tug for the town

A few candids taken at a tug-of-war tournament I participated (and made it to 2nd place!) in.

Relay For Life

At Relay For Life, the all-night walkathon for the American Cancer Society.  Many of those energy drinks were consumed through the night.  The second photo is of us on the field, holding glowsticks up to form a glowing cancer ribbon for a photo shot from above.

the reason for my hiatus

These past two weeks have been spent frantically running trials for my thesis research and writing the damn thing up.  Here's a bit of what I do in the lab (it's a psychology lab, and a blood glucose/cognition experiment).

Taking a blood sample in a glucometer cuvette.

Placing the sample in the Hemocue meter.

Relatively high--I think I had just eaten before this and was mapping out how fast my glucose levels would spike.

budding ginkgo

Ginkgos are my favorite trees, and I can't tell you how delighted I am that their little larval leaves are finally coming in.  The top two photos are of the Pratt Ginkgo, a rather famous tree around UVa grounds due to its age and size.  It's a male, and you can see the cone-shaped "flowers" (but of course, these aren't really flowers because ginkgos are gymnosperms and developed before plants evolved flowering structures!).  The bottom two photos are of a female tree, and its little leaves are probably no bigger than a quarter of an inch across.

Ginkgos are considered "living fossils" because they are the last remaining species in their entire phylum (which is kind of a big deal).  Also, they were around during dinosaur times, which is pretty cool too.