Living my last months to the fullest

I arrived back in Dunedin last Saturday morning, after an exhausting month of travel around America. Here is a recap of cities visited, in order, in a 4-week period: Pasadena, MD--Boston, MA--Ann Arbor, MI--Chicago, IL--Stanford, CA--San Diego, CA--Chapel Hill, NC--Berkeley/Stanford, CA--Memphis, TN--Berkeley, CA--Portland, OR--Dunedin, NZ. This travel extravaganza includes seven interviews, one 24-hr bout of experiments at the Stanford Synchrotron, one visit to friends in Berkeley, and my grandmother's funeral. I'm now very happy to be back in quiet warm Dunedin, where the undergrads are only just arriving. The day I got back there was a big festival in the Octagon with the whole town attending it seemed, which reminded me of the small community feel I get here. It was great to see everyone in lab again, and in my first week back I managed to produce a doubly labeled DnaK protein with shifting fluorescent peaks that report the conformational change upon addition of ATP, which has been the primary goal of my masters project. Now I have something to write about.

The interview process was fairly enjoyable, as I met a lot of interesting professors and students and saw three cities I had never before visited (Chicago, Chapel Hill, Portland). I was particularly impressed by Michigan (where I've been accepted!), Stanford, and UCSD. Michigan has a solid cohort of people working on protein folding diseases, as does Stanford along with a well organized MSTP and beautiful campus, and UCSD has research opportunities at the world class Salk, Scripps, and Burnham institutes.

My time in New Zealand is running out. My scholarship ends this month, so the faster I submit my thesis the less tuition I have to pay, although I'm hoping for a friendly grant from the Biochem department. Returning home will be bittersweet in many ways. On the one hand I'm looking forward to taking my research to the next level in a major U.S. academic institution, and from what I've heard the first two years of medical school can be a blast. I'll be happy to be closer to family and friends and good bagels. But I've had an incredible amount of fun here and really enjoyed the chilled out change of pace that I now can see in stark contrast to the fast-moving, consumptionist, ambitious culture in America. I know I'll be back many times later in life.

Chilling in MD (for real) before interview mayhem

With a jam-packed month of MD/PhD interviews beginning Tuesday next week, I've had a relaxing couple weeks in cold Anne Arundel County Maryland. For Christmas I received two oven-safe frying pans with lids, 3 large mixing bowls, a wire wisk, adjustable measuring spoon and cup, and a complete set of knives! As tempting as it is to take all this equipment back to New Zealand, I've decided to hold it safely here in Maryland for my indefinite return to the U.S. most likely in May. I've had a great time cooking in our large fully equipped kitchen here, serving pad thai, fish tacos, and salmon linguini among others. I've been doing a lot of reading, including a couple Science and Nature magazines, but have most enjoyed Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. Amazingly, I had not heard of this guy before stumbling across the book at an airport bookstore. His Central Asia Institute has been building schools for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan for the past decade and a half. Some of the stories he recounts about being led on wild goose chases by self-interested businessmen resembled some of our experiences in Tanzania. I agree wholeheartedly with Mortenson's view that educating youth, empowering women, and in general promoting peace in the tribal regions of central Asia does far more to protect American security than bombs and guns. Mortenson's schools do not teach extremist Islam (like the madrassas) nor Christian/American values, but unbiased (as is possible) history along with basic reading, writing, and math. A young Muslim who wants to go on jihad has to get approval from his mother, and an educated mom is far less likely to approve of violence than an uneducated woman. One of Mortenson's comments really hit home: that American soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan, who have immediate contact with the people and culture, have a far better understanding of the issues than detached State Department officials planning the wars. Apparently Three Cups of Tea has become required reading for military commanders.

I'm pretty excited for interviews. I'll get to visit some new cities and universities as well as meet a lot of new students and researchers. I should probably invest in one of those travel pillows though.

Cycling Trip

If you would like to skip the boring writing and just see some pictures, please download this slideshow: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Q35UUTB6
It took me 3 minutes on a moderate speed connection.
Otherwise you can read my report, then look at the pictures after. None of the pics are really spectacular artsy shots, due to my method of travel, but they tell the story and give you the general idea.

