Hi again,

I actually wrote this blog in the airport on Sunday but forgot to posts it until now.  This past week was my 21st birthday!  To celebrate, I hiked between the 5 coastal cities of Cinque Terre with the friends that I've made in Milan.  We were dying from the heat around the 11th kilometer and found an old man selling lemonade from a hut in his lemon field/orchard/not sure what the correct term is.   If the whole graduate school thing doesn't work out, there's a 99% chance that you'll find me living in one of these little cities.  

Rome!! Because my friends here either left Thursday or have exams this week, I decided to go to Rome on my own this weekend.  Friday evening, I arrived, spent a few hours doing touristy stuff then checked into a hostel.  As it turned out, there were 4 other people in the hostel traveling on their own so we all went to a late dinner together and went to see the Trevi Fountain, Colosseum, and city at night.  I was initially nervous to stay in a hostel on my own, but I ended up LOVING it.  Although I was hanging out with strangers, I had great conversations comparing life/family/education/travels with people I will probably never see again and I enjoyed wandering the city at my own pace during the day.  Saturday, I went to St. Peter's, the Vatican and a few other places along the way, and Sunday, I went to the Spanish Steps and Piazza Navone.  

Lab work is progressing as usual.  We had some problems with antibodies getting lost in the mail, but other than that all is well at work.  We are still looking at NMDA receptors and hopefully I will be learning some surgical stuff that I need for my thesis on Thursday. Megan

By the way -- my lab at Emory made the NYTimes yesterday!! ProTECT III, the stage 3 clinical trial of progesterone for traumatic brain injury, is currently enrolling patients and making national headlines. If it succeeds, it will be the first new treatment for TBI in over 40 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/health/study-tests-if-progesterone-can-save-lives-after-brain-injury.html