'Cause we got more bounce in California

PhD comic: what to call your professor?

Admittedly I went around calling them Dr.__ as an undergrad, and as that this was not that long ago, I tend to stutter a little when first calling someone by their first name (actually, how comfortable I am with a PI correlates with how many weeks it takes before I can comfortably address them by their first name). I have the strangest urge to call people by their first name but with "Doctor" tagged on in front. Except that sounds as awkward as you might imagine.

It's easier with PIs who joke with the students. It's also easier with younger PIs. Sometimes those two conflict and then I wait to see whether they're the type who mumble to themselves.

[edit 10:49]
Mom sent me a Picasa album called, translated "A Day of Tulips".
Here's the one called "8 in the morning":


Then there's "12 at noon":


In case you're wondering, my next class is at 11:30am.

On the tally

Student showed up, apologized very sincerely for being late because of traffic problems.
+1
PI didn't show up. No idea where he is. Doesn't seem to be the type that you can just drop in with a question.
-1
Has plenty of lab space. Good atmosphere.
+1
Very friendly lab members. One of the other grad students made cupcakes for everyone. With very sticky frosting.
+1
Uses kits.
+1 Lab is well funded.
-1 You don't learn as much by using kits.
Lab is VERY organized. Everything's labeled.
+1

Total so far: +1

Another lab...sort of

Dear Diary,

Today I got to the lab too early (8:30am) and neither the PI nor the student I'll be working with are here. I am currently stuck reading papers in an empty seat that I've appropriated. Current lab score = -1, from the initial default value of 0.

Also,I got an email last night from a classmate which said:

Does anyone know when or where our stats class is happening?

Those people who make it seem like grad school will be more organized than undergrad are very misleading.

Sincerely,

-S

In which there was finally ice cream

Lusine and I have successfully navigated through our first trip out together, without parental supervision (or interference), no less. Joshua Tree National Park is a bit far for a one day trip, but close enough that we could do it when I tacked on the two days to my weekend. Lucy came over on Thursday, when we went out to get food and gas, not to mention to pack everything we may need (proper preparation prevents poor performance, heh). I got Lucy introduced to OURAH HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB, which I have just recently discovered and is a bit like a FRUITS BASKET AU (except not) that makes fun of itself and is liberally sprinkled with sparkles. (I kid you not, the anime is ridiculously sparkly.) We boiled eggs (which we didn't really eat so hey, breakfast next week's done ahead of time) and made sandwiches with the flatbread that Lucy brought over (which is oval with weird edge pieces that resulted in a running commentary, given by Lucy, while I was attempting to roll my sandwiches). Introduced Lucy to new food: yes for pineapple-orange muffins, no for the shrimp-chips and the Pocky biscuits. We also watched a few episodes of DUE SOUTH, season three (because Lucy didn't care and I missed the rubber duckies). It all went well and fine until Lucy pointed out that Kowalski had very pointed features and is, actually, rather Mike-like. From that point everything he did become doubly hilarious as we tried to stick Mike in various situations and facial expressions. (Spiky.)

We switched off on driving on the way there and discovered that our height difference is enough for seat adjustments. There was snow on the mountains at one of the rest sites...and also horses, which distracted Lucy. We also swapped our music. A lot. I was introduced to Bon Jovi and got Lucy to listen to the entire RENT soundtrack. The rooms weren't ready for check in until later in the afternoon, so we went to the park (lovely roads weren't really marked, so navigation was super fun), where there was a visitor center with park rangers and an entrance booth that was empty. Given that the entrance booth was where we were supposed to pay our park fees we were slightly confused. Nevertheless we continued on until we started encountering Massive Piles of Rocks. And lots of "Exhibit Ahead" signs that are possibly a lot more useful as road markers than road signs, if we ever bothered to keep track of how many of those exhibit signs are between each hiking trail. As it was we pulled over next to a Massive Pile of Rocks and proceeded to climb around it, over it, etc. The sky was very, very blue. It was very, very windy. I discovered that the weird brown things that skitter around the windshield while driving were actually kamikaze moths, as evidenced by the number of death moths we encountered by the side of the road when we were returning from our hiking trails. (Hiking trails very nice. We do seem to go against the arrows a lot, though. It's mildly perplexing.)

