If my life over a 3-month span was a series of breaths, then I have exhaled the major one, with a few less major ones coming up ( Read more... )

Oi.... breaks in the middle of the day are good ( Read more... )

I know.... I know it's been forever since I posted here. A lot has changed over the past 5-6 months. I now have a defense date, and it is November 16th. What scares me is that the next time I go home for a holiday, I WILL have a doctorate. Also, my thesis is due in 9 weeks. Frightening ( Read more... )

The only defenses I've seen have been without a lot of fanfare and with relatively few people, excepting one guy who lived in a frat house. Sometimes, parents don't even come. I understand if parents live far away, but if they're within driving distance? It's basically your offspring giving a professional talk. What parent wouldn't burst with ( Read more... )

So, as I celebrate having made another trip around the sun, it has come to my attention watching other people and their situations that there are certain things for which I am so, so thankful ( Read more... )

Life is right now very, very busy, but I wouldn't have it any other way. My experiments are long, but going well and telling me something. My teaching is sometimes boring and mundane, but the students crack me up on a daily basis, and that is always fun times. Everything I'm doing has a silver lining. Especially one certain situation that is ( Read more... )

So... my graduate school career does have an expiration date, and it's coming up. I have all 4 research chapters roughly laid out, and all but one are finished, experiment-wise. Boss just gave me the go-ahead to write the introduction, so who knows? I'm looking to finish in December ( Read more... )

Get the H1N1 vaccine, you say. It's free and great, you say. Avoid the undergrads and their plagues, you say. You didn't say the vaccine would GIVE me H1N1! I have a sneaking suspicion that my dose of the virus wasn't as "severely weakened" as it was supposed to be. Either that, or my infection coincided greatly, time-wise, with my vaccination ( Read more... )

It has come to my attention (and now my entire department's attention) that I will be teaching next semester. This is not a huge surprise, and I've actually known it for a while. I'll be doing the same assignment I did 4 years ago, sort of: 1/2 time on my advisor's class, and 1/2 time on a general chemistry lab. The hardest thing is going to be ( Read more... )

My invited review just got submitted to WIREs Nanomedicine and Nanobiotechnology yesterday. I'll post a link when it gets accepted and formatted. I'm so proud of this, and labmate Stacey was a great co-author. I am thoroughly spoiled for future papers I write with co-authors ( Read more... )