It's almost over?!

Hello world, I'm back; and I can't believe it's almost over :( I depart for the States in two days! My experience in Montreal truly has been fun, exciting, and...well...educational. Perhaps that sounds like a PBS ad. Oh well. Anyway, the reason for my delay in an update is that ever since I got back from my trip to Nova Scotia (around 3 weeks ago), I have been working nonstop in the lab more or less.

My experiment is time sensitive, and it just so happens that during the my last few weeks in Montreal is when the mice have completed consuming their food that contains rapamycin, which means most of the behavioral tests must be completed within this short window of opportunity. Shortly after I arrived in Montreal from my trip, I completed two pilot experiments to tweak a protocol intended for object recognition but would be used as a spatial memory task. After receiving promising results with the improved protocol, I decided to use it for the first batch of mice that completed eating the rapamycin food. Unfortunately, the results I received with this batch were disappointing. From the data, it doesn't appear that the consumption of rapamycin in aged mice has an effect on spatial memory as measured by my test. There are more grounded spatial memory tasks, like Morris Water Maze, that will be performed by the post doc for which I work after I leave Montreal. I am also doing contextual fear conditioning tests with these mice; but due to time constraints and blinding, I will not be the one scoring those videos. I hope the data from that test is more promising!

Tomorrow will officially be my last day in lab, and I will be finishing up one object recognition task, scoring some videos, and tying up some loose ends with my PI. I shall miss the lab and Montreal!

Anyway, aside from research, my trip to Nova Scotia was amazing! It's been over a decade since I had seen my cousins, aunt and uncle, who live in Halifax; and it was really good to catch up with them and see their new house in the countryside. I won't go into the nitty gritty, but I can tell you that going to somewhere as peaceful as Nova Scotia is a nice break from the city life in Montreal. I definitely have missed riding in the car and just seeing the beautiful scenery. Below are a few pictures from my trip!

Here's a shot from Acadia University, my Dad's alma mater. The university is in this really petite town that has like two pubs and a lot of inns/bed and breakfasts. It seems like a great place to...study. lol Kidding aside, it really is a cute little town; and it felt great to physically experience

This is a picture from Halifax, which is probably Nova Scotia's largest city. The restaurant pictured is called the Wooden Monkey and is apparently serves good vegetarian food. Allegedly, it's also Ellen Page's (Juno) favorite restaurant in town.

I was in Halifax for Canada Day, and it really is amazing to see people wearing red and white everywhere. The picture above show some volunteers who learned classic/old British military stances.

Nova Scotia i also home to the International Tattoo, which is a rather long military-acrobat show. But at the same time, it really showed how much respect people show Canadian soldiers and armed forces.

My flight back to Montreal was at 6 am, which meant I had to leave my Aunt's house by 4 am. Here's the resulting sunrise :)