Science and travels

Ireland most certainly has to be one of the best countries in the world, not to mention one of the shortest international flights I have ever took (45 minutes!). Of course this is coming from a traveling college student, which in this case can make all the difference. Almost every tourist in Dublin can be described as young backpackers looking for a good time. Of course there was that old adorable couple, the annoying family with an infant in a stroller screaming its lungs out and of course there are those families with the parents and older siblings passing their Guinness to the thirteen –year-old-wannabe-badass-little-brother. I could not have thought of a better city in all of Europe for the IRES UK crowd to meet up in.
Ireland, is a cold, rainy, cloudy city, but the people more than made up for these shortcomings. The vibrant city and always happy people made up for the miserable weather. Dublin was almost like a dream. Met up with awesome people (IRES, wooO!), met awesome people (Austrians, Australians etc. etc.), the Guinness was the best I’ve ever had and even the rain made me wanna’ sing. Even the Irish seals love life!
Returning to London from this fantastic weekend was a rather depressing experience. Britain is so dark and gloomy with none of the pluses of the Irish people. Too bad.
Returning to the lab after a weekend of absolute amazing-ness was an absolute letdown. None of my electroporation experiments are working; my shRNA (short hairpin RNA – specific type of siRNA) transfection experiments are not working; my RT-PCRs of our GDF8 construct are not working… This is rather depressing. The one good thing is that we have an absolute awesome and hilarious Irish(wo)man in the lab who constantly amuses me with her expert command of obscure swear words. The one thing keeping me going (besides for the bleak possibility of getting results) was my next weekend… To Madrid!
One of my Spanish colleagues just got married last weekend, so half of the lab flew to Spain for the wedding, including my PI and my supervisor. At the insistence of my lab, I decided to take a long weekend trip to Madrid. Backpacking/hostelling is one of the best and most fun ways to travel. I have met so many amazing and interesting people, expanding my horizons and learning more about myself. There is no other time that there are so many young people willing to meet other people as there is in the traveling ‘scene.’ Madrid was no exception, and I think that the quality of the hostel itself is directly correlated to the fun travelers have (the worse the hostels’ facilities, the better the time- gives everyone something to bond about!).


And so it goes. After Madrid, I returned to lab with pretty much the same results at written earlier; disappointment, heartbreak and failure. I know I will eventually get awesome results! Hopefully…..