dear drivers,

dear drivers,

please relieve yourselves of the notion that the left lane was provided for your convenience to camp in for the duration of your trip. if you check your driver's ed manuals, you'll find it clearly stated that 1) slower traffic should keep right (this means YOU) 2) the left lane is the passing lane (this means NO CAMPING) and 3) passing on the right is illegal (this means you, mr. fast-and-the-furious-is-my-fave-movie). please kindly keep in mind that you can neither 1) own, 2) lease nor 3) rent the passing lane and adjust your driving accordingly.

thank you.

winter wonder weekend

it's the week before christmas, less than a month before my first grant ever has to be submitted and a little more than a month until i'm supposed to take oral comps. i have to admit, this weekend has been the perfect antidote to the burnout that's been nipping at my heels like cats at feeding time.

friday i started an 8hr experiment that blew up (figuratively not literally!) at 2, then the gel imager stopped recognizing the D drive (whoopsie, we can't get pics off the computer until it's fixed). all signs pointed to LEAVE LAB NOW!! so i did. follow your gut and it will lead you to wondrous places. for me that wondrous place was the couch in my apartment where i watched the snow start falling. a group of us went out for the evening and i had my first dark and stormy (goslings dark rum plus gingerale, OH MY!!). saturday morning we woke up to 7+ inches of snow and i ventured out to the liquor store. it was a long, lovely day of movies, coffee and weather watching, topped off by a viewing of the shining fortified with dark and stormies. today has been more of the same. the whole weekend (more or less) spent in cozy pjs and not a damn bit of science.

i'll be back at lab tomorrow, reworking my long experiment, writing revisions to the grant and thinking science. but for the moment, i'm savoring my mini vacation (and the incredibles).

help is one way...

file this one under print next the journal article about the necessity of stupidity in research. it's my pep talk from dr isis (well, someone else's really but i'm taking the parts i need and putting them on my bench). for the year about getting science to work. go and read it if your not a follower of dr. awesome isis's blog.

2 more notes:
* it was pointed out to me that my hair is now auburn and NOT brunette, i was sad. but not enough to change it.
* i do not like cleaning up cat vomit before my 2nd cup of coffee, please stop little kitties!

the email conundrum and other random bits

the lovely isis posted a blog recently regarding comrade physio prof's policy of not accepting emailed questions from students. there was quite the lovely debate in the comments about if 1) it was pointless cause the student is looking to be led without trying to understand the material or 2) you (as a prof) were ignoring your "customers", i.e. the students (*cough*BULLSHIT*cough*).

my response wasn't posted cause i just found this today and i, of course, have a very firm opinion. so here it is:

i'm currently a ph.d student and was a TA for several semesters during my master's work... i did not accept emailed questions as a TA and i didn't have a phone. if you had a question, you had to 1) ask it in class 2) ask it during the review 3) find me in my lab and ask it then or 4) ask me on the weekends when i'd let the students into lab for extra work and a bit of tutoring if there were multiple questions. the prof i worked for was quite fond of the socratic method and learning by asking your classmates first, TAs or him second. for the record, i taught undergrad anatomy and physiology and i'm NOT an "email the prof" student myself unless it's to let them i'm going to miss class due to illness.

having been on both sides of the coin, i think if you can't make it to the prof's office to ask the question then your not really interested in finding the answer.

what do you think? obviously i do not think of students as the sole reason d'etre for the prof position, but that has to do with the plethora of other tasks they must attend to during their time at uni.

now randomness.
*after 3 months as a red head, i have gone back to brunette. i *love* it.
*i am a bit more than halfway thru with my grant, BUT i promised a good working draft to adviser tomorrow....so i'll be blowing thru the background section at lab monday.
*current guilty tv pleasures: numb3rs, criminal minds and (sigh) dallas cowboys cheerleaders making the team.
*oatmeal butterscotch cookies are still my fave cookie. ever.
*fave numbers are 3, 7, 13
*i like figuring out if the non-zero numbers for the local big game lottery are prime or not. then, i factor them.
*i used to count laps swimming a mile in french, spanish and german.

enough :)

i got....

my clone in pMAD!!!! about freaking time, i've been trying to put this insert in this tricky shuttle vector for several months now!

sheesh. now all i have to do is the allelic exchange. in staph.

yay me!

imposter syndrome

yeah we all have it at least occasionally and mine is rearing its ugly head. i fear i'm in over my head with my new zippy project proposal. why? cause the topic is new to me and to the literature, cause it's out (waaaaaay out) of my comfort zone, cause i need some results immediately if not sooner and then i have to figure them out and write them up. i'm spending hours a day on learning everything i can think of about New Zippy Topic (NZT) and yet feel like i'm not getting anywhere. seriously, i spent most of the day at lab researching/aligning/predicting and developing stuff for this project that might not fly (because it's based on a prediction and stuff i have a hard time wrapping my mind around). since this is my own idea in a topic that i normally shy away from, it's pretty tough to shake the feeling that i'm somehow missing something, that i'm way off base etc. the only reason i feel this way though is because there's literature on prediction and some verification of regRNAs, but not a lot. certainly not much in anything other than e. coli or salmonella.

the crazy thing is, i think i'm on to something. i think this WILL result in some verification, but i can't be sure (like anyone ever is when embarking on a new project without any preliminary data).

i think i'm mostly really very overwhelmed with the amount of labwork i need to finish, research for my grant i need to assimilate and write up, and good lab luck i need to recover and plant on my bench like a venus flytrap.

happy anniversary

i can remember going thru these gates when there was still an east and a west.



i was born in west germany and lived there as a child for 4 years. i remember the warnings about traveling to berlin. i remember seeing the russian soldiers guarding the wall and the checkpoints. i have been to anne frank's house in the netherlands. i cannot believe its been 20 years since the iron curtain fell. it's my bookmark that democracy will happen and free will will prevail. i remember watching the footage of the wall falling and thinking that it was faked because i was there 2 months earlier with my family. in a small mercedes (the hyundai of german cars) with my parents in the front and the 3 of us in the back squished around my brother's carseat. my sister and i were flirting with the russian soldiers (even though we weren't supposed to) and all of us were terrified of getting detained for hours and loosing our passports.

the brandenburg gate.


i can't wait to go back.