confirmation that i am in fact a woman

...Hm, on second thought, perhaps that isn't the best of titles for a blog post. But I'm keeping it.

Hello, everyone! Yes, I exist still. It's amazing - I thought for sure that when I went to sleep at 6a.m. on Saturday morning after being in and out of the lab since 8a.m. on Friday that I would never wake up. But I did, in fact, wake up...at 2:30p.m. It was quite a surprise to look at the clock and see that the day was mostly over. I had just enough time to cram in a "breakfast" of coffee and a banana and "lunch" of chocolate chip cookie dough before it was time to meet a friend for dinner at 5! The moral of the story is that I have been crazy busy with work.

It's good - I have proven to myself that I can in fact singlehandedly take care of an experiment that normally I would be required to employ the assistance of at least 3 other people. This is very difficult to schedule, in case you couldn't figure that out for yourself. It is much easier to schedule an experiment into my life when it is just ME who needs to be involved with it. And truthfully it doesn't take that much longer to do with just me than it does with everyone else, although I have to sacrifice a couple replicates of tissue samples, which means less statistical power. But oh well. It's much less of a headache.

Now, that has nothing to do with my post's title! Let me get to the point here...

I got my hair trimmed last Saturday, and the stylist thought it would be great to straighten it. She tried to convince me that despite what everyone seems to think, it doesn't really take that much time to style one's own hair from naturally curly to unnaturally straight using a brush and a hair dryer. She did it in about 12 minutes. And, as she said, everyone should have 12 minutes to give up in a day - it would be rather a bad thing if one didn't. What she doesn't realize, though, is that even if I had all the time in the world to straighten my hair, I do not a) want to and b) own a hair dryer. At any rate, here is a picture of me with the straight and trimmed hair.Ah - and speaking of haircuts, someone else recently got one because she looked a bit crazified herself.It was indeed driving her to eat phone books, it appears. However, cutting Joelle's hair isn't a one-time event. It's a multi-day process because she dislikes it so distinctly and because there is so much hair. So I thought I might terrorize her by making a sort of mohawk and taking pictures to then display on the world wide web.Finally we got it all off. Isn't she a looooong bunny??I love it when she lays all stretched out like that.

Okay, so I got my hair cut. And then I threw on jeans and a fleece and old tennis shoes and ran some errands and went to an intense counseling session and then went to the vicinity of my church. I wanted to attend the Saturday night service because I was slated to meet a friend on Sunday and wanted to keep that open in case I had to hit the road before church time to reach the 3-hour-away destination. I didn't realize that there are extra funky people hanging around the church area on Saturday evenings.

I should note that my church is located in what many would call a "bad" part of town. It's really not, but it is on the cusp and is often populated with people who would most likely fall into the poverty category. Not that this really bothers me, but I am aware that there are certainly some shady dealings going on at some times, and it's good to keep aware of one's surroundings.

I had reached the church area early and decided to walk a block to the gas station to get some food since I was absolutely starving. As I walked along this fine gentleman (I say sarcastically) called out, "Where you going with that fine self?" (And, I should note - this was the best - this other dude leaning against the wall of the building I was passing muttered, "None of your business!" Thanks, man!) I totally ignored him and kept walking. But then I thought...wait a second...I'm wearing JEANS a FLEECE and GRUBBY TENNIS SHOES. Hello??! I do NOT look fine! But, apparently I did, because when I (regrettably) walked back the same way, he reminded me several more times that I looked good. Maybe it was the haircut?

Okay, so that was last week. And it didn't irk me too much other than the fact that even if I try really hard to be modest and don't try at all to even look nice, men can still take a totally innocent woman and situation and make it be inappropriate. (I should note that women can also do this; the point isn't that men are evil, because they're not. They're just men.)

This week walking to church, however, was when I really realized that I'm a woman.

I like to think that I don't come off as being very vulnerable. I'm tall and I usually try to walk like I know where I'm going. And I am pretty sure it looks like I could run really fast if I had to (and I am pretty sure I actually could, too). I try to convince myself that I am, in fact, quite confident and capable and safe and able to defend myself or deal with bad people that might happen upon my path. And then something like today happens.

I'm on my way to church, going across the street, and this guy is jaywalking across the other street perpendicular to me. Our paths intersect and he says something semi-normal-to-this-area like, "Hi, Miss Lady," which usually means absolutely nothing. I replied with a friendly and courteous, "Hi!" To which he then went on, reaching into his pocket, "I've got something I know you'll love."

Er. I doubted that. I don't know what that something was, but I said, "I'm fine, I don't need anything, thanks," and kept walking.

Right, so that wasn't so bad. But...

But why in the world did I suddenly feel like I wanted to go hide somewhere and cry? Why did I feel so flustered? This person did not attack me or in any way threaten to injure me. We were in broad daylight and there's always about 5 cops doing traffic and stuff around the church, which was about 100 yards away. Why did I feel so...scared?

I'm a woman. Underneath this whole, "I've got it all together, don't mess with me, I can take care of myself, I'm very brave" facade, I know I'm this close to getting plucked from the sidewalk by some strong male and assaulted. I know I'm the target for lewd and inappropriate comments and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I know that I want someone to protect me and I hate having to walk through dark or scary places by myself.

So, in a sense, it's good for things like this to happen to me. They remind me of how I really feel deep down, how I try to cover it up and pretend I'm someone I'm not. It's unfortunate that this pretending is what is both celebrated and accepted in the world today. It's unfortunate that there is such a women-centered battle going on without very many people being acutely aware of it. And it's unfortunate that more men don't realize that women (at least this one!) want to be fought for, defended, and in the end treated with the utter dignity and sheer love for which they were created.

not all work

Okay, so in case you're bored or overworked, please see here. Matty T from Relient K pointed it out on the band's blog a while back (May 11). Sure to please.

busy is good

I don't think I say this very often, but: I'm busy, and it's good!