Oh, and no matter what the signs tell you, there is no water in this season. The lake is a lie. The rocks were a lot more inspiring. The Joshua trees were very spiky. I think I'm developing a fondness for spiky things. Though admittedly it's mixed with a healthy dose of wary suspicion, since my sense of self-preservation hasn't completely deserted me.

We had lunch in the park. Dinner, however, took place as a local diner called Carousel Cafe. The place is, as you might've inferred from the name, carousel-themed with the main room being octagon in shape. It's a little shabby but very homey, and served food in very generous proportions. (As in, the dinner became lunch the next day and I just finished off the last of it today.) Lucy said that a lot of the day felt like something from the movie, with us driving in the car with the music blasting away and nothing but the desert on either side / us in the trail feeling that there's nothing around except for the rocks, local vegetation, and bottomless sky over us / eating dinner in a kitschy local diner that had red vinyl booths and served fries and fried chicken in a basket. Then she mentioned that in all the movies she could think of something horrible usually happens afterwards. Despite of that, we went for a walk after dinner and discussed the Lunatic Sims in detail. (Lucy wanted another baby. Because of the crib. It made sense at the time.)

I was planning to drag Lucy up early to see the sunrise in the park the next morning. However, our attempts to go to bed early were thwarted by misbehaving children that weren't even ours. They were next door and very LOUD. You could hear the thumping very clearly. After a much shorter night than we anticipated, we got up at around 5:30 the next morning, looked at each other, and decided that after sunrise we were coming back to the hotel for a nap. (It was either that or drive into a Joshua tree. Napping seemed safer, and less likely to end in fines for destruction of natural property.)

We saw still more rocks the second day and I discovered that the winding drive through the park (very large, something like 30 miles?) was actually very enjoyable with the music and scenery (the entire place was incredibly scenic in a stark, clean kind of way). We also saw a lot of bikers, which was a little alarming because--well, national park and biker parade just doesn't seem all that compatible somehow. During our hike in another trail (no water, no spring, despite of the name, but we did see five mile's worth of rocks and hills and plenty of wildflowers, which made me happy) we also saw a bunch of kids in bright orange shirt hiking with giant packs on their backs (some of the packs look larger than the kids, I swear). Lucy and I were both very glad that we never had to do something like that.

I made Lucy drive the entire way back, because I was lazy and unwilling to drive anymore than I have to. At least on roads where there are other cars and not nearly enough rocks & plants on either side.
(We also saw lots of lizards. No scorpions though. Nor tarantulas.)
When we got back we decided that we'll sleep in by Sunday morning, by which I mean that both of us were up by 8 in the morning and contemplating the merits of different types of cereal and geez...the quarter starts tomorrow, doesn't it.


...k then.

Never alone

I think I've had this dream before.

A squirrel is still a rodent

It's 9 in the morning and I'm hiding out the library again. Truth to be told, there aren't that many people in the lab (mostly empty). I just felt like being in the library, which is also mostly empty. I also have something that has to be incubated for two hours, cannot start another project because my last day in this lab is tomorrow, and the guy whom I'm doing site-directed mutagenesis with isn't here yet. (Maybe I'll try back in an hour? But if I get everything done by 2pm what am I going to do with myself for the rest of the day? Hang out in the library until 5 so I can go home? It's kind of ridiculous.)

Have emailed the person from the next lab for my background reading. So far have not heard back yet.

...

