One more day for polling!

That's right...one more day to cast yer opinion on blog style.  Please vote and reassure me that I have more than 4 readers.  It's lonely out here in cyber space!  

As for rambles: tomorrow is the annual Vet college research symposium.  All the students (MS and PhD) are required to present posters or a talk of their research projects, except for us newbies who haven't been in lab long enough.  It's going to be an interesting mix of clinically-oriented stuff as well as basic science research.  I saw a couple of posters early and I think it's going to be cool (how common tap water contaminants cause mouse embryo developmental defects...yikes!)  It's always good to know what your compet...I mean, colleagues are up to.  heehee!


So bring on the pastries, Folgers coffee and non-dairy creamer!  (standard scientific-talk fare)  Hope my arse doesn't go numb from all the sitting.  The only other thing I have tomorrow is a seminar class which consists of attending an hour long talk by a visiting professor.  Yup....lots of sitting tomorrow.....

I want some feedback!

So it has come to my attention *cough* hubby *cough* that sometimes my posts are kind of long.  Ok, my posts are almost always long.

I recognize the current blog pattern is long posts less frequently.  I have a tendency to ramble and try to explain everything completely.  BUT...I can change!  I could go for the shorter/lighter/more frequent posts instead:  Would you like to know what color I just painted my toes?? (Maple leaf red, btw).

To find out what my dear friends/family/readership prefers to read, I've created a poll at the top of right column.  Let me know if you think the posts are too long, just right, or not clear/long enough.

Constructive criticism is necessary for all growth.  So let 'er rip!  You have until 9/30 (Friday) to let me know what you think.....Go!

The latest hurdle

Dax is officially being retired.

I finally had the VT vets out to re-check her, and the gist is that the bone cyst in her left stifle is actually WORSE, and her joint is showing signs of degeneration.  The meniscus (the fibrous pad that cushions the large bones of the knee joint in horses and peoples) is ragged looking, the joint capsule is thickened and there's a lot of fluid accumulation.  This was all determined with Xray and ultrasound.

On top of that, the head vet mention bone cysts are often bi-lateral, so they did a quick Xray of her right (good) stifle and found a matching bone cyst there.  Why that one hasn't caused her any problems while the left one is so bad, we'll never know, but it certainly paints a dimmer picture.  We did discuss possible further treatments for the left painful joint, and the vet explained that her chances of responding to any intervention were slim, especially since the steroid injection failed to help.  In addition to that, the only other possibilities would be upwards of $5K.  On no planet does it make sense to spend $5K for a treatment that has a slim chance of helping a horse that is valued at less than half that amount.

So Dax is going into retirement until the joint pain decreases her quality of life, and then she'll have to be put down.  She is walking around her very hilly pasture just fine right now, but if she trots on her own you can see how lame she is.  I need to find her a new home that is smaller and less hilly, and preferably with calmer friends (right now there area  couple of young and very active herd members that keep everybody moving around quite a bit).  

This typed explanation isn't conveying the emotions tied up in the situation well....the best analogy I can come up with is trying to find a good nursing home for a parent.  Think about it: she has no control over how she is treated, I'm looking for good living accommodations as well as attentive care-takers, and money is a significant hurdle.  I guess it's also analogous to trying to find good daycare for a child, but the guilt of trying to find a retirement home for Dax can only be like the guilt of putting a family member in nursing care.  Yes, I feel guilty about this because if I only had unlimited funds I'd give her every treatment/surgery possible, give her a stall at the nicest barn I could find very close to me and treat her just the same as if she was being ridden, out of respect for the time I've had to ride her.  But instead I'm trying to find the cheapest but safe living arrangement for her since she is no longer ride-able.  

This is the dichotomy of horse ownership for a lot of us amateur owners.  Equines are neither pets nor livestock.  They hover between these two categories in some emotionally complex classification that defies rational decision-making.  The connection between myself and Dax rests on riding - without riding, our relationship consists of me delivering treats and her enjoying that but otherwise not really interacting.  Equines typically (and there are exceptions to every rule) do not "bond" to their owners the way a dog does.  Yes, Dax does recognize me compared to a stranger, and responds differently to me than to other people, but she doesn't love me....she understands me, and she trusts me.  It is a trust built up over seven years of weird and sometimes risky adventures.  

That's the foundation of our relationship: that when ever I would get on her back, she was trusting me with her life, and I was trusting her with mine.  There is a profound level of trust build between a horse and rider that many take for granted - take a look at a bucking bronco if you don't remember what horses are capable of and how they should respond to a predator climbing up on their back.  The trust they show a  rider when they calmly allow that rider on their back goes against thousands of years of evolution.  

