Studying and Texting ... with the hint of baking yet to come

Yesterday was John's last day in the lab.  He starts his new lab on Monday.

Hopefully this new lab will be better than his old one.  He's still planning on going into his first lab, but he'd at least like a good lab rotation!

Meanwhile, he's been studying almost non-stop for his tests!  He had a test on Monday, and then has another one tomorrow.  I am so proud of him the way he's handling all of this.  The first few tests he took were hard for him - not necessarily because of the material (although that also is insanely difficult), but because it brought back flashes of medical school.  After his first test, we went to the park and walked for about four miles just to get away from everything so he could recover.

After Monday's test?  He felt great!  No test anxiety whatsoever!  I think he's finally put medical school behind him!

He's still enthusiastic about studying - probably because he can actually see the results of his studying while talking to classmates and taking tests.  It's gotten to the point when I have to call him to come home at night - he's so wrapped up in studying that he loses track of time!

Meanwhile ... I got a new phone!  One that finally has texting, so that John and I can keep in touch during the day.  I also have a few friends who all they do is text, so it will be nice to get back in touch with them!

I volunteered to make poundcakes for the GSO for a Bake Sale fundraiser they're doing end of November/early December.  That, plus the fact that I'm going to make poundcakes for all my co-workers and friends at church for Christmas ... I'm going to be busy baking!  Last year I found a relatively easy pound cake recipe that is utterly divine, or so everyone who has had it tells me.  Everyone who tasted it said that it was the best pound cake they'd ever had - one of my coworkers even started crying and said it was exactly like the poundcake her grandmother made when she was a little girl.

So ... my tradition (started last year!) is to make a poundcake for Christmas for gifts.  It's easy - people seem to like it - and is relatively inexpensive (although with the cost of butter and eggs ...).

I expect that by the time Christmas actually rolls around, I'm going to be so sick of poundcake!

Lab Updates

John has decided that he does not want to work in the lab he is currently working in.  While he says it's a good lab, and one that many of his classmates are interested in, it's not a good fit for him.

Besides the fact that the lab (or the building, we're not sure which) gives him headaches, he's decided he's not that interested in that field of research.  Apparently it is one of the most difficult specialties to actually receive funding for, so it really is a declining field.  If he went into this field of research, he'd constantly be struggling to get funding, and he'd constantly be worried about being "scooped" from other labs and researchers who are trying just as hard to get funding.

More and more, he is thinking that he'll end up in the first lab he rotated through.  Although he had a rough start, he truly liked it there by the end.  Once he left and saw other labs on campus, he's realized just how great that first lab was - and how those three weeks, even with the language barrier, left him better prepared and more knowledgeable about research techniques than his classmates.

Very few (if any) of his classmates are interested in that first lab.  All of them (John included) had heard negative things about the lab.  But John traced all those negative things back to one grad student in the lab, whose initial research didn't work out, and ended up in a position in the lab that she hates.  And the things in the lab that she hates, are things that John actually kinda likes.  She's been scaring grad students away from this lab - a lab with plenty of money, resources, and a willingness to teach a grad student - for the past 3-4 years.  The PI of the lab is beside himself; he can't understand why no one is going into his lab.

The PI met with John on the last day of his three-week rotation, and promised him three things: 

1. John will graduate in 4-5 years.
2. John will be researching something that matters, with great possibilities for getting published in high-profile journals.
3. John will not have to worry about money.  If John wants to research something that costs a million dollars, they can do that.

The neat thing about this lab is that it approaches research differently than most other labs on campus (Indeed, most of research nowadays).  Most scientists and researchers come up with a hypothesis, and then collect data to prove their hypothesis correct (or incorrect, as it sometimes happens).  This lab collects the data first, and then analyzes the data to come up with the hypothesis.  Which honestly makes much more sense than the normal method to me.

Another cool thing?  The primary language in the lab is Mandarin Chinese.  John and I have been interested in learning Chinese for the past two years - we've got the Rosetta Stone Mandarin software that we've been going through off and on for about a year now.  There is no better place in this country to learn Mandarin than in a lab populated primarily by native Mandarin speakers.  If John could leave grad school with a good degree and knowing Mandarin ... that would be so amazing, and would make him stand out to no end.

We also learned that two of the researchers in that lab live about two houses down from us.  We haven't actually met them yet, but if John does go in that lab, I'm sure we will at some point.

So ... now John's approaching his next few lab rotations as though they need to prove to him that they are better than that first lab.  Right now?  That seems a rather high goal to reach.

In which I have to choose between posting something mediocre or not posting anything. Guess which one I choose.

I have nothing really to say today.

John is starting his new lab today ... he was a bit concerned this weekend because he hadn't heard from the PI in the lab, and thought that maybe the PI had double-booked students.  I haven't heard from John today except for a brief email saying he didn't know when he'd be done.  So, he's in lab somewhere!

