A Viral Story

This break, I am looking at Yale medical labs that look interesting in the hopes of find a lab to do research at this summer. I am especially interested in a particular lab that focuses on how retroviruses, the family of virus that includes HIV, infect cells. While I was starting to read through some of the research papers that this lab has published, despite the papers being no Harry Potters and requiring more google searches (to understand certain terms) than a final exam (which needs google searches for procrastination's sake), they had an undeniable narrative. Badass, secretive retroviruses infilitrate immune cells and take over the cell's machinery. While this of course, is a well known tale, it gets more interesting as the lab begins to provide additional narrative detail. See cells that are attacked by retroviruses aren't as much military bases like Fort Sumter, which if captured simply provide ammunition and weapons for the virsues's machinations. No, immune cells are like naval ships, a la pirates of the carribean. If retroviruses can seize control of immune cells the lab has shown, it can steer and extend membrane connections, similar to rope ladders, to connect to a nearby immune-cell/ship, and 10 times more efficiently infilitrate and take over that cell/ship that it is in contact with. If the Cold War was America vs. Retroviruses, not only would we have been fighting a naval battle as aforementioned, but containment would have been an essentially pragmatic and necessary paradigm. The battle strategy would necessarily have included cutting down the rope bridges between ships a.k.a. inhibiting the formation of membrane connections that facilitate transfer of HIV virus (which the lab has shown can be done). These fairly choppy, incoherent analogies are just from a brief skimming of two papers, but I can't wait to uncover additional narration (hopefully I can even spend all summer unraveling the story if there is an opening in this lab that would allow me to work in it).

I got to be honest, though, maybe this post is at some level inspired by my unceasing desire to be like Barack Obama. To see how Obama might see the world with a narrative-frame-of mind, read this really inetersting article http://www.gq.com/news-politics/politics/200911/barack-obama-writing-books-writer-robert-draper?printable=true (I found this article on an awesome blog called givemesomethingtoread.com, a blog which I found out about from Sean--thanks Sean!)

Born to Love Running

On my flight back to California, I read a book titled "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen." The hidden tribe the book refers to is the Tarahumara tribe from Northern Mexico (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara). The tribe is renowned for its ability to run loooooooooooooooong distances (up to 160 km or 99.5 miles in a day according to wikipedia). To be honest, I read the book a little out of default. I was looking for a good book to take out from the Yale library to read on the plane ride, and after finding all the books I had recorded on my post-it-note of books-to-read were not available in the library (Yale allowing you to take out 150 books at a time for a month or so is great for academic papers, but it makes things rather competitive and difficult when it comes to taking out popular, more leisurely works), I moved on to books that looked interesting from the New York Times Best Seller list. Born to run was really the only one available in the library. To make the story a little more romantic, I had to go all the way up to the fourth-floor (and the auxiliary wing of the fourth floor) of our largest and most labrythian library, Sterling Memorial Library, in order to find the book--so I myself traveled long distances to find this book. The book was filled with interesting characters and annecdotes--but what I took away most from the book the was the depiction that Tarahumara really love to run. I can't imagine running 100 miles in a day, but I suppose it only makes sense that if you are going to run 100 miles in a day, you are probably going to have to love doing so. I am tempted to apply this lesson to the gym...but I gotta be honest, I just don't love running on treadmills. And I'm not going to love running on treadmills. It's not going to happen. But like the Tarahurama love a central logistic of their life, running, maybe I can come to have a similar exuberant love for the primary logistics of my life--car rides, home-work, chores, blog updating (kidding about the blog updating--not a central chore and I already enjoy it). We'll see, we'll see.

