Working in Professoressa Baroli’s lab for the past three days has been interesting so far. The walk from my apartment to the lab is at least an adventure. The lab is situated on top of a hill next to the Castello district that overlooks the entire city, while my apartment on Via Sassari is pretty much at sea level. This hill can be as steep as those in San Francisco. I would have to walk about ten to fifteen minutes to get to the lab every morning, and during that time my legs are certainly getting a good workout! I forgot to mention that I will probably get hit by a car at least once by the end of this summer. Many major intersections lack traffic signals or signs, so you would have to start walking through a street and hope that cars will see and stop for you. There have been many instances when I almost got hit by a distracted driver or by those darn vespas that whiz past you while you’re walking on Cagliari’s narrow sidewalks.
Once you get to the lab, I try to greet Professoressa Baroli in her office before I go into the lab, which is next to her office. Professoressa Baroli is extremely nice and way too elegant to be a PI. For instance, while I was finishing up some administrative paperwork with her this morning, I noticed how nicely she dressed: nice light blue Chanel blouse with her Chanel reading glasses, YSL sunglasses delicately perched on top of her head, and gigantic sapphire ring that glistened from the sun. Not only is she very elegant, but she is very personable. Every phone call she receives or visitors she meets, she carries out fairly lengthy conversations that are full of laughter as well as business. Professoressa Baroli is definitely someone I had imagined when I think about Italian women. Signs of a researcher can also be seen. She wears the mandatory jeans and close toed shoes, and less noticeable, she is very meticulous, direct, and organized which is the personality I’m normally used to seeing from all my biology professors.
After I greet her, I go into the lab and help Carla or Marianna with whatever they need to get done for the day. Carla speaks better English than Marianna, but both are very nice and try do a great job of explaining what they are doing or making casual conversation. We tentatively set up a system where they would speak to me in English and I would speak to them in Italian, so that we can both learn and become better at speaking each other’s languages. There’s actually more down time than I expected; the Italians really do work slower! But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The people who I encountered with so far really take the time to understand everything that surround the experiment, and are very meticulous with everything…almost a little too meticulous. For instance, we spent the whole day today taking nearly perfect electron microscopy images of nanoparticles. I am so used to having to run, on average, 3 different experiments on a given day for my UROP that sometimes I lose track of what I’ve done or make silly mistakes during an experiment. Then again, I guess it’s a question about efficiency: on one hand, you work slower and will probably produce fewer results over a certain time period compared to someone working faster. On the flip side, the chances of you making unnecessary, maybe time-consuming mistakes are lower when you work slower than when you work faster. This sounds like a 14.01 problem….Anyways, for now, I’m still running on an MIT schedule, so working this slow is slightly discomforting (sadly), but by the end of the summer I will probably welcome the slower pace. The question could also apply to the pace in which we go through life. For me, I guess I never really bothered to stop and smell the roses. I should definitely try it during senior year. That’s it for now- more to come later!
Friday, May 28, 2010
Ciao!
Oops, I was gonna post this on Monday, but I forgot. Here you go!
Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve written on this blog- so sorry! I’ve been caught up with school and work that I couldn’t find the time to write a reflective blog. Now that school is over and summer has started, I definitely have more time to reflect and enjoy life to its fullest. This summer, I will share my experiences in the beautiful country of Italia. Thanks to Serenella Sferza and the MISTI program, I have the great opportunity to work with Bianca Baroli at la Università degli studenti di Cagliari. Professor Baroli worked under the Langer Lab for 3 years a while back, and she is continuing her work with anti-cancer treatment with nanoparticles in Cagliari, Italy.
Cagliari is the capital of Sardinia, one of two islands of Italy. For those of you who don’t know where Sardinia is, it is right below the French island called Corisca (where Napoleon Bonaparte was born!). Cagliari is on the southern tip of Sardinia, and it takes less than 20 minutes by bus to get to the beautiful Mediterranean beaches. I haven’t actually been there myself yet, but hopefully this weekend will be the first of many trips. As far as the city itself goes, it definitely has character! Cagliari reminds me of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico with its narrow winding streets and colorful, aged buildings. You can feel the tension between Cagliari’s past and present. While the outside of buildings may look like a dusty ice cube, the inside may surprise you with modern, chic “negozi” or “trattorie”. It reminds me of Koreatown in LA.
