Friday, a fun day
The whole day was very quiet and peaceful. I prayed in the morning and the Lord gave me exactly what I needed in Scripture, spoke very loving words over me and reminded me of His power. He also told me to read the 39th day of Draw the Circle. Beautiful. It was completely amazing. I’m typing it up for that reason, but it might not get out until Monday, because I left my book at Emory.
The pH meter is SO healthy!
The rep lady spent a long time telling me how ours actually worked, which was completely fascinating. I had been wanting to fill that hole in my knowledge. It’s still not completely filled, but progress was made. She was really nice.
And they had pizza! I love Papa John’s pizza. I usually don't want pizza, because John eats it so much - more than I've seen anyone eat pizza. But I hadn’t brought lunch that day and I was feeling in the mood for it. I told them they were the BEST! Which seemed to terribly amuse them.
I almost told Dr. Salaita about the pizza, but then there was subgroup meeting, so I couldn’t. That’s ok. He probably already ate. I told Daniel instead. Daniel was overjoyed to hear that he could legitimately eat their pizza, since I brought the pH meter down and apparently, when he went down there, they gave him a whole box of donuts too because they were finishing up! How about that. He came back up with them and they didn’t last but 10 seconds apparently. I ate one when I went down earlier. They were good – crispy cream.
It turned out that Yvonne brought our pH meter to be checked before I did, so it accidentally got checked twice. And, I’m happy to say, it’s the healthiest pH meter alive. It’s so happy and healthy now – it’s been confirmed twice over, working at 99% activity, and in such good condition it won’t know what to do with itself for years. Hopefully, it’ll continue working perfectly, is what.
I also learned some fascinating info about what not to do to pH meters, how to take care of them, how long buffer solutions last upon opening and why that is – SO happy I went down there anyway. Totally worth it. Very interesting.
Other randomness
Some construction workers were looking in the cold room, which mystified me. I asked them what they were doing and they said they were trying to figure out where this water line went. They gave a reason I can’t remember that sounded mysterious and interesting. I wish I could remember what it was.
About Dr. Salaita and general comments
He even mentioned my clean bench! It’s almost as if - he knows what I’m thinking! Hmmmm ^^
Well, if he did, I wouldn’t be offended in the slightest, of course. In fact, I’d hope that his knowing what I’m thinking would make him a lot less stressed, which is one of my major goals.
I also want my future employers to know who I am, as a person. I don’t like being a nameless face. I like relating to my boss like family. People have told me before, “you can’t treat your boss like a friend,” and then cited someone cussing out their boss.
Really? Seriously? That’s how you treat your friends? I would think treating people like family or friends would mean you’d treat said people like priceless gems and treasure them, fight for them, and love and respect them more than anyone else, because that’s what one *does* for family and friends, yes? One doesn’t cuss out such people or treat them like dirt. You respect them the most. At least, that’s what I think. So, I’d hope my wanting to do that isn’t a bad thing.
And, everything I write, say or do is a serious business to me, a matter of prayer and great concern, because I want to reflect my Father, and not bring any dishonor on Him. I pray about everything I write. I’ve junked and rewritten whole posts, because I felt it wasn’t what He wanted me to say. I pray He takes out anything that isn’t of Him, which He has in many cases. I don’t pretend to have attained perfection at this or that everything I write is directly from Him. Nope. But at least, I don’t want to write anything He wouldn’t approve of. I give it my best, submit it to Him, and trust Him for the outcome. There’s no way I could stomach writing half-truths and lies. Just not happening. I couldn’t live with myself. This is all His business. I don’t worry about it.
If anyone ever wanted to ask me about anything I’d ever posted, I’d be completely happy to discuss it, especially if said people were not mad at me about it. I wouldn’t be surprised. None of it is a secret with me. If it was, it wouldn’t be up here.
And the Lord has told me very specifically every person that I was to give a link to this site and when. So if you got a link here, it wasn’t from me, it was from Him. I don’t know why He wants certain people to have links. But He does. Once again, it’s His business, and I’m not really worried about it.
