didn't turn out to be very difficult, however, to purify it was a different story. Last week, I had two abstract deadlines, one for the symposium of my institute, and one for a conference in September. And about 1.5 to 2 weeks before the deadline, my supervisor said: 'Let's beat the deadline'. At that point I still had to start my in vitro experiments - better, I didn't have my cells yet. I wanted to feed my cells my nanoparticle and perform fluorescence and transmission electron microscopy, so for those who know about this: I was pressed for time. But I beat the deadline with a very sexy abstract (that's how my supervisor called it). For now: fingers crossed, and hopefully to San Diego in September!
Last Sunday, instead of doing research myself, I was the research object! I was guinea pigging for my Dutch friend Nicole, who is also part of our group. Loads of fun! Please enjoy the picture of me in this literally 'one size fits all' hospital gown, me in the MRI scanner, and me struggling with cookie dough ice cream!
All this research - how many times can I use this word in only one blog? - was the reason why I really didn't have time to do anything else. At a certain stage I was working 18 hours a day and I slept the other 6 hours. I hear you thinking, why? I have two answers to that question. The first is, because I'm a big time nerd and love my work. The second answer is probably more true though: because I had a deadline to beat. (And you can imagine, if you have to research everything, that can take a while ;) ).
So it went like this: since early March I'm working on synthesizing my very own nanoparticle (I can't go into too much detail here - I'm sorry). Making the nanoparticles didn't turn out to be very difficult, however, to purify it was a different story. Last week, I had two abstract deadlines, one for the symposium of my institute, and one for a conference in September. And about 1.5 to 2 weeks before the deadline, my supervisor said: 'Let's beat the deadline'. At that point I still had to start my in vitro experiments - better, I didn't have my cells yet. I wanted to feed my cells my nanoparticle and perform fluorescence and transmission electron microscopy, so for those who know about this: I was pressed for time. But I beat the deadline with a very sexy abstract (that's how my supervisor called it). For now: fingers crossed, and hopefully to San Diego in September!
Last Sunday, instead of doing research myself, I was the research object! I was guinea pigging for my Dutch friend Nicole, who is also part of our group. Loads of fun! Please enjoy the picture of me in this literally 'one size fits all' hospital gown, me in the MRI scanner, and me struggling with cookie dough ice cream!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)