recently...

Recently...

I've tried analyzing these babies about 10 different ways...

...and I THINK the most recent try is a win! We will know once I try it out on a few more runs. Cross your fingers that this one will be the winner and I can move on to the hard part of the project haha. Oh and for those nerds out there wondering...these are images of F-actin!


Recently...

I've been team-teaching PDBio 120...

...and LOVING it. For real. I'm all kinds of happy and excited after I teach. Up until now I've taught portions of most classes, but today was my first day teaching the whole 50 minute class! I think it went well! I love getting to know more and more of my 200 students. Yep, definitely thinking I chose the right career. :)


Recently...

I've been having fun...

...country concerts, Jazz games, BYU football games, hipster photo shoots, family get-togethers, perspective-gaining drives up the mountain, 3D movies, intense workouts (yes that is a cupcake), pumpkin carving parties, haunted forests, etc. 

Recently...

I caved and bought a cd on itunes...

...and have been listening to it for days! I was doing so good with my resolution not to buy music, but I couldn't help myself. I have a weak spot for music.


Recently...

I've been learning a lot about how I sleep...

...using this super crazy app on my phone. It lays on the bed and uses my movements to track my sleep cycle. Best part? I give it a 30 min window and it wakes me up at the most ideal time. I honestly feel great when I wake up now because the alarm isn't jolting me out of deep sleep. The future is here, folks.


Recently...

I've started apply for teaching jobs...

...and I can't believe I'm going to be all grown up with a real job in less than a year! Crossing my fingers somebody will want me!

not to brag or anything...

Not to brag or anything (who am I kidding? the whole point of this post is to brag), but I have had TWO culinary successes in TWO days' time. Yes, it is true.

Success #1

So we have these tacos that go way back in my family. I'll be honest, I might be making the first part of the history up, but I THINK my mom's mom or grandma learned the recipe from some missionaries way back in the day. My grandma learned how to make them and would make them for my mom and her siblings growing up. She then made them while she and my grandpa were on a mission in Ireland. My mom got the taco-frying genes and I grew up loving them. We started feeding them to the missionaries when I was young and it became a big competition to see who could eat the most. I THINK Elder Falilu (spelling?) holds the record at 32 tacos. The most I have eaten is 14...not too shabby eh? We always have mom's tacos during the Priesthood Session of General Conference while the boys are gone. Annie fried them this time and did a fantastic job. We had leftovers Sunday afternoon, so I thought I should get some good practice in so I can carry on the tradition. Guess what, it was NOT an epic fail...they weren't half bad. :) Pretty proud of myself. 

Success #2

Let's just say Monday was not the best day I've had in my life. In fact, I wasn't a huge fan of Monday. I had the urge to make pumpkin break and got it in my head that if I could successfully make pumpkin bread, all would be right in the world again. Result? Some pretty darn good pumpkin break and and going to sleep Monday night feeling pretty good about life!

HAPPY FALL!

happiest place on earth!!

This post might as well be titled "luckiest girl on earth" because I am! Months ago, Steph started talking about how we needed to go on another epic trip together like we did last year at this time. I replied how fun it would be but that I'm a poor graduate student. :( Next thing I know, Steph is telling me I need to make sure to get September 21st off of school and she and Marissa start plotting a lot behind closed doors. I had no idea what was going on. So for two months, they would talk about the epic trip the three of us were going on, but wouldn't tell me where...not even how we were going to get there. Steph isn't the best about keeping secrets from me, so she almost caved a whole bunch of times. She would even tell EVERYONE I know EXCEPT me haha. Finally about a week before, I got a text from Steph late one night telling me that she couldn't keep the secret anymore and that she was taking me to Reno (her sister lives there) but not to tell Marissa she told! So the next week and a half was full of me pretending I didn't know where I was going around Marissa.

