This semester, I took on a lot more responsibility in my lab. Most of my time was dedicated to counting mast cells, inflammatory cells in several different brain structures. The photo below is of mast cells stained with toluidine blue in the thalamus and hippocampus, magnified by a microscope. My increased time and responsibility has gotten me closer to my goal of a research publication, but also forced me to become even more patient with some of the more tedious laboratory tasks.