Presentation downer

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to recount what happened the other day and how I went into a depression slump.

So I did a practice presentation in front of my lab group (and another lab group) today and one of the questions i got was during my 'question time' made me wish i had just disappeared. It was the SIMPLEST question ever. A question THAT I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN after being in the group for 8 MONTHS. BUT I DID NOT KNOW.

And of course the group smirked at me when i said the wrong answer. I think my stupidity was revealed and now I can't face being back in there anymore.

Now that I've typed this, my way of trying to solve this problem of mine is really stupid.

I am now going to tell myself this:

DON'T LET THEIR OPINIONS OF YOU AFFECT YOU. Do your thing, make a lot of DUA and insha ALLAH when ALLAH SWT gives you the results you want, you can forget about this dilemma and laugh at yourself. INSHA ALLAH.

I guess because it was the first time that people's laughing at me.. actually affected me. Affected my pride? I'm generally a silly person and I think people laughing at you is a good thing. It means youre hilarious and fun to be around. But when they laugh at you because of something so OBVIOUSLY SHOWING HOW STUPID you are... that got me.

But I shall listen to my advice. Do my thing. Don't care what they think.


Just pray to ALLAH SWT. Amiin.

When trying to impress your supervisors for the sake of impressing

Okay, funny and depressing story I have for you lot today!

So since my research project is basically centred on this chromatin immunoprecipitation assays, I practically have NO DATA for my thesis yet. And there is ONLY ONE AND A HALF months left!


*panic mode*


So anyways. If I start ChIP assays on Monday, my data isn't usually ready before the Friday meeting I have with my program head (who is also my cosupervisor). But what I did have were some cyto assays I was working on. And I wanted to compare them to the sequencing paper that I am basing a part of my project on. But the IC50 of my results were different to that obtained in the paper.

When I brought this issue up, my cosupervisor looked at my graphs and the title and just said: how long was the treatment period in the paper.

And then I thought: OH CRAP. I didn't check that out.

After looking at the paper: "72 hours".

Cosupervisor: "And how long was yours?"

Me: "24 hours..."

And then I got asked why I chose "24 hours".

Tbh, I really don't know why. I thought that was the general treatment time for all drugs. But I didn't want my cyto assay trainer to get in trouble, so I told him:

"because it was convenient".

...

Um yeah. Not exactly the best thing I could have said. And then I got told off about how I didn't have any intellectual control over my project. Especially at this point in the year. I was also reminded of how I didn't have any data for my thesis yet.

So I basically felt like crap. And that conversation just kept echoing in my head throughout my entire weekend.

My cosupervisor asked if I knew how my drug worked. And I responded: "I don't know.."
He then asked if I had read the group's 2005 paper, which I couldn't tell which one..

So yeah. I am basically not that well versed in the literature. I don't have intellectual control over my project and I ask stupid questions and can't "arm myself" when I do because I don't know about the literature and am just blindly diving into doing things. :(

I am so angry at myself. What my cosupervisor said is all true. It was a giant slap in the face. But a slap I really needed.

I need to read more literature. But I just gotta find the time!

Well, after my cosupervisor expressed his disappointments about me not reading the literature...

I am still feeling a little down. I don't know if I will be able to face him tomorrow. I just... I haven't cried once. But I feel like it. But no tears will come out.

It is such a long journey. But considering the time I have left.. I wish the journey was longer. Im running out of time for my thesis.

wassalam,

Nurilen

Ramadan Mubarak! and an update!

Just wanted to say to my lovely brothers and sisters in Islam a RAMADAN MUBARAK!

May we make the most of this blessed month inshaAllah!

Sorry I haven't been updating on much everyone! Been extremely busy with honours. But alhamdulillah I think I'm coping.

So I am 3 assessments into honours. I got my marks back for them and they were really good ALHAMDULILLAH!

But I won't lie. I am stressed. The other week my cell culture got contaminated. I thought I would get SO much done in the week that my supervisors were away on conference and when they would be back they would be impressed with all the stuff that I got done and all my results. But no :(

In the week that they were gone, I did practically no wet lab work that would go towards my thesis :(

Insha Allah everything will go well. INSHA ALLAH.

I am not going to quit! Speaking of quitting, the med student in our lab doing his ILP with us quit. He quit while I was away doing my introductory seminar. It's sad :( I thought we were all in this together. But it turns out he wasn't coping and just couldn't get stuff. I don't want to be like that. To be honest, I NEED to do honours.

On a happier  note, I made cupcakes!

Cupcakes!

I made the blue-pink cupcakes. The mono-coloured cupcakes were made by my mum. Actually, my mum made the actual cake bit in the blue-pink pic. It's just that I decorated the cake with the buttercream icing. And my sister added the sprinkles on top.
Go teamwork!

So I actually brought the mono-coloured cupcakes for my lab colleagues to eat. And they really liked it. Some didn't even know who brought the cakes but just took one when they saw it on the table. LOL. But yeah. They were pretty cute. Maybe I should've made the icing a different flavour (or perhaps should've suggested to my mum). Such a pity my actual supervisors couldn't taste any though since they were away on conference.

So it's Ramadan now. It's the middle of the year and I need to focus on my Honours now and most importantly, on my Ibaadah. It might be a while before you guys hear from me again.

But until then inshaAllah!

wassalam,

Nurilen

And how does that make you feel?

Assalamualaikum!

Just finished my 3rd week of Honours and already I am overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I have to do. I really am trying not to stress but can I just say that looming deadlines are approaching ever so faster and I feel like crying because it feels like one of those nightmares where you're being chased and trying to run away but you're just not moving.

Unfortunately, I cannot escape this nightmare of a reality by simply waking up. This is the REAL WORLD. I have no choice but to tackle it all head on.

By the way, GAMSAT was last Saturday. I don't want to say too much about how it went right now but I am just praying that I do get the mark I need to get into my desired medical school insha Allah! 

Back to the Honours topic..

In one of the Honours workshops I attended, the presenter told us to write about how we feel at the moment. It seems I am not the writing by hand type anymore. My handwriting has become atrocious! But I am a fast typer ;) So I thought I would use the excuse of writing about my feelings to update my blog!

Maybe I can even talk a bit about my project and my thoughts on it. I don't think I'll be able to disclose any data on my actual project as it's confidential and all.. but hopefully I'll be able to perhaps skim the surface on it?

Okay, so for this post, I'm going to introduce my Honours project.

My project centers around the disease called leukaemia. Leukaemia, as some of you might know, is basically a cancer of the blood. More specifically, I am looking at acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). Although more adults have ALL, it is in fact the most common paediatric cancer and although the cure rate against this disease is reaching 90%, there are still some patients that are unresponsive to the treatment. A class of drugs used in the treatment is called glucocorticoids. Glucocorticoids are a type of steroidal hormone produced by your adrenal glands and their physiological functions are many. One of their roles in our body's management of cancer is the induction of apoptosis (cell death). It is this apoptosis that is important to suppress the growth of the cancer. It is heavily recorded in the literature about patients having resistance to the glucocorticoids themselves and I am going to study the mechanisms behind this resistance. 

So there you have it. I hope I didn't overwhelm you with how overwhelmed I am. 

But until my next post, be prepared for more posts about my Honours project woes and angsts. Hahahah. 

~Nurilen