Where are we? When are we?..
…by Katherine / from Canada / PhD Biomedical Sciences 2015-2018
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
That is how one of the postdocs in the lab suggested I start off this blog post. Perhaps because I am a tad frazzled these days.
Time warp
I know that I have already mentioned that I do not know how time is going by so quickly, but I feel the need to reiterate this point. It feels like just yesterday I looked out the window and saw the multi-coloured Fringe posters and Underbelly tent. Then I blinked and entered some kind of time warp that has brought me to November. November! I really do not know where the time went.
Teaching
I suppose that a lot of my time this term has been spent teaching. I am a facilitator in two new courses: Our Changing World (OCW) and Clinical Biochemistry and Endocrinology 3 (CBE3). The former is composed of a series of public talks on various issues that affect our global society including happiness, traffic and multiculturalism. After each lecture there is a group discussion which I facilitate. CBE3 is in a slightly different format: problem-based learning (PBL). The students are given an actual case report from a patient and go through it meticulously to try to understand all the components (from blood panel results to vague symptoms) and how they relate to the diagnosis. After the first session, they come up with questions they need to research to fully understand the case. During the second session, they get the opportunity to give comprehensive answers to all the questions raised. I facilitate these sessions and make sure that the students stay on track and discuss the relevant information.
SfN
Last May (which really doesn’t feel so far away now), I submitted an abstract for a poster at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting in San Diego. My abstract was accepted, I was awarded travel grants and I will be on my merry way to the Pacific coast next Friday. The catch, my poster is still not made and the data is not yet fully analysed because of the little hiccough that I discussed last blog post (that base insertion knocking everything out of frame). This meeting is the largest neuroscience conference in the world with over 30000 people attending from more than 80 countries! This will be quite an interesting experience. It’ll give me the opportunity to present and defend my work in front of the leading experts in the field.
On that note, I am off to finish up my analysis and make my poster!
