Time flies!

Time flies, it has already been a month since I arrived in Floripa. In May, two months seemed like a long time to be away from family and now I am racing against time to explore as many places as I can before heading home. Time in floripa has been nothing but wonderful. There are infinite beaches to visit. So far I have visited 3: Canasvieiras, Joaquina, and Jurere. At Jurere, I got to see Elizabeth training with her triathlon team, this includes swimming, biking and running. Jurere is beautiful and it has many pretty houses.

I had to leave early because there were dogs everywhere. I am afraid of dogs because of a trauma I had when I was little so i am always on alert for the presence a canine. Part of my everyday life here is walking. With many streetdogs in Brazil, my 20 minute walk to the lab is a struggle for sanity.

I have the best lab mates ever. Thanks to them I have been able to learn many skills in the lab. I have learned how to use Anymaze, a computer program to read videos of rat behaviors. This is complicated because you have to set a protocol that best fits the video you are reading. After reading the video, the data is analyzed using statistics. In addition, I watched Ana doing surgery on a rat, she inserted a tube in the brain which will be used to inject a chemical to the desired place in the brain. I have not started working with the rats but I have been watching Ana do her experiments which are similar to my experiments. In contrast, my rats won't be having a surgery and I will be using butoxamine and isoprenaline which are different drugs than what Ana uses.