The food so far is great. Fresh bread, meat, and juicy fruits abound in almost any small markets you go to. Surprisingly, there are a lot of pizzeria and gelateria stores around. I had this idea in my mind that pizza and gelato was “fast food”; they are not something special to eat, but more of a convenient food you would eat during late night study sessions or after a good night out with your friends. Instead, I found a pizzeria in almost every block I passed by, and over half of them are nice restaurants where you would use a fork and knife to eat it. I only went to one of these restaurants so far, and I had a delicious slice with “fruiti al mare” as my topping of choice (in other words, shrimp, squid, baby octopus, etc.). The same goes for gelato. There is one in almost every block you pass by and every Sardinian eats one after lunch and/or dinner. I had my first gelato today at a gelateria in Piazza Yenne, a bustling center where lots of high-end shops and restaurants reside. I found this gelateria from this handy book called “Let’s Go- Italy” (thanks Edna and Werewolf dancers!!) which is a travel written by students for students traveling on a budget. The store owner of the gelateria, Giuseppe, and the rest of the staff, was extremely charismatic and nice. There were approximately over 20 different flavors to choose from. I decided to try the orange cheesecake gelato, and it was definitely a nice dessert after my afternoon snack. It even had real orange zest in it! Yum.
Now lets talk about the people. The population is more diverse than I expected. Though the majority of the people in Cagliari are Italian, I have seen Indian, African American, and Chinese people who speak fluent Italian. These people are really friendly, especially if they see you make an effort to speak Italian. Also, if you go to the same store more than once, the store owners will become your best friends, and they will start calling you by your first name within a day or two. For instance, I currently don’t have internet in my room so I’ve been going to this dinky internet/fax/photocopy/money transfer place on Via Napoli to use the internet. The second time I came back to check my emails, Mario smiled widely and made light conversation with me as I bought my 30 minutes on the internet. Within 10 minutes, we talked about where I was from to if I liked his new shirt he was wearing. Mario was wearing a clean white button-down short sleeved shirt with dark wash jeans, and I told him that his outfit was perfect.
Speaking of outfits, Italians certainly know how to dress nice! As I was walking to work this morning, I see all the men with their crisp suits or work-appropriate outfits with their briefcases while the women were dressed in nice neutral pants, blouses, and heels. Of course both genders sported their (real) designer sunglasses. Some of them look like they came straight out of Fellini’s movie 8 ½. Italians who are closer to my age seem to dress as if they are modeling for an Express or Armani Exchange catalog. The one thing I noticed, to my dismay, is that most Italians like to dress in darker or more neutral colors. I, however, love vibrant and sometimes loud colors, so I have been sticking out like a sore thumb. Oh well!
For the past two days I’ve been trying to adjust to the new time change, which means my sleep schedule was, and still probably is, all over the place. If I’m not sleeping, I mainly cook or stroll along the main part of Cagliari to acclimate and orient myself to the neighborhood as I find my way to a market or a store. Today, I managed to walk through the medieval Castello district with one of the grad students named Carla on our way to lunch. This district is practically carved into a hill and overlooks the entire city. The Castello district housed several Argonese churches and Piemontese palaces, which are now occupied by University offices, bars, and restaurants. Several entrances into the district had remains of a wooden barricade that you would see in Lord of the Ring movies, which I thought was pretty exciting. I’ve never been around so much history, especially one that dates back earlier than the eighteenth century! That’s all I have to say about Cagliari so far. I am currently stuffing my face with these awesome cookies called “Ringo”, which are like Oreos but made with lighter cookies and have a nutella filling. I guess my beach body went out the window just now. I’m also watching one of two English TV channels: MTV2! They are doing a European top 10 countdown right now, and some top 10 songs include “Rude Boy”- Rhianna, “Fireflies”-Owl City, “Telephone”- Lady Gaga, and “Rock Your Body”-Black Eyed Peas.
Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve written on this blog- so sorry! I’ve been caught up with school and work that I couldn’t find the time to write a reflective blog. Now that school is over and summer has started, I definitely have more time to reflect and enjoy life to its fullest. This summer, I will share my experiences in the beautiful country of Italia. Thanks to Serenella Sferza and the MISTI program, I have the great opportunity to work with Bianca Baroli at la Università degli studenti di Cagliari. Professor Baroli worked under the Langer Lab for 3 years a while back, and she is continuing her work with anti-cancer treatment with nanoparticles in Cagliari, Italy.
Cagliari is the capital of Sardinia, one of two islands of Italy. For those of you who don’t know where Sardinia is, it is right below the French island called Corisca (where Napoleon Bonaparte was born!). Cagliari is on the southern tip of Sardinia, and it takes less than 20 minutes by bus to get to the beautiful Mediterranean beaches. I haven’t actually been there myself yet, but hopefully this weekend will be the first of many trips. As far as the city itself goes, it definitely has character! Cagliari reminds me of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico with its narrow winding streets and colorful, aged buildings. You can feel the tension between Cagliari’s past and present. While the outside of buildings may look like a dusty ice cube, the inside may surprise you with modern, chic “negozi” or “trattorie”. It reminds me of Koreatown in LA.
The food so far is great. Fresh bread, meat, and juicy fruits abound in almost any small markets you go to. Surprisingly, there are a lot of pizzeria and gelateria stores around. I had this idea in my mind that pizza and gelato was “fast food”; they are not something special to eat, but more of a convenient food you would eat during late night study sessions or after a good night out with your friends. Instead, I found a pizzeria in almost every block I passed by, and over half of them are nice restaurants where you would use a fork and knife to eat it. I only went to one of these restaurants so far, and I had a delicious slice with “fruiti al mare” as my topping of choice (in other words, shrimp, squid, baby octopus, etc.). The same goes for gelato. There is one in almost every block you pass by and every Sardinian eats one after lunch and/or dinner. I had my first gelato today at a gelateria in Piazza Yenne, a bustling center where lots of high-end shops and restaurants reside. I found this gelateria from this handy book called “Let’s Go- Italy” (thanks Edna and Werewolf dancers!!) which is a travel written by students for students traveling on a budget. The store owner of the gelateria, Giuseppe, and the rest of the staff, was extremely charismatic and nice. There were approximately over 20 different flavors to choose from. I decided to try the orange cheesecake gelato, and it was definitely a nice dessert after my afternoon snack. It even had real orange zest in it! Yum.
Now lets talk about the people. The population is more diverse than I expected. Though the majority of the people in Cagliari are Italian, I have seen Indian, African American, and Chinese people who speak fluent Italian. These people are really friendly, especially if they see you make an effort to speak Italian. Also, if you go to the same store more than once, the store owners will become your best friends, and they will start calling you by your first name within a day or two. For instance, I currently don’t have internet in my room so I’ve been going to this dinky internet/fax/photocopy/money transfer place on Via Napoli to use the internet. The second time I came back to check my emails, Mario smiled widely and made light conversation with me as I bought my 30 minutes on the internet. Within 10 minutes, we talked about where I was from to if I liked his new shirt he was wearing. Mario was wearing a clean white button-down short sleeved shirt with dark wash jeans, and I told him that his outfit was perfect.
Speaking of outfits, Italians certainly know how to dress nice! As I was walking to work this morning, I see all the men with their crisp suits or work-appropriate outfits with their briefcases while the women were dressed in nice neutral pants, blouses, and heels. Of course both genders sported their (real) designer sunglasses. Some of them look like they came straight out of Fellini’s movie 8 ½. Italians who are closer to my age seem to dress as if they are modeling for an Express or Armani Exchange catalog. The one thing I noticed, to my dismay, is that most Italians like to dress in darker or more neutral colors. I, however, love vibrant and sometimes loud colors, so I have been sticking out like a sore thumb. Oh well!
