Wow, so much has happened since my last post. I finished up my semester abroad, which was a fantastic time. Any undergraduate, be it science, engineering, or humanities, needs to study abroad. It was difficult for me, but force the issue with your adviser and get the experience you will always remember.

The holidays were just great. The finals and papers due at the end of the semester were very tiring. Once I got back home (to Des Moines, IA), I was able to just kick back and relax, do some reading I had been meaning to (Dostoevsky is just amazing) and catch up with old friends.

Also, it was an especially exciting time due to the Iowa Caucuses. I saw Barack Obama give a very inspirational speech and saw Tim Russert at a local restaurant hot spot.

For the New Year, my girlfriend came all the way from New York to visit my family and me. She got to see what the heartland is actually like. Surprise Surprise, she did not think it was all that different from the east coast – exactly what I have been telling her for the last year.

I then had a hell of a time getting back to Baltimore. I had to rent a uhaul pull-behind, load it up, load my car up, then drive 1000 miles and move into my new apartment.

Now I am back school and getting into the swing of things. Starting a new project on the AraC protein of the L-Arabinose Operon using Lanthanide-based Resonance Energy Transfer to study the 3D geometry of the protein.

Alright, good off-season, now back into the semester in about a week. This weekend is a trip to New York City for a relaxing break.