I've had a conversation with mom recently in which I warned her of my plans. I am going to, eventually, end up in bay area again, possibly SF since SD & SF are the two hot spots for bio-tech research (unless I can't afford the housing there, then I imagine I'll have to think up another plan) and SF is closer to where my parents are. Eventually I'll want to be somewhere where I can make a roundtrip to my parents' place and back in one day, if necessary, since we don't have any other relatives in the US besides my cousin in New Mexico whom no one's heard from in five years. (...yeah.) And there's heart disease from my dad's side of the family which I frankly try not to think too much about but dad's been watching his cholesterol intake very carefully so hopefully everything will be okay. But, in case, I want to be close. Which my mom appreciates and was okay when I frankly pointed out that just because I will be able to visit every weekend doesn't mean that I will. For which I'm thankful.

What is the best part of the conversation for me, though, is that I got the okay to do whatever I want to do with my life in the years between when I get out of grad school and before I turn thirty. (Compromise, you might say.) Specifically, by "whatever" I meant I got permission to go out of country to wherever I want to find whatever job I want, etc. Which is kind of awesome because, well, a chance to see the world and all before I have to settle down into a nice middle class job somewhere in the field of science and be mostly normal.

Which means, of course, that I get to remind my parents of this every year for the next five to seven years just to make sure they don't go back on the promise. (Sometimes it's necessary.)

Well, cheers.

And that spells DNA

Am in lab right now. It's very quiet and very empty, which I approve since it lessens the occurrence of headache which the later lab meeting will no doubt bring up. I've a draft of my final written project almost ready to go (feel twitchy, need to look over it again before I send it in) and then it's home free...until the next quarter.

I also need to finish registering for my classes. And house clean and buy food &c but that will have to wait. I think I will just go home after the meeting today, finish doing the math for the data that the machine'll spew out, and then take a nap. Despite of the knowledge that grades don't matter in grad school (I mean, most people will not be applying to another school afterwards, yeah?) and that the 3.0 minimum GPA (scary, isn't it? If it drops any lower you get kicked out of the program) is well known amount the PIs and mostly they well interfere before we get to that point, I was still found finals week to be deeply stressful. I simply can't not take classes seriously and not go through the "OMG am I doing this right?" cycle. On one hand, it means that I'll try to do my best regardless of whether the project matters or not, which is kind of a good trait. On the other hand: stress & exhaustion! (Did not sleep well last night and felt a sudden urge to re-do the formatting for the citations!)

Nap. There needs to be a nap in the near future.

Oh and while I was sticking my plate in the qPCR machine the DNA song came up on my mp3 player (another good thing about empty lab morning on weekends -- mp3 player! Because there's no one around to talk to you) and I grinned, because perfect timing -- nothing is quite like having someone singing about guanine and cytosine to you while you're qPCRing.

I also noticed that I've developed a strange fondness of adding "ing" to whatever reactions that I'm doing to make it into a verb, despite of the fact that I know what the abbreviations stand for and adding "ing" makes no grammatical sense of whatsoever to the majority. It gives me a perverse sort of pleasure to mangle the grammar in the sciences even more.

Somewhere, out there, a grammar nazi experienced a sudden chill.

[edit 9:34]
The inevitable truth of grad school (am filling out course evaluation forms online right now, in case you're wondering what brought this one) is that the more organized courses (as in came with website and non-faculty organizers) are often less educational.

Spoke too soon

Dear diary,

This morning I received an email sent at around 4pm yesterday afternoon requesting that we send in a hard copy of the proposal to the PI. I turned in my proposal electronically at around 10am yesterday. I just went in to turn in my paper copy, and the person who is supposed to receive this wasn't there. I hope nothing goes wrong in the transfer of papers & explanations from the person that I left my papers with to the person who is supposed to be receiving the papers.

Which is to say, that I'm experiencing some anxiety and trying very hard not to think about Shakespeare. Or Stardust, the movie version. (At least no one will die here, right? Right?)

(Also, anxiety works better than caffeine.)

Yours,

S

[EDIT 10:45]
Have returned from appointment with optometrist. Did you know that sucky depth perception after dark is apparently a common trait for people with astigmatism? (Eye pressure is still fine, despite of my DNA, thank goodness.)

