Projects galore!

So I've just finished my second week at Duke, and I'm definitely keeping busy. It's not so much work work as reading work; essentially I spend 4 hours reading for a class, then I feel exhausted and don't really have anything to show for it. Except now I can tell you all about different drug delivery methods. But that's not the same as having 10 pages of homework to turn in or a 5 page essay. But that's okay, I'll get used to it I'm sure.

My classes are really interesting, and all the professors just jumped right in; it's really neat to be in such specific classes that are all about what I actually want to know. Except for the math class. Is it bad that as an engineer, I don't care about applied math for engineers? I understand how statistics or something will be extremely useful, but I don't really care about residues, complex integration, and imaginary numbers. I'm hoping as the class progresses I see the relevance to it, because that will motivate me more.

I've already got 2 projects assigned, and I have third, but it's not been finalized yet. For my biomedical materials class, the Ph.D. students have to write an IACUC procedure (which basically describes how you're going to use animals in your research) and a mock R21 grant proposal (which is a 15 page proposal describing a research project you'd like to do- but for me I'm actually going to describe what I would like to do in the lab). I believe if you're awarded an R21 grant you get $250,000 over two years or something like that. Monty really wants to submit the grant I think, and it would be nice to have that money to work with :-P I'm really thankful to be writing a grant so early because it's getting me thinking seriously about what research I'd like to be doing, instead of a vague idea of something related to what I'd like to do. For my Intro to Biomolecular Engineering class we also have projects already assigned, and mine is called "Unnatural amino acid incorporation into proteins and biopolymers", which (because I'm a nerd) I'm pretty excited about. I think it will be tangentially connected to the research I'll be doing for the mock grant, and I think the class itself is really going to help me. We have a lab associated with it, and over the semester I'm going to learn how to purify DNA and transfect it so I can make the DNA create a specific alterned protein that I could use. I know a lot of people already use those techniques all the time, but I've never used them, so I'm excited to learn.

I also have a project in my Tissue Engineering class, but it's a group project and hasn't been assigned yet. I think it's going to be something along the lines of "Here's a problem faced in tissue engineering- how would you solve it?" then you use what we've learned in class to try to develop a method to do whatever needs to be done.

Wedding planning is slowly chugging along, but I think once I get settled into my school routine it will be easier to know when I'll have free time and can set up appointments for things. I am going to try to go dress-browsing on September 20 with Cait, and on the 27th Keegan and I have our Marriage Prep Forum, so that's a step also. We should be able to place the order for our cake in the next week, too.

Even though it's Saturday, I'm going to be lame and work on homework. It's raining outside anyway (thank you, Hanna!), and this way I can enjoy the afternoon and evening when the weather should be much nicer. And I can also avoid being swamped later in the week.

PS: I was at Target yesterday, and the Halloween candy was out. I want fall to be here! That means the changing colors of the leaves, slightly less hot days, college football (yay for Duke winning a game- shocking!), Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas! EEEEE, I'm way too excited for those things, considering it's September 6. I think it's because Keegan and I went to visit my dad in the mountains last week, and the leaves were just beginning to turn yellow. I've caught the fall fever. Which is odd, since I hate cold weather. Hmm... okay, back to work.