Usually when I am busy (or at least when I say I am busy - I suppose many would argue that I'm busy very often, and I have to be insanely busy before I actually think that I am) it's very NOT good. It's usually stressful, crazy, and none of the things that must be done get done nearly as well as they could/should.

But not now.

What I've got on my plate for work...

• Writing a report for my thesis committee - meeting is on July 2!!!! And I am intending to do my very best to convince them that I am nearly done and only have to do a couple more experiments before I'm allowed to graduate. No small feat.
• Trying to figure out why my ELISpot assay works one day and then doesn't the next, because I NEED it to consistently work June 21-28 when I take up residence in the laboratory to isolate millions and billions of cells and test them in this assay
• Writing a self-evaluation of the past year for the annual review we students undergo by the faculty, due June 29
• Attempting to learn 2 software packages that will (in theory) make the analysis of my data a ton easier than it is now and will allow me to make pretty pictures to include in the thesis committee report
• Writing (yeah...lots of writing going on here...!) a journal article about several years' worth of my work, which requires making more pretty pictures from data that is buried in one of my 5 lab notebooks and/or in some mysterious folder on one of three computers I've used over the period of time during which the data were collected. Lesson learned: organization is very helpful, and I need to be more organized.
• Trying to make it so the "important!" marked emails in my inbox don't get pushed so far down in the list by new, un-dealt-with email that they don't show up in the top 20 anymore. Perhaps making a few folders and organizing my email would help here...but maybe not.
• Preparing nasty questions to ask to second-year PhD students who are asking me to be part of their mock comprehensive oral examination. This requires that I first read (and hopefully understand) their 10-20 page proposals.
• Plotting out the next several experiments I want to do, which fills my calender up through December 6 and involves making sure there's enough space and time to coordinate these experiments with everyone else's space and time WHILE ALSO avoiding holidays in the schedule-making process.

And then on my plate in other parts of life...

• Trying very desperately to keep up with the constant barrage of emails from friends and teammates and fellow knitters and rabbit-owners. I welcome emails, but I hope people don't think I'm mad at them when it takes me a month to write back, especially when their message says something like, "Hey, wanna have ice cream on Thursday?"...
• Organizing my social calendar. Not that this is exceedingly complex, but I do tend to make being social not a priority when I have lots to do at work, so I'm trying very hard to leave spaces in the schedule for "Hang out with someone!" Which also means I need to do silly stuff like write down in my planner, "CALL so-and-so to fill that hang-out spot, otherwise you'll forget so-and-so exists!"
• Treating Joelle for her sneezing. Again. Of course. Oh, and did I mention that she bit me on the thigh the other day? She was mad that I was trimming her hair.
• Feeding Sheamus one food pellet at a time. He is eating now! But I can't just put food on the water surface and expect him to find it. Ohhhh no. No, he requires that I put one piece of food down at a time...then he can hopefully see it (he seems to be lacking some eyesight quality since his near-death experience) and choose to eat it. And then I can offer another piece. Two at a time is too much. ...My animals are special...
• Taking care of a friend's fish. Why my friend thinks that I, the owner of I'm-about-to-die-oh-wait-no-I'm-not-just-leave-me-here-for-5-months Sheamus, would be a good candidate for fish-sitting is beyond me. Fortunately the fish, Houdini, is really fat and is probably not going to suffer a whole lot if he decides to not eat for the rest of the month that I'll be watching him.
• Knitting! Yes, folks, I am indeed knitting even though pictures never appear on this blog anymore. More out of necessity now than for fun - I've got a baby shower gift on the needles, and the shower is July 7. AAAK! Not sure if I'll be making that deadline, but it'll be close.
• More deadline knitting: Sockapalooza 4. I haven't started yet... And considering my extremely slow knitting pace, it's going to take me many late-night knitting runs to be done by the August 2 deadline... But at least now I've finally ordered yarn and narrowed my pattern choices down to two.
• The everyday things of life, like getting the oil changed, seeing the eye doctor, finding time to go buy cereal and milk...

That is what I've been up to and/or am still working on. Why or why am I not feeling like busy is bad? Because...everything is falling into place very nicely. I can't explain it, it's just...life is peaceful now. I wake up refreshed in the mornings, I have enough time to read the Bible and do a little journaling every day, I eat meals. Maybe I've finally learned how to balance? Maybe everything is going to blow up in my face in the next couple weeks...? I guess we'll see, but for now I'm choosing to stay in this "happy place."

better?

I was pondering today...

You know that poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, the one that goes

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

It's from "In Memoriam."

I don't recall which movie it's from (perhaps "Good Will Hunting"??), but somewhere I heard someone on the silver screen tell someone else those last two lines, rather flippantly, and the listener sneered and you could tell he didn't agree with that at all. It is painful to love, after all. And it is very painful to lose love.

I wonder...what is the consensus on this? What do you think? Is it really better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

it's not so bad

After I stepped off the bus on Wednesday and got into my car at the park-and-ride, I turned on the radio to my current favorite, NPR. It's my connection to the "real world" of news and such. And I heard all about court cases surrounding Guantanamo Bay...and people running of this, that or the other public office...and how public leaders are being untrustworthy...and how the war in Iraq is causing much consternation...

And I drove the short distance between the park-and-ride and my apartment and went from the least-educated, poorest, most crime-filled, just-on-the-fringe-of-the-city-proper neighborhood in the area to the NICEST one just by crossing one roadway...and I cringed as my car bumped along the road that had gotten torn up for resurfacing...and I was getting a bit downhearted about all the traffic that was being promised for the weekend due to some major construction and detours around the major highway of the area...

Then, to my surprise, I saw a demonstration of sorts going on at the corner. You know: a group of people holding signs, waving a flag, carrying on about their favorite issue, chanting perhaps, motioning to everyone who passes by, and of course during rush hour - although it didn't matter a whole lot because the street upon which they were standing is not a very high-traffic one and is actually quite quiet and peaceful.

