Progress at Work

I'm finally getting more comfortable in my position at work.  It's taken a long time, but I really feel like I'm contributing significantly.  I have been incredibly busy the last week or two, which helps the day go by fast.  In late October, I got to a point that I hated going to work and I felt like maybe taking this job was a mistake.  I felt like I couldn't do anything right, and like I wasn't making any progress toward independence.  My direct supervisor is extremely critical.  She wants things to be done her way and EXACTLY right, and she isn't afraid to correct every little thing I do.  She watches me very closely no matter what I'm doing and jumps at every chance to criticize me.  She also completely micromanages.  If she sees me sitting at my desk, she looks for things to tell me to do.  It makes me feel on edge constantly.  She is very strict about not leaving early or taking a  long lunch, not going on facebook or answering personal emails, and has made it very clear that I am not to work on any wedding planning while at work.  She is also very "anti-fun" as my co-worker put it.  She doesn't discuss her personal life at work, and doesn't joke around or anything.  The other 3 of us in the lab like to chat while we work, but she rarely joins in.  She often blames this strictness on her boss (who is technically my boss as well), but more and more I think that is a mischaracterization.  When I interact personally with her boss, she seems very laid back and not at all concerned with me working constantly from 9 to 5.  She has never disciplined me for anything (even though I've been disciplined multiple times for stupid little things in person and via email by my direct supervisor).  All of this criticizing was driving me crazy, especially because I'm not the type of person to be lazy at work and try to get out of things.  I just felt like no matter what I couldn't do anything right.

All of this came to a head on a Friday (in which I asked to leave 30 minutes early because I had stayed 30 minutes late earlier in the week- and was told no- and then my boss left 3 hours early).  I went home and talked it through with Daniel.  His suggestion was to sit down and discuss expectations with both my direct supervisor, and her supervisor.  But I thought that would just make it look like I'm trying to get away with anything I can.  Instead, I decided to work really hard- come early and leave late, take a short lunch, offer to come in on weekends, and be constantly busy from the time I arrive until I leave.  And it seems to be working!  I have come in an hour early 2 or 3 times since then, once on a morning after we got 8 inches of snow, and my supervisor has offered multiple times for me to leave early since I came in so early.  She has also thanked me for working hard and recognized my effort.  The best thing that's happened is that she has actually asked me to help her with mouse work.  She has very little experience with mice and is quite uncomfortable doing anything with them.  She also recognizes that I have lots of experience, and so whenever we're working with mice she lets me take the lead.  It has given me a lot of confidence and I think proven to her that I have some value.  In the last week I have finally begun to gain independence.  Today my boss left at around 10am because she was sick, and left me a LONG list of work to do.  I felt completely overwhelmed, but then decided that this was a great chance to show her that she can trust me to take care of things if she can't be there.  So I got everything on her list done- even though half of the list contained things I have never done before.  I read the directions, asked for help from my co-workers when I needed to, but I got it done.  When my boss's boss saw the list she left me, she said that was ridiculous.  She told me that she would talk to my boss tomorrow and tell her that she can't leave this huge long list for other people to do.  It was very satisfying to hear her say that :-)

Outside of work, my life is still pretty consumed with the wedding.  We have gotten most of the RSVPs back and are now at 182 guests (10 of whom are children).  That's a lot of people!  We have enough money saved for our honeymoon+ 175 guests, so I guess we'll be a little over.  I can't believe how many distant family and friends from across the country are flying in to see us get married.  Many of our friends are flying from Denver as well.  It means a lot to me that they are willing to spend the time and money just to come to our wedding.  And last week the most amazing thing happened.  I went to bells rehearsal like I do every Thursday night.  Only this night, we ended practice 30 minutes early.  We cleaned everything up, and then the director led us down the hallway and when we turned the corner, there were chairs and tables set up with a cake and fruit and a big pile of presents!  I was so completely surprised!  They threw me a surprise wedding shower.  Actually, it was a combined surprise wedding shower for me and baby shower for another member who is due on December 24.  The cake had a bride and a baby on it, and there were presents for both of us.  When I think about the time that they spent to prepare this for us, I feel so lucky to have people like that in my life.  They spent weeks emailing each other to plan it.  Some bought gifts from our registry, one lady custom ordered a cake from a local bakery (and it was delicious), other people brought fruit and set up.  They asked questions about my wedding so that the bride on the cake was wearing a dress just like mine, and there were teal ribbons on the gifts.  They bought 10 drinking glasses, 10 wine glasses, a duvet cover, and the matching shams all from Crate and Barrel.  For them to buy all of that, plus all the baby gifts, and the cake... it's unbelievable.  And they must have come early to rehearsal to set up the chairs and tables and everything.  I still get emotional thinking about it.

