In Memoriam

Once again, I need to apologize for neglecting the blog.

There's a lot to update, and thoughts that I want to share about my first semester in grad school, but for now a list of the significant events will help bring everybody up to speed.

1. Classes finally wrapped up, all assignments were turned in and exams done.  I ran into a problem with attendance in one class and after about 50 ba-zillion emails and negotiations it was cleared up.  I'm happy to say I accomplished the goal of completing all of my classes in excellent standing.
2. The committee meeting happened, it was successful and I got a proverbial thumbs up from everyone.  I think my advisor is very happy with me, so all in all a great end to the semester.
3. I finished the grant I was hoping to submit to an F32, but never submitted it because I didn't qualify as an applicant.  However I have gotten input back from some profs that it is a solid grant, and I plan to try to submit it to something else next year (as long as I don't get scooped!).
4. Holidays were spent making the rounds to Virginia family with dogs in tow.  The cats were left to their own devices with plenty of food and water in the apt.  Everybody survived and made it back home *whew!*  Hubby promptly caught a cold as soon as we got home, poor guy :-(
5. Dax was moved to a new barn on the 31st.  More on that later!

The week before Christmas, my uncle who had been in cancer remission fell suddenly ill and was admitted to the hospital.  He passed away a few days later, surrounded by his family.  I wanted to be there, but they are all in Michigan and I'm in Virginia, so it's not exactly easy to just pop up on short notice (not including the question of what hubby does or what we do with the dogs, and what about our previous holiday commitments, etc.)  My uncle was a kind, if reserved, man and I fondly remember dancing with him on my wedding day, in addition to so many other gatherings and visits.  My whole family is heart-broken, and the holidays were difficult in the face of such a loss.  I'm glad his three daughters, wife of 50 years and siblings were able to say their good-byes, and he passed away peacefully and comfortably.  Philosophically he had a good, fairly long life and yes, death is a part of life, but that doesn't make anyone miss him less.  Time will hopefully replace the sadness with happier memories.

2011 wasn't the best year, and it really ended on a low note with my uncle's passing.  However, it's a new year and I have hopes for a better one!  We're already planning on visiting all the Michigan family this summer, when we can hopefully have a big get together and tell funny Uncle Gil stories.

Here's hoping to a fresh start and a wonderful 2012 for all of you!

Virginia Tech

I assume most of you have heard/seen the news about the shooting today on VaTech campus.

If not, the short story is that an unidentified person approached a Tech police officer around 12noon and shot and killed him in a parking lot on campus.  This person fled on foot towards another parking lot (the cage), where a second individual was later found dead.  A weapon was found near this person, and it is presumed he is likely the shooter, although not confirmed.

All of this went down while I was sitting in a seminar in the vet school.  At the end of the seminar, it was announced there had been a shooting and we were on lockdown.  I had my cell phone on me, but of course decided it would be the ONE day I didn't have my laptop with me.  I was only supposed to be at the vet school for that seminar, then going back to my lab which is in a different building off campus.  Needless to say I rushed to the library computers to get more info, and started texting family to let them know what was going on.

There was a rapid and vigorous police response, and those of us who were stuck waited pretty patiently for every scrap of news.  It was a crystal chilly winter day, and the bright cheerful sunlight seemed weirdly out of place.....nobody was freaking out, but everybody was pretty anxious.  The lockdown was lifted around 4:30pm after no further incidents and with a very heavy police presence on campus.

The situation is disturbing on many levels -
It's horrible that a police officer was shot and killed, regardless of the circumstances.
It's horrible that another person died.
It's creepy that it  happened within walking distance of the vet college where I was.
It's creepier that only 20mins before, I had parked my truck in the same parking lot where the second body was found.
It's a terrible blow to the university's people after having suffered so much trauma in 2007.

While tragic, this incident might not be so remarkable by crime statistic standards.  We still don't know who exactly the shooter was, if there was motive or mental illness involved.  It might be as simple and horrible as someone over-reacting to a drug bust - we just don't know yet.

