Whistler

Wow, what a weekend! A group of us went on an overnight trip to Whistler, BC where the 2010 Olympics are going to be! Its a quaint little ski resort town in the mountains about 2.5 hours from Vancouver and we took the bus on the Sea-to-Sky highway, which according to my guide books, is one of the most dramatic drives in BC. It was one of the Mexican's birthdays on Saturday so Ingrid baked him a cake and we were carrying it through downtown Vancouver at 7:00 in the morning on our way to the bus depot. Never thought I would do that!

When we got to Whistler, it was a little cloudy outside but not too bad. We started off by doing the Peak-to-Peak which is the new gondola they built for the Olympics that runs from one mountain top to the other. Amazing views! I wasn't expecting the cold, snow, and wind at the top, but my group of friends are so much like me in that they love to do crazy, stupid things like make snow angels and slide down snow hills. It was a blast.

After the gondola ride, everyone else went to go do zipline. However, due to my frugality and independent spirit, I wandered around town instead. And I am glad I did because it started pouring rain as soon as they left! So I enjoyed my few hours eating in a cafe instead. That night, we went out to eat for Jose's birthday and back to the hotel to relax in the jacuzzi and sing our Whistler theme song: Bob Marley's Three Little Birds. It was the perfect ending to the cold, wet day. We stayed up late that night even though most of us slept only three hours the night before, and just after midnight Cesar shows up to the hotel room with pieces of cheesecake to celebrate my birthday! It was so sweet! So at 12:30 in the morning, we had a feast of our leftover food items to celebrate my birthday and everyone made a toast with our fancy wine glasses filled with water. It's moments like these that are some of the best memories, the random times where we are surrounded by people we love.

On Sunday we went white rapid river rafting! No worries, it was pretty mild; we accidently signed up for the family-friendly trip. Our tour guide was pretty hilarious though, he was from New Zealand and kept making fun of us for our lack of ability to listen to directions (language barrier, ha) and we tried to mutiny him off the raft. On our way home, we split up for part of the trip and most of them got back before I did late Sunday night. When I walked into my apartment, this is what I saw:

They made me a birthday cake! I have such good friends!

(This picture is of me and my two roommates on my birthday, Ivonne and Laila. I am so white!)

Haircut!

(before picture on the left and after picture on the right)

I gave Christian a haircut! It was the first time I have ever cut anyones hair and I was a little nervous but Christian was a willing victim. What do you think?

Lab, cleaning, new roommate

A couple of random moments...

Apparently Fairview Crescent does do cleaning checks, once every few months. We got a notice last week and they gave us a time period of three days in which they would come. We already keep our apartment really tidy, but we did all the cleaning the night before the first day and I forgot about it soon after. On the last day, the cleaning checker knocks on our door and wants to do his inspection. I am thinking to myself, "darn, our apartment has become messy in the last few days and we aren't going to pass". He walked through and came back to us, asking, "How long have you lived here? This is the cleanest apartment I have checked so far!" Ha! We would have totally failed if it was a BYU cleaning check, but at UBC we get the award for the cleanest!

We also got a new roommate. Her name is Layla (sp?) and she is very friendly and easy to talk. Somehow I won the roommate lottery here. However, she is taking a summer class and a few nights a week she has class from 7-10pm, which is the only time I am home.

I am learning so much in lab, particularly about working as a scientist and the logistics behind the lab. Dr. Hayden is so interesting in the way he runs his lab; he is extremely demanding and direct and tells everyone exactly what he thinks, which often isn't positive. If your presentation in lab meeting isn't good enough, he criticizes it and tells you that it is horrible in front of everyone. These lab meetings are much different from what I am used to because they are very animated and involved and often include arguments. For example, last lab meeting on Monday there was an argument over data for about 25 minutes, with people literally yelling at each other and Dr. Hayden actually encouraging it! I am learning a lot from Dr. Hayden; I don't think I would want to work in his lab permanently because he is often rude and harsh but at the same time his directness creates efficiency and productivity. It makes me wonder if it is possible to run such a successful lab in a more kind way, or do you have to be so outright and demanding to see good results? I would think that there is a better way.

(this is the view from my bedroom window)

What do I do everyday? A play by play

What do I do with my free time anyways?