As far as planning for the wedding, we have very little left to do.  I made the seating chart last week.  We discussed who is going to give toasts at the wedding and rehearsal which turned out to be another sore spot for Daniel's Dad.  He has been incredibly stubborn and demanding with regard to the wedding (as usual).  It all goes back to the groomsman issue and it seems that because Daniel didn't do what he wanted, he has decided to make every aspect of the wedding difficult for us.  I'm trying to be accommodating and I have to say that I'm very proud of myself for not reacting to him in anger.  I definitely want to put him in his place and remind him whose wedding this is, but that would just make it worse.  So he is going to get his way, and give a toast at the rehearsal and at the reception.  It's not worth arguing about.  I just remind myself in my own mind that I will always win.  Daniel's Dad may think that he can dictate everything Daniel does, but in reality Daniel and I make decisions together as a family.  And I will always come first now because we have chosen each other to be life partners.  Daniel and I have decided from now on that we are not going to ask anymore opinions about the wedding.  Our parents have lost the privilege of being involved in decision making.  Nicole is the only person that we agreed gets to be involved.  She has earned that right by being understanding and flexible, and respecting that this is our wedding and nobody else's.

We spent quite a bit of time in pre-marital counseling discussing both of our fathers.  The most productive thing that I've learned is that when speaking to Daniel, I need to speak from my heart instead of my head.  I tend to be very factual and analytical, but that doesn't work with Daniel.  Another important conversation we had is that something that's important to me about us being married is that Daniel is loyal to me above everyone else.  And a way that he can show that is by supporting me in front of his dad, and not letting his dad speak to me with disrespect.  So we both have things to work on, but I'm more confident than ever that we have a solid relationship and will have a long happy marriage together.  Although I probably already knew that.  I think if we can get through the immense changes that come in middle school, high school, and college, then we can get through anything.

In just 2 1/2 weeks I'm flying to Phoenix.  In less than 4 weeks, I will be Mrs. Rosen!

Work and Wedding

My life right now is completely consumed by work and wedding planning.


Work is going pretty well.  I'm feeling much more comfortable with everyone.  I'm a little disappointed that I don't have more independence yet.  I come to work each morning with only a vague idea of what I'm going to be doing.  Usually I have to wait for some more specific instructions before I can get any work done.  It's frustrating, but I'm sure it will get better as I get to know the lab and how things work here.  My network is expanding a lot.  This lab tends to collaborate a lot more with other labs.  I've met lots of other PIs and researchers in the pathology department and in cancer research in general.  We also attend a lot more lectures and seminars with exposes us to other peoples' ideas and research.  Tomorrow I'm going to a talk by a famous stem cell biologist.  I think stem cells are so interesting, so I'm excited to see what I learn there.  


Wedding planning is exhausting.  All the fun stuff is done, and what's left is just work.  We finally finished the ceremony and thank goodness Daniel and I are both very happy with it.  Last time we worked on it we ended up setting it aside because we couldn't agree on things, but for some reason this time we were on the same page and it was quick and easy.  We have asked Evan's girlfriend Kristy to recite a poem or scripture reading. I'm happy that we're including her in the wedding.  She is definitely a part of the family already.  There are only a few things left: seating once we get all the RSVPs back, designing and printing the programs, and a few other details.  It's less than 6 weeks away!