For my last NZ adventure of 2009, I cycled from Dunedin to Westport, a small town on the west coast. The trip was very enjoyable and reinforced to me what an amazing country NZ is. I started out on the morning of Saturday, December 12, a typical drizzly day. I loaded my panniers with my sleeping bag, warm clothes, a bit of cooking gear, a couple books, sunscreen and other miscellaneous supplies, plus provisions. The evening before I had gone to Pak n Save with just $65 left in my bank account. I picked out bags of cous cous and rice, a few fruits and vegetables, scroggin, bread, peanut butter, honey, oatmeal, and a few other items that came to precisely $65. Well actually I was one dollar over so had to return some peas. Always a good way to start a trip, completely broke with your next stipend payment coming in a week.

I had also deposited most of my belongings in a storage unit down the road so was leaving 7B Jura Street forever when I pushed off Saturday morning. First stop was St. Kilda beach to splash a bit of the Pacific over me and my bike. I hung out there under a small shelter while a little squal of rain came through, then started off over the hill to the Taieri Valley. In my first hour I was joined by a Korean touring cyclist, who had started riding in Christchurch, but I left him behind on a hill. I ate a quick lunch in the valley and then headed over the hills, longer and steeper than I expected, to Middlemarch, where the Otago Central Rail Trail begins. The 53 kms or so to Middlemarch from Taieri was the hardest stretch of the trip, as I was carrying a full load of food and my legs weren't accustomed to the weight. I was a little worried I was getting too old for this kind of thing. Nevertheless I coasted into a sunny Middlemarch late in the afternoon and rode a few kms down the rail trail to find a place to camp. Camping is allowed but discouraged along the trail, since it passes through several towns with accommodation. Of course with no money I had no choice. My MSR Hubba Hubba stood up defiantly to the gusty central Otago breeze and I had a relaxing evening of reading.

In the morning I set off for Ranfurly, another tiny town on the Rail Trail. It was extremely windy, mostly a crosswind for my direction of travel, and with my panniers acting as sails I had a few close calls where I was nearly blown off a bridge. Fortunately the trail has frequent lean-tos where one can take temporary shelter. The countryside was mostly dry farmland (being in the rain shadow of the Alps) surrounded by brown hills. Upon arrival in Ranfurly, another tiny rural outpost, I checked out the Visitor Center where I learned a little about the history of the railroad and gold mining in the area. I retreated a ways out of town to pitch my tent in a random abandonded field. December 14 I reached the Rail Trail's peak altitude of 618 m a bit after Ranfurly, which ironically was the highest I got on this trip despite the easy ascent. Half a dozen k's outside of Omakau I found a spectacular camping site next to a pond surrounded by rocky hills. It rained a fair amount that night, but Hubs kept me warm and dry. December 15 I reached the end of the rail trail at Clyde and started on the road along Lake Dunstan up to Cromwell, the gateway to the South Island's magnificent blue glacier-fed lakes. Besides stopping often to gawk at the color of the water, I enjoyed seeing many vineyards in this region. If only I had the time and money to stop for a tasting. That night I camped beside the Clutha River, where I felt sandflies for the first time...

December 16 I stopped in Wanaka in the morning and chillaxed for a while by the lake, whose brilliant blue is contrasted with the stark white snowy peaks beyond. Once I had fully taken in the view, I escaped the Wanaka tourists and continued along Lake Hawea, then back to the top of Lake Wanaka, and finally to Makarora, an outpost at the gates of Mt. Aspiring National Park. There I chatted briefly with a hitchhiker and another touring cyclist, who informed me of some nasty weather to come in a couple days. In the late afternoon I pedaled into the park and found a pleasant campsite overlooking the Makarora River, where I was promptly eaten alive by sandflies.

The next morning I was very excited because it was payday, which meant I could buy some more food when I reached the west coast. Fortunately I had purchased just the right amount and so would be fine for the day. I rode through dense native forest to Haast Pass, which at 562 m is the lowest crossing of the Southern Alps. I hiked for 30 minutes up to a viewing point, where I had good but not fantastic views. From the pass I coasted down the valley all the way to Haast on the west coast, stopping several times to walk to waterfalls or take pictures of the river and mountains. The vegetation was much greener and denser on this side of the Alps, as I had entered a temperate rainforest. When I arrived in Haast I found a backpackers to sleep so I could shower and clean some of my gear. I also found a small store with ridiculously overpriced food, Haast being one of the more remote villages in New Zealand. In fact, the denizens of Haast seemed rather on edge; it can't be easy living that far from civilization, with one's only contacts to crazy demanding tourists. At the backpackers I met a couple more touring cyclists, including an architect from Sydney who I chatted with for a while.

