Hello Davis and Sacramento

When we got to Davis, I slept on the floor for the first three nights or so. It was a strange feeling, almost like what I felt when I first went to college, as well as what I felt when I first entered the mission field.  All four of the new interns (me included) were feeling pretty anxious to get started. The first couple of days the instructors took us on a tour of the campus, and showed us around the town. Luckly, one of the inters brought a car so we can drive to wal mart or target.  There is a grocery store just down the street a mile or so, but it's waaay over priced and sell mostly organic foods.
Anyway, so the instructors are trying to promote this program more back in Rexburg amongst the Biology department. So they sent me on a photo shooting spree to capture some of the labs, and part of campus. They didn't give me much time, but this is what I got...

This is Thomas, he's one of the interns we were replacing.  The PI in the picture operates one of the microbiology labs on campus.

One of the microscopes used for microbiology. In our lab at the M.I.N.D. institute, we use a confocal laser microscope.

The micro lab.

This is Dr. Kelsen. He is the genetisist on campus. The first biology class I took was team taught with him. Very smart guy, but a VERY difficult teacher...ask any biology major. Great guy outside of class though!

This is coming down the steps from the lab building (Brigg) on UC Davis campus. On the left are Dr's Christiansen and Kelsen, on the right is the Dean of biology at BYU-I, Dr. Christman.

This is a picture of two of the frightened new interns trying to find their way around campus. An interesting fact about UC Davis, is that it is the largest of all the UC campuses!

Chemistry building.

Ahhh, the eggs. All around campus there are these egg heads doing various things...random. Here is Greg (one of the new interns) picking the nose of a very happy egg head. 

An eye on the back of it's head. Even though it's weird, I thought the egg heads were really cool haha.

This is us entering the nature park. We didn't get to go very far inside, but its gigantic!

They have tame ducks and geese at the pond that you can just walk right up to! This one got a little camera shy.

One of the things I really liked about the campus wash how old the trees were.  The trunks of some of the trees were enormous! You can tell that they took a very long time to get that big. There were oak, redwood, olive, cherry, palm, chestnut, macadamia, and many many others. I thought this one was really pretty. There was a little hut hidden in the back of a path covered with thick branches. 

This was taken at the edge of the redwood grove. They have a section that is just redwoods! It was very beautiful. 

The redwood path. 

Here is another egg head just outside of the library. This one was really different...apparently there is a tradition at UC Davis that all incoming freshman have to lick the egg head as their initiation. One of the directors told us that there is another tradition amongst seniors to pee on the egg head the night before initiation. SICK! There were streeks running down the side of the eggs head. That was enough for me to believe the story, needless to say we didn't get too close to this egg head. 

There were some really cool looking english style telephone booths around campus. They didn't have the telephone inside anymore, but are still used as decoration. Dr. Kelsen wanted to have his pictre taken inside one so he took my cell phone and went inside and started having a really funny fake conversation.

This is the old Aggies football stadium. There is a larger one across campus. This brought back memories from highschool when I use to play.

I loved the palm trees that were all over the town! They were all shapes and sizes. I think palm trees are one of the more beautiful trees, but maybe because they just make me feel like i'm a tourist. I'm okay with that, I love traveling. 

This is one of the entrances to the M.I.N.D. institute inside of Sacramento. It's a 20-30 min bus ride to the institute from the UC Davis campus. We just stepped out of the vans, and are following Dr. Christiansen to the lab where I will be working in!

This is just outside of the lab. Here is a poster with a description of one of the projects our lab is working on. I tried to get a good picture of it so it could be read. It worked pretty well, you can still read the words when you zoom in. 

The Noctor lab. This is where I work!

My desk.

The intern I am replacing sat me down (thankfully) and showed me what he had been working on so I could come in and pick up where he left off. I was really happy to see that I get to work next to a window!

Neuroscientist Dr. Steven Noctor on the right, and Chris Cunningham on the left. Chris is a grad student in our lab who helps out the interns a lot. He is actually a graduate from BYU-Idaho! I was really grateful to see that one of the people we are working under is LDS. These are both great guys, and very smart.

This is the entrance to Shriners hospital. Shriners does research in conjunction with UC Davis. Some of our funding comes from them.

The hospital was gorgeous. This picture doesn't do justice, but there are hallways and patient rooms going on either side of this tall shaft in the center of the hospital. 

Here is just a really old Coca Cola bottling plant. Supposedly its been around for a very long time, I thought it was sort of cool so I snapped a picture on our way back to Davis from Sacramento.