Finally it was September 20th! Marissa and Steph told me that we were going to be flying the next morning so I needed to pack in a carry-on size bag. They gave me a general idea of what to pack, and I was racking my brain trying to figure out what we'd be doing in Reno they they were so excited about. We got up SUPER early on Friday morning to head to the airport. They checked us in without me so I wouldn't see our destination. Finally, right before we got to security, they handed me my boarding pass so I could see where we were going. I mentally prepared myself to pretend to be surprised when I saw it was to Reno. I look down at my ticket and realize it says our final destination is Orange County, CA...wait...WHAT?  I was so surprised!! Then Steph handed me an envelope with some money in it and a disney pin and said, "Girl, we're going to DISNEYLAND!" WHAT???? Reno was a lie all along! I was pretty much freaking out like a 9-year-old in the airport and trying to stop myself from telling all kinds of strangers that I was going to DISNEYLAND!! I had only been twice in my life and not since I was 17.  This was moments after I found out our destination! Note that it was like 5 am so looking cute was not a priority:

It was pretty much a magical weekend. We spent 2 full days in Disneyland, stayed at MarisIsa's parents' place in San Diego, and came home Sunday morning. We played hard core...rode practically every ride, shopped, ate WAY too much food, and just soaked in the magic. My highlights were...

SPLASH MOUNTAIN! It had been closed both times I went to Disneyland before, so I'd ALWAYS wanted to ride it.

It did not disappoint! Favorite.

TOWER OF TERROR. I was seriously terrified.

My yoda shirt.

Spending time with my fabulous roommates...

Eating WAY too much.

And stalking Disney characters.

Biggest regret? Not getting a picture of Flynn Rider's smolder. Life-changing.

No words for how much I love this girl...

THANKS STEPH!!!

Books, Fish, Bonnie, etc.

This morning I was reading an article ("Teaching and the Expanding Knowledge" by Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, 1964) for an education class I'm taking. IT WAS SO GOOD. And it got me all excited, so I decided to blog about it, lucky you. I was reading this thinking about science education, but it applies to all kinds of teaching in some ways I think.

The first part that got me excited were these two passages about textbooks and cramming knowledge into our heads:

"There is a widely spread misconception about the nature of books which contain knowledge It is thought that such books are something the contents of which have to be crammed into our heads. I think the opposite is closer to the truth. Books are there to keep the knowledge in while we use

our heads for something better. Books may also be a better place for such knowledge. In my own head any book-knowledge has a half-life of a few weeks. So I leave knowledge, for safekeeping,

to books and libraries and go fishing, sometimes for fish sometimes for new knowledge."

"I do not want to be misunderstood - I do not depreciate knowledge, and I have worked long and hard to know something of all fields of science related to biology. Without this I could do no research. But I have retained only what I need for an understanding, an intuitive grasp, and in order

to know in which book to find what. This was fun, and we must have fun, or else our work is no good."

I especially loved the line about "us[ing] our heads for something better." Education is so much more than memorizing facts (or memorizing our textbooks). It's all about connecting those facts, finding meaning in them, and using them. I can think of lots of experiences when I was taught facts but not taught how to use them. I also loved the part about knowing in which book to find what. I feel like further I advance in my education, the better I get at recognizing what is important to know off the top of my head  and what I can leave in wikipedia to be accessed in the 2 seconds it takes me to google it.

This next section really resonated to me because I love the idea of life-long learning and schools teaching use HOW to learn rather than just teaching us STUFF. It's totally the whole teach a man to fish versus feeding him for a day kind of thing. I also think the last line is a perfect description of a really great teacher:

"My next remark is about time relations. The time spent in school is relatively short compared -to the time thereafter. I am stressing this because it is widely thought that everything we have to know to do our job well we have to learn in school. This is wrong because, during the long time which

follows school, we are apt to forget, anyway, what we have learned there, while we have ample time for study. ln fact, most of us have to learn all our lives, and it was with gray hair that I took up the study of quantum mechanics, myself. So what the school has to do, in the first place is to

make us learn how to learn, to whet our appetites for knowledge, to teach us the delight of doing a job well and the excitement of creativity, to teach us to love what we do, and to help us to find what we love to do."

That last line immediately made me think of my piano teacher, Bonnie Winterton. She is amazing. I really think I owe a lot of who I am to what she taught me for the 7 years I took lessons from her. She taught me a lot more than how to play the piano. She taught me to love music, to love teaching, to love people, and to love life. My lessons were 45 minutes long, and I really think we would spend at least 10 of those minutes talking about life. I want to be that kind of teacher when I grow up.

disgusting...disturbing...

Just a normal day in the lab. I had noticed a plastic bag on the counter for about a week now, but had never looked closely at it. Until today. This is what Allie and I discovered...

A large ziplock bag containing a paper towel, bag of water (?), and what looks like some sort of MEAT...our best guess is salmon... (??)

Let me reiterate it has been there for about a week. Kind of grossed out right now. And kind of disturbed. Also pondering the purpose of the bag of water...