blerg.

Blerg. It's been a while. I find it so intimidating to try and update when it’s been so long.

I have been a resident of Columbia for over a week now. I’ve been in the lab for one week. That doesn’t seem possible. I still kind of feel like in a few weeks I’ll be heading home or something, like this is just temporary. It hasn’t sunk in that this is [semi]-permanent.

I like being in a ‘real’ college town so far. I like that nearly everyone I meet is a student of some sort, coffee shops stay open late, and there is a plethora of great food and beer. That all makes for one happy girl. I don’t have cable or internet and that has been a little hard to adjust to. I've just been mooching wifi at coffee shops and all around campus, which hasn't really been too bad.

Slowly the lab situation is improving. I feel a little more each day like I actually belong in this environment. It was kind of a rough start, which has only been compounded by the fact that my mentor will just be around 3 days a week and I'm still not sure which project I'm actually working on. But the other lab members have taken me under their wing and I've been able to tag along for some of their work, which has been fun. I got to help remove embryonic mice brains yesterday in order to grow some neurons. That was pretty sweet. And I'm still learning a lot, so at least there's that.

That's all I have for now.