But this group of sign-holders was unlike any I've seen before. And EVERYONE who drove by honked in support of their cause! How could it be that everyone could agree upon an issue?? Especially as they drove on this road that connects conservative and liberal neighborhoods? I was curious, but the most curious thing about this group was that they were all kids. Middle schoolers, I would wager.

What were they advocating???

The sign flashed at me as I drove by said, in red and blue writing on the white posterboard: "HONK FOR AMERICA."

Oh.

Leave it to the young people to remind us all that despite bumps in the road - both figuratively and (especially in Pittsburgh) literally - ...we live in a really great nation. And it's worth celebrating.

I guess I have to admit...it's not so bad.

memorial day 2007

This past weekend I wanted to get far, far away from the lab and from life. What better way to "escape" than to hike with a heavy bag 10 miles into the woods of the Appalachian foothills?

I set out on Friday afternoon to Columbus, where I stayed overnight with my brother in his "new" place (it's the first time I've been there, so it's new to me, although it's several months old to him). Saturday morning we drove to Shawnee State Forest and found the backpack trail after visiting with a park ranger who told us to watch out for rattlesnakes. We strapped on our backpacks, laden with food, bedding, shelter, clothing, and cooking equipment.

On Saturday we hiked about 10.4 miles, then we stayed overnight at one of the "campsites." It was next to a stream bed (not much water in it, so it wasn't quite a stream) from which we could hear some frogs croaking to each other. There was a latrine not too far away, but I was too scared to use it without the door open because there were some HUGE crickets that made big noises when they jumped out of the "toilet" and onto the wooden walls. S-C-A-R-Y...!

We set up camp and made hot food and then did some reading and resting and stretching in the tent. We also did a search for ticks on our legs and were astounded to actually find one loosely attached to my brother! He smushed it and threw it outside the tent. I slept well in my new super-duper Slumberjack sleeping bag, but I discovered that the birds all wake up really early...and they're very loud!When I finally emerged from the tent, I found that our tick friend (or one of his buddies) had revived from the smushing and had climbed onto the tent! I threw him in the latrine.

That second day we hiked a bit further but had more time to get there, since we started in the morning instead of the afternoon. The trail took us over some little streams and through heavily vegetated areas and up some fairly steep hills. Not the least of these was the hill just before our campsite destination - upon looking at a map after one of our routine breaks we decided it would take about 30 minutes to get to this site, but we told each other to tack on another half hour just so we'd be prepared for the worst...and it was a good thing, because it did indeed take the entire projected hour to get through the last leg of that hike because it was all uphill! It was very nice to finally get to the site where we could set up camp. I was really ready for a long rest!

Again we set up the tent and cooked food and did a tick check. We found another tick on my brother. Truly, it seemed like every time we stopped we found one on him; there had definitely been one when we had stopped for lunch. Probably it wasn't that he is more appealing to ticks but that he went first on all of the trails, so he probably just accumulated all of the ticks before I had a chance to encounter any of them.

On Memorial Day we hiked the remaining 4.3 or so miles back to where we had started. The final part of the trail dumped us out by the State Park's lake...and I really wished that we had packed swim suits so we could jump in to cool off. I didn't know that it was possible for anyone to sweat as much as I did over those three days. Every day when I took off my pack at the camp my shirt was drenched in sweat. When the shirt finally dried by midday the next day, it had lines of sweat caked on it! I guess this stresses the importance of keeping well-hydrated while backpacking! And also the importance of bringing at least one change of clothes...which I did not in fact do (I had to wear my pajamas one day on the trail because my regular shirt was so gross...).

that's my pj shirt

All in all it was an awesome weekend! I had become so far removed from work and "real life" that I was actually wanting to get back to it! That's what I call refreshment!

that's my gross shirt

not a bump

Where was this picture taken...?And this one?How about this?...Or this?And this - the best!Oh wait, that last one is sort of an inside joke. And a pretty funny one, if you happen to be inside...

And the location...Whistler-Blackcomb, considered by many to be the best ski resort in the world, located in gorgeous British Columbia, Canada!

This was the location of the 2007 Keystone Symposia on HIV Vaccines, which I attended at the end of March. Here's the conference center, nestled amongst the snow-capped mountains...What a terrible place to have a conference, eh?

And here's the dump we had to stay in...I am, of course, being sarcastic. The Crystal Lodge was wonderful!! It was less than 100 yards away from the base of both Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains, which are the home of dozens and dozens and dozens of groomed ski and snowboard trails as well as awesome backcountry, if you happen to be skilled enough to venture off of the trails...which...I certainly am not.

I did make some large strides in getting myself to backcountry-level, however. I took a ski lesson one afternoon when there weren't many interesting talks to attend. This was (sadly) only the second time in my life I've been downhill skiing. The first time was great, but skiing is rather expensive, and it is a lot more fun when one can go with other people. For a long time I didn't know anyone else who skied. Recently I met someone who does, but he was never interested in going to the skiing places nearby. He had grown up skiing, which meant he went to such places as Colorado and Tahoe and Utah and the Canadian Rockies (like Whistler!). He said he wasn't interested in skiing "bumps." I thought he was being ridiculous and that any mountain to ski on was better than no mountain to ski on.

However.

As does seem to happen to me more and more often these days, while standing on the slope halfway up Whistler waiting for my turn to ski down under the watchful eye of my instructor I happened to take my eyes off of the snow before me and looked up, and I immediately realized that I would once again have to bite my tongue or stick my foot in my mouth or some other similar phrase. When I looked up, I saw something like this...Now...that is something you don't see every day. That is something you don't get to see on "bumps" in Pennsylvania or Michigan or Ohio or West Virginia or other places around me where one could ski. You can't look up from the ski slope and find yourself utterly surrounded by more mountains. I can't describe what this feeling was like - it was like being inside a circular room with a panoramic picture of the mountains up on the walls, so that no matter where I turned, I was just struck with more and more and more of the majestic, beautiful scenery. What in the world could compare with skiing in a location like this? No bump would ever come close.