Still working on the cancer paper but want to whine about the fact that when I woke up today I discovered that today's the monthly Pain Day.

Wednesdays. Why is it always Wednesday?

Hard questions to answer

Example: proposing a new therapy for cancer (one that is not currently used or in clinical trials).

Note: there are many, many different types of cancer, and subtypes. There are many,many types of treatments out right now and many more in the pipeline (what pharm people call the series of trials to approve a drug for usage). There are research being done on many, many pathways.

I hope the PIs aren't really expecting something noteworthy out of us first years here. Like the next imatinib.

(I skipped the question about the upstream and downstream pathways. People spent 30 years studying one pathway in cancer. I have no idea how to even begin to describe the masses of pathways that are involved.)

(Thank you, Anna. I had chocolate. It did indeed improve my mood somewhat.)

Finals week has begun

I went in to have my access card reset today. It turns out that somehow the card had defaulted back to its previous value, so that when you enter its ID number it shows that I belong to previous lab and not the lab I'm currently in. The person in charge was as bemused as I was.

Is it a sign? Hmm.

... ...

In other news, given that it is Monday and I have, by 1pm, not heard back from the PI about my proposal yet, I went over (while my experiment was at the "plug it in to electricity and wait" stage) to check, just to see what on earth happened and whether or not I should be waiting for an email at 3 in the morning tonight. Er. Tomorrow morning. When I went in the PI looked mildly surprised and mentioned that yes, she got the emails from me (yes, note the plural) and inquired as to whether or not I've attached my proposal to them. I informed her, very politely, that yes I did in fact attach my proposal. I attached it to all the emails I've sent to her. She said, mildly, "Okay, let me take a look then," went to her inbox, and there the emails were, with the attachments.

She decided to take a look at them while I was right there. (To save me the pain of staying up all night anxiously waiting for an email, but mostly just to get rid of me, I suspect.) Which is, to say, she skimmed over them, noted that I have more details than I need for the literature review (which I don't really consider a fault) and had me re-organize the entire experimental methods section because my aims needs to be numbered. She didn't actually comment at all about my experimental design, approach, or limitations. After she made sure I know how to re-organize the second half of my proposal (and part of the first half too, apparently background and literature review were supposed to be together for this proposal, and the sample proposal that I followed was for another type of proposal, nevermind that we weren't really told what type of research proposals we were doing to start with), she sent me on my way (no, literally, she said "Bye" to me). She was nice enough, I suppose. And technically helpful, since she gave me advice that I will take (she IS one of the graders for the proposal, after all). Mostly, though, I'm fuming slightly, because I sent that thing to her last Wednesday. For this.

Well, at least when I turn it in tomorrow it'll be over and done with. Good riddance. (For a 2 unit class too. ...If it weren't for the fact that I thought learning how to write a proposal was so important....)

Hit the pause button

It is Sunday morning. I am sitting on the living room floor, wrapped in a blanket, with two laptops and a bag of potato chips, writing about early onset type 2 diabetes. It is nice to write about something where 90% of people don't die from it in less than five years. At the very least, there's less of the "why the heck am I writing this stupid thing about changes in cell phenotype instead of doing experiments that's actually relevant to figuring out the disease?" mindset, which makes it easier to stand back, breathe, and say "Okay, this is not my area of interest, I need to know the general pathways to get through this course, but this will be someone else's project, not mine."

(Still no sign from the PI looking over the Alzheimer's proposal, by the way. Should I be giving up all hopes by this point?)

I am going through tea at an alarming rate. Though usually after the second cup I'll start switching to non-caffeinated types so I don't end up awake at 3 in the morning. No one feels good at 4 in the morning, but 3 honestly isn't that much better.

My upstairs neighbor is unusually noisy this weekend. Given the nature of the noises I try very hard not to think too much about it.