Annnnnnnddddd, continuing about the day!
The 4th Friday Event
Have you ever noticed how professors and students tend to clump together separately and the two just don’t mix much? What happened to the laws of diffusion! Seriously. Apparently, they don’t work with people. They only mix, like oil and water, in the presence of some certain phase-transfer-catalyst-like circumstances.
When I was at Oxford, within a year, Ms. Harmon had claimed me and said she wasn’t going to let biology steal me away. I spent as much time with her as I could and she poured into me all kinds of fascinating info about science, chemistry and life. I was known to invade the professor table at lunch and sit by her – with all the other professors. She invited me, so it was ok.
After all, other students weren’t very interesting to me, but professors – they were fascinating. I really just wanted to be with Ms. Harmon as much as possible, but the whole time, I was also trying to absorb all this professorly knowledge and find out what professors were like. Before college, I’d never been to school, so professors were kind of like deities to me in the early days – pinnacles of knowledge, to which I aspired to be. I wanted to know what professors were like: what did they think about? What did they say and do? How did they work? I learned all kinds of things at those lunches just quietly observing.
Of course, it did create some confusion. Some of them would ask, “And who are you?” And I’d say, “Oh nobody, nobody,” a.k.a., the mysterious, small student who said nothing most of time, but invaded the professor table to sit by Ms. Harmon almost every day. Ms. Harmon would usually explain about me being her student worker, which helped. P.S. If I'm at all like Khalid, than I'm an introverted version. I've never really lost this quality, despite significant changes since freshman year.
I’m pretty sure I have no real idea anything about what social rules I break. I’ve always had this feeling that there must be some out there that I’m missing, and I have no idea what they are. I suspect perhaps I just end up wandering around barging into things. So far, no one’s ever really been annoyed with me. Maybe it’s because I’m so innocent-looking and obviously clueless. Maybe I’m not missing anything. I have no idea. That’s just what I feel like.
All this to say, I’ve considered invading the professor spaces at Emory, but I haven’t found a good way to do this so far yet. I feel as if it’s harder to do at Emory. Not that that means I’ll give up on it by any means. Oxford is a much more casual, family-atmosphere-like place. Ms. Harmon, Dr. Parker, Dr. Jacob and Dr. Saadein have all talked to me about this before – the difference in the atmosphere between Oxford and Emory. Additionally, sometimes invading is just not optimal.
For instance, I’m pretty sure I can predict what would have happened if I had tried to invade the Salaita-Blakey-Lynn-Anil and etc bubble.
1. Dr. Salaita has an 80% chance of suddenly disappearing altogether.
2. Dr. Lynn will root me in place, start talking to me and I might not be able to escape for an hour.
3. Anil will look amused. He almost always does.
4. All the other professors will look perturbed, disperse and reform a new bubble elsewhere.
I predicted this within a few seconds of sizing up the situation and avoided it altogether by talking to Daniel in the Heaven lab and a guy from the Dyer lab. Fascinating and good discussion we had.
They talked about rotations again. They said if I really wanted to stay in the Salaita lab, perhaps I should make it my first rotation and just stay there longer. That's what Yuan said. They said so-and-so, one of their friends, had done that in the Davies lab and it was fine for him. Hmm. Interesting. I'd been thinking that doing something like that would just prolong the agony of having to leave and I should just get the leaving part over with as soon as possible. But. The way they put it ... I don't know. It was much more tempting, at the time. Anything to shorten the space of time when I'm *not* in the Salaita lab sounds like a good idea. I'll think and pray about it. I still might not do it. I really don't know what I'll do yet.
Daniel told me the blueberries weren’t washed, so he wouldn’t eat them, which I thought was funny.