December 18 I began the journey up the west coast. I started out very early that day since it was forecast to rain heavily in the afternoon. I passed Lake Moeraki and Lake Paringa, two mystical lakes surrounded by fog and mountains. About midday it started raining, fortunately not super hard yet. I carried on in the wet, making faster progress than a pair of hitchhikers I passed multiple times, until I reached Fox Glacier. There I also went for a backpackers due to the wet weather. I arrived in the village in time to make a reservation for a full day walk on the glacier the following day, which cost something like $145 but was well worth it. So the 19th I donned rain pants and jacket and a warm hat and gloves and joined a dozen other folks on the 10 minute bus ride to the car park near the terminal face of the glacier. We had three guides with us who led us through the bush for an hour and a half. Then we slapped on crampons and walked onto the ice. The guides worked hard with picks to cut steps for us to walk on. This made the going very slow, but that wasn't really a problem as we had plenty of time to marvel at our surroundings. I saw many deep blue crevasses and fascinating arches and spikes of ice. We stopped for a speed lunch in the heavy rain then continued up to a high point on the glacier with a good view of the valley below. It was a very enjoyable day and much better than my only other glacier walking experience, in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada, where we were able to walk in a 100 m square marked off by orange cones. That evening at the backpackers I met three more touring cyclists and taught them Gin Rummy and Spoons.

The 20th I rode from Fox Glacier over some steep hills to Franz Josef Glacier, where I rode the easy 4 km up to the car park and did a short walk to get a peek. Franz Josef Glacier was steeper than Fox and lacked an elbow halfway up. After snapping some photos I pedaled on over rolling terrain and through native bush to Lake Ianthe, where I soaked my legs in the chilly water and my body in the sun rays after the rainy weekend. The next morning it was on to Hokitika, a cute town with a clocktower that reminded me of the towns in Tanzania. I stopped there for lunch and to use the Internet, then in the afternoon pushed on to Greymouth, where I stayed in a backpackers run by an Israeli and enjoyed chatting with the various Israeli travelers staying there. Greymouth is the largest town on the west coast and is home mostly to coal miners.

The last day of my voyage, from Greymouth to Westport, was probably the best day of all. The road hugged the rugged coastline for about 50 km, taking me up and over several bluffs. I saw some neat rock formations and cliffs. Around midday I arrived at Punakaiki where the famous pancake rocks are located. These limestone rocks have been shaped by various geological forces over the years such that they have ribbed sides and look like stacks of pancakes. No one understands completely how they got this way. From the visitor center it was an easy 10 minute walk to the rocks; there were also some powerful blowholes. In addition I saw some interesting tropical-looking vegatation surrounding the rocks--lots of flax and palm tree-like things. From Punakaiki I continued over a few big hills down to Charleston and Westport, where I purchased some packing supplies and carefully fit my bike into a box designed for a children's bicycle, the only bike box available in town. I spent the night in a backpackers and the next morning took a shuttle bus back to Hokitika, retracing my route along the ocean road.

I asked the bus driver to drop me off at the Hokitika airport about 3 hours before my flight, but the airport was locked--only one flight leaves per day. So I got dropped off in town and had to take a cab to the airport later. The flight to Christchurch over the Alps was really cool, and there was no door to the cockpit so I could look in and see out the front window, what the pilots were doing and all the instruments. It was then Christchurch to Auckland to LA, where I had a long layover so took a bus to UCLA to see if I could find my uncle, but he wasn't in his office. I experienced a bit of culture shock just seeing more cars and people in five minutes than I see in a week in Dunedin. I was also a little taken aback by the huge highways and zillions of stores and restaurants open late. The excesses and consumerism of America were obvious to me now. Finally it was back to LAX and a red-eye to Baltimore.

I'm really glad I was able to do this bike trip, despite feeling a little guilty at the start for skipping out on a couple weeks in the lab. I feel like I'm getting to know New Zealand well enough to call it a home of sorts. I've now visited places throughout the lower South Island and hoping I'll get a chance to see some of the regions around Nelson and Blenheim when I return, maybe even on my bike. The North Island remains unexplored territory I'm excited to see at some point in the near or distant future.

