Work is still going great here! We drew blood from three pigs today, which made the day fly goodbye! At some times during the day we have only fifteen minutes in between times for drawing blood. This may seem like a lot, but when you have to measure glucose, hematocrit, spin down the blood in a centrifuge and pipette plasma into appropriate tubes for analysis, fifteen minutes can seem like two!
I am beginning to learn more and more about the scientific community here and in the United States from the people here and I will have to admit that it is something that I could not rule out as a potential life long career. I do not know that I could give up vet school for a research job, but I might be able to combine the two and find a happy medium. After vet school is completed of course!
We are planning to travel to Copenhagen and Germany during out last week here! I cannot believe that we only have two more weeks of work left! Time has really gone fast as Alanna said. But, before we take off to another big city, I am checking out the world news...just so that I am aware.
I watched a video on MSNBC that was about Iraqis fleeing their country to seek asylum in Sweden. I found this very interesting because the video explained that the country of Sweden has always opened its door to refugees and tried to help them. Sweden offers a place to stay, a daily stipend, and language classes while families get their feet under them again. I think that is wonderful, but I am feeling a little bit unsure about where the future of the world as we know it is going.
The next article that I saw under the title for Iraqis fleeing to Sweden was an article about how hard it is to get into the United States. I found this very contradictory. I was always under the impression that the United States was the free land that welcomed people of all races. But, now all of the sudden we have closed our doors to those who we are inflicting problems on.
The story about Iraqi refugees featured a family who had to leave their country because their son and father were working for the United States military as construction workers. The family received threats of beheading because of their association with the United States.
Last Friday when we traveled to Skagen, we met a man who is studying at Foulum who is from Iran. The tour group was walking to the beautiful northern tip of Jutland on a gorgeous, white beach, when this man came over to me and introduced himself. Of course I introduced myself and asked him where he is from. He jovially replied, "Iran, the country that is giving ‘The Bush’ all of the problems." Immediately I felt terrible. I know the war is a very heated topic, but if you just step back and think about what it must be doing to all of the innocent people who had generations of happy, healthy, wonderful families that were established there, it is a terrible thing. I have always struggled with the concept of war, but now I have a face to place with the concept.
The man told me later in the day that he originally wished to complete his PhD in the Food Science Department at the University of Illinois, but he was not granted a Visa in order to do so because he was from Iran. Once again, I did not know what to say to this man. How do I explain to him the raw feelings in the U.S. about the Middle East? How do I tell him that some people in the U.S. fear the people who are trying to flee his country for their own safety, when my country is the one disrupting it?
Until this evening when I really started thinking about this issue, I always took the stand point that the United States is denying people Visas in order to protect us. I understand that there are very dangerous people who would like to cause more pain and suffering in the United States, but I wish that there was a better way to decide who is allowed to come to the U.S. and who is not!
I am glad that I came here if only so that I could make this realization. I am very proud of my country and my friends and family who have served and are still serving in the military, but I am beginning to think more as a neutral person who does not really belong to one country or another...and it is really making me think.
I guess this is just some "food for thought" but I know that I will not forget the man from Iran, or the family from Iraq.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Viborg Week 5 Alanna
I can't believe we have been here for a month already. It seems like the more work you have the faster the time flies. After a long week of analyzing and preparing data for our project I can finally sit down and look at it all. In all honesty, this week has been one of the most stressful weeks here. I had to pick up lab skills quickly and prepare myself for sorting out all the data I gathered.
One of the things that is very frustrating about this research is the program SAS. SAS is a statistical program that allows you to enter in data and create graphs and sets using a series of commands. This program uses similar programing styles to that of DOS. I wish I had learned this program before coming here because I realized it's an essential program in our project. When I told Jens I had never used SAS before he looked shocked. Gladly I knew what the program was and its purpose from working with graduate students at school. It takes years to master this program so you must realize how I felt just learning the basics. We have 14 different parameters that we tested on 72 different dairy cows. That amounts to alot of data and alot of time spent graphing results.
Jens and I recently attended a meeting with one of the statisticians here at Foulum to see if we could improve our data and back up our research. I must say, that was one of the hardest meetings to sit through. Although I understood the basics such as normal curves, t-testing, variables, and standard deviations, I could not grasp the concepts of more complex topics. I think this is normal seeing as that I haven't had too much statistics, but it is a bit discouraging. Although all these things have been tough to over come, everyone here has been really great at teaching me the basics.
The one thing that stands out this week for me is realizing science is never as straight forward as one might think. You have to consider all the variables before starting and ending your experiment. When we first started analyzing blood samples I thought it was pretty straight forward. Pipette the plasma, put it in ADVIA (the analyzer), graph it, and there you go...results. Oh no, that's not how it works. There is the "plasma matrix" (all the stuff in the plasma that can effect the sample), the different feeds, time, date, temperature and all sorts of other variables that make it difficult to just read a graph and analyze it. Standard curves have to be placed on all samples in order to ensure its accuracy. I am learning so much about biological statistics and it seems to be making sense. Let's hope I can keep up with the world of biochemistry and statistics as the weeks comes to an end.
One of the things that is very frustrating about this research is the program SAS. SAS is a statistical program that allows you to enter in data and create graphs and sets using a series of commands. This program uses similar programing styles to that of DOS. I wish I had learned this program before coming here because I realized it's an essential program in our project. When I told Jens I had never used SAS before he looked shocked. Gladly I knew what the program was and its purpose from working with graduate students at school. It takes years to master this program so you must realize how I felt just learning the basics. We have 14 different parameters that we tested on 72 different dairy cows. That amounts to alot of data and alot of time spent graphing results.
Jens and I recently attended a meeting with one of the statisticians here at Foulum to see if we could improve our data and back up our research. I must say, that was one of the hardest meetings to sit through. Although I understood the basics such as normal curves, t-testing, variables, and standard deviations, I could not grasp the concepts of more complex topics. I think this is normal seeing as that I haven't had too much statistics, but it is a bit discouraging. Although all these things have been tough to over come, everyone here has been really great at teaching me the basics.
The one thing that stands out this week for me is realizing science is never as straight forward as one might think. You have to consider all the variables before starting and ending your experiment. When we first started analyzing blood samples I thought it was pretty straight forward. Pipette the plasma, put it in ADVIA (the analyzer), graph it, and there you go...results. Oh no, that's not how it works. There is the "plasma matrix" (all the stuff in the plasma that can effect the sample), the different feeds, time, date, temperature and all sorts of other variables that make it difficult to just read a graph and analyze it. Standard curves have to be placed on all samples in order to ensure its accuracy. I am learning so much about biological statistics and it seems to be making sense. Let's hope I can keep up with the world of biochemistry and statistics as the weeks comes to an end.
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