Phillipians 4:7

Its been almost a year since the trauma. My mind wants to forget, but my body won't let me. I haven't been able to sleep lately, and it sucks. I desperately wish all the memories would just disappear.

I am just trying to remember that I have a mighty God who can heal anything and has a peace that surpasses all understanding. (Philippians 4:7 - "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.")

I talked with the youth pastor at my church about a month ago and he was talking to me about not just praying for God's peace, but accepting it. I didn't really realize that I have had God's peace all along, but it's a matter of actually opening my hands and taking it.

Also, we were talking in church on Sunday about how powerful God is (Romans 8:31 - "What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?"). I mean, that is pretty cool; my God is so big that there is nothing in this world that can harm me that really matters.

We also talked about a lot of other really interesting things, like that there is nothing that we can go through that God doesn't understand and I was really challenged to not focus on my problems and suffering and focus on praying to understand God's heart and the suffering He went through. But that's a whole 'nother subject which I am sure I could not articulate even half as well as it was articulated in the sermon.

I don't think there really was a point to this post, I guess I am just trying to put my thoughts into words.

PS: This is pretty random but I have heard this new song on the radio a couple of times and I really wanted to share it...the lyrics are amazing (I don't have all the lyrics, it is such a new song that I wasn't able to find lyrics for it online).

It's called "Give Me Your Eyes" by Brandon Heath: "Give me Your eyes for just one minute, give me Your eyes so I can see everything that I've keep missing, give me Your love for humanity, give me Your heart for the broken hearted, give me Your heart for the forgotten, give me Your eyes so I can see..."

MRI

So, I am a klutz. What else is new? Lol. About 3 weeks ago, I fell and hurt my knee pretty badly. I don't remember if I tripped and fell or if my knee gave out and I fell (my knees have a history of doing this).

Anyways, after a series of doctor's appointments, I found out...well, nothing. Except that I have the knees of a 50 year old haha. And I have something called patellar subluxation, which is basically when you dislocate your kneecap (patella). So my knees grind and make weird noises...I already knew this; my knees have been creaking for years. It is probably due to a mix of the ED and 10 years of ballet.

But on the bright side, when I went to the student health center to get my knee checked out when I first hurt it, I happened to be examined by a doctor who did a physical on me a couple years ago when I was in a much different condition. She remembered me, and commented on how at least I don't have bradycardia anymore. Yeah, I think I'll take a sprained knee and a healthy heart over a good knee and a weak heart.

Anyways the orthopedist said that he thought it might be sprained, but he also wanted me to get an MRI so he could check for a tear in my meniscus and my ACL. I don't think I tore anything, because for the most part I can walk fine now.

I sprained my ACL years ago in high school, so hopefully that's all it is. Ironically, I fell down the stairs that time too. With a vacuum cleaner, LOL. My orthopedist remembered me as vacuum cleaner girl, and to this day, I am still not allowed to carry a vacuum cleaner down the stairs! =P

My MRI is today at 6 pm. Hopefully it goes well.

Mercy Me's Cover Tune Grab Bag

This is a hilarious video! It is Mercy Me doing a cover of DC Talk's 'Jesus is Just Alright'

I love science jokes

This poem was on the wall of my Analytical Chem lab...I found it quite funny.

The Chemistry Student's Prayer

Analyst is my Chemist, I shall not Quant;

He maketh me to precipitate in green ions,
He leadeth me to mop up the de-ionised waters;

He restoreth my equilibrium.
He replenisheth my tote-box;
He maketh me to pay promptly for glassware I break.
He leadeth me into the Chemistry Lab for Science's sake.

Yeah though I walk in the shadow of the titration curve,
I will fear no Acid,
For my Apron is with me.
Thy stirring rod, and thy Chem Staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest an unknown before me, in the presence of interfering ions;
Thou anointest my head with indicator,
My Buret runneth over.

Surely panic and problems shall follow me all the days of my strife;
And I shall dwell in the Chem Lab forever.

Crossroads

So, I got back from a camp in Cape Henlopen, DE, called Crossroads, on Friday. It was an awesome experience. It was a middle school camp run by a group called Youth for Christ (YFC), and I was there as a leader. It was a new experience for me, and I got a lot out of it. I really feel like I have a passion for seeing students grow deeper in their relationships with God, and that DEFINITELY happened this week!

