Doing Great
Sunday, May 25
167.2 lbs (from 162.6 lbs on Dec 28) | 🏃🏻 Done (6/6) | ★★★★★
After a great morning workout, I headed to Arsicault Bakery (1070 Bridgeview Way, San Francisco, CA 94158) with a friend. The place is popular, so there were about 10–15 people in line when we arrived. Although Arsicault has another location downtown, this newly opened Mission Bay spot is packed with people. The shop was so clean, and the pastries were fantastic. We ordered a croissant, a kouign-amann, and a cold-cut sandwich (ham, sun-dried tomato, cheese, can’t recall its exact name but it was the best). Everything was delicious!
The rest of the day was a flurry of emails and an impromptu Zoom meeting with the PIs from my first and second rotations. Fortunately, they both have a good impression of me (all that effort paid off!), and they’re enthusiastic about co-advising me. The third lab also has a lot going for it, so I’m still weighing my options, but the joint project the first two labs proposed sounds genuinely exciting. At least the big worry of finding a thesis lab is gone, which is a huge relief. Now I just need to consider my priorities and make the best decision.
Monday, May 26
167.8 lbs (from 162.6 lbs on Dec 28) | 🏃🏻 Rest (0/6) | ★★★★
Outside of Work
Today is a national holiday (Memorial Day), and even the gym was closed, but I still went to the lab to get some work done. Afterward, I worked on slides for a team presentation in my Friday class. Nothing special happened, but I realized that biological experiments require so much waiting between steps. It would be great to combine chemistry or even computation to fill these gaps. To be honest, running parallel biology experiments alone would suffice, but for me it feels more difficult than planning several chemistry experiments, perhaps because of their complexity and the inherently longer pacing of biology workflows. I hope I become familiar with everything soon.
Lab Work
[Biology]
- Chemoproteomics: Treating Probes, Getting the Pellet
Tuesday, May 27
168.0 lbs (from 162.6 lbs on Dec 28) | 🏃🏻 Done (1/6) | ★★★★☆
Outside of Work
It’s been a while since I went for a morning run. I can definitely feel my belly getting bigger, which is obviously not good 🤣 I want to return to my original ambitious morning gym routine: weight training six times a week, a quick run, and at least one swimming session on the weekend. I still have a cough, but today was quite good, probably because I’ve been diligently taking my medicine. I bought the one mentioned above and definitely feel better with taking ibuprofen three times a day.
Although today’s experiment finished quickly around 3 p.m., I spent the rest of the time preparing for Friday’s presentation. Because I’m in charge of explaining the principles of proteomics, I need to understand every aspect of the experiment, so I have to dig in. After I got home, I continued working on my Flask Talk slides, which is another presentation I have to give in front of all (theoretically) CCB students. I’m so nervous!
Lab Work
[Biology]
- Chemoproteomics: lysis, removal of endogenous biotinylated proteins, click chemistry, overnight protein precipitation
Wednesday, May 28
168.6 lbs (from 162.6 lbs on Dec 28) | 🏃🏻 Done (2/6) | ★★★★☆
Outside of Work
Nothing special, but my cough was worse today, especially right after I woke up. It comes in paroxysms even though I’ve been taking cough medicine. I booked a doctor’s appointment because I don’t want to cough during my Flash Talk and Exit Talk and ruin them. Fortunately, I was able to get a slot on 6/2 (next Monday) afternoon. Hopefully, I’ll feel much better by then.
I managed to go to the gym, but it was hard to concentrate because of the cough, although it improved after working out. I don’t know what the problem is 🤨 Anyway, I took a class, discussed and finalized our group presentation with my team, grabbed lunch at home, and did my experiment. I headed to the Hub, left my stuff, had dinner at home, showered, returned to the Hub, and prepared slides for Friday’s presentation. I found a gorgeous! protein image from the Kortemme Lab and wondered which PyMOL representation options they used. Nothing special, but it was a productive day. Hopefully I’ll finish soon and feel genuinely free. Oh I also got a new humidifier, which I hope will help me a lot.
Lab Work
[Biology]
- Chemoproteomics: solubilize proteins, normalize protein concentration by BCA, overnight streptavidin enrichment
Thursday, May 29
🏃🏻 Missed (2/6) | ★★★☆
Outside of Work
Yesterday my cough became severe, so I skipped today’s workout. Other than that, nothing special happened; I finished my lab work quickly and focused on preparing my presentation. I’ve given far more presentations here than I did during my master’s in Korea, and I’m realizing that explaining concepts and techniques clearly to a general audience is much harder than I thought.
I keep thinking of the saying (whether it was Einstein or Feynman) that if you can’t explain something simply, you don’t truly understand it. The problem isn’t English; even when I explain things in Korean (though it is certainly easier), it still isn’t perfect. It’s fundamentally an issue of understanding. I’m not the quickest thinker, so I’ve always relied more on persistence than brilliance. Still, once my research direction is settled, I’ll have to explain it thousands of times to countless people, and I believe I’ll get much better. (Photo: delicious tacos with lab members 😄)
Lab Work
[Biology]
- Chemoproteomics: bead washing, protein denaturation, iodoacetamide capping, and overnight on-bead trypsin digestion
Friday, May 30
🏃🏻 Done (3/6) | ★★★★
Outside of Work
Finished the presentation well (it was really low-key, maybe because the class doesn’t grade us at all), then quickly wrapped up my lab work before meeting the professor whose lab I’ll rotate in first to discuss a possible joint thesis project. The meeting went very well, and he thought it would make a great, ambitious thesis. I’ll meet another professor to hear their opinion and maybe finalize my thesis lab (co-advising or my current lab). I strongly feel I want to gain more expertise in computation, especially AI, during my PhD, which is why I’m leaning toward the first option. However, my current lab is also great, as the professor has a clear blueprint for a potential thesis project that interests me too!
After the meeting, I stopped by a dorm for a cohort friend’s birthday party, chatted for a bit, then did a late workout and rested at home. My blog posts have been postponed recently…😛 I have to finish at least a week’s worth this weekend. Exit talk season always seems to push me behind.
Lab Work
[Biology]
- Chemoproteomics: several thorough washes to get rid of all unmodified peptides
Saturday, May 31
167.0 lbs (from 162.6 lbs on Dec 28) | 🏃🏻 Done (4/6) | ★★★★☆
Another productive day. I got plenty of sleep, did a hard push workout in the morning, prepped my meals, and did a thorough cleaning. I relaxed with a 깡촌캉스—my favorite 핑계고 YouTube series after 풍향고. I guess I love these low-stimulus, calm travel vlogs; they just chat about trivial things, but they make me feel relaxed and entertained. I also wrote a blog post.