I realized I also haven't written anything particularly insightful here in a while. Is it simply because the classes and research have eaten my brain? Possible, but a large part of me is always lingering on the academic stuff. Maybe it's just because I got lazy and kept finding excuses to put it off. This weekend my excuse is the finals projects. Or maybe I'm just getting so tied down to the mundane things like remembering to buy eggs at the grocery store and turn in my papers on time that I don't bother with trying to find something insightful anymore. It's hard to know, right now, with little bits of my idealism bleeding into all my proposed experiments and a lot of emotions and philosophies bleeding into my stories and my pragmatism (is that what it is? This here's what I did today and here's what I'll need to do tomorrow?) dumped here. Whatever's left is dealt with by attacking a paper with crayons, apparently. There is no insight. Somehow I've gone from "why're things the way they are" to "that's the way things are, c'est la vie".

Except no, that's not really true either. I think I may have gotten sneakier when I'm not paying attention. Or maybe I've just stopped paying attention.

Curiosity lives on, though. It does that.

Status report

Did managed to flag someone down at 1:30ish in the afternoon and harvest my cells.

Did not hear by from the PI who is supposed to be looking over my proposal (3 days left and counting).

On the plus side,one of the postdoc from my previous lab saw me while I was leaving and was very nice to me. As was the Russian girl who is in my lab (though I guess sympathetic is a more accurate term). So, you know, it didn't end up with me sulking by myself in the tissue culture room, which made my day that much better.

Onward to salvage my day. And finish the thing on dust mites.

Planning. FAIL.

I have some cells I need to harvest today so I thought that I might go in early, when it's nice and quiet and no one's using the equipments except for me, get it done, and get on with my day.

FAIL.

The access card for the building, despite of being just fine yesterday, refused to let me into the lab. I went around and tried every single door that can potentially give me access and it failed each time, with the little security light by the door blinking green and red at me, balefully. In a fit of pique, I tried the card on the door downstairs. It opened. Now I have access to the tissue culture room, except it was the wrong tissue culture room. I have access to my previous lab. It appeared that somehow my card had defaulted back to its previous value. (The other two cards worked just fine for access to the other buildings though, I tried.) (Yes each floor has a different access code for the card, don't ask me why.)

Not helpful.

The downstairs and the upstairs are not connected by internal stairs. (Yes Kate, this is the really weird building I was complaining to you about, a while back.) You have to exit the doors, climb the staircase outside of the building, and then re-enter. Hence, access to the downstairs lab did me no good at all. To be sure I looked around for people, with the vague hope that some of the people from my current lab, who work downstairs, might have upstairs access. Failed. Then I tried to find a PI, hoping PIs get building-wide access. Given that it was 9 to 9:30 on a Saturday morning, there was no one there.

Further more, due to the fact that the PI of my current lab will be gone until next week, the chances that someone from my current lab will come in over the weekend is much, much lower than normal.

After flailing around in frustration for a few minutes (didn't solve anything, of course it didn't solve anything), I went grocery shopping. And got myself more chocolate. I'm going in later today again to see if anyone's there (unlike my previous lab, I don't have the phone number of anyone in the lab either, and I only have the email of one postdoc who will not be in until Monday). If not, I'm leaving the entire thing until Monday. If the cells start dying or the protein expression changes -- well, I'm a rotation student and I've darn well tried my best.

Oh my God. Fail. I don't think flailing adequately expresses my frustration anymore. I mean, how often do student want to go in on weekends and can't?

I need a life

What Susan does on Friday night is, apparently, filing out her tax forms.

And vacuuming. And dishes.

Because she is taking a break from working on her paper.

Planning fail

I sent in my proposal early (Wednesday) because one of the PIs offered to look over it for us if we sent it in early, and also because I don't want to cluster it with the other two projects that are due next week if I do end up having to re-write half of it. I didn't hear back all of yesterday. Just now I got an email that, in summary, said "Oh sure. Did you attach your file?"

Well, at this rate, I probably won't get the feedback until Tuesday, which is when the proposal is actually due, so therefore the entire OMG-hafta-finish-early-so-I-can-get-useful-feedback will not be panning out.