COMBIO 2010

Yesterday evening I returned from COMBIO 2010 in Christchurch. There were several hundred participants, mostly from New Zealand and Australia but some from the U.S., Europe, and Asia. There were talks on protein structure and function, microbiology, genetics, signal transduction, plant biology, agriculture, and medical science. The keynote speaker on Sunday evening was Sir John Walker, who solved the structure of ATP synthetase. Monday through Thursday were jam packed with talks and poster sessions. One topic that I learned a particularly large amount about and became very interested in is drug design. There were some very neat ideas presented, such as designing compounds that mimick the transition state of the substrate-->product reaction and high-throughput crystallography to screen for small compounds that bind the active site of an enzyme. I also went to some talks on biofilms and plant-microbe interactions, the carbon and nitrogen cycles, protein kinases, mammalian development, and more. Most evenings there were drinks and social functions, and on Wednesday there was a gala dinner at an old air force base turned into museum. It was neat to see a bunch or scientists on the dance floor, including Sir John Walker.

On Tuesday evening after the talks I took a walk up into the Port Hills to the west of Christchurch. There were many hiking and mountain biking tracks to explore and good views of the city and Canterbury plain. I'm glad I discovered this playground of Christchurch because in previous visits to Christchurch I hadn't been particularly impressed by the city.

My talk on Wednesday afternoon, as part of the New Zealand Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology student speaker competition, went well. I got several questions at the end including one from Sir John Walker! There were five speakers total from the various regions and they all gave good talks. So far my masters project has been entirely in developing a method, so the other students all had more biologically relevant results than I did. The winner of the competition found a link between ascorbate and cancer.

Today has been very busy as I cleaned up my flat for inspection by the landlord, organized my cycling supplies, moved all my things to a storage unit down the road, and got things sorted in lab. Tomorrow I depart on my bicycle for the West Coast and on up to Hokitika, where I'm flying home from. It will be an 11-day trip, between 700-800 kms. No day is super long as I've planned it, so I'll have plenty of time to enjoy the scenery. Sigurd may join me for a day on the Otago Rail Trail!

Caples Greenstone

Last week I rented a car and drove to Fiordland with Sunmi, who was visiting for a few days. I picked her up from the airport Wednesday afternoon and we drove to Te Anau, a sleepy town that serves as a base for exploring further into Fiordland. We took a short walk around Lake Te Anau and visited the Wildlife Park, then crashed in a backpackers. We woke up early the next morning and bought hut passes and picked up provisions for our trek. The Kepler track still had snow covering the alpine section, so we decided to walk on the Caples and Greenstone tracks instead. We started the walk from the "Divide," a car park on the road to Milford Sound, as opposed to the carpark on Gleenstone Road where most trampers begin at the other end of the circuit. This allowed us to walk for an hour on the famous Routebourn track before bearing off on the Caples track. We encountered some deep mud pools and then a steep and rocky climb to the McKellar Saddle, where we had excellent views. We descended to Upper Caples hut, cooked up our first dinner of couscous and courgettes, then hit the hay. The next day we finished off the Caples track, following the river gradually downhill to the convergence of the Greenstone and Caples rivers. We had a great lunch at the convergence, with an awesome view of the long valley we had just walked down. In the afternoon we headed up along the Greenstone River. The track was a bit of a roller coaster, going up and down the side of the gorge carved by the river. There were some neat places to stop and gaze at the turquoise water. When we reached the Greenstone Hut in the late afternoon, the sun was out in full force and we sat on the porch of the hut, taking in the rays and the views and chatting to some students from Auckland who had just finished their studies. For our second dinner we had some rice pilaf and chocolate, and at dusk I did a little poi surrounded by snow-capped peaks, which was pretty awesome. It rained during the night and all the next day for our walk to the McKellar hut further up the Greenstone Valley. Stomping through mud, wading through streams, and in general moving at a brisk pace, we arrived at McKellar just about as the rain was ending. We changed into dry clothes, ate a lot of tortillas and pita, and played gin rummy into the evening, when two guys and a girl from Purdue arrived and claimed they were going to reach the Glenorchy car park, 30k away, that night. Crazy Americans--I wonder if they made it. In the evening the sunset was spectacular, and the old adage proved true as the next day dawned a sailor's delight, with clear skies and a crispness in the air. On our walk back to the carpark we met an Argentinian man who had cycled from Auckland and was attempting to reach Glenorchy by the next day to catch a bus. He was traveling on the Greenstone track, as it was the shortest route as the crow flies, but I imagine the track was a real challenge with his bicycle. We took a short side trip to the top of Key Summit, where we had breathtaking views of glaciers, valleys, and jagged peaks.

