My last days in Dublin were busy and involved mostly me running around the city trying to get things organised. What to bring back to Canada, what to leave behind, and how come no one has invented a retractable hockey stick? similar to one of those retractable walking sticks or a lightsaber.

The day before my flight out of the country there was sun. A very rare event in Dublin, similar to the medical condition aquagenic urticaria or the leafs winning the stanley cup, but I was ready to take advantage of the situation and went on a photo adventure around the city.

Okay, so clearly I am way to busy to make regular witty posts like I use to. But I will try to catch everything up with small picture posts. Last year was my first experience at the Detroit Marathon. It was a fun, if not knee destroying experience where I couldn’t walk properly for 2 weeks.

I hope to make one post a day until I catch up with my major activities to 2010

Thankfully I still know many grad students at UofW and was able to attend both the public lecture at night and the private, more scientific, lecture during the day. The talks were both entertaining and thought provoking as he opened up the discussion on the usefulness of oncogene targeted cancer therapies for research and if it is really where we should be focusing.

Since researchers at the lecture focus on this type of research (Spy1 and PTEN) and you could really feel the clash of ideas flowing. Dr. Mak’s lab of course does research on the areas he was suggesting people shouldn’t look into as well as areas he suggested they should. He also made note that the two greatest cancer drugs are targeted therapies (Herceptin and Gleevec) but believes the answer to curing cancer lies in targeting metabolic processes. His lecture was more about keeping an open mind about how we look to solve problems as well getting the whole picture and never stop questioning how things are done.

One of most memorable moments of the public talk (for me anyway) was referring to Archimedes’ passion for science and experimentation. When the roman’s finally captured Syracuse a guard came running up to him, sword drawn, and ready to kill. Archimedes asked the soldier to hold off killing him until he finished an experiment he was working on. The soldier didn’t understand and killed him. Dr. Mak remarks that it is this kind of passion for science that will shape tomorrow but as he puts it “if someone runs at you with a sword, run away!”

It was a real honour to meet Dr. Mak and I got that same feeling in my gut while talking to him as I did when I met Adam West (Batman). After the lecture we headed to the keg for some drinks and some discussion about potential cancer research targets. I’m not going lie, it was a great night.

PROBLEM: the dress code change starts immediately, short sleeve white coats arrive Sept 25th. Why not implement the dress code change once the new materials arrive instead of sending hoards of stressed medical students searching the shops and getting white coats altered in a craze to meet the new requirements? Just feel like it’s one more last minute thing to stress over and I assure you there is enough of those as it is.

On the lighter side of things check out this house made of LEGO! More photos here.