I am really excited to have started blogging. I have become increasingly aware of the power that is social-media and having scrutinized it from the sideline for a while now, I saw myself come out at the other end about a month ago. It started off with Twitter… my first tweet: tweet tweet. Innocent. Then I signed up for Pinterest and it all went downhill from there. My ‘Pin It’ widget bookmark has become my best friend. Its me, my puppy and Pinterest tonight. And now this blog.

Its been about a week or two since my first entry and I have to tell you, its hard work mentally. All I can do is think about it. I have become that annoying person I used to find irritating, the one that brings every conversation back to blogging. I actually heard myself today on the phone to my friend – ‘Oh I’m sorry I can’t, I’m blogging’. And one of the most awkward moments of my student life: three weeks ago I mentioned my I ♥ BIOLOGY Pinterest board to a highly acclaimed Professor of Pharmacology at UCL. He didn’t share my enthusiasm and I vowed never to speak about it. Ever. That is until I came home.

This blog is in its early phase and I am sure that given time it will become more specific in its content. But at this point there is a lot I want to share with my peers and anyone else willing to listen to my rambling thoughts.

I am 22 years old and when I tell my peers that I study Pharmacology common responses include: ‘So does that mean you can prescribe me drugs?’; ‘Can I be your guinea pig?’ and my favourite, ‘Oh you must love taking drugs!’. This misconception works in my favour at times, when suddenly I become viewed as the ‘cool kid on the block’ rather than the geek who studies molecular biology.

Most of the time I try hard to explain the truth behind Pharmacology – I explain that it is the understanding of cellular signalling cascades and receptors (huh?). That this is necessary for target validation (right…). I explain that drug development comes after (passive uh-huh). And that further along are the clinical trials themselves, commonly unsuccessful. And only then are drugs prescribed, and only by medical doctors and not researchers (silence). By this point I have been talking too long, my audience is long bored and the conversation has run dry. Next time this happens, I do not say a word but laugh awkwardly creating my personal misconception of myself – the drug-lover, drug-giver.

Then there are those moments where I relish sharing what [little] knowledge I do have. I once tried to explain DNA transcription and translation to my mother (i.e. how DNA encodes for proteins, and how these are, in turn, synthesized when needed). We were sat for a long time, and I was scribbling away on pieces of paper, my mum was nodding away, asking all sorts of questions, wholeheartedly trying to understand. I later overheard her talking to a friend: ‘Do you know how nice it was – my daughter was just talking and talking and I understood nothing! She knows all this stuff that I don’t!’. A week after I was explaining the same to my dad, sat outside a café on Haight St. in San Francisco, I found ‘DNA for Dummies’ in his bathroom. He explained that it was important to him to learn more about what his daughter is studying. Other times I realise that boys find it quite sexy when I’m talking neuroscience or pharmacology jargon. They listen and listen and then when I’m done – ‘you’re just too adorable when you talk science’. And then of course, there are the times when I am talking to other Pharmacology-lovers – drug developers, professors, students. We bounce off each other or I learn new concepts. At those moments I grasp full-on the potential of pharmacology to progress medicine. I am just a student, yet to help decipher the unknowns in biology but these conversations provide huge motivation to build a career in this field.