Scott's MD-PhD Adventure

Monday, October 30, 2006

To Solve What Problem

My favorite FOB gave his class presentation today, finally!
Featuring such power point slide titles as:

"what is important but undeveloped"
"the sensing tube is an innovative" and
"to solve what problem"

and the email on the desk next to him that he had sent:

"The attached are my Specific Aims for my course and the ground paper I based on. I will very appreciate if you can give me some critical reviews.

Further, I will stop by your office to discuss with you, when is the good time for you?"

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Who is my baby's daddy?

We're breeding mice at lab. When you have 2nd generation from Mendelian heterozygous mice, you should get 25% of one homozygous mouse, 25% of the other homozygous, and 50% still heterozygous (high school biology!). Except, somehow we only got like 3 mice out of 58 babies with the gene we wanted. 3/58 is so not 25%!

Lili and I went to go check on the parents today, but the woman in charge of our breeding was out today. In one cage, there were at least 4 parent mice, and at least 10 young "teenage" mice. Something isn't right. So the only person there was a black woman. Lili tried to explain the problem to her: "Hi, we are looking for F1 parent mouse, but babies mixed in! how do i know what parents!"

The woman kinda understood, but not really. So I stepped in: "Listen, I feel like we're on Maury, and we need to find out who the babydaddy is but there are too many chil-ren running round up in this cage!"

She laughed. A lot. And we're working on figuring out the mystery.

Quotes out of context!

It's time for everyone's favorite game! Anyone wanna guess what he's actually referring to?

Eric (9:22 PM): my ass will be a pitch for a new CSI series

Friday, October 20, 2006

Gay's Anatomy

I called it!
I was just discussing the other day that if Grey's Anatomy was all gay guys it would be more interesting/more like my life.

We're on our way!
Granted, if I had to hang out with the super-fabulous Sara Ramirez all day, I would turn gay too.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

University Is Cold!

Yet another thing UIC can stand for.

The air conditioning is turned on in lab and on the whole 8th floor. Apparently it was kinda warm last week or someone complained it was too hot. I don't really know. Bob turned on the big gas bunsen burner to have a fire. Can it get more nerdy?

Monday, October 16, 2006

Paxil Back

I discovered a Sexy Back parody song&video. While the dancing doctor is funny, I never thought I would hear a music video with the word "serotonin" in it :)
Watch!

Monday, October 09, 2006

FOB Live Blog

3:35 Yijie has other fob changing slides for him!
3:37 sound it out! new-rah-min-ah-dase
3:38 for some reason they can't say usually. it comes out yur-ruh-ree
3:46 systemic infection all over the system!
4:05 "So here comes my aims"

Yours, sincerely
Scott

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Village People

Last night was MCA First Fridays!
Mike & I went with Joe&Randy, and eventually Daniel&Colin. Ina came too.

On her way there, Ina took the bus and told me her story. She got on, and wasn't sure if the 125 or 126 was the right one, so she asked the driver if he goes to the MCA. He said "you mean the YMCA?" Finally she asked if he goes to Mies van der Rohe Way and he said yes.

Then, after FF, we stopped by Soupbox so Joe&Randy could get soup. We of course were dressed up for FF in blazers and looking urban chic. Some lonely middle-aged white woman eating soup alone asked us "So, are you guys a band? Cause I see them around here a lot. You look like you're in a band." We said no, although in retrospect I should have said "yes, the Village People" to go with Ina's story.
She then left after she told us "Well I'm going to CompUSA because they have laptops for 20% off on Friday nights from 6-10pm. I don't think I'm going to buy one just browse." We nodded and smiled, and she said "Wow, you guys must think I'm crazy. Well I am, a little."

After our free drink at Soundbar, we checked out the new PlanB at Dearborn & Van Buren. When we walked in, I said "well, I know what the B stands for!" just like when I walked by M Lounge I said "I think the M stands for Mostly African-American."
It turns out B also stood for "Blind to the gays" since one of the workers shouted to female passersby "Hey, get in here! There are some hot guys in here" and apologized to us that he couldn't get the ladies for us.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Yours, sincerely Part 2

oh.
my.
god.
I couldn't make this shit up even if I wanted to:

From: "Yijie Ma"
Date: October 2, 2006 11:46:23 PM CDT
Subject: My grant writing paper

Hi, everyone,

The attachment is the paper I picked for the grant writing course for next week.

Yours, sincerely
Yijie Ma


From: "Yijie Ma"
Date: October 2, 2006 11:48:12 PM CDT
Subject: Re: grant writing paper

Sorry. Fotgot to attach the file :-P

Yours, sincerely
Yijie Ma


From: "Yijie Ma"
Date: October 2, 2006 11:51:31 PM CDT
Subject: My grant Writing paper

I just found out the previous attached file couldn't be open correctly. It seems the file name causes error. I rename it and send it again. Sorry for the bothering.

Yours, sincerely
Yijie Ma

Monday, October 02, 2006

Penflip!

I'm in my grantwriting course with 4/10 FOBs.
The asian guy next to me is doing the penflip!

HOMOphones

Around the corner from the pawn shop is an Italian restaurant.
Apparently old friends have gathered there since 1967



Except, they clearly don't know the difference between where and we're. For some reason Americans have trouble with homophones. Maybe it's because our leaders like Mark Foley don't set a good example with the incorrect use of to/too:

Maf54 (7:48:00 PM): did you spank it this weekend yourself
Xxxxxxxxx (7:48:04 PM): no
Xxxxxxxxx (7:48:16 PM): been too tired and too busy
Maf54 (7:48:33 PM): wow...
Maf54 (7:48:34 PM): i am never to busy haha

You would think as a homo he would know about homophones!

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Shalom! Ciao!




There's a pawnshop by me. Across from the prison. Next to Coco's famous deep fried lobster and the Hotel Men Only.

I noticed this sign in their window. Not only are they closed, but they're celebrating the Italian holiday of Yom Kippur!