Montreal Edition Trois

People say not to apologize up front, but I really need to apologize for not being more diligent in updating this blog. But it looks like there have plenty of entries to keep this blog busy :)

Anyway in the past few weeks, I've done loads of stuff so here we go:

Research! So in the past weeks, I finally got certified to handle mice. Animal regulations here are pretty strict, etc., so my abilities to do behavioral tests with the mice were pretty much nonexistent. In the mean time, another post-doc in the lab showed me how to culture bacteria as well as grow neurons from mouse embryonic cortical tissue. It was some pretty neat molecular biology :) I also had time to become familiar with some behavioral testing protocols (i.e. object recognition and contextual fear conditioning).

After animal safety certification (you actually do get a certificate in the mail lol), I was given some 'normal' wild type mice to practice object recognition and fear conditioning protocols so that I don't screw up doing these tests on the mice that have been fed rapamycin for 10 weeks. Imagine that. If I screw up, then 10 weeks down the drain! No pressure ha. ha. But anyway, it turns out, we didn't have boxes (literally a 16" by 16" by 12" wooden box missing the top) for the mice to do object recognition; so I got to use some "brilliant engineering" to design 3 boxes. Successful I was.

From there, I ran object recognition tests with my 11 mice and scored the videos from the tests (scoring video by the way is ridiculously boring). Repeat similar procedure for fear conditioning minus the box building. So far results are pretty good. We'll tweak some parts of the protocol if it seems inefficient.

Anyway now to the fun stuff. Anthony, a new hallmate who moved in on my floor, is from France on 4 weeks paid vacation. Jealousy. But yeah, he's a pretty cool guy; and we've been touring Montreal together and watching plenty of world cup matches. Go USA by the way :) It's just been slightly difficult, since his English isn't that great; but this gives me a great chance to practice my French!

One of the things we saw in two weekends were different awesome fireworks shows. Apparently, there's an international competition hosted in Montreal with globally renown pyrotechnics. I posted a video of one segment of a show here for those of you who are interested:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=1309187698405

Also a picture:

Anthony and I watched these shows from an amusement park called La Ronde, which also belongs to the Six Flags franchise. In the picture, you can see a view of the park, but you can also see a bridge. That bridge is totally closed at night and filled with people to watch the fireworks.



At La Ronde, I decided to try poutine. I promised Leah that I would try this Quebecois local delicacy. It's basically fries, cheese, ground meat, and a choice of brown or red sauce. In terms of clogging your arteries for a fast death, this beats wingnuts hands down:


For me, it wasn't that great; but people like it....like many other local delicacies.

The same place we watched fireworks is also very close to two major attractions: Montreal's largest casino and the Biosphere. I wish I could say that the casino carried a similar vibe to Vegas, but alas I cannot. It was simply filled with old people with money to spend/lose, and I felt like I have aged 20 years. The drinks were also not complementary.

The Biosphere has great engineering and architectural elements as seen below:

It kind of reminds me of Epcot Center at Disney World. Anyway, Biosphere, I found out, is an interactive museum mostly geared towards little kids to learn about the environment. There were different rooms with different environmental themes, like one room dealt with water and had a bunch of activities for kids to play with to grasp principles of water. What made me laugh hysterically was the room concerning nuclear waste. It was a room decorated with black and red paint with warnings about nuclear energy and power, and it seemed apparent to me that this place could be used more as brainwashing than education. Just my 2 cents.

The same weekend I saw the biosphere was also the same weekend Formula 1 started. It is a huge deal in Montreal, and I was happy to attend with Anthony the pre-Formula 1 party/ies the day before the race. One whole street was blocked off, and it contained lots of cars, girls, beer, bars, and people. It was crazy, but crazy fun :)

Also in June was an ongoing festival called Francofolie, where a bunch of French and French Canadian singers perform. Anthony and I went a couple of times, and it was quite the experience. There were some concerts that I didn't think qualified as music, but I really enjoyed the rock and reggae concerts. One night, there was this band called La Compagnie Creole, which was extremely popular in the '80s in France, but I guess like the Beatles, their popularity transcends generations, given the crowd at the concert had plenty of young people. Here's one of their most popular songs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbmG218gnic.

Ok fast forward to June 23. My 21st birthday. Lots of drinking happened and dinner was had. Moving on. :D

This past evening, I got to go to see Cirque du Soleil! :) The circus acrobatic show originally started in Montreal, and I got to see an amazing amazing show under the large tent in Old Montreal. I went with some of the people in lab, and I had a blast!

I'm getting pretty sleepy at this point, so here are some things to come:

I have to get up early to go to Quebec City tomorrow with Anthony. We'll be staying in a hostel for 2 nights, and we'll be touring the city and hope to meet some interesting people along the way!

Soon afterwards, I'll be heading to Halifax, Nova Scotia to visit my cousins, whom I haven't seen in a decade or so.

I hope to post much sooner this time.

Until next time.