The Hygiene Hypothesis

One more belated post from last summer, written after returning from the lab retreat to Todtmoos:

That wonderful hygiene hypothesis, David Strachan's theory that suggests that childhood (and general) exposure to germs, allergens, etc. is actually beneficial for your immune system, may have been the highlight of my weekend. It's just the easiest way to justify the majority of the time spent at the Ph.D. and summer student IMPRS (International Max Planck Research School) retreat this past weekend.

This weekend was surreal, put simply. On Friday morning at 9 a.m., my friends and I ran out of lab, where we'd been sleepily [insert here: splitting cells/collecting virgin flies/doing something with fish], and out in front of the Institute, where a large bus and about 30 -40 Ph.D. students, as well as 4 other summer students were waiting. After a long, winding bus ride, through some supposedly beautiful hills, though I wouldn't know -- the number of pictures accumulating of me sleeping on buses/trains is getting to be embarrassing -- we arrived at our home for the weekend.

From Friday at 10 until Sunday at 1:30 p.m., we all lived in a mini-alternate reality, entirely forgetting the potential stress of labwork, and instead focusing on the intricacies and the creativity of the science that lies behind it, as well as on the diverse and fascinating people who work at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology.

During those three days, each Ph.D. student gave a brief presentation of his/her work, and I cannot think of a better closing presentation than Sebastian's slideshow on Schistosoma. His explanation of the hygiene hypothesis justified our weekend's adventures, including:

1) taking a 2-hour hike/jog/walk through the Schwartzwald and going occasionally off-road to explore the streams and forests around us

2) feeling like little kids again and rolling down the hill outside our retreat home

3) more or less covering ourselves (accidentally) in the soot next to the campfire, as we sang along to English & German songs, and roasted marshmallows (and introduced some people to marshmallows for the first time)

4) sharing face paint, drinks, and lots of food as we watched Germany beat Argentina, 4-0

5) playing some very intense badminton, complete with diving facefirst in the grasses outside our house

While living and speaking with the scientists of MPI during our retreat, I remember one particular moment of clarity, as I watched my friends from Argentina, Germany, and Canada converse -- it struck me how incredibly fortunate I was to have spent two summers abroad, and how much I have changed and learned from those around me during those summers. I hope that throughout the rest of my life I continue to meet people who influence me and challenge me to re-consider the way I view the world, in the way my friends and colleagues from Germany and Switzerland have done.

The Cycle of Life

A much-belated, and never posted due to some kind of distraction while writing, blog from Freiburg last summer:

I've had a request for more cheesy titles (you know who you are). Not entirely sure this one makes that much sense, but it's late at night, and I have lots of feelings to share, all revolving around my bicycle, so here goes.

Cycling in Freiburg is unbelievable. And I finally understand the biking craze that's hit some of my friends in the Have/all over. But cycling here is entirely different from at Yale. First of all, if you want to travel anywhere, a bike is crucial. My friends and I live in the Industriegebiet, the industrial area, and it's a good 15 - 20 minute bike ride outside the city center (10- 15 minutes if, hypothetically, you overslept, went to lab later than you intended to, and then found yourself frantically cycling to catch a train as soon as you finished collecting flies). Walking is impractical and the tram is slow and gets expensive (2,10 euros one-way). The last tram runs at 00:30, so if you want to stay out late, it means walking or biking back home, and walking 40 minutes at 2 a.m. isn't all that appealing.

Also, the drivers here, and the entire city, are extremely respectful of bikers. Nearly every road has a lane for bikers, and drivers are in constant communication with bikers so that, from what I've seen, they're often willing to yield or hang back on a tight street. I feel entirely comfortable biking in Freiburg in a way I never have on streets in the U.S.

And it's not just the teenagers who want to stay out and party all night and then bike home who own cycles -- I've seen people from ages 5 - 65 biking through the city. My personal favorite, though, is the ~40-year-old type who bikes home from work in his full suit and rides with a perfectly straight back and no hands. Jealous.

For me, though, a major part of the excitement of biking here is that it's not just a sweaty athletic sport done from time to time in exercise shorts and sneakers. Biking has simply become a part of daily life, a constant athleticism that is shared by everyone in this city (or so it feels).