Cheers.

More PI lolz for the biologists out there:

"Gastrulation, it's the most important event in your life ...though you probably don't remember it."

Geography fail

Today our lab received a package that's addressed to Athens, Ohio.

We are not in Ohio.

Someone was napping during those high school geography lessons.

PI lolz

"Then kinase inhibitors took over the world!"

|:O


It's even better than the "Lungs are seats to the soul" one, I swear.

...

In other news, it is apparently cancer metastasis week. All week.

In which subconscious geek strikes again, and boundaries are useful

I dreamed last night and I've forgotten most of it. I do, however, remember the part where I was playing chess with someone in the park and at the same time was trying to explain why the clinical trials of cancer therapy via folate receptors is plausible to a third person who showed up and wanted to know about it. Because he came from the hospital and the doctor mentioned something about it.

Then (still in the dream) I had to go and take an exam on California florists in which, I now realized, I did get the name of the bush poppy right, Greek and all. I mixed up the name of the evening rose genus with the other genus of the poppy family though, and I don't know whether or not I should be saddened by this, or by the fact that I can give out the name to members of the family Papaveraceae in my sleep.

I also got the folate receptor information right, except I did neglect to mention that they target a specific receptor but, again, in my sleep.

I'm beginning to suspect that reading those papers right before I go to sleep is not healthy for my state of mind.

...


My parents sent over photos of the Yard, where the tulips I'd planted have germinated. Yes those are ropes. I did rope off the area where I planted things. It's basically to remind my parents that I planted things there and that they should weed, but very carefully.

It turned out pretty well, don't you think? (The plethora of weeds aside.) Can't wait until they bloom. (I got the red kind.)

Why hello there

There is a ladybug in my spinach. This is why I wash my vegetables super carefully.

Okay the ladybug has been carried out to the balcony on my finger.
And now the balance has been restored to nature. (lol MERLIN)

(Yes it was still alive. I checked. It crawled up my finger.)

Chieves, anyone?

Today I noticed that 99 Ranch (had to go today because of lab thing yesterday) misspell their vegetables. It's a little alarming, since I've always taken the English names that they present for vegetables that I grew up with as the correct name. Apparently not. Unless there's a very, very close relative of chives named "chieves" that I'm not aware of.

I now have a sudden urge to go and google the name of every vegetable label that I've seen there, especially when you get to weird names like chayote (click here if you're not sure what it looks like). Though I'm fairly confident with the names like daikon, and garlic, so maybe not every label.

I also had an urge for pineapple today. Then I took one look at the pineapples on the stand, all of them being, on average, roughly the size of my head, thought about how much work it'd be to dissect one, and lost my urge.

The tea urge continues though. It usually does.

I am now up to the part in my proposal where I'm describing the methods and wondering whether or not saying "I think there're things in the basement I can use to see that" would be considered unprofessional.

Ha

I've gone around the room during break and reorganized and so there are now ONLY FIVE PILES OF PAPER in my flat, total.

Also I may have had too much tea, if anyone can ever be said to have had too much tea.

Random

There is supposedly a movie/documentary made about the discovery of Gleevec and struggle of the scientist against Genentech. The PI has admitted that it was a little over-dramatized but nevertheless pointed it to us as an example of the odds we have to work against if we happen to discover a compound that might be used as drug therapy, if we were lucky, since apparently the odds are usually more against us than that.

Now I really want to see that movie/documentary. Think of it morbid curiosity.

Saw a giant crow on campus today. It is bigger than Kate's rabbit and slightly smaller than Anna's cat, very glossy, and totally unafraid of humans. In fact it reminds me eerily of every single fairytale/folk lore in which the bird that stares unblinkingly back at you isn't usually a bird.

Also saw a dragonfly, but I guess that isn't as interesting, aside from the fact that it seems to be very, very far from home given that there was no bodies of freshwater near where I found it. Do dragonflies migrate?

