Today I drilled a hole into a rat's brain, and he's still alive.

If "today" was Thursday, the title would be true. Regardless, two days ago I drilled a hole into a rat's brain (E2, to be precise), and he's still alive. I am pleased. (I feel like some sort of statement here assuring you that I did not drill the hole out of some sort of sadistic need to harm a rat is needed, so here it is: the rat was anesthetized, I was carefully monitored for the most part, and the surgery was for research purposes, not simply for my enjoyment.)

It was undoubtedly the most terrifying and exhilarating thing I've ever done in my life. It still shocks me that I was allowed to do such a procedure when the only "training" I received was watching a video clip of a similar surgery on the Internet and watching JK do the surgery on Tuesday, two days beforehand. Granted, he was hovering nearby during most of the surgery, and MM and I took turns doing different steps of the procedure, but still... I, a freshman undergraduate student who has taken no biology courses and with only minimal laboratory experience, was allowed to cut open a rat's head and implant electrodes into its brain.

It was, of course, a fairly basic surgery as far as surgeries are concerned. That barely reduces my excitement, however. If you had told me in September that before the end of my freshman year I'd doing such a thing, I would have laughed in your face. I'm sure students are offered such opportunities, but I never thought I'd get one... yet here we are. Two days ago, I helped shave the fur off a rat's skull, cut open the skin with a scalpel, exposed the skull, cauterize open blood vessels, drill three holes, add three screws, drill three more holes, and implant an electrode into the left and right hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex. A few months ago I didn't even know what those structures were...

I guess I should rewind. About a month ago I started working for Dr. GH, a neuroscientist at D who specializes in epilepsy. By work, I mean I read articles he and JK recommend, discuss said articles with JK, discuss Chinese food with PL, handle rats, and as of last week, do surgeries on said rats. Later this summer I will be starting (mostly) my own study investigating coherence between certain brain structures (I admit, right now I can't remember what they are, but I'll know everything about them in a few weeks) via theta and/or gamma waves as well as the effect of irregular rhythms on the developing brain. This will involve implanting more electrodes as well as inducing minor spikes in young rats and monitoring their EEG recordings as they develop. Or something like that. Right now I'm just focusing on learning more about the brain, epilepsy and other abnormal brain rhythms, rats and rat surgeries, and so forth. Oh, and I get paid to do this. I love my job.

Other exciting things that have happened:

1. I turned 19 three days ago. My best friend IL organized this elaborate thing that involved a lot of my close friends and resulted in me being reminded through the day how lucky I am to have such great friends. (A random interesting fact: two of my closest friends here, JR and IL, respectively have roommates NW and AN, whose birthdays were also May 20. I guess that's just a popular day for birthdays...)
2. I watched a rat surgery four days ago. I guess that's trumped somewhat by actually doing the surgery, but it was still exciting.
3. AH visited me a few weeks ago. It was more than lovely.

Exciting things that will be happening in the near future:

1. I have finals in two weeks, after which I will be done with freshman year. It's odd to think about how fast it passed, and how much I've changed in just nine months.
2. I'm going to China on June 11th.
3. I'm rooming with IL next year. Hopefully we can get switched into a different room (one room double = nightmare considering my (lack of a) sleeping schedule and her inability to sleep with light in the room). Regardless, it shall be grand.

If I were a religious person, I'd say something along the lines of "I am truly blessed." Since I am not, I'm tempted to say "I'm a lucky person," but then I remember what EW used to say about luck, and... let's just say that I'm really happy with where I am, what I'm doing, and who I'm becoming. And I think I have a lot of awesome things to be happy about (about which to be happy).