By that I mean, I very officially have an Irish bank account, irish photo id (see photo), and I only used my tourist map ONCE!
This is my swipe card to get into the lab.. there's just something so wonderful about a new card fresh and warm out of the card maker machine...
Backtracking to yesterday for a moment so you may know a bit about the actual induction day of the Summer Programme (yes, that's how its spelled here) for Undergraduate Research On Neuroscience (known as SPUR-ON; Spuhr-Ohn).
There are 9 others joining me in my adventure, and one more arriving tomorrow. There are only three boys: Matt from Vandy, one of Ireland, and one from I don't know (he hasn't arrived yet, so I am not going to assume he is from Mexico or Spain just yet) named José. There are 2 girls from Canada, but one of them is studying medicine in Bahrain. (Her story is interesting in that she chose Bahrain medical education because it is run by Ireland, gives the same degree has studying in Ireland, but is cheaper.) There is 1 girl from Germany who studies in Ireland year round, 1 girl from Nigerian studying in Ireland for a year, 1 girl from Turkey who has very cute English skills and whom I taught what a
'blister' meant today while she was limping (we got her some band aids, don't worry), 1 girl from France, 1 from Ireland and 1 girl from Cork (also Irish) who is one of my room mates in my apartment.
I have found every one of my new friends (minus José, but I'm sure he'll make the cut) to be quite interesting and enjoyable to be around. I am looking forward to spending more time with all of them.
On Mondays the program(me) takes us all out to a nice lunch. Yesterday we ate at a restaurant called Alfie's. It seemed to be pretty upscale because one of the Irish girls who regularly studies at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (from now on it will be known as RCSI) says she has walked by every day for the past few semesters and has never been in. We chose 3 items each from a different category, which were brought out in bowls on top of a rectangular plate. There was something called 'mash' as an option which I assumed were mashed potatoes, but the Irish girl said they were potatoes mixed with cream and all girls sitting near agreed that they did not like them--I chose the vegetables instead.
Water was also in a nice center container and was served with limes, not lemons.
I was able to meet my Principal Investigator (fancy lab word for the guy who runs my lab and teaches me all there is to know). He is a German fellow with a thick German accent and sprinkles of an Irish accent with many many names who told me to call him George (when not in front of him I still call him Georg; Gay-org, the German pronunciation). He is a chatty fellow who has experiments on each of the four floors of the lab in which he travels up and down to to cut down on the waiting periods (my job is to follow him around). I really like him because he has much to say that I can learn from. The difficulty right now is that I can barely follow any of it just yet.
I can't discuss much of the research because it is obviously unpublished, but I figure I can write about the techniques that I learn and tools that I use. Today I was able to work with astrocytes from mice and rats. Pretty successful first day if you ask me.
On the walk home, I got a little lost, partly because I didn't want to pull out my tourist map and give it away to everyone that I am a tourist, and partly because I can't focus on where I am walking because of all the cool things there are to see. The 20 minute walk turned into maybe 2 hours.
Pictures I took along the way..
Lithy River
St. Mary's Church
St. Mary's Church
Lithy River
Lobby of National College of Ireland (Where I live)
Now.. Today:
Most of the day was spent running around Dublin with everyone getting our official documents and bank accounts set up (one man asked me if I was French). Once I got to the lab, I was able to work with baby mice neurons WHEWWWW!, Basically just washing and letting them grow.
On my walk home today, I did not get lost. I walked down Grafton Street. I had a thought: There are many street performers either blowing large bubbles, doing tricks, playing music, or simply writing in chalk on the sidewalk. Each of these people have cups out for tips and most people put coins in. And then there are people sitting down on the ground with their heads between their knees holding cups in the air with a homeless sign next to them in which I have not seen a single person give coins. I don't get it... meaning.. why don't they just write with chalk on the sidewalk?
I walked in a few stores as I was leaving, mostly grocery stores to compare prices and items. It turns out that most stores do not carry every thing like a Kroger does (everything as in food, paper towels, cleaning items, etc.)
Some more pictures I took on the walk home...
From left to right: Girls in my program(me): Turkey, France, Canada
leprechaun (jk, just a nice man outside of RCSI)
RCSI
RCSI lab (Where I work)
I made dinner (chicken, salad, fruit, chocolate) when I returned to my apartment. I then forgot about the plans I made with some of the new friends I made to visit our first pub and I took a nap.
The day is done and I am going to read a highly confidential top secret paper (says Georg). Maybe by my next post, I will have grasped the idea of a Euro.
AWESOME!!!
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