Last Sunday Daniel and I attended a new church.  It's a Methodist church, like the one I grew up attending in Phoenix.  It's actually right across the street from DU.  There was a time when Daniel and I were trying out new churches in the area, but we never went to this one.  Daniel went to a Sunday morning service when he visited campus during his senior year of high school and he didn't like it.  He felt that the young adult group was very separated from the rest of the congregation.  They met at a different time and had their own service.  This time we went not because we're looking for a church, but because one of Daniel's music students was performing in the service.  He wanted to be there to support his student.  It happened to be the "Children's Sabbath" which means that the kids do everything in the service that the adults normally do.  My first impression was that the church was stunning.  It's in an old red brick building with stained glass all around.  It's a very old-fashioned feeling church.  It probably is very old, since DU was founded in 1864.  My second impression was how friendly and welcoming the people are.  Many people approached us and asked about us.  They recognized us as visitors.  The director of Christian Education came up and introduced himself and told us that we were in for a very special treat because it's Children's Sabbath.  Daniel explained that we were there to see Matthew play and he knew exactly who we were talking about.  When the service started, I started to notice familiar faces.  A few of the people in the choir are DU students in the music school.  The choir director and organist is the accompanist for the choirs at DU.  I was in Women's Choir and I substituted for her when she was sick a few times.  After the service, Daniel and I went up to the front to congratulate his student on playing well.  Daniel introduced me to his Mom (a professor in the music school at DU).  Then right away the choir director approached me and said that she recognized me.  I reminded her of my name and that I was in the Women's Choir 3 years ago.  I couldn't believe she remembered me!  Right then she invited me to join their church choir.  That was very bold of her, and I surprised myself by being really excited about that idea.  I told her that I was interested, but that I'm busy on Wednesday evenings through the end of the year, for our pre-marital counseling.  She encouraged me to reconsider in January.    

Daniel and I spent the rest of the day discussing the church and comparing it to the church I've been attending and playing handbells with.  It's a very large Presbyterian church with FOUR ordained pastors (2 that preach, 1 for congregational care, and 1 for youth), 3 of them with PhD degrees as well.  Their choir director has a PhD in music, as does their organist.  And you can tell because their choir is incredible.  They could substitute for any professional symphony choir in a second.  It took my breath away when they had a brass quintet come and play with them.  It was some of the most beautiful sacred music I've ever heard.  So it's a very successful and wealthy church.  It's also very progressive and community-involved.  They just put solar panels on the roof, and regularly host homeless people right in the church.  The sermons are very intellectually stimulating, which is important to me.  I like to be challenged in my beliefs and not just told the same old bible stories.  Unfortunately, this church is not very welcoming.  We have been there many times and not once has anyone approached us.  I walk around the church in my bell choir uniform, and nobody says one word to me.  I have never spoken with the pastors or any other church staff.  The only people I know are in the bell choir.  And it seems that they don't know a lot of people in the church either.

This new church has Daniel very interested.  And that is HUGE.  Daniel has never been interested in attending church, except when I ask him to.  He has agreed to attend church with our family, but only as a family activity- not for his own enjoyment or benefit.  He sees it as a social club, a way to meet other families in the community.  So the Methodist church fits that for him.  And I feel that if this is a church that he actually wants to go to, then I should jump on it fast. But their choir had maybe 20 people at best, and it was pretty pitiful sounding. Compare that to the professional quality choir at the Presbyterian church.  I would much rather sing with a really good choir, but if everyone said that then bad choirs would never get better.  Plus the Methodist church doesn't have a handbell choir at all.  That could change, since they just got a set of hand chimes.  And I've heard rumors that DU has a set of handbells.  I'm completely torn about this.  Daniel and I will have to talk about it and see where it goes.

Thoughts on the new job

It's been a week and a half in my new job, and I'm starting to feel more comfortable.  I don't have a ton of work to do because I'm still learning how this lab works and where everything is.  But I'm managing to stay relatively busy.  I've read a ton of journal articles about breast cancer and cancer stem cells and I find it way more interesting than the research I was doing before.  It's more relevant in my opinion, and much more applicable.  The project I'm working on actually involves screening hundreds of compounds as potential drugs to treat breast cancer.  I am working with mice much more, but these are very nice mice.  They don't bite at all!  They have huge tumors in their mammary fat pads that glow green when you hold them up to a UV light.  I'm also doing much more cell culture.  My technique has gotten a lot better, but I find that it takes a lot of concentration to do well.  With cell culture you have to do everything perfectly or you could contaminate your cells and ruin the whole experiment.  And these cells take weeks to grow, so you'd have to start all over again. It was a little scary at first, but I'm getting much better.  And I think everyone here is confident in my abilities.  I have the most mouse experience out of everyone, and I have enough cell culture experience that it's been easy to pick up the few things I didn't know.  This lab is much smaller, about 1/8 the size of my old lab.  There's just 4 people besides me.  Everyone here is much more focused on their work, and much less chatty about their personal lives.  This has made it somewhat difficult to get to know them, but I'm sure that will come with time.  Everyone gets along much better in this lab, so that's a nice change.  

