Today has so far been exhausting. I rolled out of bed at 9:30, did my usual routines and slunk out the 1st floor exit at around 11am. The 'biology' area group of the psych. department met today for their brownbag/research presentation. We had two speakers today: the other grad student in my lab, Sara, and a 2nd year student looking at sex differences in rat brains. That went well and fine. I made a few comments during and after the talk, which didn't seem to get a big reaction but hopefully they'll help make the presentations easier to follow. Not for the bio psychology people, but the other psych folks. There's a well-understood but never talked about assumption that us bio-psych people are weird and very "other".

This definetely seems true in my case, considering the project I've decided to invest myself in.

I don't want to bore the crap out of people with specifics, jolly as I'd be doing so. I will say, though, that I'm look for a particular gene or set of genes that 'create' this immune system chemical called interleukin-1beta. For now, I basically wanna see exactly where this gene is in the monkey genome, and if there are different 'types' of this gene that fundamentally produce different amounts of this immune system chemical.

Now this shit has been done in Humans. It's very recent stuff, but it's been done. And from the research I've done, unfortunately, it looks like geneticists haven't yet found that interleukin-1beta gene for monkeys.

Still, I wanna find out just how close I can get, so I set off across campus to two different libraries for two different articles. My first stop was at the library near Badcock Hall (which is close to but isn't the actual name). It took me 5 minutes to orient myself, but I've found science journals in far more obscure places than there. At first for some odd reason, though, I couldn't find the latest issue of the genetics journal I was trying to find. I inquired and it was scheduled to be bound into a book (as opposed to the original magazine format). So I snagged the bastard, photocopied it, read a smidge of the article and was absolutely confused. Apparently geneticists are really concerned with Mamu's and just where these Mamu's are. I tucked it away for later.

And only a hop, skip, and a long-ass 3/4 mile walk later, I headed into the 4 story medical library on the outskirts of campus. The architecture was well and good and the lighting was nice, but the layout of the building made no real sense. Consider, for instance, my trying to go up to the third floor from the second floor. One would expect this would be simple: walk to one of the corners, find the stairs, climb, and push or pull a door.

Not so with this building. I tried the far corner. When I got up to the third floor, there was a sign on the door: 'Emergency Exit Only. Alarm will sound.' So I'm thinking what the fuck, yeah? And I decide to go back to the 2nd level, walk to the opposite corner near where I'd come up from the 1st floor. Surely there'd be a nearby stairwell up? Well there was, but when I got to the third floor...there was a sign on the door: 'Emergency Exit Only. Alarm will sound.'

So at around this time, I decide the universe is fucking with me and I go to take the elevator back on the first floor (at the opposite end of the building, of course). Now the funny thing with some elevators is that you press the up arrow to go up--but then the elevator doesn't respond, so you have to press and hold that damned up arrow until the elevator comes. After 3 minutes of that, the elevator comes and a startled woman comes out. Maybe it was the goatee or me wearing a beige shirt and her having some traumatic experience with beige shirts, I have no idea.

So I get up to the 3rd floor finally! And I found the journal section! And figured out that "Q7 q34ygae" was some obscure filing system instead of an alphabetical index! And I found the journal I was looking for!.......kinda.

I say kinda because I wanted issue 9. They only had up to issue 8 there. Now I knew that I'd seen issue 9 listed online, so I decided to hop down to the 2nd floor via a different stairwell, and I ended up in the glass-partitioned faboo area that had seemed impenetrable. The information woman was quite nice and indicated that all the really really recent journal issues were kept around the corner of her work station. She came back with issue 9. I let out a small 'yay' after saying thank you.

I photocopied the beast, stapled things, packed up...and then thought about how I'd get out. I tried the elevator. It would NOT go to level 1. At all. No matter how many times I pressed the button. Finding this pretty damned odd on top of the magical emergency stairwells, I searched around my ant-farm glass enclosure and found a sign that said 'stairwell'--which led upstairs. I then found another, more obscure stairwell--which lead to the magical emergency door I'd seen 30 minutes ago.

But finally, finally I found a way!--through a set of doors I hadn't seen that, er, passed between ant-farm glass partition zone and the main hall. Honestly, though, these are some fine-ass seamless doors. Even the handles are svelt and camoflauged! Those medical students have some ninja blood in them, I swear.

So I got both articles, found a bus, figured out it was the bus going in the wrong direction but to the right location, and read some more of that molecular genomics article. There was alot of 'Mamu' shit and Class I and Class II gene areas along the MHC of the genome and blah blah blah. If any of you are geneticists, please note me and toss this poor motherfucker a clue.

That has been my day so far, minus eating a decent sesame chicken + hot and sour soup meal at the Overpriced Wok. I feel dog-ass tired, but not bone-ass tired. I'm not sure why dog ass is more energetic than bone ass, but I'll poll some basset hounds and get back to you.

I'm going to The Crypt to read until 10, then probably to Dunn Bros. to read until midnight. I'm extremely thankful that the emotions class doesn't meet tomorrow and instead has a double session next week. It gives me time to spelunk into places only fucking insane psychologists go, like genome articles with Mamu's or killer whales or some such.

Oh, and on an insanely happy note: I finally downloaded "Get a Job" by the Silhouettes. I have always loved this song. It's like eating candy and drinking liquor at the same time. Marvelous.

Stay well, and hopefully out of jail! I'll do the same.

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