Surpise!

Since Chris has taken over the posting of the blog - I am sure that you have laughed MUCH more than if I had still be in charge and you have actually had blog posts, but you have not heard from me a lot (good or bad, you decide).

So surprise - I am doing a semi-post (come on - I have to start slow).  So while Chris is at Stake Choir practice - our good friend is the conductor and she asked him to arrange a hymn for them so he kinda of feels obligated - and the boy is sleeping - because he is really sick with a fever, hacking cough, wheezing, no appetite, no energy, etc - I will take a moment while baking Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies to drop a few lines.

School is stressful and very time consuming.  Add on top of that all the family drama that has been happening with Chris for the past month and you can imagine what my nerves are like.  My boss keeps us all pretty busy.  This month is "grant renewal month" which means that she needs ALL data NOW - so she can submit it to the NIH (National Institutes of Health) to see if they will still give us money to do research.  You see, her job now it get the money so that all the rest of us can still do research - and you can't even begin to imagine how expensive biological research is - lets just say that our lab spends ~$750,000 a year for salaries, supplies, fees, etc.  She currently has 3 large grants from the NIH (which is unheard of these days - the NIH has not had a budget increase in like 5 years (?) and so a lot of people are losing their grants and less people are being awarded grants - you have to score in the top 2-3% to get funding now - whereas five years ago it was the top 10% or so would get funded - so needless to say A LOT of good science in NOT being funded) and one is due for renewal in November and another in January - which means that we have to get the papers published NOW that we have been working on for the past 2 years PLUS a bunch of preliminary data to show "the grant panel" where we want to go next and what we are going to do with the millions of dollars that they should give us.  PLUS I get to start to prepare for my qualification exams that should happen here soon - I was thinking that I could do it in November, but since I can't get ANYTHING to work like I thought it would - I am having to delay just a little longer - I need at least ONE piece of data that supports my hypothesis, so that I might have a project that is worthy of a Ph.D.  So combine everything and I have been spending 10-11 hours at the lab each day, coming home to eat, read one book with the boy, put him to bed, talk for 10ish min with Chris and then heading to bed - only wake up the next day and do it all over again - with the same results - NO DATA!!  So Chris has really had to pick up the slack at home - which has been a little easier since he is at home.....

This coming week I have 2 presentations - Lab Meeting on Tuesday and Research in Progress (RIP) on Thursday - where all the department could show up.  So I am using the Lab Meeting for a trial run for RIPs on Thursday.  It is going to be rough - the last lab meeting I did, they all concluded that I was unable to count blue spots in a microscope and that it wasn't the experiment that were not working - it was the human that was sucking.  Even thought I had the most senior scientist in the lab count my experiments later and my data was spot on - the experiment was not working - there was not much redemption for me in the eyes of the lab or my boss, because only me and the other guy knew what had happened.  After that lab meeting, I cried for a few hours and had to call Chris just to get motivation to got back into work.  Yeah, NOT looking forward to this week AT ALL!!

Just a photo in parting - this is me with Dr. Carol Greider.  She came to do a seminar at UMD - at the invitation of the Graduate Student Association (i.e. me).  Just Google her.  We were very honored to have her come and it was a honor to be her guide for the time she was there.  That behind us is a constant temperature room - very sciency looking huh?

Dr. Carol Greider and Beki Sept 2010

So there you have it, I have done a blog post.   Now you will be glad to know that I won't be boring you all again for another couple month - Chris will return with his normal humor and amusing rants.