Monday nights are FHE. Sometimes it is really far away but this week it was just a 10 minute drive away! The FHE group that I am in are the people in the ward that I am the most familiar with and its a diverse little group; a few were born and raised in Vancouver, a few from other parts of Canada, two brothers from England, and one guy from Australia.

Tuesday night, Ivonne and I made dinner for Ingrid, Christian, and Cesar. Thanks to my father's help, I gave a prayer for the food in Spanish (they were all very proud of me) and afterwards we played frisbee They are converts to the sport. Or they are simply kind and humor me in my requests. I can't tell which it is.

On Wednesday, I went rollerblading at Queen Elizabeth Park. The park is situated on the highest hill in Vancouver, so there is a beautiful view of the city, mountains, and ocean. I went with a guy from my ward, can you guess what his name was? Yup, that's right. Jon. (--> this is Jon)

Thursday, I worked until 7pm. I actually greatly enjoy working late, especially that last hour when everyone is gone except the few dedicated souls such as my mentor. There is something about that time that makes me relax a little and open up to asking people questions. Maybe because the feeling that I need to prove I am working hard at running experiments is reduced, or maybe because there aren't as many people around to overhear my questions. I don't know what it is that induces this ease and confidence that I so often seek , but its my favorite time to talk to Kun or whoever about the purpose of the research we do, trying to understand the data that we get. And this is the best part about the research: trying to conclude answers from the questions, using reason, and making sense of what the data is telling us. I would work late every night if I didn't care so much about my relationships with other people :)

Friday night, a group of me and the Mexicans watched a movie at their apartment. They live in a high rise building on campus and have a pretty amazing view of the city and ocean (^ this is the view from their apartment). I think I have a thing for high places and good views. Don't tell any cute guys though, I would be at risk for easy wooing. The night was fun, comfortable and relaxing, and I made double chocolate chip cookies for everyone. I think that's why they keep me around.

Saturday was our Chinese culture day! Christian, Cesar and I went to the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden, where we took a tour and learned about how the garden represents the necessity of balance in our lives, the ying and the yang. I thought it was funny that the scholar's chamber didn't include any running water like the rest of the garden because water has feminine attributes and the scholars didn't want to be distracted. So applicable to life. Then we went to the night market in Chinatown, where they sell lots of trinkets and strange food. My dinner consisted of squid and egg balls, yum! We wandered around the bay as the sun was setting, and I think I wore out Christian and Cesar. I am so used to walking that I forget not everyone walks as much as I do!

Thoughts: I am staying busy! It's always amazing to me how I think I will have much more time than I really have. When I pictured coming out to Vancouver, I thought about all the time I would have alone to read, study, hike. That time doesn't exist! I don't think I will accomplish everything I planned to, but that's okay because instead I get to meet and hang out with some of the most interesting people. And the fulfillment that we get from life is largely based on our relationships with others, thus I want to cultivate those as much as possible. I love to learn from others' perspectives, and it is so fascinating to be working and playing with people from around the world. I particularly like Christian; he and I get along well, have a similar personality and thus understand each other. I love it when I can find a person like this, it makes me feel like I do belong in this world and there are other people like me, and that's always comforting!

The labwork...

(<- this is the intense and intimidating Dr. Hayden)The lab work is going well! It feels so different from last summer where everything was new and experiments didn't work out and I spent so much time problem solving. Now, things are going smoothly, which is a strange phenomenon in scientific research. I work with two people, Kun from China and Dagmar from Austria. Both are postdocs and brilliant, nice people to work with. Dagmar and I are developing a stably transfected cell line that overexpresses caspase 6 so she can test out some capase 6 inhibitors. Caspase 6 resistant mice dont develop HD, so it would be wonderful if we could find a good drug to work as a caspase 6 inhibitor and hopefully delay the onset of HD. It's exciting work, and sometimes I lose sight of the big picture and just how exciting it is. With Kun I am running western blots like I did last summer, however my favorite part about what I do with her is dissecting mouse brains. I am getting a little bit better at picking out the tiny structures in the brain!

