Good afternoon everyone,
What's that? You noticed my posts have been negligent for an entire month?
Well to make up for that I will go through everything. In painstaking detail. You asked for it! (Even if it was actually me.)
One giant reason for the relative lack of posts is simply that I've spent much time here. So we can start with the things everyone reading this should know about: Toastmasters and labwork.
On September 18th, I presented my first lab presentation covering a biochemistry paper of some kind. The most exciting part: getting to lead a short discussion afterwards. I suggested that maybe this paper was biased by the company in question (Sarepta Therapeutics) being involved with the research. Someone, the person who supervises my work even, said that there is likely to not be bias. At least, not intentionally. Yet the study seemed rather flawed for our purposes. Furthermore, the company did still provide their proprietary technology for the study, and this technology may have flaws, which may offer another kind of bias. Though we had no easy answers, we came to a very interesting discussion. The paper itself was fairly straightforward for our purposes, so I felt our more philosophical discourse offered a great break. Fear not, for you tradition lovers out there, as the following lab presentations were back to the usual.
On September 25th, I presented my first speech for the university Toastmasters group! This was, of course, on a Wednesday afternoon. I actually pushed this speech off quite a few times...first was because of the Ottawa trip, and then I ended up having my lab presentation on a Wednesday too! But that gave me plenty of time to wrap this all up into my Icebreaker speech. I told them all about how I had developed a routine in just a month's time, a huge reason I have been negligent with my blog! I told them all about how this city isn't dead. To an outsider, at least. But I also told them about the mission of Fulbright -- to act as a cultural ambassador, not just a researcher -- and how my trip to Ottawa had been inspirational. Going there truly pushed me to get more involved.
This is still not even covering all of September post-Ottawa for me! I attended the first meetings of the University feminist group and the disability advocacy group. On September 10th, I finally got introduced to the Burden of Illness study run by the Muscular Dystrophy Canada. On October 4th, I met with a local representative of the group. Through these two meetings, I got plugged in both as a researcher and a client -- through the former I help support the refinement of services to people with neuromuscular disorders and through the latter I can myself seek support. So this became one of the most unique parts of my trip here. However, all three things listed here -- feminist group, disability advocacy group, and MDC -- are still in progress. Everything is in progress here!
Another thing, my DnD matches still continue semi-regularly on Sunday every 1-3 weeks, helping establish my routine! (But sometimes we have no meetings...)
Just a few other things to note: I got my animal training certificate so I can work with mice, I helped edit a friend's journal manuscript, and I got going on my own literature review for my labwork!
And on September 20th, we had a floor dinner at Joey's Bell Tower....which is honestly like Earl's but farther away and not as good. But the many conversations were delightful! There was a conversation that drifted into controversy, around religion, but I felt we handled it exceptionally well. To be honest, that conversation kept the event exciting, when dinner parties can feel so....dull.
What else, what else....I was sick for about two weeks, from Sept 23rd thru Oct 7th, which was tough! And it's a big reason I lost motivation to write blogs like these.
For convenience, I"m splitting this into three parts:
1) The Rundown (the Big Things)
2) Some misadventures (what you are all awaiting)
3) Canadian Thanksgiving (and how honestly it doesn't feel that different to me)
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