The weather is finally getting cooler.  I have mixed feelings about that.  Snow is fun, but cold is not.  And I don't like it when the sky is still dark and I have to get out of bed and get to work.  It's hard to wake up when it's so dark.  I also don't like the gray skies when it's snowy.  But it will be fun to experience a real Christmas this year, since I'm pretty sure we won't be able to go back to Phoenix.

We had a lovely weekend.  On Saturday night friends came over for chili.  It was only in the high 30s and rainy all day, so it was a perfect day for some hot homemade chili.  When I got up that morning, I turned on the heat, put on a wool sweater, and pulled out our heated blanket.  Then I made myself some hot tea and read my kindle for an hour.  I never do that on Saturday mornings.  I usually clean the house and do the grocery shopping.  Now we have a dirty house, but it was worth it for my peaceful morning.  On Sunday we went to Crate and Barrel for a Registry Party.  It was so much fun!  The store was closed to everyone but about 10 registered couples.  They had these delicious tiny cupcakes, bagels and cream cheese and other breakfast foods.  And they had champagne flutes filled with some sort of juice cocktail that was delicious.  So we wandered around the store with champagne flutes and cupcakes and registered for items.  They had lots of store clerks there to answer questions and were demonstrating many of the kitchen appliances.  Daniel had waffles and espresso from two of their demonstrations.

I hope this weekend is just as relaxing, but a little warmer :-)

Fighting Down Panic

This morning I met my new lab for the first time.  They invited me to come to their Friday morning meeting so I could meet everyone and see the lab.  I was really excited yesterday.  Then this morning I started to get nervous.  While I was in the meeting, I was fighting down full-blown panic.  Well, that may be a bit dramatic.  I'm just not sure I'm prepared for this.

Okay, I was in the middle of writing that paragraph and white foam started shooting up out of the sink about a foot high. It filled up the entire sink in less than a minute and now is threatening to overflow onto the floor.  I put a bunch of blue pads down, so hopefully that'll take care of it.  Random.

Anyways, as I sat in the meeting and listened to everyone talk about things that I knew nothing about, I started to think about how much they know and I don't know.  I really hate being the new one.  I don't like having to ask people where things are and try to figure out the way they do things.  I'm afraid that I'm going to say something dumb or not know something they thought was really obvious.  Right now I'm thinking "why in the world did I leave my comfortable job that I love with all the people that I get along with to go to a new lab where I know nobody and know nothing about the work?!"  But I'm going to use Daniel's mom's favorite technique: cognitive behavioral therapy.  Instead of thinking that I'm crazy for changing jobs, I'm going to think about every good thing about starting my new job.

1) I will meet new people, and make new friends.  Making new friends is always a good thing, especially for someone like me who has a hard time with it.

2)  I will learn a lot.  I will learn new lab techniques, better cell culture practices, and all about breast cancer and cancer physiology.

3) I will make A LOT more money.

4) I will potentially get 2 or 3 more publications.

5) I won't have to work with the very few people in this lab that I don't enjoy working with.

6) I will have a higher position and will no longer feel like I was cheated out of what I fully deserve (a full professional research assistant position- NOT an obscure "technician" position that is just an excuse to pay me less).

7) I will practice going outside of my comfort zone, and pushing myself to be better.

I will repeat this list over and over in the next few days until I feel less panicked and more excited.  I will take a deep breath, and believe that everything is going to be fine.  Great.  Fantastic!

RIP Schnoodle Rosen

Yesterday, we said goodbye to Schnoodle Rosen.  He lived a very long life, almost 15 years.  He was a grumpy old dog, even when he wasn't that old, but we loved him anyways :-)  Daniel's family adopted him on one of their weekly "Sunday Fun Day" trips and he has been a member of the family ever since.  As he got older he lost his hearing and most of his teeth, his black hair turned to gray, and his eyesight was fading fast.  Anytime he barked at Jackson grumpily, we liked to tease that he might "gum Jackson to death" because he had no teeth.  When we went to Phoenix a few weeks ago he was leaning against walls and seemed disoriented most of the time.  It's very sad to say goodbye, but it was time for Schnoodle to go.  Last night Daniel's parents, Evan, and his girlfriend Kristy buried Schnoodle in the backyard under their orange tree.  They called us so that we could participate in the burial over the phone.  It was one of the saddest things I have ever experienced.  Kristy told us over the phone that it looked like Schnoodle was just sleeping in the box.  Daniel's dad dug a hole while we all shared our favorite memories of Schnoodle.  Everyone was crying by the end of it.  As they lowered Schnoodle into the ground, Daniel's mom said that it didn't really look like he was sleeping anymore.  It was so sad. I'm glad I wasn't there to see him put in the ground and buried.  I think that must have been very hard. Losing a pet is so difficult, but it's absolutely worth the many years of joy we had with him as part of the Rosen family.  New life always comes to take the place of those who have passed, and this was no exception.  In fact, Evan and Kristy had just adopted a new dachshund puppy last week and named him "Doodle."  So after Schnoodle was buried, the family spent the evening playing with the new puppy.  It was perfect.