We were seperated into small groups and each of the small groups had a name based on the theme of candy. My group was called the '7 Musketeers' (we had 7 girls in our group). Other groups were called the 'Gnarly Nerds', 'Snickers Cadberry Eggs', 'Whatchamacallits', 'Last Minute Party Bars with Nuts', 'Chocolate Covered Sand', and 'Niner Laffy Taffy King Size.'

Our group was really quiet and introverted at first, but with time and lots of sugar, the girls really opened up and it got pretty crazy. We had some cool bible studies, intense worship, played some fun games, time at the beach and the boardwalk and a night out being just plain weird in the Dollar Store.

One game in particular that was a lot of fun was called 'The Golden Fleece'. Kind of like capture the flag, it was the kids vs the leaders and it was violent. Haha. The picture is a little bit of what the game was like.

I would be lying though if I said that I wasn't nervous. In fact, I was really scared. On a bunch of different levels. The most obvious (for me) being that I would be gone for a week and have no control over what I was eating. I've been to camps/retreats before as a student...and it rarely, if ever goes well. It typically ended up with others concerned about what I was (or wasn't) eating.

So I knew if things went badly, the equation would end up being:
middle school girls + adult leader who isn't eating = disaster!

Luckily, things went really well (IMHO). I ate a lot of things that I was uncomfortable with and I broke a lot of ED 'rules' and I didn't die or gain 100 pounds. I saw my therapist yesterday, and she was pretty much flabbergasted. I pretty much just told her that I tried to leave the whole situation up to God. And I just did what I knew I needed to do, and when I felt crappy about myself, I talked to other people about it instead of completely freaking out or restricting. Now, if only I could do this on a regular basis lol.

Anyways, it was really awesome getting to meet everyone and get to know them better. It was a great experience talking to some of the kids and listening to what they had to say and praying with them. I really saw God working in a lot of awesome ways. We had this one night of worship when I think God really came and touched everyone in a profound way.

We played a lot of games and we spent a lot of time looking at God's Word. We had small groups where we had our own night out to have fun (and eat ice cream...yum!) and we also had nights to go to the beach and watch the sun set and be quiet and listen to what God had to say to each of us.

I think I could write for hours and still not be able to fully capture everything that went on at Crossroads. So I guess I will suffice it to say that it was a life changing experience and I can't wait for next year!

Physics, Take II

-Edit (08/07/08)-

I finished the class...and I got a B!!! W00t! Never thought I would be so happy for a B, but I worked so hard for it!
---------------------------------

-Original Post (7/31/08)-


I really hate summer classes. Especially ones that are at 7:30 in the morning every day for three hours and pertain to a subject that I a) care nothing about and b) do not understand. The only good thing about this is the fact that the class is only a month long and I have less than a week left now. Thank goodness!

Overall, I am feeling pretty optimistic about the class this time. I was definitely embarrassed to have to take a class over with the same professor, but the fact of the matter is, having the same professor actually may work to my advantage. He definitely remembers me from last summer (lol); but he also can see that this time around I am making a lot more progress and grasping the concepts a lot better.

I somehow even managed a B+ on the last exam. Though, last time I checked, a 71% was not a B. At least he curves; he said that he expected the average to be around a 60 or a 70.

I was still a few points below the average grade for the exam, but honestly, I am just thrilled that I am passing. One of the other girls at my table was complaining about some mistake she had made, but she had gotten a 90% on the exam. It seemed absurd to me at the moment; but then I realized that that is exactly the same way I am when it comes to Chemistry or Psychology classes.

I wish I could say that taking the class over makes things a lot easier for me; but that is definitely not the case. I have been staying a couple hours later on lab days to work on homework and get extra help. And even with that, I have still been perpetually late with turning in my homework. But the professor basically said he didn't care when it was turned in, as long as it was getting done.

Also, it took me 3 1/2 hours to take the last exam...there were 4 problems.

It's good knowing that the fruits of my hard work are paying off.

This kind of sucks.

Things have been really busy. Which I knew they were going to be. But right now, I feel like I haven't been able to get a break at all.

It's left my mood in shambles and my body feeling the effects of too much caffiene and too little sleep in an attempt to get everything done.

