The grades from my "catastrophic" molecular biology test have been posted, and I'm apparently not as dumb as I look because I didn't fail it. Scores were posted by student ID number and I must have checked and double-checked the spreadsheet against my ID card a dozen times. I got an 83%, which is passing (there is no grading scale anywhere that I can find, so I'm going by the one I found in the graduate nursing bulletin). I had expected to see maybe a 50%, and certainly nothing above a 70%. I'm still half-expecting to be told that someone made a mistake and that the poor sap who scored a 52% was actually me. I feel a little bit relieved that I didn't fail horribly. Now I have to wait and see how I did on the cell exam.
Tomorrow is Graduate Student Research Day (sort of like EMU's Graduate Research Fair, but bigger), so my usual classes have been cancelled so that everyone can go to the talks and poster presentations. The associate dean of the med school's graduate programs made a personal appearance at the end of lecture this morning and said that he expected to see all of us there tomorrow. I can't get out of it because he knows who I am, plus most of the other Immuno & Micro students are presenting, and they'll expect to see me there too. This thing is an all day event, and I don't know how long I'm expected to be there. I really don't want to be there from 8 to 5, but I didn't want to ask because it implies that I don't want to go. This would be true to a point, but I think it would be bad form to admit it outright.
School is going to start picking up steam in October. My first rotation is scheduled to begin Oct. 10th in Dr. N's lab, possibly either working on capsule production in Group B Strep or looking at lantibiotic production in Group A Strep. Each rotation is about 8 weeks long, so this first one will end the first week of December. My next rotation, beginning January 9th through March 2nd, will be in Dr. W's lab. Here's the funny thing about that: Jim will be doing his sabbatical next semester in Dr. D's lab, working on cholera toxin regulation. At the same time, I'll be doing my second rotation in the lab of Dr. D's former post-doc, Dr. W, also likely working on cholera toxin regulation. Weirdness. My last rotation is March 5th to April 27th with an immunologist/virologist, Dr. R. He studies proteins that may be involved in helping HIV replicate in host cells. I'm nervous, but kind of excited about doing rotations. I'm not really sure what to expect.
Our departmental seminars begin on October 11th (and occur every Tuesday for the rest of the term) and go from 12-1. The PhD students, not faculty members, are responsible for making arrangements for seminar speakers, so this should be interesting. Also, journal club (called RDP for research data presentation) starts on October 19th (Wednesdays), also from 12-1. Everyone has been assigned a date to present something, and my day of reckoning is March 14th.
Gotta get to bed so I can get up super early for Graduate Student Research Day. But more importantly, I need to rest up to go the Corner Brewery tomorrow afternoon.
No comments:
Post a Comment