On Tuesday, Daniel and I had our first pre-marital counseling appointment.  Chris set us up with one of his classmates at Iliff School of Theology.  This worked out really well because Daniel had class until 6pm and then we just walked one building over to Iliff and met with our counselor.  She is extraordinarily qualified, with 2 Master's degrees, 11 years as a licensed preacher, and an almost complete Ph.D.  She had a whole curriculum and schedule prepared for us which really impressed me.  I wasn't sure what to expect, but I certainly didn't think she would have spent so much time preparing.  We introduced ourselves and got to know her a little better, and talked about our expectations, goals, and what specific things we want to talk about.  Based on that information she is adjusting our schedule a little bit.  We're going to meet at least 5 times over the next 8 weeks.  I am hoping that this will give me absolute confidence that we have done everything we can to ensure a successful marriage.  Though I think our past 9 years together is a good indicator that we know how to resolve conflict and stay committed, I also think that our relative inexperience in difficult life situations means we haven't had a lot of things to test our relationship.  We've also never had any sort of formal counseling.  If nothing else, it will be some quality time we can spend together improving our relationship.  :-)  And lucky for us, Chris has taken care of the cost too!  Daniel and I knew that we couldn't really afford to pay for counseling ourselves, so Chris set it up for us.  Knowing that our counselor is a friend of Chris' and a student at Iliff gives me complete confidence that she can really help set us up for a long successful life together.

Tomorrow is my last day in the Schwartz/Yang lab.  I can't believe it's been almost 2 years.  The last few days I've been nervous about my new job.  What if I don't have the skills they expect me to?  What if I don't like anyone in the new lab?  What if I don't like the job itself?  I know I've been so lucky that I've never had a job I didn't like, and I feel like at some point my luck is going to run out.  Am I dumb to leave a job that I love with people that I enjoy working with to try something new?  I hope not.  I try to reassure myself that I have lots of experience, and they have hired me based on my resume and interview- and in both I was completely honest.  There is no reason I will not be completely prepared for this job.  And if I need to learn new skills, which I almost certainly will, then I know how to do that too.  I'm a quick learner, and I have the intelligence to figure things out if I have to.  And getting along with everyone shouldn't be a problem.  In general, I get along with pretty much everyone.  I'm trying to convince myself that this is a good decision- can you tell?  Tomorrow after work we're all going out for happy hour to wish me good luck in my future career.  It was so nice of everyone here to do that for me.  I'm going to miss everyone a lot.  This was the first job I had that I felt really successful.  Everyone here has taught me something.  But now I have to do what's best for me and our family- and a big raise is definitely going to help.  So I'm jumping in, hoping everything turns out for the best!

I'm going to be published!

I found out last week that I am finally going to be published!  As a scientist, publishing articles in a scientific journal is how most people measure their success.  The more they publish, and the better the journal they publish in, the more prestige (and therefore grant money/salary) they get.  I have been working in this lab for almost 2 years and I have worked extensively on 3 or 4 projects, and one of them is finally being sent off to the journal at the end of this week!  I had to sign a bunch of paperwork disclosing any conflict of interest and giving all copyright rights to the journal.  Ironically, this first paper is one that I have only been working on for the last few weeks.  I completed the last bit of work that needed to be done before we could submit the manuscript.  It's a fascinating paper.  Once it's published, I can write all about it.  Until then, I can only say that it involved human subjects with different forms of interstitial idiopathic pneumonia and aimed to find genetic markers in their lung tissue that could predict what subtype they have, their prognosis, and how they will respond to different treatments.  I am pretty sure that in the next year or so, I will continue to be published in this lab for the work I have already completed.  And my new lab has promised me at least 2 publications, hopefully more.  I just wish that one of them would have been finished in time for me to put it on my graduate school application.  That would give me a great advantage over many of my co-applicants.