I had to make the decision to stop going to my ballet class. It really sucks, but it is also kind of a relief. Ballet is something I have always loved and it was a great stress reliever, but taking the class was actually adding to my stress in a lot of ways. I haven't danced in 6 years. And it's kind of frustrating when I am trying to do something as simple as a single pirouette or an assemblé on canvas and can't even do THAT properly. Not to mention I couldn't even remember simple combinations. And I was the oldest there by far. Which shouldn't bother me, but I guess I felt that since I was the oldest one there, I should be the 'best'. I shouldn't be dancing like a beginner again.

It really does feel like a huge dissapointment right now, but my class was 6 hours a week and it was a good 45 minute drive from where I am staying now. Adding that to 15 hours of physics class a week and 20ish hours of work along with church and trying to do homework and studying really made things unbearable.

And I am sure my treatment team is happy lol. The class wasn't the best thing for me in terms of the ED. I guess I underestimated how difficult it would be to have to look at myself in a leotard in a room full of mirrors. Guess I'm not ready for that yet. And we also had ballet 'boot camp'; which was something that excited me for all the wrong reasons.

So there, thats my mini update for now.

The Fahrenheit

This is a video of Hershey Park's new rollercoaster 'The Fahrenheit'. I went on it twice when I went with the youth group last Thursday. It was awesome!

To blog or not to blog? That is the question.

This little rambling is a mix of insomnia and a response to a blog I read a few minutes ago. I always have a hard time figuring out the line between honest and triggering in my posts. The author of the post I read was talking about not being able to go to some blogs because they are too triggering. And of course the first thought that pops into my head is, "Is she talking about me?" Which come to think about it, is a pretty self-centered thought considering all the zillions of blogs she could possibly be refering to.

But it does really make me question my intentions when I am writing about something. I will admit, there have been times where I have been triggered by something and I feel the need to post something relating to weight or behavior to 'prove' the validity of my ED or something to that effect (mostly to myself). For the most part, I am able to catch myself and censor what I want to say so I still can voice how I am feeling without using upsetting language, etc (with a couple glaring exceptions).

All in all, it is a safety mechanism. I feel hurt and/or insecure; I feel flawed, etc. It's really hard to 'fix' all these emotions and thoughts and percieved defects, so I try and fix what seems to be much easier. I try and fix 'fat'.

As I have been typing this, one bible passage has really been popping up in my head. I

1 Corinthians 9:13 - "9Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 10For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? 11So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall."

It's an interesting thing for me to think about. I think it is important for me to feel that I can write freely in this blog and I know that by being open I am able to recieve meaningful feedback, but I also must realize that what I write may be a stumbling block for others. Like I said, it is hard to find the line between honest and triggering. I am going to work on praying to find that line so I do not cause others to stumble.

That is all. The End.

CVS

Yay! As of Tuesday, I am gainfully employed again! I went for an interview at CVS and I was hired on the spot =)

It has been a real pain finding a job, so I have been feeling very thankful as of late. They were unable to offer me a pharmacy tech job, so I am at the front of the store; but they (hopefully) will transition me once they have an opening. Nevertheless, it is a job and my new manager seems to be really nice.

I had training yesterday evening, and tomorrow is my first day of work.

Things are going to get busy around here. In addition to working, my ballet class starts on Monday and I still have therapy on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have nutrition on Tuesdays. I'm still helping out with the youth and then my physics class starts on July 7th.

It will be really nice being busy again. I really hate not having anything to do, so at least I won't be bored!

I ♥ kitties =)

I got all these awesome pictures from http://www.icanhascheezburger.com

I sent this one to Neil <3


This is me in the morning lol














My guess is that cat is pissed!








Poor kitty =(

Out of Nowhere

Have you ever had the experience where you have no idea you are upset until tears are running down your face?

Yeah. Thats sort of what happened to me today. I hate when these things sneak up on me. I was at Neil's though, so he just held me and told me that everything would be ok and that he loved me, and that made me feel a lot better. It's funny how such a simple thing like that gives me such comfort. I really am lucky =)

I'm pretty sure I know what triggered it though. Basically, I was planning on going to a friend's birthday party, but I didn't there was someone who was supposed to be coming that was involved (indirectly) with my trauma.

And I feel like a really crappy person even getting upset over something like that because she didn't technically do anything wrong. It's not even like I am mad at her. It shouldn't matter to me whether or not she is there. I just wish I didn't feel this way and things could feel normal again.