I have a goal for my work in the lab this summer. I am surrounded by brilliant people and I am not taking advantage of this opportunity. Rather than just doing the labwork and going home, I am making it a goal to read papers and talk to people in the lab; to ask questions and present ideas and learn from them. I am often a little reserved and shy when it comes to things like this, its much easier for me to watch from the background and learn, but I want to put myself on the line, develop more confidence, and completely utilize the resources I have at my fingertips: dedicated people who know lots about HD! This is my goal; any ideas on how to accomplish it?

Excursion with the Mexicans: Part II

I have been introducing my Mexican friends to American (and more specifically Utahn) traditions. A few days ago, I made my roommate Ivonne and Ingrid some Chicken Artichoke Casserole. The idea of a casserole was a new concept to them, and although they claimed to like it, they both seemed a little hesitant about my creation. This morning I made them banana pancakes, with which they were a little more familiar and excited about.

Yesterday a small group of us went to downtown Vancouver where we hung out at Sunset beach. Ever since I have been in Vancouver, I've had an inquenchable desire to play frisbee. So I brought my frisbee along and convinced them that we needed to play! Well, frisbee isn't quite as common in Mexico, and it was pretty hilarious to watch them the first few minutes of tossing a frisbee around. However, they quickly improved and we started a small game of Ultimate with three on three. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time! After about 15 minutes, most of them collapsed on the grass, saying, "I'm so tired, I can't play any longer" and my efforts to start it up again proved to be in vain. They kept asking how I had so much energy! It must have been all that frisbee, racquetball, and hiking back in Utah.

Later on that day, Ivonne and I returned to Sunset beach to watch the sunset (makes sense, eh?). It was gorgeous. I've noticed that Vancouver has very pretty sunsets but I usually don't get to see them because of all the trees. On our way there, we also made a furry friend. It was a raccoon! I couldn't believe how big it was and how close it let us get, it obviously was used to handouts. No worries though, I didn't try to pet it; I am actually not even allowed to play with small mammals for the next few months because I work with mice in the lab and we have to be very cautious about contamination. The evening ended in a splitting of the group: those who went drinking and those who went out for ice cream (me!).

I am so grateful that Ivonne became my roommate that first week. She is such a kind, happy, and well balanced person, and we relate well to each other and have become good friends. I love having her and her best friend Ingrid around, and I love the people that I have been able to meet and hang out with through her. I am still trying to figure out why, but I feel surprisingly comfortable and happy around this group of Mexicans. Some of them are incredibly friendly and easy to talk to, once we can overcome the language barrier. A few of them speak excellent english, while others struggle to find the right words, but they all are still willing to try to talk to me. They even laugh at my jokes, which is always a bonus. It makes a huge difference to be able to explore the city with other people rather than by myself. Vancouver is slowly growing on me as I settle in and feel more at home. These two weeks have gone by quickly at work because it seems like I am still just starting out, however it also seems like I have lived here in BC for much longer because I am a thousand times more comfortable and settled.

I feel happy and blessed!

Am I a Canadian yet?

I am starting to adjust to the Canadian ways now! Today I carpooled to church with a girl named Rachel in my branch. She only lives 20 minutes away, so I drove to her house and she took me to church from there (another 30 minute drive). When I first drove into Vancouver last week, I got lost and couldn't find my way to my apartment! I remember pulling over on the side of the road and looking at maps and feeling very lost. Well, Rachel actually lives literally one block away from the street I pulled over on during my first drive into Vancouver. Its amazing how much I have learned about the city in the last week; this time around I knew exactly where I was and driving around the city has become much easier! To make it even better, Rachel (who grew up in Vancouver) decided to take a new way to church and got completely lost as well! I was the one who was able to figure out where we were and orient us in the right direction. I attribute it to the fact that I always choose maps over GPS :) Oh, I also got my first Canadian money yesterday!

I think its pretty funny that the LDS people here make all sorts of assumptions about me when I tell them I am from Utah. I get asked questions like, "have you been outside Utah before?" and people give me advice like "You need to go out and do stuff in the city while you are here. Trust me, I have traveled around." I just nod my head, smile, and agree.

