>Back to Reality

>
Heyyy!!

How are you? I arrived back in the District late last night from my vacation….What a week!

Source

I absolutely LOVE the Caribbean (but who doesn’t right)! We cruised from Orlando to St. Marteen, St. Thomas, and Royal Caribbean’s private island, CocoCay. I am still in the process of uploading pics so bear with me a day or so 🙂

The day before our departure, we (sis and friend Tara) designated the day for pampering. And let me tell you, it was glorious. We started off the day with some Sbucks for my favorite on-the-run breakfast: Coffee + steamed soy and a reduced-fat turkey bacon breakfast sandwich. If you haven’t tried these, you need to. They consist of a multi-grain English muffin, egg whites, turkey bacon, and red. fat cheese. Heavenly.

>>Fun Fact: Starbucks food is now free of artificial ingredients, trans fat and high-fructose corn syrup. Neato.

Next we dropped some moola at my fav Spa on our brows and lashes. I got my brows waxed/tinted brown and my eyelashes dyed black (As a blonde, my brows and lashes are very light). I love the results!

It looked like we were wearing mascara all week with no eye make-up on! Ever try it?? My spa lady, Abla says it great for a vacation but not ideal for day-to-day maintenance as it fades after ~2 weeks. But for a week in the sun with dark lashes and no mascara, I think the $25 was well worth it 🙂

Next we treated ourselves to a mani/pedi followed by a spray tan (rather than cancer bed) 🙂

We grabbed a quick lunch at Chop’t and hit the road to meet the manfriend (!) at the airport hotel (we booked a room cause we had a super early flight and they offer free airport parking) In the hotel, we splurged on some fancy hotel 1/2 bottles of Merlot (not my favorite, but it did the trick) and ordered some take-out.

>>Random pic:

Who knew Quinoa (my favorite grain) is also a main ingredient of some hair products?!?!

The next morning we rolled outta bed at 5:15am and headed to the airport. We were plenty early so had just enough time to stop for a drink at our favorite airport diner.

It is totally okay to have your first drink at 7:15am when you’re on vacation 🙂

Okey, I gotta get back ma cloning. I’ll post more cruise pics soon, promise. Have a great week!!!

Lauren

>>Random Ques: What do you do to get ready for a vacation???

>You do CLONING?

>Heyyy,

Happy NYE!! What are your plans tonight?! I’m staying local and hitting up a few friends’ parties because tomorrow I need to pack pack pack for the cruise!

What do you do to get ready for a vacation?? Saturday I’m planning to get a mani/pedi and my eye lashes died (ever done this? I love it). I’m also planning on gettin’ ma spray tan on:

source

source

I was considering going tanning (UV) a few times to build up a “base” tan, but after taking with at least 3 oncologists in my lab, I decided not to. Apparently, new research has come out that a couple of tans in tanning beds are worse than a burn in the sun (both cancer-wise and ability to make you look like a leather bag by the time you’re 40). You should really check out this article.

NOTEWORTHY: “The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) announced today that it has moved UV tanning beds to its highest cancer risk category — “carcinogenic to humans. Prior to the move, the group had classified sun lamp and tanning bed use as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

(!!!)

Personally, I think spray tans are fantastic. Since I’m fair skinned I shower after 2-3hrs after getting sprayed (rather than 4 hours) so I don’t turn too dark. I also exfoliate the c-r-a-p out of my skin to avoid streaking. I recommend giving it a try if you haven’t before 🙂 I’ve also heard wonders about airbrush tanning!

Speaking of cancer, I’ve received a few e-mails asking what kind of “cloning” I’m doing. Just so ya know, when I refer to cloning, I am doing molecular cloning (aka shuffling around of genes) and not cloning people, animals, etc 🙂 I figured I’d try my best to explain this, as I think it’s perdy cool stuff.

DNA, our genetic material, is a looong sequence of 4 (nitrogenous bases) “letters”: adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). It is the random order of these 4 letters that makes one gene different from the next, one person different from the next, etc.

Source

A gene is the “code” for a functional protein. I say “functional” because this is the final product conferring some sort of function. In my research, I am designing antibodies, a type of protein that can act as an anti-leukemia “drugs”, by killing cancer cells rather than healthy/normal cells.

source

In order to create the antibody, I have to “clone” the DNA that codes for the protein. This means I’m doing several experiments to shuffle around those 4 letters (A,T,C, and G) to generate a meaningful gene sequence that will allow the production of my antibody. Think of a computer code. Programmers write computer code to allow for some computer function. In my case, molecular cloning is “writing” in DNA letters to make a functional protein. Neat, eh?

Alright, enough science for the day (you not me, I’m in lab til prob 6pm). Have a great night!!!!

Lauren