But every time my mind just goes back and it is happening all over. And I can hear her saying to me again, "Don't be upset, it happens to everyone."

Which means to me that what was taken from me was worthless.
...That I'm flawed.
...Dirty.
...Wrong.

Eh. I know that isn't true, and it isn't my fault. And I am sure I am being too emotional and making almost no sense. So I will shut up and try and get some sleep.

Anyways, I heard this new song by Sara Groves the other day. At first I didn't really like it, but I've decided that it is an awesome song.

It Might Be Hope

You do your work the best that you can
You put one foot in front of the other
Life comes in waves and makes it's demands
You hold on as well as your able

You've been here for a long long time

Hope has a way of turning it's face to you
Just when you least expect it
You walk in a room
You look out a window
And something there leaves you breathless
You say to yourself
It's been a while since I felt this
But it feels like it might be hope

It's hard to recall what blew out the flame
It's been dark since you can remember
You talk it all through to find it a name
As days go on by without number

You've been here for a long long time

Hope has a way of turning it's face to you
Just when you least expect it
You walk in a room
You look out a window
And something there leaves you breathless
You say to yourself
It's been a while since I felt this
But it feels like it might be hope

Red

So, I decided it was time for a change. I dyed my hair red again. I really like it. Only thing is I did it myself, so there are a couple parts that are more blondish than red. It's not that noticeable, and I think paying $6 as opposed to $60 makes up for whatever 'imperfections' there are.

Church Brunch (and food in general...)

So today, guess what we had at church? A polka party! Haha, just kidding, we had a brunch (bet you would have never guessed that one). I had every intention of not going...big surprise, lol. I like my routines. I eat breakfast before church, and I have the same thing every day (almost). So going to church and

1) being expected to eat
2) not knowing what there would be to eat and
3) feeling like certain people who know about my ED would be watching me to see how I am 'really' doing (if you are reading this Elise, I'm not talking about you)

Well, that kinda made me really nervous. But with a little encouragement from Neil, I decided to go. Plus, I thought it might be even more conspicuous if I didn't go.

Anyways, I did well. So that did feel nice.

Soooooo, now to food in general. Heh.

I've already got the "What the hell are you doing?!" from my therapist on Thursday. And I am (not) looking forward to getting chewed out by my nutritionist today for my food records.

Lack of structure = Lots of Megan sleeping = Lots of not eating.

So the new equation should be to add an alarm to the mix and hope for the best.

Perhaps I was sleeping a lot because I moved myself out all by myself. I guess this doesn't sound too unusual, but it really speaks volumes considering I wasn't even able to push my cart two years ago moving out.

Anyways, we've already established that I feel like crap when I don't eat. And it gets me nowhere. So I have done better over the weekend and such. And I'm supposed to start doing back-to-scale. Part of the doing not-so-well definitely had something to do with the 'high' of seeing the number drop.

So, I don't totally suck at life

Yay. I was really upset for the last couple of weeks over a paper I had written. It was based on an article that might as well been written in Greek. This can be told be the title of the paper, 'Synergistic Roles of Antibody and Interferon in Noncytoclytic Clearance of Sindibis Virus from Different Regions of The Central Nervous System'. And interestingly enough, I have seen articles with much longer titles.

So, I did what I do best...procrastinate. Not totally, I spent hours trying to decipher what the article meant, but I did not start the paper until the night before it was due. Oops?

Basically we had to explain the article in a page and a half or less and then devise a new experiment based on what was missing from the article. And since I don't even have a BS, I was definitely not confident that whatever hypothesis I came up with would make any sense or not be totally stupid.

It was due at 5 pm. I turned it in a 4:58. And then I realized around 5:30 that I had not made the margins 1" all around, and in the rubric, that means it would not even be graded and would have to be resubmitted late. But on the bright side, I got to try and add some stuff to my paper and make it more complete. But I still thought I didn't do a good job.

Apparently not. I got a perfect score and the comment, "Very solid paper. Good job!" So that made me feel good. And when I reread it, it did seem like a professional paper (IMHO).

And since I am a dork, I am going to post it.