Excursion with the Mexicans

Today (Saturday) I spent the day at Stanley Park with my roommate and all her Mexican friends that are part of the exchange program she is in. I was literally one white girl among 17 Mexicans, it was quite a sight! They all spoke rapid spanish, which was a little intimidating for me, but once I got to talk to them one-on-one, they were all very friendly and most spoke english pretty well. I was too nervous to talk to them in spanish, but I could often understand what they were saying, and they were surprised that I could sometimes join the conversation (speaking english however) when they were only speaking spanish. For example, I was kneeling by a pond and taking pictures (my newly acquired hobby) and one of the guys said snickering to the other, "empuje la gringa" which means "push the white girl in". I think he was surprised when I turned around laughing and said, "thats not very nice".

It was a great afternoon though! We rented bikes and rode around the park along the seawall. It was a cloudy day, the first one since I have been to Vancouver. As we rode around the far side of the park, everything was very quiet and peaceful, different from the rest of the city. One of my favorite parts was riding by the balancing rocks! There is this guy who is an artist and a photographer and he spends his time balancing rocks on top of each other, taking pictures of them, and selling the pictures as postcards. It was a pretty amazing feat, and I think I want to live that kind of life!

And of course, we ended the day by doing what any good group of Mexicans would do: playing futbol.

Work

I am doing my internship at the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics (CMMT) which is associated with UBC. Its a few miles away from campus but it takes about 25 minutes to drive there because of the crazy traffic and parking around CMMT is impossible. The bus takes about the same amount of time and it drops me off just a few blocks away so now I take the bus to work.
I am working for Dr. Michael Hayden on Huntington's disease, and the lab has about a dozen people working on HD which is a pretty large group. The first few days in the lab were definitely the most exciting, and it feels almost surreal to be apart of this! One of the first articles I ever read about HD research was about a "cure" found in mice that my Grandma Lael sent to me years ago ( http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/45435.php ) and the first author on this paper was Rona Graham. Well, she was the first person I talked to Monday morning, and she explained this groundbreaking paper to me and some of the other research going on the in the lab. It was incredible! As in, I have known who she was for years and here she is, sitting at a table with me explaining the paper that was my first exposure to research. Surreal!
On Monday, I also went to lunch with a researcher named Jeff Caroll who I heard about before I came ( http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article787356.ece ). He is a Huntington's disease researcher who has tested positive for Huntington's disease, although right now he is 30 and presymptomatic. He is very open about his situation, so we talked over lunch and shared our family disease stories. His mother (who died from HD) actually was devoutly LDS, so we have several strange connections and he understands my lifestyle and background. Crazy coincidence! Anyways, talking to him was fascinating, to be able to hear his opinion on his situation and the research that he is doing right now. He is rather brilliant (as well as most people in the lab), very articulate and laidback and funny.
I spent the next few days talking to everyone in the lab who does HD research, which was absolutely amazing for me. The fact that I could understand most of what everyone was doing is a huge jump from last summer where I started off completely clueless, and although it is humbling to be around such smart people, I was able to hold my own! I am so grateful that I have been following whats going on in the field, it has helped me tremendously. Anyways, I spent a few days talking to people and trying to find my niche in the lab, the project that I could work on. I finally settled down on Friday and I have a good idea of what I'm doing. I will be working with a Chinese postdoc named Kun; she is trying to finish up and write a paper to be published before she leaves for medical school in August. Kun is very bright and dedicated, she spends all her time working in the lab, from 7:30 am to bedtime (I hope to not keep such a schedule). She actually reminds me a lot of Isa, my postdoc mentor from last summer, in that she explains things quickly and expects a lot from me (learn fast!). I am helping her finish up before she leaves and we are researching GLT-1, a glutamate reuptake transporter that has reduced activity in HD.
As far as the actual benchwork, a lot of it will be similar to techniques I learned last summer. One of the things I am doing now is working with HD mice and dissecting brains. The hardest part for me is grabbing the mice and giving them a shot. Mice squirm and I can't ever seem to get a good grip on them so they won't bite when I stab them with a needle! Poor mice!

Nude Beach? What??

One of my first adventures in Vancouver: I decided to find a beach! UBC is on the west side of Vancouver and right on the shore, but I discovered its tough to actually get to the shoreline because there is a dense forest and steep slope separating the road from the beach. Walking around campus though, I finally found a path leading to the beach. Perfect! As I was walking down the path, I thought to myself that it seemed a little strange that everyone going down to the beach was male. Hmmm, that should have been a key clue...

