I forgot

So, I totally forgot to say that I went to a play on Saturday night and went to Central Park. I started my day at the lab (this was after staying at the lab until 6am that morning) at around 12pm. I did a couple drug treatments and then went to central park to find one of the sixty pianos placed throughout New York City. I walked for about an hour before I found it. I got to play, it was a pretty old piano, but the experience of playing a piano as 1,00o's of people walked by was pretty cool. There is a lot of people watching in central park on weekends. I saw random musicians playing their instruments and even got to see the rollerblading dance club- hilarious. After my central park experience I went in a cab to go theatre hoping to try and get a ticket in one of the lotteries that they have. The premise is that you put your name in a box and they pull 24 names who will get in the 1st or 2nd row to the show for $27 cash. It's an amazing deal, but I happened to be trying on a holiday weekend- not a good idea, and I didn't win. So I ended up going with a friend from box office to box office to see if they had student tickets. We weren't satisfied with their offerings, until we reached "Come Fly Away." It was $30 for an orchestra seat in the center. The performance was all Frank Sinatra songs with an orchestra on stage. The entire performance was only dance and told a story about three couples. It was amazing. It showed that you can communicate to an audience other than just through lyric, which was very exciting. Anyway, I am going to be doing the same thing tonight. So hopefully I can get some good tickets. I better get back to work :)

Fireworks

So we waited for about 4 hours at the hudson river to get a spot for the fireworks tonight. It was sooooo crowded. There were about 2-3 million people there. We were right next to the intrepid near pier 83. NBC was broadcasting from the cruise ship right next to us (The Epic). We waited in line for 1 hour and 15 minutes to get food and we ordered, they then told us that the credit card machine was down so we got free food which was cool. I am including some pictures from tonight.

Record for longest day at work... broke again.

Last night, or I mean this morning was the finish to the longest day I have ever worked. I got home at around 6 am, which means I worked over 19 hours straight. I really hope all of this work is going to pay off. Actually, some of the results we have gotten are truly exciting and are leading us to a new brain cancer treatment. It's so cool.

Piano.

Today I had a mission. To find a playable piano somewhere at Sloan Kettering- which is a lot harder than it should be. I was asking all different staff members throughout the hospital whether there was truly a piano in the hospital since I had heard rumors that there was. Well, my expedition eventually led me to the 15th floor at Memorial Sloan- Kettering. The hospital has a very famous amenity for its cancer patients- a beautiful club just for them where no doctors are allowed. They have art tables for ceramics and painting and three pianos dispersed among the very spacious area. They had fish tanks and gorgeous views overlooking the upper east side. It is a very peaceful place and they try and make the space as safe for the patients as possible and it gives them a place to escape from the never-ending reminder of the terrible disease that they have. I walked through the door and immediately saw a beautiful grand piano. In order to understand this story, one must understand that music is a very important of my life. I would always play the piano in order to de-stress from the craziness of my life. The past three weeks I have had a lot of stressors between the program and other life stressors and I have not had any piano to play (During the school year I play the piano almost every day in order to keep my stress in check). So back to the story: I entered the patient area and I had my badge around my neck and I went up to supervisor of the area and asked the policy of playing the piano. She looked at my badge and apologized and said staff were not allowed in the area and that I would not be able to play the piano. At that point I was really depressed because I have been looking for a piano for about two weeks now and I finally found one that is close and gorgeous and I really had a lot of emotions that I needed to express through music. The woman could visually see that I was flustered and I just told her kind of the situation and how I was a student and I really needed to play. She thought for a moment and said take your badge off. I took it off and put it into my pocket and she said go for it. I played for a straight hour and it was so amazing. It was therapy for me. What really was amazing about the entire situation was that I got to play for an hour and this was an emotional release for me. While I played though I would say about thirty cancer patients came in and out with all of their IVs attached and they all sat and listened. It was so cool that something that was a therapy for me had an impact on others who listened and in some way was a therapy for them. It was really an amazing moment. I watched as the patients closed their eyes and listened to the music and they seemed to be so much at peace and I was at peace and it was great.

Record for longest day at work.

So last night, or should I say this morning I have beat my record of consecutive hours at work. I started at 10:30am and finished at 3:40am = A whopping 17 hours and 10 minutes. Not only did I work this long, but I had about a total of 1 hour for eating ( 30 min lunch and 30 min dinner). It was crazy and the amazing thing is that we are doing the same thing today except instead of 5 samples like last night we have 12! So I wonder how long I will be in the lab tonight or tomorrow morning. On top of that I have a meeting tonight at the New York Academy of Science, which is supposedly an amazing place. I am not sure though how I will be able to fit it all in. Let's see how it goes. Oh, and I apologize for my incoherent sentences since I am a bit in la-la- land right now.

Great Restaurants.

So I have had two particularly amazing meals the last two nights. Last night I got to go with my high school friend Camille to a very small French restaurant called "tout va bien," which supposedly has been around a long time and was a hang-out place for French sailors. Anyway, I was the only American in the entire restaurant and was pretty much expected to speak French the entire meal, which was great for me because I love to practice my French. I had la soup a l'onion et coq au vin, which were amazing. Absolutely amazing. Then, after work tonight I went with my roommate to one of my favorite restaurants in the city. It is located in the West Village and is known for it's amazing jazz. It is called the garage and was an old firehouse that was converted into a restaurant. Tonight there was a latin jazz orchestra, and by orchestra I actually mean orchestra since there were 18 members that were somehow playing on this very small stage meant for at most 10 players. It was great. The only wish I had was to have a girl to salsa with because I absolutely love to do the salsa. We stayed pretty late and listened to a little of the jazz trio that came on afterwards and they were very good also. Overall, I have been eating amazingly over the past two days and hope that I will have some more great food ventures in the near future. Tomorrow is going to be a CRAZY day with a lot of work so hopefully this food will give me some strength.

Back in the Lab

I took the 8:55 train back to Manhattan this morning and I am back in the lab. This past weekend was a nice change from the city. I have been preparing myself for the crazy week that I have ahead of me. Perhaps being this busy though will be good so I can keep my mind off of the craziness that is life. I am possibly going to dinner tonight with a friend from Florida, so that will be amazing if that happens. I am exhausted. I have a sore throat/esophagus right now (which is either allergy or stress induced) and I took benadryl and of course now that I am falling asleep at my bench. Well, hopefully I will be able to make it through today. We have done a lot already and just finished lunch. Hopefully my throat gets better.