Speaking of grad school, I still haven't heard anything :-(  I fully expected to hear something from them by now.  The early deadline was September 1, and I submitted mine in mid-July.  The final deadline is October 1, so maybe they're waiting until then to contact anyone.  I applied to 3 schools and I will be extremely surprised if I don't get an interview at one of them.  I'm starting to get discouraged.  It's hard to stay positive, but still brace myself for disappointment at the same time.  It helps that if I don't get into graduate school, I'm still very excited about our alternate plan.  Which involves me continuing to work in the job that I love, and start having babies.  Not a bad Plan B, right?

But first, I have a wedding to attend.  We got our first 2 RSVPs in the mail on Saturday.  About once a day I have a moment of extreme excitement and then I come back down to earth and remember that I have a lot of things to do between now and then.  As it gets closer, I am also getting more excited about those 10 days after the wedding that we will be spending in Hawaii!  Right now the ocean, beaches, volcano, and snorkeling sound very nice.  And I imagine that 6 weeks from now, when it's 30 degrees and snowing outside, it will sound even better.  (side note, it's 80 degrees outside right now, I can't believe in 6 weeks it will be full on winter!)  One of my co-workers, an MD in our lab, told me that her parents own a snorkeling charter company out of Kona, the capital of the Big Island and she offered to set me up a trip with them.  Last week she emailed me a confirmation for our trip and a link to the website.  It looks amazing!  The trip is 4.5 hours and includes breakfast and lunch.  We go out snorkeling to a site where they see dolphins almost every day, and once out of every week and a half the dolphins stay to swim with the snorkelers!  It's also whale season in Hawaii, so we could see humpback whales.  The boat also has a diving platform and water slide.  Oh, and did I mention a fully stocked cash bar?  I think I'll be bringing some cash along for some post-snorkeling drinks.  And it's completely free to us too!  We will be sending a nice thank you note to my co-worker for that.  I looked up the company in our guidebook and it got fantastic reviews.  Daniel also decided that he wants to take golf lessons.  So now the plan is for us to spend a day at a resort on the Kohala coast.  Daniel can learn to play golf, and I will be happy to spend the day at the spa.  Daniel isn't really into massages, and I'm certainly not into golf, so I think spending a few hours away from each other on our honeymoon is okay.

I should stop wasting time and get back to my science.  Last week in my old lab :-(

Saving Money

It's very frustrating that the new job hasn't moved forward much in the last week.  It got stuck in HR- where everything seems to get stuck around here.  But it seems that everything is still on track for me to start on October 1.  I'll put in my 2 weeks' notice next Monday.  Word has started to spread slowly around the lab.  I doubt I'll get any sort of recognition.  I think if I had stayed until graduate school, I probably would have gotten some kind of celebratory "good luck in grad school" party.  But since I'm leaving for another lab, it's a little different.  But I am very VERY excited for the raise!  This is going to increase our income by almost $600 a month.  That is huge for us.  We still need to save $2500 more to reach our goal for our wedding and honeymoon, so in 2 months just that increase will get us halfway there.  We have been consistently saving about $600 a month on my current salary, so if we continue with that trend it looks like we'll just make it.  What a relief!  I think it is very encouraging that we can live on my $25k salary and still have over $500 left to put in savings.  That means that when Daniel starts working full-time, we will be able to save a lot more.  And for a while, every extra penny will go towards student loans.  After our honeymoon, of course :-)

Last week I started auditing a course here on campus on basic immunology.  The only immunology I have learned has been picked up little by little as I do research in the lab.  After 2 classes, so many holes have been filled that help me understand the research so much better.  I hope I will be able to continue taking the class after I move to the new lab.  The professor is absolutely incredible.  It's obvious he's a very visual person because he explains everything through drawings or acting things out in class.  It's very amusing when he uses people in the class as props.  I love this because I'm a visual person too.  Giving human personalities, emotions, and motivations to things like antibodies and T-cells makes everything so much easier to understand and remember.  One of my favorite things in the world is learning something new, and having a fantastic professor to teach me makes it even better.  Every day I am reaffirmed in my fascination with the human body.  I am a born scientist.  Third generation, in fact!