So...I was wrong. Skiing these world-class resorts in huge mountain ranges does make skiing at smaller and shorter locations much less appealing. Not that I'm going to never ski bumps myself, but I can at least appreciate my friend's lack of enthusiasm for such places.

There is so much to say about Whistler. I may end up writing more about that trip at another time. So much to be said and learned from the many cultures intermingled at the resort: the ski bums...the ski snobs...the average Joes who somehow ended up amongst all the skiers...the mountain folk...the locals. There was also the reminder that life needn't be all about being the richest, smartest, or most influential. And finding myself feeling ancient as I told college seniors to follow their dreams before they were too old to do so. You'd think my brain would have been filled with information from the HIV conference, but really it was packed to overflowing with lessons about life.

I should also note that before getting to Whistler I spent a day in Vancouver, the major city nearest the resort. I'm not too keen on the West Coast, but this city certainly had a lot going for it that I enjoyed very much. I saw bald eagles soaring too high up for my camera to reasonably capture, I saw very beautiful modern environmentally-friendly buildings being constructed (which I thought would be an architectural engineer's dream come true), I saw mountains rising from the seas, I saw reminders of the native cultures of the lands, I saw ocean liners poised to whisk people out to sea, I saw industrial products waiting to be picked up and sent to a useful destination. So many contrasts, all in one city. Vancouver was great!But still, it's nothing compared to WHISTLER!!!

happy things

Woah. BIG news! Big news from a little guy.

You know how Sheamus (the fish) hasn't eaten anything in forever? How he's somehow miraculously still alive although he appears to have exceedingly little control of his buoyancy, spine, and up-right-ness? Yeah, he hasn't eaten since at least December 2006. And it's not for lack of me feeding him.

I have basically given up hope for him, because no amount of medicine in the water or special food or frequent water changes appear to help. I resigned myself to the fate that Sheamus will just wither away and die one of these days.

This morning...for whatever reason I looked over at Sheamus's bowl and something made me think, "Hey, he's begging for food like he used to do when he actually ate food." So I thought, "What the heck, I might as well plunk some in there." I've been fooled by this before; usually when I think, "He looks like he's in an eating mood!" he just ignores the food and it sinks to the bottom. BUT...

Today...SHEAMUS ATE!!!! 4 pieces of food, no less! It was amazing.

I don't know what it means in the long-run, but it surely was a good indication that maybe he'll be okay. At least I know that he has some food in his tummy and that's he's not boycotting that type of food.

I won't frighten you with a picture of the poor thing, but here's a picture of something else happy that I will (try to) write about in more detail in my next post (whenever that may be).Anyone know where that is? And no fair "guessing" if I already told you.

what if...?

In light of my newly recanted burning desire to plot out every last detail of my future, my mind has wandered to questions about "What would have happened if you had chosen a different place for graduate school?" Two notes on that sentence: 1) The question isn't a "Oh, woe is me, I made a bad choice!" one; it's simply, "Hm... That would have been interesting." 2) I have absolutely no idea when the last time I read or used the word "recanted" was (excuse the grammar awfulness just there), but for some reason that word flowed nicely through my fingers onto the screen...!

So. What if...

What if I had chosen to attend University of North Carolina? I had a tough time picking between Chapel Hill and Pittsburgh. In many respects, Chapel Hill is just the type of location I would love to be in: a smallish college town, lovely weather, situated equidistant from the ocean and the mountains. I even had the pleasure of meeting someone from a sister church of my college church while I had my interview, and I then spent the next summer living just around the corner from that person (who happened to be an incredibly sweet, good-looking, tall young man). The research there isn't bad, and everyone was very friendly.

The interesting thing about UNC is that one of the motivations for strongly considering the school was the Research Triangle that, in addition to Chapel Hill, has vertexes in Durham and Raleigh. Back in 2002, it seemed like THE place to be. A job was guaranteed in the area. That seemed like a very wonderful thing to me at the time. The biotech industry in the Triangle was thriving and growing. To my fresh-out-of-undergrad mind, it sounded perfect and secure. However, here I am five years later, and I haven't heard a thing about the Triangle in ever so long. Yes, there's a lot of good research being done at UNC, North Carolina State University, and Duke University. However, it's a far cry from the picture that had been painted in my mind. A forecast is, after all, merely a forecast. I feel I would have been disappointed if I had selected UNC with the prospect of jumping into industry in the Triangle...only to find that it wasn't as up on the up and up as had been projected.

What if I had chosen to attend the University of Pennsylvania? Now that is an interesting question. To this day I believe that many people probably thought my choice to turn down Penn was incredibly stupid. In fact, the more I stay in research, the more I believe that. The program I was accepted into at Penn had an agreement with the National Institutes of Health where Penn students could select from not only the Penn researchers but also the researchers at the nearby NIH to pursue their doctoral degree. At the time I was incredibly naive about what that meant. I do recall that it was emphasized in pretty much every informational talk we interviewees sat through; it obviously was something Penn was extremely proud of and thought would impress all of their applicants. Well, call me ignorant, but I wasn't impressed because I had no idea what significance research at the NIH has in HIV and pretty much every other biomedical field. To give you an idea of how appealing the NIH would be to most anyone who knew what was going on in science, at the latest HIV meeting I attended, almost every speaker was from or working in close collaboration with someone at the NIH. The rest of the speakers all seemed to be from Penn.

There you have it...I blew a huge opportunity for getting to work with the best of the best in the field at what many would say is the most coveted biomedical research facility in the world. The NIH (seemingly) has it all - state-of-the-art machines to do the cutting edge research, internal funding so grad students don't have to worry so much that their boss is going to tell them "Oh, you can't do that experiment, it's too expensive," beautiful buildings, the smartest people in the world in the next lab over, access to an endless supply of volunteers for tissue and blood samples. Besides that, it's situated in a fairly wonderful area of the country (again, not too far from both a large body of water and a open, mountainous region - these two aspects pique my interest very much). Anyone who is interested in building a solid career in scientific research would jump at the chance to get an in. And I said no??? What was I thinking!?