However, in this place, it echos the senseless violence that occurred in 2007 and set everyone on edge.  While I wasn't a Tech student at the time, being at an academic institution (UVa) and so close to Tech that I got a glimpse of the horror of that event.  There is something about indiscriminate violence, the kind that tears at the fabric of human civility which covers us all, that is profoundly disturbing.

I think that's the best description for how I feel about today: disturbed.  While the events may have been a far cry from the tragedy that struck in 2007 and I was perfectly safe, it made me think a LOT about meaningless violence.

So I talked to my family, emailed with friends, and gave my husband a lot of hugs tonight.  I suggest you all do the same.

Decision making help

So this is not meant to be offensive to anyone:

I WANT A CHART LIKE THIS FOR EVERY DIFFICULT LIFE DECISION!!!

 I might have peed a little laughing so hard at this when I opened it.  For those of you who know him, it'll be no surprise that this came from my dear old Dad.  I'm pretty sure he thinks this falls under his fatherly duty of "spiritual education" of his offspring .

Receiving this was particularly apropos as I was working on flow charts for experiment plans just yesterday.  If only science were as amusing....

Football and Thanksgiving review

Well, is everyone feeling fat and sassy?? I certainly am!!

I'm also feeling conflicted....conflicted because at this moment UVa is loosing miserably to VaTech in football.  That's right, my alma mater is loosing to my...er...current mater?  I'm not a huge football fan, but I can get into college football sometimes and this game hits close to home on many levels.  Where do my allegiances lie now?  Totally split.   I have so many fond memories of UVa and there are some fabulous things about that school (like the 11 amazing libraries, or the gorgeous buildings and gardens)....but there are also some sucky things.  For example, how the Wahoo fans leave the stadium in the third quarter to go drinking when their team is down 28-0.  Tech fans would be frothing at the mouth, channeling every decibel they could at the field.  Unfortunately, I find rooting for a dominant team boring, but I have to respect the Hokie fans for their dedication.  Like tailgating before 9am for an 8pm Thursday game (witnessed while on my way to class).  While I knew Tech would probably win today, I had hoped the game would at least be close.  There's something about a hard-fought win that is sweeter for the champion and more noble for the defeated.  There's always next year......

Thanksgiving in Blacksburg was a nice, simple affair.  Good food, good company.  I got to give my Dad a tour of B'burg today - including the new lab!  He was a trooper (I know seeing new biosafety hoods isn't as exciting for the non-lab folk).  He even went with me to visit the pony, who is back out to pasture though we're still fighting the nasty skin infection.

Not surprisingly I have managed to not get as much done before the coming week as I had hoped.  Ergo tomorrow is slated to be spent in seclusion, working.  I'm too easily distracted at home, so it's off to the lab or library with some caffeine early tomorrow.  I'll have to warn everyone, please don't be surprised if I don't get a post in for the next week or so....but I'll try to squeeze one in as a study break :-)
 
On a different note:

In musing about the holiday and on being thankful, something stuck in my head.  I was listening to an old episode of Radiolab about "the self".  Literally, it was a radio show about the neurological and psychological basis of the perception of "self".  Within the larger show, there was a story about a woman who suffered a significant brain aneurysm and upon recovery had a very different "self".  The woman's daughter told the story from her perspective, and ended with the following thoughts:

"My mother's illness, like a death or an accident, was one of those moments when time stops.  When normal disappears.  When you marvel that everyone else in the world can still laugh and go to the movies and complain about the weather.  That's an explosion.  In those moments, you can see life happen.  It has clarity and meaning and purpose in the midst of its horror and pain.  But then those moments pass and you're consumed by the trivia of daily life once again.  Sometimes, when I'm overwhelmed by the task of making my way through the world, I try to focus on the fact that the electric bill does no matter.  The idiot driver glued to their cell phone does not matter.  The mind numbing day job truly does not matter.  But welcoming the strange and the different, being open and available for my husband, my friends, my family, experiencing love and laughter as often as possible; that's what matters.  Because it can all be taken away in one, brilliant flash."
Hannah Palin

I love Thanksgiving more than any other holiday because it is meant as this reminder - to set aside the frustrating minutiae of daily life and be thankful for the good things we have.  To open our arms and hearts to those around us and to celebrate.  To appreciate what is here, now.