I spent the weekend baking and baking and walking and baking.  Silly me couldn't for the life of me remember whether I normally follow the recipe for sugar cookies and use powdered sugar, or regular sugar.  So I used regular sugar.  Mistake.  They still taste good, but they aren't amazing.  I'm still a bit upset about it.

Not enough to remake the 60 cookies sitting in my freezer, though.

Saturday we went to the local park and took Honey for a walk - we walked about four miles.  Then Sunday evening we met up with one of John's classmates and his girlfriend and their dog, and all went for another walk for about 2 miles.  It was one of those situations where we really shouldn't have gone because both John and I had stuff to get done before Monday ... but we didn't want to push off the relationship that we're trying to build.

Of course, they might completely shun us after John brought up politics.  But, probably not.  Hopefully not.

I am thinking and writing in very choppy, incomplete sentences today.  I think it's because today's Monday.  Or the fact that I'm only now getting caffeine into my system.

This story is totally lame - even if it does involve bloodshed

John is currently rotating through a Chinese lab ... in that everyone in the lab speaks Chinese, with very little English.  Does this make it difficult to learn anything?  Yes.  Does this open the possibilities for humor?  Only on our part.

**Warning - don't read further if you're super sqeam-ish.  Some bloodshed may be involved.**

Apparently, yesterday John was working in the lab (or more accurately, trying to talk to one of the Chinese ladies in there), and he managed to scratch off a scab on his arm.  The cut on his arm began "spurting" blood all over the place. 

While John, mildly annoyed, began looking around for a paper towel or something to stop the blood, the Chinese lady freaked out, shouting "First Aid! First Aid!" and ran for the first aid box.  John tried to calm her down and say that he only needed at most a band-aid, but she paid him no attention.  Before he could do or say anything, she had three bandages in her hands and five more waiting to be used, along with sanitizer and disinfectant. 

John ended up needing one band-aid.  Not even a normal sized one, either.  One of the little circular ones that only cover about half an inch of skin.

Okay ... that story seems a bit lame, now.  But it's Friday and nothing happened at all last night except that we went out to eat and then worked out and then got ice cream and basically ignored Honey at home all day.  I felt guilty enough to let her sleep with us, until she started barking at something and woke me up.  Then I sent her back to her bed.

I am so ready for the weekend.

Shopping and Baking planned!

Grad School Triumvirate

My father got his doctorate through online courses about 2 years ago.  He was the first on my side of the family to not only attend a graduate degree program, but to receive his degree. 

I have no experience or expectations of grad school besides that it's supposed to be hard.

Both of John's parents went grad school.  His dad graduated with a DVM degree, and his mom with a PhD degree.  John's brother graduated with an MD degree.  Higher degree programs and graduate school is no stranger to his family. 

Thankfully, we can depend on John's parents to understand and help us through the various pressures and stresses of graduate school.

The biggest decision John has to make in the next year is what to focus his research on.  John's parents came up with a list of three things that make up an ideal program.  Best case scenario: your research has all three things.  But whichever program you choose, it must have at least two of them.


I.  A Good Mentor/Primary Investigator

•  You must have a mentor who will actually mentor you; one who will teach and advise you.  Your mentor must be someone that you can work alongside with; someone who will push you to succeed and encourage you when it's hard.  

• You do not want a mentor whose personality clashes with yours, or who is rarely in the lab, or who cannot explain or teach anything.  This is a person who will have a definite, direct influence over your career as a grad student - make sure it's someone you can work with.

II.  Fascinating Research

•  You must choose your focus based on what interests you.  You will be researching that topic for the next 3-6+ years; if you aren't interested in it, you will have a difficult time putting out quality work.  Whereas if you find the research intriguing, you are pursuing the research based on your own interest, not just as a job or to get a degree.

III.  A High Graduation Rate

• You should examine the research lab you are interested in and see how long the students generally stay in that lab.  Your mentor may be amazing and the research rewarding, but if it takes the students in that lab about 10 years before they graduate ... that needs to be considered.  
• You should look for a lab with a reasonable graduation rate; 3-5 years.  You can (and should) also look into what the graduates of that lab go on to do.  Are they successful once they graduate?  Or are they now flipping burgers?

John gets to rotate between three labs this fall, and two additional labs in the spring.  The whole program is designed to help him find the perfect fit for him in his research.  Last week he narrowed his (long) list of labs he was interested in down to five.

Since he wanted to leave his final rotation open in case he wanted to repeat any lab rotation, we needed to narrow the list down one more.  So, we placed each lab up against those three principles.

Four of them met all three.  One only met two.  That made the decision much easier!

John starts his first lab rotation on Monday.  I hope he likes it!