Reaching the car around noon, we stuffed ourselves with our remaining provisions and headed west along the Milford road. The weather was amazing for Fiordland, warm and sunny, and we took advantage by stopping often to gawk at our surroundings. We got a decent view of Milford Sound at the end of the road but to really experience the Sound you definitely need to go kayaking, take a cruise, or do the Milford track. Satisfied with our survey of Fiordland for this trip, we drove back through the Milford tunnel to Te Anau and then Dunedin on Sunday evening. Sunmi stayed until Wednesday, so she had a couple days to check out Dunedin while I worked in the lab. Tuesday evening we walked up Mt Cargill and flew my kite from the summit. It got stuck in the radio tower when we were trying to reel it in, but I was able to rescue it by climbing over the barbed wire and a short ways up a metal ladder.

The next few weeks will be filled with work as well as adventures. I have one week to get the results I need for the COMBIO meeting Dec 6-10 in Christchurch, where I am giving a presentation in the student speaker competition. When I return from the meeting I'll have to find a place to store my stuff for the next couple months, as I'll be in the U.S. for the holidays and med school interviews. Then it will be off on my bicycle journey from Dunedin to at least Hokitika on the West Coast. I've got to make it at least that far because that's where my flight leaves to go back to Maryland.

Happy Thanksgiving!

One year in New Zealand

I've now been in New Zealand for one year. It's been a great growing experience for me. In the lab I've learned an incredible amount and decided on a path to pursue in my biomedical research career. I've tried new hobbies, explored new places, made some good friends. I've even begun to embrace the Kiwi culture, despite trying my best to maintain my American-ness during my first several months here.

Next month is the Combio Meeting in Christchurch, the largest biology/biochemistry meeting in New Zealand. I've been selected as the Otago representative for the student speaker competition, which is very exciting. There were only two candidates in the Otago competition on Friday (the other was a PhD student working on honeybee genetics), but I came away with the W. Should be a fun and informative meeting, and when I return I will embark on an approximately 11-day cycle journey from Dunedin to Hokitika, where I'll fly home from. More details on that later, but I now have the necessary mountain bike, purchased for NZ$350 on TradeMe. The more immediate adventure is that Sunmi (Williams '08) is visiting New Zealand this coming week and we are planning a hiking trip on the Kepler track in Fiordland, possibly followed by exploration of Milford Sound.

Taking my geekiness to the next level

Halloween--another holiday that Kiwis have failed to appreciate completely. I saw a couple kids out trick-or-treating, but most people don't have candy ready by the door. Moms coordinate with each other and drive their kids around to the few homes with lollies available. The kids are definitely not going to get hundreds of pieces of candy per hour like I did. When Halloween rolled around each year, I was usually still working on the candy from last year's stash. This year in NZ I celebrated Halloween by attending a horror movie night. We watched Seven, Halloween, and Candyman, of which I though Seven was the best.

Also on Halloween I worked on the Habitat House, this time hanging gib (drywall). This is my favorite part of house construction because it requires a fair amount of spacial awareness to cut the pieces so that they fit to the walls and ceiling. It can be frustrating when a piece doesn't quite fit into place and you have to shave it off a few millimeters.

On Sunday I went to the movie theater to see Food, Inc. The main adviser to the filmmakers was Michael Pollan, and I've read a lot of stuff by him, so most of the information wasn't new. However, it was good to see pictures of industrial farming; in particular chicken coups. Farmers house thousands of chickens in one fully enclosed, dark,and remarkably unsanitary building. The chickens are so crowded they can barely move. But even if they weren't crowded, the chickens have been selected for to have massive breasts so they can only take a few steps before toppling over. Once the chickens are taken to the processing plant, you can see that the floor is covered with faeces and dead chickens. The movie also talked about beef processing and E. coli 0157:H7 outbreaks. There are only a dozen beef processing plants in the U.S. owned by four of five major corporations, and they are massive factory/assembly line operations. The workers have just one specific job like in an auto factory and are treated poorly and underpaid. When you eat a hamburger, you're literally eating meat from a thousand different cows, so it's now wonder that disease spreads quickly and it's tough to track down the origin of an outbreak.

I really like meat, but the number of reasons not to eat meat from factory farming are really overwhelming. If someone offers me meat at a dinner party I'll eat it, but I'm definitely not going to buy any from the supermarket on my own. I'm going to focus on fish and the occasional grass-fed organic beef and chicken you can get at a farmer's market.

I've made a DnaK rap and posted it on Youtube. Watch at your own risk.