I loose sight of these things often.  If I only had a larger house, if I only had a sound horse, if I only had smaller thighs, if I was only more active, if I only focused harder...Nothing is 100% good (no matter what the ads say), but we need to remember to embrace what we have.

Somehow, I need to find that balance between embracing my here/now while also planning/hoping for the future.

That lesson is soooo much harder than grad school!

Poor, neglected blog!!

Oh dear.  I am NOT a responsible blog owner.  (Thank heavens I'm better about being a responsible pet owner, but that doesn't really help you guys.)

The long absence is due to two unsurprising things:
1. School has been nuts.
2. None of it is remotely interesting to anyone other than myself.

It's getting towards the end of the semester, ergo all of the classes decide to crap on me at once.  This coming week is Thanksgiving so I don't officially have classes, but I'm still working in lab and meeting with some other students to deal with group projects.  In the two weeks following, I'll have two final exams, a paper due, two group presentations, another paper, and a final version of my grant due.  And the week after that I'm trying to schedule my first committee meeting to get it out of the way.  Oh, and my antibodies are all in so I need to be in lab doing my experiments too.  Oh, and the lab might start moving in two weeks.  

And did I mention my Dad is coming to visit??  Yeah, I'm the idiot that told him it would be a good idea to come for Thanksgiving.  WHAT was I thinking??? Thank heavens Dad and hubby enjoy spending time together, since there might be more of them hanging out together while I'm holed up in the library than I had originally planned.  I'm going to scramble these last three days before he shows up to get as much done as possible so we can have at least a few chill days before I'm swallowed up by school again and the two boys are left to their own devices.

Speaking of hubby, he's been up to no good:

BEER BREWING!!!  I haven't mentioned his brewing hobby previously because, well, he hasn't done a ton between all the moving crap and not having all the equipment.  He finally got a brewing pot and proceeded to fill our tiny apartment with the aromas of chocolate malt and Willamette hops.  Actually, he might have filled the whole building the the aromas, but nobody complained!  (Side note: hubby was looking at brewing gear and came across a grain mill called the "cereal killer"!! *snort*)  What's currently in the carboy, burbling away?  A porter kit that he's going to add some dried black currants to (courtesy of Dad).

Brewing beer has always struck me as being too much like making a very complicated solution in lab.  There's a lot of temperature measuring, timing of ingredients and stirring.  However, much like science, hubby is pretty darned good at it, and as I get to enjoy the fruits of his labor, I'm not complaining!

Beyond that, the furries are all doing fine.  I actually got out and RODE my horse today!!  She's trotting and cantering around her field on her own, so I decided she could pack my butt around for just a little bit.  The short version is that Dax once again proved she is freakin' amazing: went all over new unfamiliar territory in blustery weather BY HERSELF (well, with me aboard but that doesn't count as company to most horses).  Yes she was scared and needed to be pushed along, but she was a trooper and listened to me.  We even opened gates from horseback and she. was. perfect. Still lame, but perfectly behaved.  Unfortunately the crud on her hind foot (the scratches) has gotten worse, so she's stuck in a stall for a couple of days to be treated....it's kind of sad, but I don't mind because it gives me an excuse to be at the barn twice a day!!  I'm on the hunt for a new/cheap place to board her seeing as retirement/rescue ideas have fallen through or dried up.  More on that later.
 