Burdeinick-Kerr et al. (2007) examined the roles of antibodies and interferons in clearing infection of Sindibis Virus (SINV) from different parts of the central nervous system (CNS). The purpose of this experiment was to look at the roles of specific parts of the adaptive and innate immune system. SINV is an alphavirus from the family Togaviridae that is transmitted by mosquitoes and is related to eastern (EEE) and western equine encephalitis (WEE) viruses. Alphaviruses are single stranded positive sense RNA viruses that are enveloped and present icosahedral symmetry. SINV presents symptoms such as a flu-like fever, polyarthritis and rashes in humans. However, in mice, SINV targets the neurons of the central nervous system (CNS), causes encephalomyelitis and is potentially fatal.

To facilitate this experiment, researchers examined mice that were wild type (WT), mice with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), beta interferon (IFN-β) knockout (BKO), IFN-γ knockout (GKO), IFN-γ receptor knockout (GRKO), antibody knockout (μMT), and antibody and IFN-α knockout (?MT/GKO) mice. IFN-β? are essential to the early innate immune response, and without it, mice deficient in these die before they can mount a specific immune response. IFN-β/γ and IFN-γ are all necessary for antibody mediated clearance of the virus.

SCID mice cleared infection of SINV in all parts of the CNS through passive transport of antibodies, but the production of virus increased as the levels of antibody decreased. Thus, they did not clear any virus from any part of the CNS, but presented no signs of neurological disease. WT mice, however, were able to clear infection within eight days.

The lack of IFN-β in BKO mice did not affect the production of IFN-α in the CNS and therefore did not affect SINV clearance or recovery.

Both GKO and GRKO mice cleared the virus from the brain, brain stem and lumbar spinal cord, but this clearance was not maintained. GKO mice had virus in the brain or brain stem and GRKO mice had virus in the lumbar spinal cord.

μMT mice were able to clear infections from the brain stem and spinal cord, but not the brain itself. These mice also experienced reactivation of the infection in all areas of the CNS. However, the levels of virus were lower than SCID and μMT/GKO mice.

μMT/GKO mice were unable to clear SINV from the brain, but the levels of virus were lower than with SCID mice. Initially, μMT/GKO mice were able to clear SINV in the brain stem, but levels of virus rose after 18 to 22 days. Clearance of SINV in the spinal cord was slow, and at day 12, 2/3 of the mice had not cleared the infection.

This experiment provides many practical implications for understanding the respective roles of antibodies and interferons in mounting a successful immune response. IFN-β was important in controlling the replication of SINV in the CNS, but had no role in the clearance of the virus. Antibody production was useful in clearing SINV from the brain, but did not prevent persistent infection. IFN-γ was important in clearing SINV from the brain stem and spinal cord and was implicated in prevention of persistent infection of the host. The role of IFN-γ or γ was most apparent with the μMT mice. Even though it seemed as if WT, GKO and GRKO mice had completely cleared SINV, at around day 12 there was virus replicating in all of the mice. Because there was some reactivation of the virus, it is likely that the viral RNA in the CNS is persistent, even with adequate immune response.

An important question that was not answered is what are the specific functions of IFN-β, as compared to IFN-α? And what is the combined effect of missing both IFN-β and IFN-α? Mice that are missing the receptors for IFN succumb to alphavirus infection before an acquired immune response can be mounted.

To complete this experiment, IFN-α knockout (AKO), IFN-β knockout (BKO), AKO/BKO, WT and SCID mice would be used, with the WT mice being the control. The AKO, BKO, WT, and SCID mice could be bought and the AKO/BKO mice could be bred. Tail snips would be digested from each of the mice and they would be genotyped by using PCRs. SINV would be injected intracerebrally (i.c.) into mice that were 4 weeks old and tissue cultures would be taken from the brain, brain stem and spinal cord. These tissue cultures would be serially diluted and go under plaque formation to find the amount of infectious virus present. An enzyme immunoassay (EIA) would be used to analyze the presence and amounts of immunoglobulin M (IgM), IgG, IgG1, IgG2a, and IgG2b in each region of the CNS (brain, brain stem, and spinal cord). The tissues from each of the EIA would be centrifuged as well and then would be assayed for IFN- α and IFN-β.

Another important question that was not answered was what additional factors relate to clearance; focusing on the differences between clearance of SINV by ?MT/GKO and SCID mice. SCID mice lack any kind of acquired immune response; they have neither B nor T cells. Essentially, they are completely defenseless against viral infection. ?MT/GKO mice also have a number of things that make them vulnerable to virus attack. Not being able to produce antibodies is the result of mature B cells not being produced. The mice are not only lacking mature B cells, but also are deficient in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. This issue is made more obvious by the fact that these mice cannot secrete cytokines (IFN-γ). This suggests that there is some other role of B cells other than production of antibodies that helps with clearance of virus.