Writing Block

I haven't posted on my blog for quite a while, and to tell you the truth, nothing really jumps out at me to write now. Which is to say, the only thing that jumps out is that I don't really have anything in particular to say. I think that is a product of the vastness of potential thoughts, rather than a lack of opportunities for thought. In economics, my professor briefly mentioned how thought might be one of the few things that is not 'scarce'-- in other words, thought doesn't appear to be something you allocate per se. I mean you allocate your time, and thus to a certain extent, you can allocate time for thinking about different things, but you don't have a discrete quantity of thought, independent of time, that you allocate to different purposes. All the same, I too often forget this. I am intensely impatient when it comes to thoughts and discussions--I love to read and to think and to discuss, but if a novel, radio program, or even preson loses the train of thought I find relevant....well, the 'offending' party might as well have put on a red sox hat. It's hard to exactly define what I find 'relevant' but I think it relates to my rigid if general idea of what is important as well as an ability to affect the subject I am thinking about. Perhaps this impatience and devotion to relevance is truly a concession to the limits of time: I feel like I only have so much time, I need to spend it thinking about important things I can affect. But given the quantity of time I have devoted to watching Entourage, my guess is that it's not really an allocation of time thing. That's not to say that it is not related to time-- I think the combination of the infinite space of thought and the finite space of time react to form a debilitating fear. My impatience with 'irrelevant' thought is a product of the desire to do, conquer, think everything and a related fear of a fail in my pursuit of everything. Since thought is so vast, and I canot think everything, the only way I have come to differentiate between what I should think about and should not think about...wait, I guess this is an allocation which makes thought scarce by association with time. All right, fine, thought is scarce! But it isn't that scarce... So, as I was saying, the only way I have to differentiate between what I should think about and not think about is to use the metric of what is 'relevant.' But while I might not be able to think about everything, thought is not so scarce as to limit to narrow relevance. Especially because even given my prior definition of relevance, it is hard to know what will be relevant in the future. There's not too many things that aren't very scarce, (a lack of scarcity is quite scarce...hehe) so I might as well take advantage of thought. So here's to a lavish indulgence of irrelevant thought in the future.

1st the worst, Second the Best, Third the One with the Holliday Gift Suggestion

Wow. I've learned a lot in the last few weeks, and for brevity (which is clearly my strong-suit), I will resort to an itemized format-Top Three Things I've learned this week.

1. Stanford (Men's Basketball) is going to have an entertaining season. Okay, maybe this shouldn't be first, but they JUST lost to a buzzer-beating shot...and it's very, very painful :(.

2. From Cog-Sci (and then a little more from NPR): Our decisions are influenced by a number of non-logical, non-rational factors. Things such as whether we hold a warm or a cold cup of coffee for just a second or two can heavily influence things like whether we judge a person, based on a few sentence description, friendly or non-friendly. There are likely tens of thousands (that's just a made up estimate, but it sounds impressively accurate) of these seemingly bizarre correlations, ingrained by evolution (and quirk effects of evolution), and we are unlikely to discover all of them in my mind. To find out more, including why holding a cup of warm coffee might be correlated with friendship I highly recommend the NPR Radiolab program on decisions: you can find all of Radiolabs programs at http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/ (product placement for NPR baby!) Some people have suggested this strongly challenges the notion of conscious free-will (since there are so many of these correlations that are unknowingly and strongly influencing our decisions). I take a much more moderate approach. For many decisions, I know am not fully and rationally thinking about why I make them--and I think it is quite likely that these 'heuristics' are influencing my decisions in non-rational ways--and I am not overly concerned. I know my choice of cereal is a matter of non-rational, emotional love--it's not conscious free-will, it's destiny! I nonetheless believe, however, that for more significant decisions, while some of these heuristics are nonetheless influential, rationality and consciousness can be the most influential components. At a minimum, our own consciousness of rationality suggests it plays at least a partial role (unless it is a post-fact phenomenon, but I doubt this, but I'll leave that topic out for now). Further, I think by learning some of these heuristics, we can be aware and attenuate their impact (if it is harmful) in our more important decisions.

3. From Constitution Class (section): The official Washington D.C. License Plate has the moniker "taxation without representation." My prediction: this stuff is going to be more popular than tickle-me-elmo was in 2001 this holliday season.