About Dr. Lynn
I’m going to have to figure out what to do about that. He’s so nice. I’d like to tell him I’m planning on joining the Salaita lab directly, and THEN talk to him for an hour, maybe. But I’m afraid if I did that, he’d be really annoyed with me OR he’d spend a drawn out vague hour of conversation trying to convince me I can’t possibly make up my mind that quickly, and I can’t possibly mean that, which would be thoroughly and completely infuriating to have to sit through.
Perhaps my fears are to no real end and I don't give him enough credit. This is what Anil seemed to think - that I was assuming fears that weren't there - though I didn't say why I was scared of Dr. Lynn. I don’t know. I've just had some people do this to me in different scenarios in the past, and I worry about it happening again. *sigh* I really don’t want to be mean to him. I'm probably being rude. I should really just talk to him. But I want to read more first. I don't feel prepared. Dr. Lynn makes me feel really unprepared. It's my fault though I think, not his. He's nice. I just worry.
Talking to Anil, about research scientists
First, I asked him how he got his job and what he does, exactly. I’ve been wanting to ask him this, to get a better idea of research scientists.
He told me what I feared and I’ve heard before – that his job was nearly impossible to get and practically didn’t exist. Ms. Harmon has told me this too. I said – but, but – I know someone (Bijoy) who’s worked as a research scientist for a professor for twenty years!
He just shrugged and said, well, it could happen, but you couldn’t really choose it. You just had to fall into it – also with people you *liked* doing research with, because if you didn’t like them it was pointless and infuriating – so basically, you had to be “REALLY lucky.” Huh. Really lucky. Well, I wouldn’t call it that, exactly. But, if that’s the case, I’m betting on being lucky. It’s worked for me so far.
He said he wouldn’t have his job if Dr. Lynn wasn’t chair, because he’d have no salary.
Me: Can’t you just make less money?
Anil: Yes, and he said he does make less money than he would outside a university, but it’s more than a post-doc, and that’s still expensive for professors to afford.
Me: Well, can’t you make even less than that?
Anil: At some point, you just can’t live on a post-doc’s salary.
Me: Why not?
I forget what he said to that. I think maybe, “just because”? I said, well, would it help if you had two incomes. He hesitated and said yes, that might help.
*throws up arms in sign of victory*
Ah HA!
See, I knew there was a loop hole somewhere. I don’t care about money at all. I’ll make as less as I need to to have this job.
I asked him what he would do when Dr. Lynn stopped being chair. He said he’d “figure something out.” O.o What does that mean, I wonder? If he can “figure something out” then so can I. Maybe. We’ll see. I know I want an impossible job, but I like shooting for the impossible. It’s more fun.
Talking to Anil, about what I liked about research
So I started talking about Cas9 and DNA editing. We went back and forth on this almost a whole hour! It was so much fun. SO much fun. He asked me lots of things, trying to fish from me what I actually liked and why. It seemed to him, he said, that all my interests centered around modifying and editing DNA, building something, and what it could do. Yes, that’s mostly true at this point.
He asked me what I would do if I could edit DNA to do anything? This is something I’m still thinking about. There are several things I’ve read about that have absolutely fascinated me though.
1. One article mentioned inserting an anti-apoptosis gene into beta cells in type I diabetes patients, to keep the cells alive. I’m not sure that would solve the problem, but it’s a *fascinating* idea.
2. Use DNA editing to perhaps help genetic disorders, especially cystic fibrosis – a disease I truly despise. Dr. Hawley at Oxford, my old English teacher, has a daughter who has it, and I’ve seen how much he suffers watching his daughter suffer. Unfortunately, I think DNA editing for any real use in genetic disease is a LONG way off, but you never know.
3. I’d like to use it rearrange regulatory elements in DNA and figure out how certain genes work.
4. I also really like the idea of breaking down cellulose and/or doing things with alternative fuels, though that relates to nothing else really – Anil said that was perfectly ok though. It doesn’t matter how off-topic an interest is. I’m glad he feels that way. I’m not sure yet that it’s true though.
