Cora vs jet lag and lime gum

On my first actual day I woke up around 6 am. I mean it. 6 am. The funny thing is, I wasnt even tired! I guess you’d call that adrenaline. So, feeling full of energy, I had a shower (i forgot my shampoo at home so I used the hand soap they provided me with. It worked quite well, believe it or not!) and stuff and then left Burton-Conner (that’s the MIT building I’m staying at) to get some breakfast. Found a really nice place called „flour“. The breakfast was very expensive at 4 dollars for a cappucino and yoghurt but the cappucino was of superior quality! Definitely a surprise! The yoghurt, however, was quite terrible, no taste at all, even though it was supposed to be „organic“ I don’t even wanna know what „non-organic“ tastes like. So I can say that so far, food has been quite bad here. But anyway. So, still full of adrenaline, with good music in my ears and a broad smile on my face (I am just so happy to be here! Everything is so exciting and new and american. I feel like a kid who’s discovering the world. And people who watch me will agree on that. Ask Luis. He seems to be enjoying the show quite a bit.) I walked over to the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical research. That’s where i’ll be working for the next 11 weeks. I’m on the 4th floor. (just for completeness)

So I got there, everyone was super-friendly and then I met professor Jaenisch who’s the PI of the lab. He’s a brilliant researcher. I talked to him briefly and then I met my supervisor/mentor/teacher (i don’t really know how to call it, maybe „boss“? anyway....) He’s called Yossi and he’s a really cool Postdoc. I think it will be great fun to work with him. He showed me around (god this lab is a MAZE. I got lost like 100 times. At least. But anyway so he showed me around, explained a little bit about what they are doing (so basically the goal would be to take cells from a patient, play around with them, make them turn into a different cell type and transplant them back into the patient. Sounds like magic. Is kind of like magic. And might help save thousands of lives. Sounds good? I think so, too!) After the lab-tour i was able to attend a lab-meeting which was very very confusing. Also, my adrenaline-rush had kinda ceased so i was starting to feel really, and i mean, very sleepy. Luckily Professor Jaenisch is addicted to coffee, so he got an original italian coffee-machine, you know, the type where you put the powder into sort of a ladle and then attach it to the machine and then the machine lets water flow through the powder and you get an awesome-tasting dose of caffeine. And they even make milk froth. Yeah. I know, amazing lab. So the meeting consisted of the group discussing a contamination-problem and then two members presenting their work. Did not really understand much. „Nanog..dtomato positive colony..dox 12 days...GFP negative colonies bla bla bla Luckily I had my coffee (and AWESOME milk froth) to entertain me. So that meeting was some 1.5h long and i was so glad when it was over and we went back to Yossi’s bench to talk about some admin stuff. So what’s gonna happen is I will do this project with Yossi and if we’re lucky we might find some cool new stuff about this interesting gene called Utf1. Yeah, I know, you don’t care. Just wanted to mention it for completeness. Yossi gave me a paper to read and then I was free to go which was good because my eyes were closing by themselves. I hate jet-lag. The thing is, I couldn’t even go to bed straight away (it was noon by the way) because i needed to go to the supermarket to get some basic stuff like shampoo (i mean, I don’t want to discriminate against the soap bar but you know...) so they told me where the nearest supermarket is but obviously i got lost and ended up walking up and down the same street for quite a while until I had the brilliant idea to ask someone and then i found the supermarket, called star market and it had a star in the logo. (If you think i’m including too much detail in my blog, pls message me. I just like to talk about stuff, you know.) I spend hours at the supermarket because it was very big (as everything in the US) and very interesting. Sort of like a wonderland. My „favorite“ (or shall i say „most shocking“) products are the cheese in the bottle. (I mean. WHO WOULD DO THAT???) and lime-pie flavored chewing gum. When I tried it I was like „wow this is so cool“. Two minutes later i was like „Argh I feel sick.“ Where was i? ah yes. Being at the supermarket and being very jet-lagged. I got all my stuff (including shampoo, sorry, soap-bar). Then I walked back (at least 20min) got some lunch and went to sleep. But I couldnt’ sleep very well for two reasons: 1 ) the street (Memorial Drive) is very noisy. 2) it’s very HOT in my room as there is no AC. Argh.

Then I got up again and skyped with my boyfriend which was really nice and felt a bit like travelling in time as it was already night at his place. It’s a strange world. Then I went to bed again but only for a short time as I was meeting Luis.  First of all he showed me around Harvard University. It’s a nice place but not more than nice. I mean, they tried really hard... but... well... i’m sorry, but I wasnt massively impressed. Then there are three traditions among Harvard students: 1) have sex in this one library, 2) jump off that one bridge, 3) pee on that one statue of J. Harvard. Now the funny thing is, that this statue has a golden food coz everyone pees on it but still, all the tourists touch it. Ouch. (I did not, by the way, as Luis was as friendly as to let me know about the peeing business. I appreciate that very much) So yeah, after Harvard it was time to get a cellfone. Now this wasnt’ easy. The first place we tried wanted 50 S for a very crappy phone. Not with me. The second place wanted 30 so I took it. But it’s a very confusing phone. It took me ages to get used to messagging. I also have a camera (my first phone with a camera!!!! And basic internet (Can you believe it? ME??) but i don’t use those, of course. It wouldn’t be me. So anyway I still don’t know much about my phone but I manage to text so that’ s good. It’s kinda late now so I will go to bed now. I’ll tell you more another time! Thanks for reading!!!