Present research suggests that there are some other antiviral factors that are important in clearance of the virus in addition to antibodies. A previous study by Lysenko (2005) observed that the action of complement and neutrophil-like cells were independent of antibody presence and adaptive immunity in the clearance of S. pneumoniae. Other cytokine factors may be useful in resisting viral infection. In vitro, Tumor necrosis factor alpha TNF-α, interleulkin-1 (IL-1) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) have contributed to helping to fight infection, but their role in vivo is not well known. The present study used TNF-α and IL-6 to test for cytokine production.

An experiment that could be used to test the hypothesis that the previous factors are useful in viral clearance would be to use μMT/GKO mice as a control and then look at the effects of removing each factor and the effect that has on viral clearance and their relation to SCID mice. The experiment would be very similar to the one described above; creating a knockout strain of mouse for TFN-α and IL-6. A complement protein that could be targeted for knockout would be the membrane cofactor protein (CD46).

There would be 5 groups overall, the control group (μMT/GKO), TFN-α knockout (TAKO), IL-6 knockout (ILKO), CD46 knockout (CKO) and SCID mice. Their genomes would be found through PCR. Mice that were 4 months old would be given SINV i.c. and tissue cultures would be taken from the brain stem, the spinal cord and the brain and these cultures would be serially diluted and plaqued to find the amount of virus present. Since these defenses against SINV are antibody-independent, EIA/ELISA would not be a good candidate to assay this experiment. A better technique would be to use ELISPOT to assay for the activity of TNF-α, IL-6 and CD46.

If the hypothesis is correct that these defenses are antibody- independent, the levels of virus will be increased from the control and will be closer to the levels of the SCID mice. This experiment would help to illustrate how truly complex our immune systems are and would demonstrate that having many different defenses against viral attack is essential because if one thing goes wrong, the host will have other backup defenses and can fight off the attack.


Works Cited
Elena S Lysenko, Adam J Ratner, Aaron L Nelson, and Jeffrey N Weiser. The Role of Innate Immune Responses in the Outcome of Interspecies Competition for Colonization of Mucosal Surfaces. PLoS Pathog. 2005 September; 1(1): e1.

Rainforest

Yayyyyyy.

Caffeine

Created by OnePlusYou

...I wonder what this says about my caffeine 'habit'. Lol. And I haven't even had any coffee today.

APO Family

Yay. I now have not one, but TWO littles. And a grand-little =) I am definitely very happy about this. My family had 'died' off; my big left the semester after I got initiated, my first little hasn't been active (I hope she will be next semester though *crosses fingers*). Then her little transferred to another college. So when I was active again this semester, I was family-less.

Buttttt, we have a new brother who transferred from Dickinson, and I adopted her into my family. Then, someone in APO who had a little decided that they had too much on their plate now, so I took his little. Coincidentally, it is one of my amazing friends, and I was actually the one who got her to pledge. So yayyyyy.

We have no family name though. We were thinking something like 'The Fuzzy Ostriches' or something...lol. It needs to be something random.

Procrastination

I'm supposed to be finishing a paper now. It's a two part paper - analyze a journal article and then find what it is missing and create a new experiment. The title of my article is "Synergistic Roles of Antibody and Interferon in Noncytolytic Clearance of Sindibis Virus from Different Regions of the Central Nervous System."

Yech. I had a hard enough time translating that into English, lol. Ok, it wasn't quite that bad...I only had to look up a few terms, but in my opinion, that article is definitely not light reading. We had to get our articles approved, and my prof told me that it was a little on the hard side, but to go for it. I should have told him I would find something else. Lol.

The limit of the paper is 5 pages. I'm the type of person that uses LOTS of details, so its going to be a challenge for me to be concise. I finished analyzing the article and putting it into my own words. But now I have to figure out what is missing from the paper?? I have no idea. Augh.

Well if anyone has an epiphany and thinks of a novel way to look at the differences between SCID mice and μMT/GKO mice and somehow test this...let me know. And while you're at it...just pretend you are me for the rest of the semester.

Kisses

see more crazy cat pics