Tuesday - Wednesday
So far this week I've been working on my NSF proposal. I'm close to done. It's frustrating though - I spent most all day today making one figure. *headdesk* It was worth it though. The figure looks amazing!! Daniel helped me. I asked him some questions and it came out that I primarily used Paint - always have - that and power point.
His reaction to my using Paint: *bulging eyes* No. You will stop that. AT ONCE. I will show you what to use.
He showed me Illustrator. Never heard of it before. Very expensive. It's basically Paint on steroids! I had no idea how to use it but he sold me on it as soon as he showed me how to make a beautiful sphere nanoparticle approximation with a few finger clicks. He showed me a few other basic moves. Then I went to town making spheres. I asked him a few other simple questions and he broadened my horizons by doing things I was trying to do in a way 500x easier, faster and smoother. I was awed and inspired.
My figure ended up looking amazing!! All thanks to Daniel. I'm very, very pleased.
Talking to Khalid is always a good idea
I got to talk to Khalid about my scheme. It totally helped with the figure design. I had been slightly stressed without realizing it but after talking to him I felt remarkably better. I think I had also been worrying about him but he was fine, which was relieving, and his good mood rubbed off on me.
Both of us are tired
I got pizza for John and I wanted to finish the draft but unfortunately now, I'm also tired. I've not been sleeping well... AT ALL. I think I'm going to have to just go to bed. John unfortunately has been having horribly stressful days and not been sleeping well either. However, it seems to me I've finally calmed somewhat from stress though so I might have a better chance at sleeping thank goodness. I'll have to work on adding changes more seriously in the morning.
Embarrassing mistake
I'm so embarrassed. I accidentally missed the Lynn lab meeting. I remembered during the afternoon. Then forgot in the excitement about my figure. I don't know if I can forgive myself - I feel horrible. I already apologized to Dr. Lynn. I'll try to make up for it by talking to Lisa a LOT tomorrow and making sure I make progress finishing at least one article on nanomotors.
I've gotten over most of my annoyance at Dr. Lynn. Now that I've pinpointed what frustrates me about him, I can pray against that and also prepare myself for it. I think it'll all be ok. I hope I can get some work done soon. It's just this NSF stuff is important. I want it to be top notch. More soon.
Seminars: Monday was GREAT! Excellent illustration about how to think about science
I forgot to mention it, but the Monday seminar was AMAZING!! That ranks as one of my favorites. I told Dr. Blakey so. Dr. Roepe spoke to us about his work developing anti-malarial drugs and about one key aspect they all missed for 10 years. They wondered why the drugs they made that worked in the lab didn't work in practice. Then, they discovered that the primary reason anti-malarial drugs worked was by killing the parasites outright, rather than stunting their growth. Thus, they needed to be measuring LD50 (lethal dose of 50% of the pathogen in the blood) rather than what it took to stagnate its growth (IC50). None of the drug researchers had thought about what the concentration of their drugs was in the bloodstream. When they cleared this up, they were able to make key changes that will result in drugs that actually work.
I thought that this was a FANTASTIC illustration of how scientists needed to think about science, constantly think outside their field and consider all the angles, especially the theory behind what they do, and not always get lost in the details. It's important to remember WHY you're doing what you're doing and what's the point of it all.
The seminar today was ok - it was someone talking about a new sensitive Cryo EM technique that lets one get structures of peptides in fine detail without using NMR or X-ray crystallography. It was intriguing, but a little dry.