But, of course, for all my raving about biking, it's not entirely foolproof. And so, juuust in case anything happens, I bought a helmet yesterday that makes all my friends proud to ride alongside me (also known as, Abi threatened to never again ride alongside me). Really, only photos can do it justice, so until my camera returns, you'll have to sit in suspense.

All The Single Ladies

Confession: when I sat down a few mornings ago to begin sorting out virgin female flies, I realized that Beyonce's "Single Ladies" had begun to play in my head. Embarrassing.

But currently, the song is appropriate for my work in the lab. I feel a little bit like the Drosophila village matchmaker, sorting out the single ladies & single men (aka flies) from my collection, & then "making matches" (sticking them in a vial together) to create happy unions (get the genetic crosses that I want -- the flies really don't get so much say in their own happiness, unforunately).

I'm currently studying genes that have been linked with obesity, taking likely candidates from a genome-wide screen and then examining them further. If all goes well, I should pick up another project in a few weeks, but we'll have to see how this one takes off, first.

Outside of lab, things are wonderful, as well. This past weekend, I traveled to Strasbourg on Saturday and then Lake Konstantz on Sunday. Strasbourg was beautiful, as was Konstantz, but pictures will have to follow -- sadly, my camera battery has died and it looks like I left the charger at home.

Highlight of Lake Konstanz was a close tie between Germany's winning the Germany v. England game and then getting to watch the entire city explode with pride and excitement, and going paddleboating on the lake. Only problem with the boating -- I decided to jump in halfway through -- which was incredibly refreshing, but also prompted the German woman in charge of the paddleboats to zoom alongside us on a motorboat and yell at me -- apparently jumping out of the paddleboats is not condoned. Who knew? (But really. They never told us! And it seemed like a great place for a swim.)

Until I can charge my camera, I'll try to keep these posts short so as not to bore you (the few faithful readers I have -- again, Mom, Dad, & possibly Nikola) with too many words & not enough pictures. So for now, tschuss!

Freiburg(er)!

To continue the theme of cheesy titles (necessary), guess what my first meal in Freiburg was? That's right. A burger. Advertised as "American" style, in a diner "just like those in New York." Glad I'm exploring a new culture.

I originally intended to go into the city for dinner (I'm living in the industrial area, a little bit outside city center), but after 2 students told me that in addition to my fifteen-minute walk to the diner, I had another thirty minutes to go before I reached the city, I decided to call it quits for the day, since it was beginning to get late.

Anyway, there's not much to say right now, except that I've arrived. But for all my faithful readers (that means you -- Mom, Dad, and Nikola), I'll try to keep up the blog this summer, and this first post is my attempt to make it a habit.

Looking forward to what will, hopefully, be something like SRP Part 2 : )

As Nikola would say, speak soon!

Deception, Double-Crossing, and Dirty (Or Clean) Socks

“There will be no deals or negotiations. Never drop your vigilance. Take no prisoners.”

I received this e-mail last week from Alpha-Assassin 001, and I knew it had begun. It, of course, being JE Assassins. JE Assassins is more than just a game – for one day to one week, depending on how soon you’re eliminated, it is a lifestyle. You will walk everywhere carrying a pair of socks in one pocket and your umbrella in the other. (Offense and defense, respectively. Socks are weapons, umbrellas can be shields.) You will run from your bedroom through the common room to the bathroom, aware that the common room is not a safe space and anyone could be lurking there. You may attempt to make deals with “friends.” Beware: for these few days, no one is your friend. Deals mean nothing and can and should be broken. Double-crossing = encouraged.

Some will tell you that it’s all good fun, to relax, to enjoy yourself. The others, the more committed assassins, will tell you the truth – there are no deals or negotiations, never drop your vigilance, and take no prisoners.

Walkway out of the JE common room/dining hall. A prime bottleneck for catching targets.

Safe zones include bathrooms, your bedroom, the dining hall, and intramural sports. But the common room outside the dining hall is absolutely not safe and is a prime bottleneck for catching the unsuspecting diner. Some people choose to eat where they can see their targets, then follow them out and tap them with a sock as soon as they cross the threshold into the common room. Others leave before their targets do and then wait in the common room, “reading a newspaper” or “playing piano,” bundle of socks carefully hidden out of sight . Still others, the ones who can’t win on their own and must recruit suitemates as spies (yes, I’m talking about YOU, my would-be assassin), ask friends to sit in the common room, “doing homework,” who will alert them via text when you leave the dining hall, so that they can catch you outside.