When I got to the beach I was shocked to discover that most of the people there weren't wearing ANYTHING. Ahhh! Needless to say, my stay there was very short, just long enough to take a picture of the water excluding people. And of course, it was only when I got back to campus that I noticed the sign....

It was a very interesting introduction to Vancouver and UBC, a little bit of culture shock. I apparently need to learn to be more observant!

First Impressions of Canada

Canada is definitely more of a foreign country than I thought it would be! I have yet to get Canadian money (every grocery store tells me that they won't give cash back when I use a VISA which is all I have), there is a Canadian accent although I haven't heard too many "eh"s, it is a very diverse city with a lot of asians, and the road system is horrible! Someone told me that Vancouver wasn't made for driving, it was made to be a city of pedestrians. This is very true. They have some of the strangest driving rules, such as no left/right turns at certain times of the day, and there often are not any left hand turn lanes so if a car needs to turn left, they block all the traffic behind them while waiting. And there is always traffic, no matter what time of day it is, and there are no freeways running through the city! Work is only a few miles away but it takes about 30 minutes to get there. As a result, I now take the bus.

When I first arrived at my apartment on campus at University of British Columbia, I had no roommates! However, the previous tenants left me a dirty apartment, particularly the kitchen with all sorts of dirty dishes and molding food. It made me feel much more grateful for BYU's cleaning checks. After a thorough cleaning, I felt much better about life. Other than the dirtiness, the apartment is beautiful! It is more like a townhouse with two stories, 4 bedrooms (all single rooms), 1.5 baths, and lots of windows letting in sunshine.

I finally got my first roommate yesterday, her name is Ivonne and she is from Mexico City. She is very Christian and incredibly nice! She told me that she was living in another apartment on campus a few days before but one of her roommates always had her boyfriend in her room and it made Ivonne feel uncomfortable so she requested to move. She goes to SLC all the time to ski and she immediately asked if I was Mormon and was very happy to see that I read the Bible. I think we were meant to be roommates! And I was getting worried that I would be alone forever because I checked the box on the housing application that said "I dont drink and would prefer to live with other non-drinkers". There is at least one other non-drinker on campus!

Roadtrip

I decided to drive up to Vancouver so I could have my car with me, and I split up the trip into a few days. Luckily, one of my amazing roommates from last year, Breckann, was willing to make the drive with me and then fly home from Seattle, which is just three hours away from Vancouver. We had some crazy adventures along the way! We left on Thursday and drove to Kennewick, WA where my grandma's aunt and cousin lived and where we spent the night. The drive through Oregon was beautiful especially as the sun was setting, even if the porti-potties were all locked up at the rest stop. And along the way, I got my very first speeding ticket :( However, after getting lost from my dad's directions in Kennewick, we made it to Aunt Bernice's house where we were provided with a bed that was a little too short, even for Breckann! Aunt Bernice and her daughter were very generous even though we had never met, and they made us a huge breakfast of eggs, toast, and cereal in the morning.

On Friday, we continued on to Seattle where we spent the afternoon walking around Pike Place Market, taking a "duck" tour of the city, parking in a very shady parking garage (broken glass windows and fetid stairwells), enjoying the Space Needle from ground level (too expensive!), and eating seafood by the ocean. It was sunny and beautiful, and everyone we talked to commented on how uncharacteristically nice the weather was. My favorite part was probably feeding the seagulls some of our delicious fish and chips, they were very friendly and fat! Of course, our three ice cream runs were pretty fabulous as well, particularly the last one eaten on the pier as the sun was setting.

That night, we drove to Tacoma and spent the night at Brian Mugleston's house. Thank goodness for generous people in this world! On Saturday, I dropped Breckann off at the airport and continued on my journey. I stopped for gas in Everett, WA and decided to see how difficult it would be to find my high school friend Jake Evans' missionary address. It wasn't too difficult.... so I brought him and his companion some candy and left very soon after so as not to get them in trouble! I am sure it was a bit of a surprise for Elder Evans, although I hope they enjoyed the bag of gas station candy.

The Canadian border was a bit of a hassle, as they looked into (through google, of course) the SWAP program that I registered with for a working visa . After sitting in great anticipation for about an hour, they finally let me in, wohoo! Now there was no turning back!