My fingers have their own minds

After some more googling, I've concluded that I got the "introduction" section of my proposal mixed up with the "literature review" section and have thus effectively thwarted my own attempt to write the entire thing in order. (It's more logical to my brain and will speed up the experimental design process that way-- or that was the plan, anyway.)

It's always a little discouraging, when you've managed to thwart yourself without even trying.

In addition, much to my own bemusement (or is it amusement? Anyway, by now it's definitely amusement), I kept typing "dopaminergic" when I meant to type "cholinergic". Clearly my mind is hung up on Parkinson's and very reluctant to switch over to Alzheimer's, despite of the fact that I just read three papers on Alzheimer's -- okay, they're all focused on golgi fragmentation but the idea is there. (The proposal will be on the role of golgi fragmentation as cause / indicator for neurodegeneration; it's based on a 2008 paper on Cdk5 and golgi fragmentation in Alzheimer's, if anyone's interested.) (Presentation today on the mechanisms of cancer cell metastasis went v. well, by the way.)

One of my classmates who rotated in my current lab fall quarter is thinking of joining my current lab. He pointed out that this is one of the most well-funded labs, which is true. He will never have to worry about the PI running out of funding to support the grad students. It does not, however, make my current experience any more pleasant. I think I'll take my risks and learn to write really good research proposals. That way I can try for my own training grant (NIH and NSF are surprisingly grad student friendly, all things considered) and it should decrease the lab-funding-risk worse case scenario, should everything go pear shaped three years down the road. (Which has happened to other students before.) (You hear horror stories from the upperclassmen.)

Conclusion? My current proposal-assignment is therefore very useful. Very annoying, but very useful.

My living room looks like a file cabinet has regurgitated on the floor. There are four stacks of paper that I can see without moving from my current spot. I no longer know which stack contains what. There is at least another stack in my bedroom, not counting the stuff that I've filed on the bookshelf.

I still want a cat, but moments like these that make me thankful that I don't have one. Otherwise there's a very high chance that I'll return from my nightly coma tomorrow morning and find that half of my review article's been chewed off and that someone's gnawed through the wire to my laptop. That'd make me sad. And the cat will probably have a bad case of food poisoning. As the saying goes, food for thought requires a mind with teeth, and thoughts for food requires...a stomach that can handle copious amounts of printer paper, plastic, colored ink, and possibly staples. (Note: colored ink from printers may contain heavy chemicals.)

...Maybe I'm thinking of a goat, and not a cat, after all.

I think I've reached that stage of the day when I'm very confused and probably shouldn't be allowed to wander around by myself. Well then. Good night.

Desperation much?

One of the PIs has, apparently, gotten someone to sent out a mass email to all first years with a list of potential rotation projects.

(Usually WE pick a PI we like and go ask THEM for rotations.)

Just the messenger

Though it does sound fun and I'd go these next two weekends if I'm not under the pain of having lobotomy performed on me with a knitting needle if I don't attend my lab meetings on Sat. and finishing my mini research proposal.

Lucy, if our schedules work out, I'm dragging you to this with me:

From Larry Brock:

...
For the past year I have been working on organizing the San Diego Science Festival - a major FUN, entertaining, educational and FREE event geared toward reinvigorating the interest of Americans in the Sciences. I have put as much energy and imagination and effort into this as any of the companies I started. And now I need your help
getting the word out.

Why is this important?

In a nutshell:
-- according to Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley, by the year 2010 (just 1 year from now) 90% of the world's scientists and engineers will live in Asia.
-- 85% of people being trained in the advanced physical sciences in the United States are from abroad.
-- because the opportunities are now greater abroad, we are no longer retaining them in the USA.
-- If we do not turn this trend around SOON, we will have outsourced innovation.

... ...

The Festival kicked off yesterday and will run through the month of March, offering over 500 FREE events for the public geared toward sparking an interest in Science. I have pulled together a grassroots effort of over 350 companies, universities, research labs and over 150 of San Diego's leading scientists and Nobel Laureates.

