things i see, part 3: books

this may have to be a multi-part series, since i have so many books. but, we'll start here

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgsen Burnett
I received this particular novel from my dear Aunt Ruth when I was young--probably only four or five years old. Although I wasn't quite old enough to read it at the time, I loved the beautiful illustrations inside and on the covers. When I was in second or third grade, I finally read the book, and it quickly became one of my favorite books ever. I think that it is a perfect story of hope. To this day, that story of a poor, ragged girl doing everything she can to stay happy and hopeful is so beautiful.

Gene Cloning: Third Edition, Brown
Many years ago, as a high school student, I had the opportunity to participate in a summer research program at the University of Utah. They took us through a three week crash-course in lab technique: protein extraction, cell culture, plates, SDS-PAGE gels, agarose gels, etc. After the three weeks, they matched us with a professor and we worked in his or her lab for the next six weeks, presumably as research assistants. When I got to Dr. Blair's lab, I could perform the techniques, but I knew next to nothing about molecular biology. The world of restriction enzymes, ligase, and taq polymerase was completely foreign to me. A kind post-doc, named Miriam (I think...) gave me a copy of this book, from which I learned everything I know about cloning. I'm definitely taking this with me when I start at OSU this fall.