Assassins is a magnificent game. It’s also prone to induce extreme paranoia in its players. For the first round, you have no idea who is playing or who your assassin might be, and so everyone is a potential assassin. Best to creep from your room to the dhall and back and to spend time exclusively with friends from other colleges. Or, if you must spend time with friends from your own college, avoid people outside your immediate friend group. Loyalties are fickle and all but your closest friends are liable to be deceptive double agents.

My bedroom. A safe zone.

When only seven assassins remain, the second round begins: a free-for-all, which is even more intense. Now you have six people to stalk and six people to avoid, and crossed paths in the courtyard that lead to three-way standoffs are not uncommon. My only advice, if you make it this far, is: there are no deals or negotiations, never drop your vigilance, and take no prisoners.

However, as much as I might mock others for their “rookie mistakes” – not looking behind them when they leave the dining hall or lingering too long in the common room – I have to admit that immediately before Round 2, I was prey to one myself. The majority of my good friends had already been killed and I was beginning to feel just the tiniest bit creepy as the junior assassin whose sole mission was to eliminate multiple freshmen, many of whom lived in the same suite. The paranoid fear and competitive drive that had kept me alive began to wane.

A lovely piece of winter art, or a cover/hiding place for a potential assassin? You decide.

And so I slipped up. I believed that I knew who my assassin was, having thwarted a previous assassination attempt (see above: bungled common room killing), and so I went to study in the JE library. I had my socks at the ready and raised them at nearly every passerby, but let down my guard when they were not my suspected assassin. When one girl walked past and I recognized her as what I thought of as a friendly, sweet sophomore, I lowered my sock arm. I was rewarded with a sock tap on the shoulder and the words, “… Sorry!”

Oh, well. Now at least I can go back to studying in my library, eating in my dining hall, and walking through my courtyard without constantly glancing around in paranoia. Although to be perfectly honest, I kind of miss it already.

Are you ....

-exhausted from skiing all day?
-excited that you finally found a friend who responds appropriately to the quote "Feed me, Seymour!" ? (For the record, the answer is "Feed me all night long," from Little Shop of Horrors.)
-hoping your skiing exhaustion won't affect your performance in the long-awaited FIRST IM INNER TUBE WATER POLO MATCH OF THE SEASON?!
-still annoyed that you didn't immediately guess the "childhood pop star who has recently made a comeback" whose last name starts with "S" ? (Britney Spears -- such a lowball!)

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then I'm going to have to guess you are:
Me, after playing Botticelli for two hours on the bus ride home from Okemo Mountain, VT, where JE hosted its annual ski trip this year.

Okemo Mountain.

Botticelli is a fantastic game that I first learned on my FOOT (Freshman Outdoor Orientation Trip, www.yale.edu/foot) pre-orientation hike. The point of Botticelli is to guess a person whom one of your friends (let's say Sam) has selected. Sam gives you the first letter of the person's last name, and then the game begins. In order to ask "yes/no" questions about the mysterious person, which you need in order to figure out anything, you first have to break into the "inner circle." To get to this inner circle, you have to stump your friend by thinking of another person whose last name shares the same first letter as the mysterious person. If Sam can't guess who that person is, then you're into the inner circle.

For example, if the last name of Sam's person begins with an "S," I might ask, "Were you ever married to Carla Bruni?" Or "Did you duke it out with Mark McGwire to break the single-season record for number of home runs?" If Sam doesn't know that the person I'm thinking of is Nicolas Sarkozy or Sammy Sosa, well, I'm into the inner circle.




Charlotte Bronte, Nicolas Sarkozy, & Bill Belichick were just some of the names that came up in our game.

The three-hour bus ride home from VT flew by. It was hilarious to see who my friends chose and it was so indicative of the variety of interests my friends have -- we covered people from the Kennedys to Indian film actresses to British novelists to football coaches. But as much fun as Botticelli was, it was far from the highlight of my day. Because prior to Botticelli, I had spent 7 hours skiing on Okemo Mountain with 50 members of JE in a subsidized ski trip run by the college.