As for me, doing ok.  Still feeling kind of off kilter in my new role as student, not feeling very organized or like I've got the crazy juggling act of classes-research-wifey down, but not feeling like a total failure either....just not at the top of my game exactly.

I'm also OVER living in the tiny apartment with four bikes in my living room.

I JUST WANT TO BE SETTLED SOME WHERE, TO BE UNPACKED AND FOR STUFF TO HAVE ITS PLACE SO I'M NOT WASTING BRAIN CELLS DEALING WITH THIS CRAP!!

Life is busy enough without constantly struggling with clutter or always trying to figure out where things should go (biggest example right now: my class crap.  I don't have a desk of my own at home to study at and it's a problem.)  I'm also running into more and more incidents of wanting/needing to use things that are currently in storage.  When we packed up and left Crozet, we thought we'd only be in the apartment for a few months and packed away things accordingly.  Oops.

Even after all of my previous posts about the whole house vs. apartment life style stuff, I realize:
1) hubby and I are nesters.  We want to live in a place where we and others like to spend time.  I want to decorate for holidays and have enough room for a friggin Christmas tree.
2) We both have gear-heavy, space-sucking hobbies: think lots of bikes, all the tools to repair bikes, power tools to build stuff, horse gear, beer brewing 5gallon carboys, 5 cases of beer bottles, lots of kitchen crap for Catsie-cooking-craziness.....

Do we both need to get out of the house and be active?  Yes.  Do we want to lead a life style in which we are engaged in our community in some way?  Yes.  Do either of these things negate the two previously mentioned facts?  Nope.

Do I want my cake and want to eat it too?  You betcha.

By the way....

I'm sure a few of you have noticed the new blog layout. (and if not, then check it out!!)  I wasn't sure if this new layout would take longer to load or not...if the blog seems unusually slow to load (or if you generally don't like it) just let me know!!

And thanks for reading!

Happy Halloween!

Zack and Haley say "Trick-or-treat!"

Ok, I know this is an older picture, but they're so darned cute!!  If Batman ever decided to have a furry side-kick, it would have to be Zack....those ears, that double-mask, the grouchy demeanor....I mean, he IS Batman in doggie form!!


So life continues rolling along.  Hubby and I have had a few busy weekends visiting friends and having friends visit us.  It's been great to catch up with all of them, but it also reminds me of how much I miss having a strong social network.  Before moving to Blacksburg, I'd lived in the Charlottesville/Crozet area for 12 years.  That's longer than I'd lived in any other place my entire life!  I've made some great life-long friends from those years, and had gotten pretty comfortable and settled.  


This move has been awkward socially.  On one hand, I'd really like to meet some people in B'burg who share similar interests, whether it be horse riding, bike riding, even going to check out live music or some plays....folks that might want to do spur-of-the-moment hikes or grab a beer out.  On the other hand, we're only 2.5hrs away from a number of my dear friends, so it's easy to plan weekend trips to visit and do similar things.  But that makes me feel socially isolated in B'burg.  For all this whining, I'm not too worried as it's only been 4 months and it took me 12 years in C'ville :-)  I've never been one to make friends quickly! 


Hubby just commented that we simply haven't found the right crowd yet....the old fogey crowd.  Thanks dear.  


The furries are all doing pretty well.....getting furry-er as we speak.  Winter arrived yesterday in the form of a sleet storm so I can't blame the creatures for fluffing-out and getting into hibernation mode.  Example A:

Example B:

Yeahhhhh....it's a rough life.


Dax is still lame and still in the same place she was.  I applied to a non-profit horse rehab organization but they turn us down, so I'm back to square one trying to find a better and cheaper living arrangement for her.  I've got another lead to follow up with, but I'm pretty sure it's going to come down to me posting a "free horse" ad on craigslist....which I'm really scared to do b/c I don't want her to end up in a sketchy situation.  Obviously I can try to minimize this risk by careful interviews and visiting farms, but once she's moved I have no control.  And this is assuming anyone is even willing to take her on, which is a big IF in this economy. *sigh*  At least she's been a good girl since the kicking incident - she's got a minor skin infection on her pastern (commonly called scratches) and she lets me treat it in the field without fuss, even though it's pretty sensitive.  She gets this crap every year when the grass is really wet, causing her lower legs to stay wet and allowing bacteria growth to take off.