For the past two days I’ve been trying to adjust to the new time change, which means my sleep schedule was, and still probably is, all over the place. If I’m not sleeping, I mainly cook or stroll along the main part of Cagliari to acclimate and orient myself to the neighborhood as I find my way to a market or a store. Today, I managed to walk through the medieval Castello district with one of the grad students named Carla on our way to lunch. This district is practically carved into a hill and overlooks the entire city. The Castello district housed several Argonese churches and Piemontese palaces, which are now occupied by University offices, bars, and restaurants. Several entrances into the district had remains of a wooden barricade that you would see in Lord of the Ring movies, which I thought was pretty exciting. I’ve never been around so much history, especially one that dates back earlier than the eighteenth century! That’s all I have to say about Cagliari so far. I am currently stuffing my face with these awesome cookies called “Ringo”, which are like Oreos but made with lighter cookies and have a nutella filling. I guess my beach body went out the window just now. I’m also watching one of two English TV channels: MTV2! They are doing a European top 10 countdown right now, and some top 10 songs include “Rude Boy”- Rhianna, “Fireflies”-Owl City, “Telephone”- Lady Gaga, and “Rock Your Body”-Black Eyed Peas.
Monday, January 4, 2010
2010
Several days ago, I watched the new movie "Nine" with a couple of my friends. While it had some big-name actors including Nicole Kidman, Fergie, Kate Hudson, Penelope Cruz, and Daniel Day-Lewis, Rob Marshall actually created a pretty bad rendition of Frederico Fellini's famous classic "8 1/2". I had no idea what this movie was about until I sat through it, and I was in complete shock and amusement when I figured out it was based off of "8 1/2". I love it when that happens- when you make a connection that you aren't expecting, and in turn it makes you appreciate the moment or object even more. Anyways, "8 1/2" is a movie about the movie making process. The protagonist of the movie, Guido, actually tells the personal story of Fellini himself having a "director's block" in which he doesn't know what his nineth movie should be about. While he tries to figure out what to produce, Fellini remembers some pivotal childhood memories as well as his fantasies which are all delicately and brilliantly interwoven with reality. "Nine" however is just about some confused and distracted director who can't seem to juggle all the women in his life. Not to mention some not-so-entertaining musical numbers. This movie lacked that magic that Fellini had in his movie. Fellini masterfully uses the camera and music to create scenes of pure imagination, memories, reality, or a combination of any of the two. I guess what I really like about the movie the most is that it kind of describes my life now.
Currently I'm half way through my junior year in college. At first I started off as extremely motivated- wanting to excel and take advantage of all the opportunities my wonderful school has to offer. But once I made my little niche and experienced a fair amount of things that the school had to offer, I'm now experiencing a "student's block". School is still the same. The people are the same (though I love all my friends dearly). And now I'm a little unsure of my future. What's the next step after college? I know I wanted to go to medical school, but are there any other options? I'm restless. I want some change. I want to experience something...anything.
Something about a new year changes your mentality, though. Although I may be in a rut now, I figured that the change that I want out of life won't be handed to me. I should take life in my own hands and make something of it, and this is my resolution for 2010. I want to pour my heart and soul into everything that I do, and not half-heartedly try to figure things out like Guido does in "8 1/2". I want to make some of my imaginations and musings come to life, and this is what I hope to do this year whether it be in a small or large way.
Currently I'm half way through my junior year in college. At first I started off as extremely motivated- wanting to excel and take advantage of all the opportunities my wonderful school has to offer. But once I made my little niche and experienced a fair amount of things that the school had to offer, I'm now experiencing a "student's block". School is still the same. The people are the same (though I love all my friends dearly). And now I'm a little unsure of my future. What's the next step after college? I know I wanted to go to medical school, but are there any other options? I'm restless. I want some change. I want to experience something...anything.
Something about a new year changes your mentality, though. Although I may be in a rut now, I figured that the change that I want out of life won't be handed to me. I should take life in my own hands and make something of it, and this is my resolution for 2010. I want to pour my heart and soul into everything that I do, and not half-heartedly try to figure things out like Guido does in "8 1/2". I want to make some of my imaginations and musings come to life, and this is what I hope to do this year whether it be in a small or large way.
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