I think there are a LOT more interesting applications for it. I just have to read more. But, I also really want to do more with drug delivery. I find it just as fascinating as DNA editing. And I love building/designing things. I don’t know where that’ll take me. I definitely have to think more.
Talking with Anil was so much fun. I’m going to seek him out again. I would have talked to him another hour, but I told him I had to go check my gel. It was just as well. He probably had to leave too soon.
He said all that he learned he learned from Dr. Lynn and how he talked to me was exactly what Dr. Lynn would do and I should talk to him. I said yes, but I was scared of Dr. Lynn and I was not scared of him. He said that was terribly amusing, because it was usually the reverse.
I don’t know how anyone could be scared of Anil. He’s so incredibly awesome! I remember him well from the SURE program. I doubt he remembers me though. Truly, I’m not really altogether scared of Dr. Lynn. Dr. Lynn just feels threatening and Anil does not. He feels more like a neutral party and not necessarily wanting to recruit me. Dr. Lynn was watching me talk to Anil with an amused and frustrated look on his face.
Finishing the gel
The whole lab smelled like barbecue. It was very mysterious. Later, I found out that there was some huge smoke of some kind outside and that’s where it was coming from.
I tried to image the gel around 8:30 p.m. AGAIN. Of course, the doors were locked again. *headdesk* Seriously. I’m getting a key to Rollins next week and that’s the end of it.
So, I wandered around for a long time, wondering what I should do. I asked a few people walking by if they had keys. They didn’t. I found a door open in Whitehead, but the adjoining door to Rollins was locked. Finally, I found someone who thought they might have a key. She flagged someone down who was leaving Rollins, who let me in, praise the Lord.
I got interesting gel images. I forgot to write down my lanes, so I’ll look at them on Monday. Ironically, the hybrids seemed to make a better overall gel than the FAM did this time. That’s truly bizarre and never happens.
What the Lord taught me this week
I have to keep remembering to surrender to the Lord. I keep thinking I should “try my best” to do things. But that’s a misnomer. He showed me just how much of a misnomer that was for a solid two weeks. Really, I just need to surrender to the Lord and not worry about anything. He takes care of things through me. For two weeks last week, I felt like He took over and showed me how that works in a way I’ve never really known before. It’s notoriously terribly difficult to explain, and for that reason, it’s also been really hard for me to learn. I’m a very literal person, so I feel like it takes me even longer than some to understand some basic things about how to walk by faith in the Lord’s power.
I’ve also found that the Lord really does know what I need. I’ll ask Him to help me pray. I often feel like I just have so much mixed up that I can’t express. But He always gives me beautiful Scriptures to pray back to Him that express exactly what I’m feeling at the time.
He also knows just what I need to hear from Him each day. He’s so good to me and so incredibly patient. I have a long way to go to get to truly walk with Him like I should. I always worry I’ll mess up and ruin His reputation. But, that’s just another fear I have to surrender to Him. It turns out, I’m pretty sure the Lord can defend Himself just fine. He doesn’t need me.
I can’t wait to post the devotional readings the Lord gave me this week. They are truly awesome and spoke to me all over the place.
About Saturday
James was going to watch the movie The Pacific Rim with his friend Andrew.
John and I went up to Gigabytes Café in Marietta. John got to say hi to Daniel Stably again. Daniel and I played a game – his pStryker against my Siege, both Cygnar faction. We both made some pretty lousy mistakes, because I haven’t played in 3 months and he in a year. But we had a lot of fun.
John and our friend Matt and a few other random folks up there helped us with rules we forgot or didn’t know. Daniel ended up winning. Siege one-shot pStryker leaving him with 2 health but I couldn’t finish him off. At that point, I knew Siege was dead. I needed to use my Stormwall more effectively. I made some critical mistakes and didn’t finish off his Ironclad and Lancer fast enough.
I’ve got a few pictures of the extravaganza up here.
That’s about all I think. Ha, well, I guess this post got a little longer than I anticipated. But, that’s pretty normal for me.