Lab and school are going well, and getting busier by the week.  I'm finally doing actual experiments!!  Woo!  Growing cells, running gels....and it all makes me feel totally helpless because I have to ask where everything is.  I swear I know how to do this crap...I just don't know where the buffers are, where the conical tubes are kept, where I can put my stuff in the freezers.  I don't know where the freezers are for that matter!  Totally helpless.  Luckily the lab manager/tech is patient and understands, so she'll kindly stop whatever she's doing to get me a lab timer or show me where the sharpie markers are (first lab I've been in where there aren't sharpies lying around everywhere!).  


There's been lots of lab drama due to our scheduled move to a new building in the end of Nov or Dec (we're predicting it doesn't happen before the holidays :-).  Currently, my lab is located in a building separate from the main veterinary campus.  The main vet campus is made up of three connected buildings, so it basically looks like one very long building, but it's divided up by the hospital phase, the classroom/teaching phase and the research phase (they're called phases b/c they were built in different phases.  Very creative.)  Now there is a fourth new wing with two floors, one for offices and IT and the second floor with all research labs (and a kitchen area!!  I'm pushing for a new coffee maker...)  There are five labs, so we'll occupy one and the other four are reserved for new faculty.  I'm excited to be moving for multiple reasons:
1) I'll be in a more centralized location for classes and labwork.
2) New lab = new equipment!  
3) No stink bugs.  Our current building is very old...we have window A/C units b/c there's no central air, and somehow lots of little "wildlife" find their way inside.  I was doing cell culture in a sterile cabinet/hood Thursday when I suddenly saw a stinkbug sauntering along the open edge about 4 inches from my arms.  Not so sterile.
4) New collaborators!  The new labs are reserved for new faculty which the department is actually in the process of hiring (not just talking about hiring).  It's an example of a general expansion that seems to be going on in the college.  There's another new building that just broke ground that is for DVM teaching and professor offices.  Another huge research building (called the "translational research" building) is 3rd on the list to get funded by the university, meaning it very well could break ground in the next two years and be built before I graduate!  The physical expansion goes along with the new hiring expansions (something like 11 new faculty over the next couple of years!), and there are plans to expand the DVM class sizes as well.  It's an exciting time to be at the VMRCVM! (Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine).
5) I'll be getting my own lab bench to work at (right now I'm sharing) and I'll hopefully learn where stuff is stored as we move...since I'll be helping put things away as we unpack.  But that means we can also organize and generally have the lab set up in a much more efficient way than it is now.  Right now, it's kind of chaos, and I'm not just saying that b/c I'm still sort of new and don't know where anything is.


Let's see, other than that I'm still working on writing some grants...have gotten good comments back from some faculty on my rough draft.  Now I'm scrambling to find a place to submit it because I just found out last Monday that I am in-eligible to apply to the F31 I was originally planning on applying to.  Poop.  Serious poop.  I also can't apply to an NSF fellowship b/c I have a Masters degree.  It's looking more and more like my proposals are going to end up being submitted by my PI for R-type grants (the kind of grants that only go to faculty, or at least people with doctorate degrees).  Either way it'll get submitted which is good, except it would be better for my career if I was able to get an award under my own name.  


Notice I'm automatically assuming they'll get funded??  HA!  It's a big assumption either of my proposals will make it past triage (where all the grants that don't have a remote chance get tossed without being reviewed).


Learning....it's all a learning experience.... 


I'm getting the stare-down from the puppers.  Time for a walk, then some apartment cleaning.  Hope everybody else has a nice weekend!