So I feel like I have been living
in Durham long enough to talk about it now.
Durham is most definitely a new chapter in my life and, like any new
chapter, I was skeptical at first. But things are falling into place and I feel
like I can give a more accurate picture of life. So for those of you who don’t know I started
a PhD program at Duke University a few weeks ago in Biochemistry. Specifically I was accepted into the school
through the Structural Biology and Biophysics program. Structural Biology is essentially studying
how all the molecular components of the body (Protein, lipids, DNA, etc.) are formed,
shaped and how they operate to preform there tasks within (or sometimes
outside) a cell. Examples include how
does a protein help a certain reaction along, or how do cells contract or move.
This all sounds incredibly interesting in the abstract, and it is, but there are a lot of things that go wrong along the way and to actually observe us in the lab would be a tedious task. Science is the pursuit of the fascinating through the mundane. It is necessary to be able to keep a long term perspective and not get discouraged by the fact that most the day may be spent moving liquid A into liquid B, and including powder C in hopes that effect D is observed and recorded by flashing machine E, which most the time it won’t be. So far I have been able to keep a resolute vision fixed on long-term and unsure achievement for these whole past three weeks. Only a few years left to go! (I actually am very much enjoying my work; I just want to give an accurate representation of research. I feel like most people don’t really know what working in a lab is like and have illusions somewhere between Back to the Future’s Doc and the Muppet’s scientist Beaker.)
This all sounds incredibly interesting in the abstract, and it is, but there are a lot of things that go wrong along the way and to actually observe us in the lab would be a tedious task. Science is the pursuit of the fascinating through the mundane. It is necessary to be able to keep a long term perspective and not get discouraged by the fact that most the day may be spent moving liquid A into liquid B, and including powder C in hopes that effect D is observed and recorded by flashing machine E, which most the time it won’t be. So far I have been able to keep a resolute vision fixed on long-term and unsure achievement for these whole past three weeks. Only a few years left to go! (I actually am very much enjoying my work; I just want to give an accurate representation of research. I feel like most people don’t really know what working in a lab is like and have illusions somewhere between Back to the Future’s Doc and the Muppet’s scientist Beaker.)
Classes are nice and
uneventful. We don’t have any tests as
far as I can tell which is nice, just projects and unfortunately I still have
homework. I only have this and next
semester where I am required to take classes.
We’ll see how I feel when I get there but the thought of not doing class
work is appealing to me. Most of my
degree is based on my research. For the
moment I am doing three rotations of 10 weeks each in three labs before
choosing a lab to work in for the rest of my time at Duke. It is a big commitment that requires the meshing
not only scientific interests, but personalities as well with the principal
investigator (PI) and the rest of the lab.
I am currently rotating in Pei Zhou’s lab and studying an enzyme that
helps make the cell wall of many bacteria.
It could potentially lead to antibiotics or other practical use, but
this is basic research. I am not going
to create a wonder-drug or do anything like that in my time at Duke. In fact many PIs seem almost insulted by the
idea that their academic research could have practical implications, unless
they are writing grant proposals, but that is another story…
Myself, long-term I hope to be
able to work in “industry” meaning that I would do research for a pharmaceutical
company helping them build the next Death Star making millions in the
process design new drugs. I am a
long way off and who knows if I will end up on that exact path, but for the
moment that is what I sincerely would like to do and will tell my future
Father-in-law if I meet him in the next few years.
As long as we are on the
subject, I am enjoying my personal life here.
Grad school has not of yet become all-consuming and for the moment has
actually been really nice. I am enjoying
where I live and my roommates are very nice people. As I plan on posting this online it would be
very unwise of me to say otherwise but I do say it with a certain degree of
honesty. The people I work with and go
to church with are quite nice as well.
Life is pretty different for me now.
I am living in a town-house about three miles from campus and while
there are plenty of students around, there is also families and people from
other walks of life. I feel more settled
and less like I’m living in a temporary situation. My ward (people I go to church with) is very
nice. We have several classes throughout
the week that we can attend if we so choose and there are a lot of very neat
and rich personalities, which is the case in most wards but is different from
my more recent BYU wards. There are
about 100 of us I would guess that come to church. They are a really welcome and accepting
group, which has made my move so much easier.
Thanks to any of them who may read this.
One last thing of note that I
did last weekend was the graduate school campout for basketball tickets. Basically graduate students hung out in a
parking lot from Friday night to Sunday morning to get entered in a lottery to
win graduate student tickets to the basketball games (Right under both the
baskets). About 1,200 people did the
whole campout and there are 750 tickets so you had a decent shot of winning. There was a ton more people than that though at
the campout however as both nights turned into parties. It was funny to see those going for the
tickets the last night, usually exhausted and not in great shape, and contrast
them with those who simply came out for the party and were dressed to impress
or drink or whatever they were looking for.
By the end I was pretty out of it.
I didn’t get tickets myself but fortunately the people I was hanging out
with from my department did and as they were there just for the experience,
they gave me the tickets they won. Super
nice of them and I will have to repay them sometime and somehow.
That is about it for the first
intro to Durham. Next up I need to
actually explore the town a little. For
campout we were actually allowed to leave the parking lot to go do community
service and there is a charter school where I went to work that I will try to
start volunteering at. I want to reach
out to the community and give back and all those things, it would look great
on grant applications. Hopefully I
don’t get too drowned in graduate work in the near future. But until then best wishes to everyone
reading and know that I’m doing great!