That trust goes the other way too.  I've been thrown and dragged by enough other horses (and pissy little school ponies) to be cautious with any horse I get on.  I'm not one of those riders who was in the saddle in utero and is fearless....I started riding in highschool.  I'm well aware of how far down it is from a horse's back and how hard that ground really is (and how landing in "soft" sand is actually like having sandpaper rubbed down your skin).  But Dax has repeatedly demonstrated her sensible nature and through her trust in me, her willingness to calmly handle unfamiliar situations.  I trust her to stop and let me know when she's scared or unsure rather than freak out and take off, or rear, or buck.  Not that she hasn't reared before or bucked a couple of times....she's a horse.  But she's done those things a total of three times (yes, I can remember and count exactly when those things happened) and I know why they happened.  After all this time together, I understand her responses, what she can handle and what she can't.  I can trust her to be safe for me to ride bareback in a halter.

With riding, she's like a pet: a healthy emotional and physical outlet.  Without riding, Dax becomes livestock....not exactly serving much purpose.

I guess the best description of my relationship with Dax is like those friendships that are based on a shared experience or interest, but are transient.  Sometimes those friendships can be very deep and intense, but when the commonality is gone, there's little left to foster further friendship.  That's exactly like Dax and I - without riding, we don't have much in common.  But the memory of that relationship, the meaning of that relationship, is not diminished by it's ending.  I am still responsible for her well being, a commitment I made when I bought her.  In the same way I would never abandon a dog b/c I was moving and finding a pet-friendly apt was hard, I will not abandon Dax b/c she can no longer be ridden.  

This is not a simple question of selling my beloved horse b/c I can no longer afford her....she can't go on to a loving family that will ride and care for her b/c she's broken.  It's become clear she'll never be able to be ridden again.  In addition to this she should never be bred, b/c bone cysts have a mysterious but subtle genetic link, so retiring to a broodmare farm isn't an option.  She's become the kind of horse that will get handed around if sold/given away, likely end up at an auction and ultimately shipped to Canada or Mexico where horse slaughter is still legal.  While I actually do not have a problem with HUMANE slaughter, it is very clear that current shipping, handling and slaughter of horses is FAR from humane in most cases.  I refuse to blindly hand her off to some unknown person pretending this scenario couldn't possibly happen to her.  If it can happen to a Kentucky Derby winner, it can damn sure happen to my broken little pony. 

So I'm looking into options, and there are some good ones out there.  They are just few, underfunded and usually have a waiting list b/c there are so many broken horses out there looking for safe and respectful retirement.  The control freak in me is loathe to hand over ownership so I can snatch her out of a bad arrangement if necessary, but the married responsible side of me knows I'm not in a financial position to be picky.  

I'll keep you posted.

We will return to our regularly scheduled program shortly

But until then......lookit what I bought with some birthday money!!!

I am proud of my program :-)

Schooling and such

As promised, here's an update on my school stuffs.  This might be a bit boring for those readers who aren't so interested in the gory details of a combined degree program, so consider yourself warned.  We'll return to our normal furry broadcast next post.

Right now (and for the rest of the PhD, the next three years) I've essentially got two things going on: 1) lab  2) classes.  This being my first year, I'm working mostly on familiarizing myself with my new field in the lab while trying to knock out my required course work.  Once I've got a project up and running, the course work will be pretty much done for me (by middle of 2nd year), and "classes" will begin to refer to classes that I will TA (hopefully!).  That's the basic over-view.  What does that mean I'm actually doing right now?

Reading.  Sh*t-tons of reading.

This is because my previous experience/knowledge was pretty much all to do with cancer cell signaling.  Now I'm in an immunology lab.  I did take a big-honking immunology class as part of my master's degree at UVa....but that was two years ago and I've used about 1% of what I learned.  As I've mentioned before, my brain operates on use-it-or-loose-it for most things, thus I'm re-learning immunology.  One stinking review article at a time.  It was interesting the first three weeks, but that's about all the tolerance I've got for just sitting and reading scientific articles.  Plus my desk and chair in lab are built for someone about 5'4"... I'm all scrunched up by the end of the day.  I've been trying to mix it up by reading at home, Starbucks, exploring libraries, but eventually I just want to freakin' pipette something!!

Honestly, I could be reading something fun like Hemingway or Kipling and I'd be sick of it after three weeks of nothing else.