I think that's going to do for tonight. Much more to come tomorrow night

Lab Report

So I've been 'working' for 30 minutes now, and I have the header "Results and Calculations: Part 1." Productive 1/2 hour. I think I need to learn how to study on Friday nights for the next couple of weeks.

Grassroots Philosopher

Hey!

So the first open-slam for Teeth (website) is next Friday, November 13th, which is pretty exciting. I've been working for a while on the first poem I will perform for the slam (if it goes well, I will perform another poem for the final round of the slam).

I think this poem has a lot more imagery than past poem's, so I like it in that sense. I've also been trying to play a little more with word-play, which resulted in a trade-off with a little less syllable structure and rhyme scheme. So those are just stylistic things, but hopefully the main component of any of my spoken words is always the structuring through vocalization of a sort-of-abstract idea I've been mulling over, so I hope you get a good sense of the idea! And with that, I've wasted enough blog space, so I'll paste my poem below. Hopefully after the show, I'll have a video of my performance to post.


Will this one’s for you.
See Will Shakespeare says “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
And while I didn’t particularly like Romeo and Juliet in school
I promise it’s not for lack of love
When I say I can’t agree with Shakespeare
Because if only all men and women were players
Were actors
But take me for example
Me, I’m not yet an actor
Me, I’m just a wannabe
I’m just a wannabe good in life cuz that alone would suffice
I’m just a grass-roots philosopher
Theorizing on what’s wrong and what’s righter
I guess that’s what makes me a Writer
So I write this as I continue to ponder
Hoping that through thought, I become stronger
Knowing that it’s damn cliché to take life as fodder
When you realize that thought goes much broader
I hereby certify I understand,
But I also stand under
the weight of being a wannabe
Because if you stopped me today, see
And you asked me for what this life is
If you asked me for my two cents
I’d be compelled to ask you to take a mail-in rebate
Because I couldn’t quite provide you with fate
But I wouldn’t leave you empty-handed
I’d tell you sir or ma’am, I’ve been branded
Right where my ventricle conjoins with my amygdala
And if you look close enough, you can see it
I haven’t sold out, so the brand isn’t commercial
No the brand is philosophical
And I wear my philosophy on my sleeves
I just don’ know what to do with my sleeves
So they just hang there with their insignia proclaiming
“I’m just a wannabe,”
And I know as a wannabe
With my two, too-long philosophical sleeves
I make a sight that’s little more
Than a child dressed up in a Self-Righteous costume
Hoping that all the now-closed doors I knock on
Give way to treats, not tricks
Illumination, not confusion
And I know like all wannabe’s
I’m little more than a cacophony of loud uncertainty
But I promise that I’m a unique brand of wannabe
a wannabe good in life
A grass-roots philosopher
Theorizing on what’s wrong and what’s righter
Compelled by my realization that this life is valuable
And I keep an open mind, but that point is non-negotiable
So let me repeat
This life is valuable
See I contend sometimes we’re too preoccupied with studying what’s inherent
With our A,C,T and G’s
the lettered building blocks of DNA
And for good and edifying reasons
But it’s been established
That l-i-f-e is more than the four letters in the word
More than the four letters of DNA
More than what’s endowed from the start
You see reality is far more than a sum of inherencies
And I’m not implying life does not have a sufficient, inherent meaning
Endowed from God or religion, objective and ad perpetuum
I’m just saying if that’s the case
I couldn’t prove it
But I’m not overly concerned
Because if life has no-inherent meaning
Then life at birth is simply a blank refrigerator door, definitely stainless steel, probably modern and chic
but also barren
And it is no more right to add the fridge magnets and pictures and notes
It’s just more beautiful
You see without an inherent, objective meaning
If our refrigerator door does not come
With alphabetic magnets that spell out destiny
It is no more right for me to leave the doors un-lettered
Than to arrange the colored magnets thematically
To spell out love or human rights or happiness
If I am not tasked a task
That leaves me the victim of a beautiful strife
To decide to write or not to write the poem of my life
To be or not to be
And I’ll be straight up I’ve chosen Shakespeare
But just like I can really only scan Shakespeare
Stopping to Glance at the left-hand definitions of old-English words
I can only point to an fMRI scan of my life’s script
and show you right there, right there where the image lights up like a neon site proclaiming “We’re open.” That’s where my life has meaning
and I can tell you with my personal assumptions
I’ve localized the meaning of life to
in the simplest terms-being good.
But like the scientist that can’t explain
the mechanism that produces that thought
lit up in the fMRI scan
I couldn’t tell you how I plan about validating my meaning of life—of being “good.”
And it east me up like there’s a 100 undergrads converging on free food
Until I’m left footing the bill working as a wannabe
A Wannabe good in life
A grass roots philosopher theorizing on what’s wrong and what’s righter
And I know that makes me loud and self-righteous
Unsure and cocky
But I assure you
That's only because I do believe
in Shakespere's Vision
in which all the men and women can be actors
So I’m working and growing
And my manuscript will be written
And then I’ll be able to see through Shakespeare’s eyes
And I’ll be ready to join the Thesbians
Through my actions I too will become an actor
And that’s a reassuring thought
Because they say a picture is worth a thousand words
And I spit cuz I don't that's true
But I do know an act is worth at least a thousand pictures.
So right now I’m just a wannabe
All moralizing sentiments and hand-drawn pictures of righteousness
But one-day I’ll just be an actor.
And, so Will, this one’s for you.