Yet, I still am not convinced that I would have selected Penn, even if I had known then what I know now. After all...I don't want to build a snazzy career. I don't want to spend my life chained to my research or be cut-throat competitive. I want to work hard at what I love doing, sure, but not to the extent I gather is the norm at the NIH based on conversations with other students and researchers I have since met who are there. That's not where my heart is at. Perhaps if I had chosen to go to Penn, I would be headed in an entirely different direction from where I'm pointed now...and it's anyone's guess as to whether I would be happy or not.

What if I had chosen to attend University of California, Davis? This question intrigues me most. Over the years here in graduate school, I have achieved a deep appreciation for the HIV-related work going on at UC Davis. For some reason I never seriously considered their offer, and I can only assume it was because they accepted me and made an offer without flying me out for an interview so I thought it was a lousy, second-rate place to go. Today I very much disagree with that judgment; two of the top ten people I would like to work with if I stay in HIV research are there. Probably another thing that kept me from Davis was its distance from family in Michigan. Who would have guessed that by my third year of grad school my sister would be living only an hour and a half away, which is closer than any family member is currently?

There are so many "what if"s. In the end, I really don't know. Nobody ever knows! What I am confident of is that, had I chosen a different school, I would not know the people I know today; that would be sad. And it's slightly possible that I never would have fallen in love with mucosal immunology and the gut in particular. (You can determine whether or not that was a good thing to have happen to me here in Pittsburgh!) Maybe I also would not have learned to rock climb...or scuba dive...or knit! No knitting -- now that is an unusual concept to attempt to grasp!

It's good for me to look back and see how my choice panned out, especially as I approach the end of my graduate schooling and will eventually (but not now!) need to make a choice about where to step next. I realize that what I think will happen is not what does happen. And usually what does happen is a lot better than what I thought would happen, even if it is a little nerve-wracking to get through.

For, even in my selection of the University of Pittsburgh as the school for the pursuit of my PhD, what ended up happening was not at all what I had anticipated. I was exceedingly interested in one particular lab when I moved to Pittsburgh. The projects going on were directly related to my strongest interest in the HIV field. I rotated in the lab for 3 or 4 months, and I was very happy there and got some great work done. My rotation project was not really about the particular interest I had; it was about the gut as a reservoir for HIV during chronic infection and had to do a lot with T cells. When I finished that rotation and went on to the next lab, I picked up a project involving the gut, also, based entirely on my new-found interest in that organ. And six months later when I had to select the lab in which I would continue my education...it was not the one I had come to Pittsburgh for. I could certainly have gone there; there was an opening for a student, and I enjoyed the mentor and the people I would have worked with. But, as usual...something better had been revealed to me.

Funny how that works, eh?

...And I hadn't intended on writing this, and it sounds super, duper silly, but I just thought: D is a great guy. Wonderful. But apparently not for me. That's sad. And yet...if someone better in coming...wow, Someone Better is going to be AMAZING, because D is pretty darn good!

Hooray.

d end

And...the week is over (mostly).

I survived! There will be a bit more craziness at work next week, but this week was the most intense as far as that goes, and all of us in the lab are still friends. We also discovered that we all like the same music. Score!

As noted earlier, the Freaky Appointment never came to be, and that situation is Very Good now. There is understanding between the appointee and me (I know that's terrible grammar, but it rhymes).

Alas, the response that was destined to be bad regardless of what it was never came. Which perhaps is for the best. Unfortunately for those interested in my love life, the anticipated response was to come from good ol' D. There is a distinct lack of understanding between that boy and me. Ungood. Sad. I'll survive. Due to lack of sleep and other things I have half a mind to use mean names and write about how I am frustrated, but wisdom suggests that's not such a spiffy idea.

Here at midnight-thirty I'm finally ready to leave the lab for good for tonight. I GET TO SLEEP IN TOMORROW (this morning?)!!! Hooray for the promise of more than 4 hours of sleep! (And you thought all-nighters only happened in college, didn't you?)

God is good

That is all I can say. I might laugh or jump for joy or scream "Hooray!" or turn on loud, happy music - but truly in light of the way God pulled off yesterday, all I can do is say, "God is good."

You see...

Everything in the lab went well. Yes, it was a very long day, and there were a few rough spots, but considering all of that my team and I achieved decent yields of the cells we were after and there were no huge blow-ups at one another.

I have not gotten the response that I'm waiting for, but as I'm waiting I'm realizing that the response, whatever it is, is not the make-or-break-it thing I've been making it out to be in my mind. If the response is good, then okay. If the response is bad, then okay. I have peace that whatever happens...it will be okay.

And the dreaded appointment... That was the kicker. Have you ever had a moment when someone calls and tells you something and you want to drop the phone and run rejoicing around the neighborhood but that would be exceedingly rude and unkind because what the person told you was hard for them to say? Okay, maybe you haven't. But that's what I felt like yesterday. I was just putting the last thing I needed for the appointment into my bag when the phone rang, and it was the "appointee" saying we would have to cancel due to extenuating circumstances beyond human control. (Er...yes, can I say GOD did that???!) I believe I did a good job of tactfully saying, "Oh, that's too bad. Oh well, no biggie" without being disingenuous.

What a load off my shoulders...! It reminds me of "Sing for joy to God our strength; shout aloud to the God of Jacob! ...He says, 'I removed the burden from their shoulders'." Psalm 81:1&6.

And so, today, while only day two of the week, is looking brighter than I had anticipated. Continuing on my Relient K kick, might I just say:

Something tells me that this is going to make sense
Something tells me it’s going to take patience
Something tells me that this will all work out in the end

looking forward to a week of life

Feeling a little introspective again today... So many thoughts have been going through my mind in the past two weeks, and probably one of the most recurrent ones is, "Can I please figure out how to stop thinking so much??" Thinking doesn't help very much in a lot of situations. What I mean to say is that as much as I think about what I should do if/when this-or-that occurs or what I should do to get this-or-that to occur...many times "this-or-that" is not something that any amount of me thinking or planning for can make any amount of difference. I cannot make stuff happen by thinking about it. I can't wish things into existence. All I can do is take life moment by moment, as it comes, basing what I do on not what I think but what I believe. Hm, can anyone follow that "think vs. believe" concept -- I once described it to some friends as "I need more wisdom, not brain cells."