But I have had a goal during all the reading: to come up with possible PhD project ideas, or more scientifically, hypotheses.  My mentor is all about encouraging me to be independent, and with my level of previous training (I know that sounds snotty) I should be.  I'd rather be testing my skills of developing a project NOW when I've got a mentor to guide me (i.e. tell me that my rationale is completely flawed) rather than later when my career/funding depends on it. So I came up with a few ideas, and my mentor chose one he thought was the most promising for further development.  But I also need a "backup" project, basically in case one of them tanks either b/c my hypothesis was totally wrong or because I run into insurmountable technical difficulties.  And I should also have a project tied to what's going on in the lab, which the first idea didn't so much.  So back to reading and familiarizing myself now with neutrophils and microRNAs. That's where project stuff stands.

In the midst of working on this stuff, my mentor asked me to help write a review!  Actually the other grad student is really writing, and I'm assisting.  (The lab consists of me, other grad, technician and a senior post-doc who is actually research faculty, and of course my mentor the PI).  It's both a crap-ton more reading and writing, but also a really good way to learn.

As for classes, they started Aug 22nd, and the first week was luckily all intro/syllabus stuff.  I say luckily because I managed to come down with my first cold the Thursday before.  That cold dragged on and on, but I thought I was getting better till just this past Thursday when my throat flared up again - now I've got swollen lymphnodes the size of strawberries.  I'm blaming it all on the germy little undergrads running around.  Poo on them!

Back to classes.  So I'm taking Vet immunology (for review primarily), Intro to Systems Biology (how to model cells/biochemical reactions with a computer), two seminars, one of which I have to present in, and a grant writing class.  The grant writing class is specifically designed to have you end up with a complete grant (6 page, K08 style) by the end of the semester, which is good for me because I'm planning on actually applying for both an NSF graduate fellowship as well as an F31 NRSA fellowship through NIH.  It's mostly for the scientific glory, but the NSF would land me substantially more stipend money and I'm also required to have a "grant writing experience" as part of my PhD program, and by taking the class I'm getting credit for the writing time.  Killing three birds with one stone!!

The work load is going to keep me pretty busy this semester, but it hasn't hit quite yet.  It really won't hit until the Vet immunology starts.  That class is with all the DVM students (and it will count towards my DVM) and the schedule is completely nuts: it meets on different days and different times every week.  Doesn't start till the end of Sept but then ends in November, with the final exam during finals week in Dec....it's going to be fast and intense, with only two exams and the final on which to base my grade.  Fun stuff!  Systems bio is going to be really interesting, but it also has exams and two projects so it's not exactly a light work-load.  I don't see myself getting a ton of experiments done in lab with all the class work, but I'm hoping to at least get preliminary data for my personal project proposal.  If I can complete all my classes in very good standing, get the fellowships submitted (with prelim data) and have my projects clearly outlined and experiments at least planned, it will be a successful semester....at least in my opinion!  I should check on that with my mentor ;-)

Meanwhile, for the program I have to "identify" (i.e. beg professors to be in) my committee.  I will meet with these guys once a semester to go over my work and plans, and they will ultimately decide when/if I get to graduate.  I have to pick profs from within my dept and without.  I also have to come up with a "plan of study" which basically outlines all the courses I plan on taking.  The plan isn't binding and can be modified, but they want to see that I've made sure to complete all the requirements for the program.  I'm lucky b/c a bunch of my master's classes can be transferred in and will cover some of the requirements.  That means fewer classes total for me, but I'll also have time/room in my schedule to complete something called the "Future Professoriate Certificate" through the graduate school.  It's basically a program that trains individuals to teach at a collegiate level, regardless of subject.  I'll have to take 6 extra credits, but since being a professor is what I'd like to do, it's worth it!

Well, thinking about all the stuff I've got to do makes me think I should get off blogger and work on some of it :-)  Being sick for the last 15 days has put me behind a bit....I've been trying to lay low but I don't know why my body is being so wimpy.  I actually went to Student Health on Friday - strep test and mono test were negative, and my white blood cells weren't elevated, but the doc was concerned about the swollen nodes (I mean, even hubby could see them clearly on my neck).  So I'm stuck taking ibuprofen, vit C and Zinc, and trying to sleep as much a possible.  Which isn't hard b/c I'm pretty pooped.  This is NOT the way I wanted to start the semester.....or spend my 31st birthday, which was this past Wed.  That was before my neck exploded, so hubs and I did celebrate by seeing the movie "Buck" and having a dinner out.  He surprised me with a Nook eReader, which I was considering returning b/c of the cost...but then I downloaded some books...and....well....now it's covered in fingerprints and I can't possibly return it!!  Actually, what's cool is that it's color and I can download pdfs of science papers and read them anywhere with all the figures in color!  Saving paper is a good thing, right?!?  This might seem ironic since we just went and got our local library cards, but get this: our library lends eBooks too!!! (can't remember if I mentioned that previously)  How cool is that??

It's pretty cool, I think.  So off to do some reading.....