It was AMAZING! I've never gone before, and I can't believe that I missed out on this twice. For starters, we left JE at 4:30 am which made for a hilarious bus ride up there. 50 very sleepy JE Spiders crawled onto the bus, and either dealt with their exhaustion by being insanely awake and peppy or by falling asleep all over their neighbors. Once we got to the mountain, though, everyone woke up.

Gondola ride up the mountain!

People came who had never skiied before and they spent most of the days on the bunny slopes being coached by one of the JE sophomores. I also had a bunch of friends on the trip who have practically been skiing all over the country since age 4. I had mistakenly considered myself to be "intermediate" -- little did I know that after being convinced to come along with 4 of my friends who all fit into the second category (they make skiing look easier than walking), I would realize I still have a LOT to learn. The fact that my entire body is stiff today, including my arms (who knows how that happened?) is proof.

Ana and Ayaska on the mountain!

Beyond making it difficult for me to walk and challenging me to wrack my brain for political and pop culture trivia, the trip was fabulous because I got to spend a completely surreal day with some of my best friends in JE. I know I've said it before, but I absolutely love having the JE community as my home within my home at Yale and whether the people on my trip were my closest friends or my good acquaintances, we're all members of the JE family and I wouldn't trade my residential college for any other.

Speaking of which, the first JE IM inner tube water polo game of the season is tonight -- wish me luck in continuing JE's eternal climb toward the glory of the Tyng Cup!

My Education

During the last few months, I’ve taken to tossing around the acronym “CHE” and am surprised when my friends don’t instantly know what I’m talking about. For some reason, after explaining it once, I assumed that my friends should remember what it meant, seeing as how it has quickly grown from being my newest extracurricular activity to my favorite. (Or second-favorite … intramural inner-tube water polo might give it a run for its money, but that’s another story for another blog. Stay tuned.) CHE stands for Community Health Educators, one of Yale’s community service groups, which I joined at the beginning of this past semester (http://www.yale.edu/che/about.html). CHE was founded in 1999 as an answer to New Haven’s lack of an institutional health education program for middle and high school students. Health education is sometimes taught in science classes, sometimes in other classes, and sometimes not at all. After a New Haven high school counselor spoke with a Dwight Hall Public School Intern (Dwight Hall is Yale’s umbrella service organization, the largest of its kind in the world), CHE was formed. Today, more than 150 volunteers present workshops in 22 schools to address topics like nutrition, drug & alcohol use, and healthy relationships.

Dwight Hall

I joined CHE for a number of reasons. One of my main motivations was a conversation that I had last summer with a friend whom I met through a research internship in Lausanne, Switzerland. At one point I mentioned sex education, the at-times-excruciatingly-awkward-but-let’s-face-it-ultimately-important rite of passage through which every sixth, ninth, and twelfth grader underwent in my school system, and one of my friends asked, "What’s that?” I was somewhat baffled that someone as well-educated as my friend had never heard of sex ed. When I returned to campus in the fall, I decided to get involved in CHE.

As excited as I was, I could not have imagined how incredible teaching would be. It has been a growing experience, as I’ve learned to handle difficult questions and controversial topics, and to always remain non-judgmental. My job is to deliver accurate information and, as a college student, to do so as the students’ peer. Most exciting is the realization that I am making an impact on these students. Whether a student lingers after class to speak about something that clearly is burdening him or her, or an initially silent classroom, by the end, is buzzing with questions and answers, I realize that I am often one of the only reliable sources of sexual education in these students’ lives. I leave each classroom exhilarated and eager to return.

CHE is the type of program that could wash away any cynicism you might have toward community service. In fact, the program has been so eye-opening that, in combination with several other factors, it’s prompted me to consider a career in public health. While I’ve always wanted to be a doctor, I hadn’t looked into public health and now that I’ve begun exploring the field, it seems to be a perfect fit. I’ve been spending massive amounts of time over break looking into public health internships and graduate programs and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.

Although it’s wonderful to be home on break, I can’t wait to get back and to begin teaching in classrooms again next semester. If I’m lucky, not only will I teach in receptive classrooms and know that I’ve made a difference, but I’ll be assigned to the high school that “looks like a spaceship,” according to the information sheet. What could be better?

A sneak peek at the spaceship-high school (it doesn't do it justice).