Anyway... The week ahead of me is one of those that cause me to think muchly. A bunch of stuff going on in the lab; long hours await. I am waiting to hear back from someone whose response I can't predict; whatever the result my mood will certainly be affected. I have an appointment that I feel uncomfortable and anxious about attending; very long and awkward moments are guaranteed.

I think...have I prepared everything I need for the week of labwork...what if that response is unkind or disappointing...the lab work and the response and the appointment could all go in ways I don't want, and that will make the future look bleak because all these things seem to have so much to do with trying to publish results and graduate and find a new place to work...if I'm so uncomfortable about this appointment, maybe I should cancel it - but no, it's too late now, and maybe it's just my defense mechanism to avoid things I don't feel comfortable with...will I be able to keep it together during the stressful week and not go off on my coworkers and to the responder and at the appointment...all these things do not have that much of an affect on my future, why am I so concerned...these three things are what I anticipate for the week, but assuredly so many other things I have not anticipated will also crop up - can I deal with that...is it even worth worrying about the response, maybe the person isn't really worth caring that much about...is my worry about all of these things just setting me up to have a bad attitude regardless of what actually happens... These are my thoughts.

I do believe I need to figure out a way to make my brain turn off...!

da po' bun

My poor rabbit, Joelle...

I neglect her beautiful coat. She does a very good job of keeping it clean - I see her licking it all the time and chewing out all the hay that sticks to her. However, she can't keep the hair on her underside free of debris and mats. That's my job, which I've been ignoring for a long time. :-(

It's led to a few rather funny incidents. Pictures of the one recently were taken the night before I left on a trip I have to tell you all about, and all of my clothes were in the washing machine, so that explains why I am wearing such a freaky outfit.What's that on her butt, you ask? Well...Yeah, she's made in China...

Well, on Tuesday my wonderful friend and coworker came over to help me chop out some of the mess that is Joelle's undercoat. Wonderful friend and coworker has experience cutting her dogs' hair, and she did a great job with her lagomorph subject. Joelle, of course, didn't enjoy any moment of the experience of being HELD and RESTRAINED and TURNED ON HER BACK! By the end of the hair-cutting session, Joelle was pretty much submitted by default because she was exhausted. When we let her free, she rested under her favorite chair for two hours before she found the strength to eat her favorite greens that were sitting right in front of her. Before she slinked to the chair, she showed us exactly how embarrassed and upset she felt...

getting up

This week the trend is for life to be ironic. You only get to see one such example, but really there have been many.

It was both funny and sobering when I turned back the pages in my journal on Tuesday as I ate breakfast. After much thinking and talking and crying on Monday, I finally got to the place where I could see that all my efforts at trying to get my life together for the future...were not working and, more importantly, weren't necessary. I was out of control...and what I was trying to control is beyond my control.

A counselor once gave me a picture of spheres of control. There were three concentric circles. The inner one represented things I can control. The next one out was things I have influence over but can't ultimately control. The outer one was things I have no control over. I really don't like those outer two circles. But seeing them helps me to look at situations in my life and think about in which circle they exist.

Once I realize something is out of my control, though, it's still another gigantic leap to accept that it really is out of my control. And it's even tougher to let God have control of it, which is really the only way things will work out.

The irony of my reading on Tuesday was that I was sitting at the table with all of these realizations and the peace that came with them, I saw that I had written just that in my journal...on SUNDAY. Why did I not at all remember thinking those thoughts?

The answer is, quite simply, that it's one thing to think of a concept but it's quite another to agree with it. And for me, to get to the point where I realized I was not agreeing with it, I had to get a bit hurt in my heart. I had to go down to a very low place, where the only place to go was up.

Also ironic is how very appropriately my new best friends of Relient K sang about my precise feelings:

I'll tell you flat out
It hurts so much to think of this
So from my thoughts I will exclude
The very thing that
I hate more than everything is
The way I'm powerless
To dictate my own moods

I've thrown away
So many things that could've been much more
And I just pray
My problems go away if they're ignored
But that's not the way it works
No that's not the way it works

When I go down
I go down hard
And I take everything I've learned
And teach myself some disregard
When I go down
It hurts to hit the bottom
And of the things that got me there
I think, if only I had fought them

Don't fret, ya'll - I'm good now, because the song, and my story, ends like this:

When I go down
I lift my eyes to you
I won't look very far
Cause you'll be there
With open arms
To lift me up again
To lift me up again

they're out!

It rained all day here on Saturday.

Sunday it was sunny, but I went on my road trip.

When I returned on Monday, it hit me that it was spring, because every yard I passed was blanketed in flowers...these flowers:

hrmn...now what?

This past weekend I took a few steps in trying to figure out where I'm supposed to be headed after graduation. I know that I won't really know for a while (part of this is that I don't have a graduation date established, just "by the end of 2007"), but I'm trying to weigh my options and send out some feelers for some of the directions I am feeling nudged to head.

For this past weekend, that meant two things:
1. Inquire for the MFC researcher I'm interested in if he anticipates any openings for a postdoc anytime soon. I sent this email on Friday evening.

2. Visit one of the cities I'm thinking of going. Why? To get a sense of the place. And...maybe get a blast of lightning saying, "YES!! This is the place to go!! Now, find someone to work with here!!" (I might add that I realize this probably seems like a totally backwards way of selecting a job - at least a postdoctoral research position - to first figure out to which city one wants to go and then figure out if there's a job there. As my boss told me once, the only reason to do that is for family or boyfriend/fiance/husband. I assure you, that is not the case in my situation.)