You can find out all the details at: http://www.sdsciencefestival.org
Click on the calendar to see dates, times and descriptions of all the fascinating events and opportunities.

The grand finale will be an all-day EXPO in Balboa Park on Saturday, April 4th, 2009 --- over 500 fun, hands-on interactive activities for all ages. There will be stuff for the mildly curious to the science professional. Balboa Park will be transformed into a series of pavilions: YOUR BODY, YOUR ARTS, YOUR SPORTS, YOUR HERROS, YOUR
PLANET and YOUR FUTURE. You can learn about fun topics like the science of the magic of Harry Potter, the mathematics of juggling, the physics of skateboarding, the science of chocolate, the physics of golf, trends in Global Warming, renewable energy sources of the future .... Plus the some of the major museums will be open to the public for free. (This is a completely non-profit, non-commercial
initiative.)

You can operate state-of-the-art robots, learn how scientists uncovered great artwork under the original Da Vinci canvases, laugh with science comedians, be mesmerized by science magicians and mathemagicians, fly a fighter jet simulator, enter a virtual reality environment, be a CSI agent, make a virus out of marshmallows and toothpicks, try your hand at using a surgical robot, discover ways of measuring global warming, learnt how to transform your car so it can run off a cusinart ....

And --- while having fun, you can leave with information about science scholarships, internships, mentorship programs, jobs and much more.

So, why should you forward this message?

You could be the one who passes it on to the student (or their parent or teacher) who is inspired and excited enough by the science they see to eventually cure AIDS or cancer, reduce Global Warming, invent the next source of renewable energy, discover how to extend life or solve world hunger...

Please consider sending this to your employees, colleagues, friends, teachers, teachers....
... ...

I spy a chance to geek out totally. Science Festival. How awesome.
Totally will try to go on April 4th, regardless of whether or not I'm going before then.

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The unfortunate thing about working with a postdoc is that usually postdocs, like most other people of my acquaintances, turn to be Not Morning People. Therefore, despite of the fact that I purposefully stayed in for 30 minutes this morning I still had to wait for about an hour before the postdoc came and showed me where the qPCR reagents are. (Attempts to attain information about the whereabouts of reagents before I actually need them are usually met with abysmal failure, as postdoc does not seem to trust me to do the experiment on my own without her being there to show me where the stuff is and give me a perfect walk-through.) (Although this is understandable, currently the only mistakes I've made are the ones that the walk-throughs wouldn't have helped with and everything else just resulted in unnecessary amounts of waiting.) Then again, I've suddenly realized, now I have a valid excuse to not have conclusive data by the end of my rotation.

Am currently sitting outside again. Postdocs have taken over the area where I usually work and the PI is having a Meeting With People in the area where I usually stay, when I'm not working.

Our final assignments were assigned today. I was made aware that I have to write two papers and take one take-home exam. I'm more worried about the papers than the exam, since one of them is supposed to be a mini research proposal. I've never actually done a serious research proposals (by which I mean more prose-like and less...uh...bullet points or anecdotal). I expect there will be a lot of reading involved (well the number is currently at six papers and counting) on top of my class papers. And the presentations.

Have made banana bread over the weekend, as bananas from last week have acquired too many brown spots and are not looking very appetizing anymore. Banana bread very good though. Attempt to bake chicken has failed. Kate's given me some tips though, so there may be hope yet for the future. Of chicken baking. Or something.

I've moved my pot of narcissi out, since the light deprivation indoors has given it a serious case of plant starvation and it's looking sickly. Aloe needs to be transplanted into a larger pot. I have no larger pot. This is probably going to get tacked on to the end of my "to-do" list which will, in reality, not get resolved until summer.

The wireless is particularly sucky at the library today (finals are starting, med students have trooped in to cram for last midterm / early finals with their laptops). I want tea. I also need to vacuum my place this weekend.