Spoken Word Updates!

So a few updates on how spoken word is going. I'm part of a group on campus called Teeth http://www.teethpoets.com/Members.html (I'll be up there soon!), which is quite exciting. Yale has many, many incredible spoken word poets and it's been a pleasure to watch them perform and learn from them. A couple of spoken word groups also worked together to bring in a very talented professional poet, Shihan, to campus today, and his performance was AMAZING. You can check out one of his poems at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LusRcLdvDgc. I figure I also owe you guys a poem, but I can't quite show you a new one I'm working on, because it's really not ready, but here's a significantly edited version of an earlier poem (well, a significant addition was added). It's called ingratiating for gratitude.

I’ve never been ravished by foreclosure before
And I in no way mean to make light of the plight
But I can’t help imagining the angle between my actions and foreclose runs 180 degrees
Parallel.
Because while my announcement is not white wood with a flap swinging in the breeze
Sharp point planted in the grass, so seemingly mundane
But Bank Name seared into the hanging plane
My signs are no less vivid nor clashing.
I too, am desperate to unload to any reasonable buyer
An artificially low outcome doesn’t seem too dour
I’m constantly putting myself up for auction
I just want to regain somethin’
My foreclosure though wasn’t caused by a contracting economy that’s appalling
A loss of work, or income that that was free-falling
My foreclosure was the result of adding another job
You see Currently
I’m selling out.
Which is funny cuz there’s not even money
But I assure you
I’m selling out
And I’m looking for an out
[…]
Split and sautéed in a sauce that’s pooled
But I still expect my auto ten percent gratuity
Cuz this, this must be a large enough party
And im hoping you like me even more
Cash in another ten percent at the door
But then here’s how the evening was usurped
See, you’re ticked off wish you were in Europe
Where the only things that are tips, are the extremity of an object
And I, I’m wishing I was working on a new project
Because speaking of objects, there’s more than that I’d like to see
See, I’m still just a waiter
But I’ve waited far too long for this obsession to abate
So I don’t mean to hate,
But I strongly dislike
I’d like for it to take a hike
This predilection where I’m constantly estimating if I’m liked
So no, I don’t have a resume or an alternate frame of view
But I assure you, I’m looking for something new.
Because I know if I can shed this current work.
My progressively mortgaged me can be regained
The judge ruling this foreclosure was just insane.