Apology

Sorry about the abscence. It's just that I'm trying to juggle studying for two exams on Monday, and making the most of my last week in Montreal...

Spring, finally

I hate to be one of those people who blogs about the weather but...
Snowstorm last week, sunburn the next.

My friend and I took his ferret for a "walk" today (it doesn't really know what to do about the harness and just sort of lies there, so I stuffed it into my hood and we both strolled about happily) and I can feel my face burning up already. Ouch!

The atheist's worst nightmare

Whew! I handed in my massive Evo-devo paper (35 pages about a gene pathway called sonic hedgehog. No, really) on Friday, and had my soul-sucking Abnormal Psychology exam on Monday.
I've been taking the course for a year now (so that's 6 Abnormal exams overall), and I still haven't gotten used to those exams. They are so hard to study for; the professor has a fill in the blank section were anything, anything can be asked for. You aren't safe unless you really know every detail from every lecture slide, and every rant he's ever had. Whew, indeed.
Hopefully, my last 3 exams won't be so stressful!

In the spirit of relaxing, I give you this: a banana. The Atheist's worst nightmare.



If you click the youtube link, the response is also pricless! But by far the best comment I've ever seen regarding this video was my friend Chase's:

Chase Moser
Converted

9:44pm April 13th

I watched your banana video and I am not writing my evo-devo paper because of it.
Evolution is dead to me.

thanks

Argh!

Final exam in exactly 12 hours + 20 cm of snow predicted for tomorrow morning (currently falling) = Argh! Aaaaaargh!

Snow

It's snowing again today. And not sissy little flakes either--this is some serious snowfall we're talking about here. I should really be studying right now, but here some quick snapshots.


Some action shots of when it first started falling...


More shots of the falling snow. The flakes are actually thick enough to be captured on camera!

It's really starting to pile up.


I'm not a fan.

C'est fini

So I just had my last class as an undergraduate student (it was Abnormal Psychology).

As the Québecois say: ...ben là...

En Avril, ne te decouvre pas d'un fil.

Holy snowstorms, batman! I knew it was a mistake to put away my snow boots. Canada, you wily knave!

In other news, today was the last class of Evo-devo. Disreagarding the inherent weirdness of it being one of my last classes in university, it was arguably one of the best I've had at McGill.
The way it's structured, one student presents a topic for roughly one and a half hours, and the entire class then discusses it for the next hour and a half.

This time, after Marie-Julie wrapped up her (excellent) presentation, she suggested we head over to Thomson House (the graduate club) after class for a beer. Our teachers, Hans and Ehab, started whispering to each other. Then, Hans proposed: "Well, we don't we pre-emptively move the discussion to Thomson House?".
All twenty of us packed our books in the blink of an eye and set off through the snow.

There, to a soundtrack of the Eagles, we pushed tables together, bought pitchers, and discussed gene regulatory networks.
And wouldn't you know it? It was one of the best discussions we've had all year! We actually managed to stay on topic (mostly), and it extended far longer than usual.

Among the great quotes of the afternoon were:
Hans (who was knocking them back): "The whole genome is on fire!"
(later) Hans: "Damn, you're pleiotropic!"
(Context: he said he was hoping we'd remember and use the concepts we'd acquired in Evo-Devo.)
Lastly, we decided as a class to fund further research on Cnidarians in Hawaii. Our rally cry will be: "Screw the whales! Save the jellies!"

...Okay, so maybe you had to be there to find it funny. Or maybe you have to be incredibly nerdy. Probably both!

Il fait beau dans l'métro!, the sequel

You know... it's been months, and I still get this song stuck in my head every time I take the metro.