So, I went to the city yesterday, which was sort of a disaster because I had planned on leaving my house much earlier than I did but that ended up not happening for reasons beyond my control, and as it turned out I hadn't really put much thought into how much time I would have in the city, and all the things I had put on my mental list of stuff to do would have taken at least 7 more hours than I had allotted myself. Well - the getting to the city and doing what I hoped was a disaster. The visit was actually very much NOT. I got a lot of very good, very tough thinking done on the way there and while I was exploring some of the area. No bolts of lightning, though. I did, however, really, really, really, really, really, really appreciate the fact that this city does NOT have insane, falling apart roads like Pittsburgh does. And people also know how to drive there, unlike in Pittsburgh. And it's clean, unlike in Pittsburgh. (I don't hate Pittsburgh, but...it's got a lot of stuff that really bugs me. Some cities are just not for certain people!)

Then I came home this morning. More thinking on the way back. More thinking as I walked to the bus to go to work. One thing I had gleaned from my visit was that regardless of the choice I make - to move there or to move somewhere else or do something totally different than what I'm thinking now - it, in a sense, doesn't matter. It's not like the world will end because I make a choice that is less than perfect. And my life will not be ruined if I make a bad choice, either! So if I go to this city and then it turns out to be a lousy idea...well, that's it. It was a lousy idea, and I accept that fact and move on. (Perhaps easier said than done, but still the thought makes me feel much less anxious about my choice.) And suddenly on the way to the bus I thought, "Well, then GO! There's nowhere else you want to go, so why don't you just go and do it! And it's not a bad choice, anyhow!"

Hm. ...Okay!

And then I got to work and turned on my computer and checked my email and read...

"My lab is pretty full right now, so no, I don't anticipate any openings in the next few months."

Oh. Bleh.

Well, that negates that option unless I somehow decide to beat a dying horse (which I have realized recently I'm pretty good at doing!) and figure out a way to convince this researcher that I can write a grant and get funding for a project of my own to do in his lab. And - I'm not being low-self-esteemy here! - the chances of me actually getting a grant for this type of research coming from the field I'm in is very, very, very low, so that does not seem like a very wise course of action. My efforts would be best spent somewhere else.

And so...what does it mean? Shall I search for other opportunities in the city? I'm sure there are lots, and many that are much more related to my current work and expertise. Do I look somewhere else? The interesting thing is that besides the MFC research, right now absolutely nothing grabs me. Not like when I was in undergrad and looking for grad schools - I was passionate about HIV, and that guided my choices. But I'm not passionate about HIV now, and I don't feel passion for anything except bacteria making electricity. And this is both frustrating (I'm not even at Square One; I'm at Square ZERO!) and comforting (I can do...anything! Wow - that's a lot of options!). But not very informative.

...I suppose that in conclusion I shall say...stay tuned to see this story progress and discover the exciting conclusion in a matter of (I hope!) months...! Oh, and if you have any passion to pass on, please do.

:-)

relient k

As I said to my friend Leeann yesterday when I arrived at the gym and she asked how I was doing because I looked 'not okay'..."It's been a...year." Indeed, life has been full of very interesting and semi-overwhelming occurrences since January 1. Ups and downs, of course, but I remember commiserating with my coworker one day after we both encountered weird, weird, weird results in the lab during the last week of January - and she said, "2007 is not going so well."

Er...I hope this isn't sounding too melancholy...!

At any rate, it had been a long day of thinking and fixing and working with people, but after some biking and ellipticaling (since the chiropractor says running is not such a good idea for my back, hips, and knees), I headed home and felt rather better. And as I sat down on the couch to start working on my home-work (that is...work I needed to do at home to "turn in" to my boss today), I popped an old favorite CD into my new laptop. I was craving some of the comfort and truth of "Getting Into You" from Relient K's 2003 album Two Lefts Don't Make a Right...But Three Do. According to the artists, nobody knows them, but I've known them for a long time, so it's hard for me to tell if that's really true. Anyhow, if you don't know them and you have the sense of humor that made you smile when you read the album title (since...it's true!), check them out (and while you're there, make sure you listen to "Must Have Done Something Right" - even if you're a bitter single person, you'll probably smile because this guy's in-love-ness is so cute and genuine!). Oh, and they also have lots of fun things to say about the 1980's, so if you like the 80's...there you go.

What I appreciate about Relient K's music is that it's not about big, crazy drama. It's about everyday things that happen. When there's a song about "I'm mad at you!" it isn't, "...And my life is ruined and it's all your fault and you'd better come apologize or you'll be sorry." It's "Hm, getting along with people is real tough. Real and tough. I feel angry. You probably do, too. I feel worse thinking that I made you angry. We're both wrong. There's a lot of stuff that needs to get worked out between us and within me." ...Sounds like healthy, well-adjusted, thoughtful people approaching a problem in a logical way. And I guess that's why I couldn't stop with just the one song I had set out to hear last night; I listened to two of their albums. And if you know me and my musical inclinations, you'll know it is quite abnormal for me to spend that much time listening to something. I'm much more of a peace and quiet type.

But - good thing I wasn't last night, because after the music (oh, and a nice cup of cappuccino), I felt much, much relieved of many of the stresses that have been bogging me down lately. It's not that the music fixed my problems. No...I guess it rather reminded me that bad things occur to everyone and we all have to select our way to deal with the bad things and sometimes it takes a long time for bad things to get fully worked out; and that good things also occur; and that the year hasn't been that bad; and that I can thrive under the grace I've received and live a much more joyful life if I recall to extend grace to others.

...Deeeeeep, eh? All that from a band whose songs say stuff like "Ohio has the flavor of a water chestnut."

would you like a picture?

Okay, okay, here we go. I have so, so, so much to catch everyone up on! And that means I need to start back in March...

March is Spring Break time, although that means very little in the world of graduate students. In general that has meant one of two things for me as a grad student: 1) there is more time to work in the lab because classes are canceled for that week OR 2) it is absolutely an oxymoron to say it's "Spring Break" when we grad students have to teach the med students during that week because med student Spring Break is the week afterwards!

