First half of the autumn term, an overview

Thanks to Yang for making me write this, and to Torsten, Vroni and Vahid, for giving me something to write about...

After a long summer-autumn brake, I am back in front of the keyboard. Actually, I have been in front of the keyboard almost every day, but certain things prevented me from contributing often to my stash of presentable thoughts. The simplest conclusion is also the true one: I had lots of NOT presentable thoughts and activities, which I will... not share with you now. Or ever, for that matter.

What I will divulge, however, is that I have successfully completed a course in Protein Engineering. It was by far the greatest course I have ever taken. Where to start now... ok, first of all, I was late for the course. And not just 15 minutes fashionably late. I arrived no less than four days after the course has started. Laboratory groups have already been created, research activities assigned and a lot of labmate bonding was going on. Needless to say, I was feeling very out of place. To top it all, there was a mini-exam waiting around the corner and I had no idea what I was supposed to know for it.

Now is the time to mention that I was extremely lucky and was part of a really cool group. Vahid, an Iranian guy, and Vroni, a German girl, were very helpful and we always looked after each other during the course. Thank you very much, both of you, for having such a good time together in the lab (and not only there). There was a very strong feeling of unity in this course. We went out together several times, and our professor even took us to a field trip to one biological research company and then to the Stockholm opera, where we saw Eugen Onegin.

A few words about our professor. For those of you that have played Monopoli, he is the iconic white-mustached bald man, just in a lab coat instead of a tuxedo. For those of you who have not played this game (go and play the game!), he is over there to the left, prof. Torsten Unge. This is probably one of the best teachers I have ever had. He was always looking out for us, helping and advising us, and he really managed to unite us as a group. Under his guidance, we had the wonderful tradition to eat home-baked cake every day, prepared by one of the students. And trust me, after five-six hours in the lab, a nice cup of hot coffee or tea and a sugar injection (the cake) was just the thing we needed to feel ready to do some more researching.

We even played Frisbee during the incubation times... which were fairly long. Actually, we played with two Frisbees simultaneously... now this is challenging. Not only that, but our playground was an inner yard of the faculty, with a big statue in the middle. So the advanced throws included curved trajectories passing around, above and under the statue... with the occasional splash of water when we actually managed to hit it and the Frisbee fell into the fountain. Add some wind and rain and you get really high-leveled players.

After the end of the course, we gathered home at our (i.e. mine and Albena's place) for a sushi dinner and a party. This time the sushi was prepared by genuine Chinese, so we had the real deal. Aaah, raw salmon tastes good!