The 18th International C. elegans Meeting

今晩は, Makie-desu!

おげんきですか?

It has been a while since I wrote on this blog.

Last Wednesday, Ubaydah attended the 18th International C. elegans Meeting at UCLA. Just to be brief, the meeting involved researchers from all around the world including Japan, South Korea, China, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, England, Canada, United States, and many more who use C. elegans as their model organism in their research. Some of the activies in the meeting include seminars, workshops, poster sessions, and many more. The seminars include some recent advances in Physiology, Neurobiology, Evolution, Cell Biology, Genomics, and many more.

The meeting last from June 22-26. Here's Ubaydah's simplified schedule of the meeting at a glance:

7:00 am - 9:00 am - Breakfast (Ubaydah said the UCLA commons serve very good food).
9:00 am - 12:00 pm - Parallel Sessions (seminars basically).
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm - Lunch.
1:30 pm - 4:30 pm - Plenary Session (another sets of seminars).
4:30 pm - 6:30 pm - Workshops (Ubaydah skipped these and go play basketball and ping pong instead).
6:30 pm - 8:00 pm - Dinner.
8:00 pm - 11:00 pm - Poster sessions/Exhibits/Art Show.
11:00 pm - 12:00 am - Evening Socials (where all the top researchers in the world mingle and drink).
12:00 am - 2:00 am - Ubaydah and his colleagues playing video games, pool, and ping pong.

As you can see, the whole five days were pretty intense. Ubaydah said that he learned a lot from the meeting and got to meet some interesting people as well. He also had a lot of fun with his colleagues. He also helped presenting his research in one of the poster sessions. He's currently working on mapping and indentifying genes in C. elegans spermiogenesis.

Here are some pictures from the trip. UCLA is a huge and a very beautiful campus. See for yourself.

This was the bed where Ubaydah slept in. It's in one of the UCLA dorms. Ubaydah said that the dorms were like hotel rooms.

This is the program guide for the meeting.

This is a picture of Ubaydah's name tag and his key card. The key card can also be used to purchase food.

This was the view from Ubaydah's room.

Here are several of Ubaydah's colleagues. Three other were not in this picture including his advisor.

Below are several pictures of the beautiful UCLA campus.

The picture above is actually a picture of the ceiling in one of the huge lecture halls over there.

UCLA was so huge that Ubaydah said that he felt like he's in a whole other city.

I guess that should be it for tonight.

Hope you enjoy the contents of my post tonight.

お休みなさい

Graduation 2011

Hi there!

Kagami-desu!

おげんきですか?

Tonight, I'm going to tell you guys about a commencement ceremony that Ubaydah attended last Saturday. A lot of Ubaydah's friends graduated that day including three people from his lab. Many of his friends attended the ceremony too.

One of his friends flew all the way from Malaysia just to attend her commencement ceremony. There she is in the middle of the picture above (Ubaydah is on the far left). A lot of other people were there too. There were families, friends, professors, staff members, and co-workers supporting all the graduates on that fine day. You can see the cheerfulness on everyone's face that day. Indeed, it was a day of celebration.

Even Ubaydah's other friends who have already graduated attended the ceremony to support their peers.

It was a nice spring day so you can see flowers blooming everywhere.

Families and friends brought balloons, banners, and various props to show their support. One of the balloons got away and got stuck in a tree. Coincidently, it was a monkey-shaped balloon.

After that ceremony was over, Ubaydah went and hung out with his brother and some friends. They had dinner and went shopping.

THE END

That's the story of a commencement ceremony that Ubaydah attended. He already had his last year and attended three others in the last three years.

Have a good night!

バイバイ~~*