Since I've finished my teaching responsibilities as a student and I really didn't feel the need to spend more time in the lab, I chose to take a break. Only for a couple days, though. I drove about an hour southeast of Pittsburgh to Linn Run State Park where I had rented a rustic cabin. When they said "rustic" I figured it would mean REALLY rustic. Electricity, sure that was to be expected, and I had been told that there would be a refrigerator, also. But I was quite surprised when I stepped in the door and found this:We're talking full kitchen here, folks. No running water, but there's a stove with an oven. And, although it didn't make it into the picture, not the tiny dorm-room refrigerator I was expecting but a full-size fridge/freezer just like I have in my apartment! Too bad I didn't know about all of this before because I had worked really hard to pack food for two days that could fit in a tiny space and be made using nothing but...a coffeemaker (one of my secret talents is coffeemaker cooking... They're good for much more than liquid. Mwa-hahaha!).

Despite the nice kitchen, the remainder of the cabin was much more rustic. There was a wood-burning stove (with which I had a fight because I couldn't get the fan to work the night I got there and I felt unsafe letting the fire burn without it so I was quite a bit cold and wore as many clothes as I could over my pajamas) and a dining set with table and wood benches and a connected room with a bed and a bench and night stand. And there was a mouse. How much more rustic can you get?

Other than the cold, which was quite annoying (I wore a hat most of the time), the place was wonderful. If I stepped out of the door, I walked onto a covered cement porch with a picnic table and a lovely view of the little "run."I could even hear the river/creek gurgling when I was sitting in the cabin - it was that loud!

While I was at the park, I did some hiking and reading and thinking. It was very nice to get away from the many stresses of life and worry about more basic things like keeping the fire going. And it was also very nice to see some natural beauty, even in the midst of a winter that came late but wanted to extend itself as long as possible. Due to the weirdness of the weather, the waterfall I hiked to was not completely frozen, but it was mostly frozen.After two nights in the cabin, I packed up and hopped back into the car to get back to the city for my appointment with the chiropractor. I definitely want to go back to my little "home" in the woods!

we don't know a lot

Man, oh man, this surely isn't what I feel like blogging about. I feel like I've been in a chronically bad mood for the entirety of April. That may be my imagination, but it's true today, and so it makes all the previous days seem like they were probably like this, also. "Bad mood" isn't quite the accurate term - I've actually been in a GOOD mood most of the time, but I fret a lot. I am filled with many, many questions, mostly about my life and where I'm going and when. I am stressed about not having answers. And I want to spew it all here right now, but I think that's probably rather unwise. Plus, it's not very nice to read stuff like that, is it? :-)

So, what I'm going to be blogging about today is not that at all. It is about immunology.

At the end of March I attended a meeting about HIV for work (many lovely pictures are waiting to be transferred to the correct computer and posted onto this very blog; promise! Oh, and they're not pictures of HIV or any of that boring work-related stuff - they're of the area surrounding the conference center, which was anything but boring and was also very beautiful). One thing I am always amazed by when I leave an HIV meeting is how much scientists don't know. Not just about the HIV virus itself, not even about the immune response against HIV. Scientists just plain don't know much about the immune system period! It seems that the more we (meaning the scientific community immersed in HIV research) learn, the more we find we don't know. And while the microbial fuel cell is my number one choice for a future career at the present moment, the workings of the immune system is a close second.

I am guessing (hoping, since you all out there will have to read this!) that you don't have to be a scientist to find it interesting that depending on the origin of the "instructor" cells that interact with blood cells to tell them to fight disease, the fighting cells go fight in different places. That probably needs a bit more explanation. Okay... Basic immunology: we all have a bunch of cells floating around in our bodies doing different stuff. "Instructor" cells (technically called "dendritic cells") have the main duty of picking up stuff, figuring out if it's bad, and then telling certain blood cells (e.g. T cells) that the bad thing is there and they should fight it when they run into it. What's new and neat in the field of immunology is that it kind of appears that not only do the instructors say "Bad thing exists!" but "Bad thing exists in a certain location - now GO THERE and attack it!" For example, if you take an instructor cell from the skin and mix it with a fighting cell, the fighting cell goes to the skin. But, if you take and instructor cell from the intestine and mix it with the same fighting cell...now the fighting cell goes to the intestine! It doesn't matter where the fighting cell comes from, all that seems to matter is the instructor cell.

I think that's pretty cool. The rather troubling part is that nobody knows why any of this happens or even if it happens in any other body parts than the intestine and the skin. I happen to really like the intestinal immune system, so I don't really care, but surely it would be intriguing to find out if this happens in other tissues (and if not...why not!?). Did you ever realize that nobody even really knows the details about how to properly stimulate cells to fight off the bacteria, viruses, and parasites that try to attack your body every day.

Yet the body does it quite well. For even though I was sick last week for a few days...the rest of the 360 days of the year I've been fine! Truly that means on only ONE day a respiratory virus was able to get past all the barriers my body has up - and that's a protection success rate of greater than 99.7%! (Hm, come to think of it, that's way better than most birth control methods... Not that this means anything, and not that pregnancy is something you "catch" like a cold! I'm just saying...the body does a good job!)

Oh my, now this is going somewhere I never intended. I think I'll stop and get back to work!

So...moral of the story: we scientists might seem (and certain ones will attempt to convince people of this!) like we're smart and all that, but really, we have NO idea.

got sick

Oogh... Bleh. I figured it out on Tuesday: that headache that wouldn't go away and the aches in my body and the severe exhaustion... These were not signs that I had eaten something bad or that I had played too hard in the hockey game Saturday. No, indeed: I was SICK.

So I spent Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and half of Saturday in bed.

Yick. It's just a bad cold, and I'm feeling much, much better now, but I think I'll be hacking up whatever is still stuck down in my lungs for quite some time, if the people around me who have been sick recently are any indication!

Anyhow - sorry for no posts. This time I had a good excuse!