It happened ad detours.

The project assignment process was recently reorganized to ensure fairness. Still, in the allotment of projects it seems that making everyone happy/evading complaints is more important than fairness. The result is a ratrace like before where the demanding students choose first, only now covertly and unpredictably. As a qualified and less-noisy candidate I was “relocated” multiple times, until I too knocked the door to say; sorry but this is not what I was expecting. And was offered a brand new, shiny project that had never been mentioned before, at the head cancer centre in Northern Europe. What’s to learn from all this? Sharpen your elbows and doors will open?

So I’ve spent the evening trying to find out what this all is really about, and in addition to a recent article on the mathematics of tanning, found what will be my best friend in the protein world for the foreseeable future:

Curly, colorful cartoon

This little guy is called S100A4 and he is exceedingly uncanny. Although devoted serious amounts of laboratory time, it keeps its purpose and daily duties a secret. Yet somehow; if you have a cancer, you really want to have S100A4 as patients who have it live. Who are you, mysterious molecule?

EDIT: Quite the contrary, the gene turns out to be so strongly correlated with death in cancers that it is postulated as a diagnostic marker. This is why you should not trust Wikipedia.

Both advisors seem very sympathetic. The professor is an accomplished veteran who was happy to host a student who could get some work done, and appreciated my eagerness to get started.

My 2. home for the next good year

Niceness.

I am a very blessed person.

So what do you do? [Icebreaker phrase alarm! Aight, I know what's coming]
-Biochemistry. (The degree is really called Biotechnology, but biochem more/less covers it and saves some definition of terms to someone who’s not terribly interested anyway. Also, it’s easier to pronounce.)
-Whoah! *drawing slightly back* Science is so hard! Why do you do it?

That is the standard response. For the first; I only said what field I’m in, not whether I’m any good at it so no need for awe. For the second; it’s a lot easier than medicine or engineering, and I prefer it over human sciences because it’s dependable and replicable and I like hard facts. For the third, I can make living things glow in the dark. Isn’t that reason enough?

Glowing Mushrooms

Also, in a few years I can titulate myself [roaring voice] Master of Science [/roaring voice].