As I’m writing this wee blog post, I’m wondering where this research project is going to lead me. Am I going to fell in love with the lab work and decide that this is surely the direction I want to pursue in the future? Or maybe quite the opposite, maybe I will realise that this is not something I’m interested in and I will find it utterly boring. Either way, I’m really hoping that this experience will finally lead me to some answers I have been looking for during my time at the university, and hopefully will provide me with some directions for my future adventures, plans and projects.

As I’m sitting in Rector’s (my definite favourite among all St Andrews cafes) with my black americano, I’m also wondering if everyone else is as confused as I am. I have spend the last couple of hours in preparation for my tomorrow’s introduction day at the lab I’m going to conduct my research in, trying to understand all the quite complex and confusing protein interactions I will be trying to untangle for the next few weeks. Sometimes I really like imaging all these miniscule relationships between them in a more understandable for 20-year-old way; some proteins like interacting with each other, supporting each other in growth and all the other adventures within the cell. Others on the other hand definitely are not as friendly, inhibiting their companions and leading to other dramas involving even more players (I swear biology is sometimes even more dramatic than some of the high schoolers). I’m not quite sure whether that’s the most appropriate way to think about biochemistry, but it’s definitely more amusing than trying to remember the most random protein names that sound more like randomly pressed keyboard buttons than actual words. Hopefully, over the next few weeks I will understand them a bit more (maybe I will even manage to learn their actual names, who knows).

This is all from me on the day 0 of the research project! Hopefully during these 6 weeks we will all pack our brains with smart and useful stuff (and have some fun along the way:)) Good luck to everyone and see you in the next blog post!

Excuse me all for this very poor nerdy sense of humour (I found it quite cute)