Jazz, culinary experiments, and Shrek. Yes, please!

Hello there!

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. And unfortunately for you, this is another one of those posts that's going to be driven by the fact that I'm a bit bored in lab. Not for a lack of things to do, mind you, just a lack of, om, tasks in which one can stay awake. Here's what I'm dealing with: "The diglucuronides of luteolin or apigenin and chrysoeriol did not inhibit the growth of Anabaena sp. PCC 7120 and A. variabilis P9 in the agar diffusion assay when applied as either single fractions or combined in amounts equal to 2 mg DWof Elodea, whereas positive controls (crude extract) caused clearing zones of 7–17.5 (P9) and 14–28 mm (PCC 7120) in diameter" (a paper that I'm reading about plants exuding harmful chemicals). So this is my break to say awake, if you will. After about page 5 of decoding sentences like the one above (I love the internet. I would be lost without all of the definitions it supplies. :)) it all tends to blur together, as any of my fellow students know is true. It happens to the best of us.

One more tidbit of a lab update--I've been getting the exact opposite results in every experiment that I run. This is somewhat troubling, but definitely interesting. I'm going to be re-running some experiments to see if my results remain the same, but if not, I'll definitely be rocking the boat with my research before I leave. That would be rather epic--my undergrad research reversing the hypothesis compiled by years of previous work. In the end though, it can only help us understand the over-arching problem more. So that's good. I'll try to keep you posted.

Apart from lab, I have been having a wonderful time. My parents and brother Jeffrey are up here in practically Canada right now, so that has been a lot of fun. Last weekend, we went to Montreal, where we got to enjoy a couple of days of the "Festival International de Jazz de Montreal"--the largest jazz festival in the world! It was the perfect time to be in Montreal. They know how to run a festival: at least 5 different outdoor, free stages packed with music every hour from 12 noon to midnight. And the people came. It was positively swamped some of the days. It was so neat to see so many different types of people all together, enjoying the same thing at the same time. We heard some fabulous music--there was one trio that we enjoyed so much that we went to their concert twice. They played different selections, mostly, but with all of the options available, it's saying a lot that we would go back to hear them again!

I also got to try "poutine" over the weekend. This is a regional treat: fries with a sort of gravy and cheese curds smothered over it. We debated all weekend about how to pronounce it--we wanted to say "poo-teen," but it's apparently pronounced "put-sin." Interesting. I definitely killed that one when I stepped up to the counter. Ha. I enjoyed it--I mean, you can't really go wrong with such a combination, but the fries were surprisingly sweet. That would have been lovely for eating with BBQ sauce, but the gravy made it a bit odd. Anyhow. You totally didn't have to know that much about the poutine. But people have been talking about it since I got here!

My week started out splendidly with a day off for July 4th. But wait--there's more. The theater in town (Roxy theater Potsdam! hooray!) was showing Shrek 4 for free. So my day consisted of sleeping in, watching Shrek 4, a trip to the library, and (finally!) baking orange rolls. It was fun to introduce some of my fellow REU students to the concept of an orange roll. They like them. (How could you NOT?)

So. There we have it--a lengthy update. Next step--pictures. I'll add them as my next wake up break. :)