Work has been inordinately frustrating lately.  I have been running a million qPCRs and every third time the instrument fails in some way and I have to repeat the experiment.  It takes about half a day to do each plate, so when one fails that's half a day completely wasted.  And the reagents and materials to run one plate cost a couple thousand dollars.  That's not much in science terms, but it's still waste.  The most frustrating part is that I always feel like it's my fault.  Even when the instrument fails I feel like it's my fault.

Yesterday was my first day of not going to school.  To me it still feels like summer break.  I wonder when it will hit me that everyone else is in school and I'm not.  Maybe when it starts to get cold.  I am loving what I'm doing right now.  Compared to school, working feels so completely productive.  I actually get paid for working 40 hours a week, instead of paying thousands of dollars to work 60 hours a week.  I have more free time than I ever did in school and less stress too.  Although, I can't imagine having kids and working full-time.  I think it would feel like I never see them.  But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Savoring the Here and Now

Well, it's official.  I told my PI today that I received another offer.  She was surprisingly cool and calm about it. She totally understood and reassured me repeatedly that it was fine.  Later today she is going to talk to her co-PI, David, and let him know.  She told me that likely he will not want to give me a raise because he is trying to save all his grant money to pay for post-docs and not research techs.  She emphasized that it has nothing to do with me personally, but just the organization of the lab and how they want to move forward.  That's fine with me, I want as easy a decision as possible.  And I emphasized to her that I love this lab and have enjoyed my work here, but I just can't turn down a better offer.  I'm so relieved it's out in the open and I don't have to keep my email closed or disappear for surreptitious meetings anymore.  What a relief!  Life is moving so fast I can't believe it.   Barely 4 months out of college and I've already gotten a raise and promotion.

Lately I've made a commitment to try to enjoy my life the way it is right now.  I have spent so much of my life looking forward to what's next, that I completely miss the excitement of the stage I'm in.  While in high school I couldn't wait until I moved away from my parents and went to college.  While in college, I couldn't wait for financial independence and forming my own family with Daniel.  And now I'm itching to get married and start having babies as soon as possible.  Now I look back with nostalgia at each of those periods in my life and realize how much fun they were.  I wish I could go back and relive the pure fun that is the life of a teenager.    I wish I had enjoyed having my sister and all my family so close.  And I wish I had savored the feeling of having every opportunity in the world open to me.  I also wish I could go back to those first few weeks of college when I was experiencing life without parents for the first time, meeting all new friends, and spending my entire life on school and socializing with no bills to worry about.  So I am going to try my hardest to enjoy this time.  The time of new financial independence, a new job, life without homework and tests, being young and energetic, and not having to pay a babysitter every time Daniel and I want to go out on a date.  I hope that I don't look back on this time in my life and wish that I had enjoyed it more instead of constantly looking forward.

Labor Day Weekend

Well, not much has happened to progress towards my new, higher paid job.  HR is not very motivated, and they're moving at the speed of a snail to get my paperwork through.  I still haven't said anything to my PI.  I think I might talk to her tomorrow.  I won't officially give her my 2 weeks' notice yet, but I will tell her what's going on.  I feel like I need to give her more time to talk to David before I actually put in my 2 weeks' notice.  That way, they can counter-offer or match if they want to.  I know what I'm going to say, and I'm not as nervous about it as I used to be.  I'm sure it won't be a fun conversation, but it needs to happen.  And soon.  I want my higher salary!

Work has been extremely busy lately.  I have finished all the projects that I was working on when this new job offer presented itself.  I have been doing everything in my power to be productive and efficient so that I leave this lab with good feelings all around.  Last Thursday and Friday I worked very hard.  We had a huge harvest over at National Jewish so I went back to the old lab for those days.  It was great to see everyone, but difficult because we had limited supplies and no desk or computer for me to work at.  I worked from 8:30am-6pm and then unfortunately I had to leave.  My handbells group was having a beginning of the year potluck that I really didn't want to miss.  I felt so guilty leaving early because my co-worker who has 3 children between the ages of 7 and 13 stayed until after 7pm.  And I, who has zero children, left at 6pm.  But she is also getting paid much more than me.  We worked so much together for those two days that we got to know each other so well.  And when I told her how much I was making, she was appalled.  She thinks it's pretty rude to pay me so little.  I'm glad I'm not the only one!  I told her about the new offer, and she said that I should take it.  I told her mostly because I knew that she would be taking over a lot of my projects so I wanted to give her a little more time to get what information she needs to do that.

Friday was another long harvest day, and when I got home Daniel had made a beautiful romantic dinner for us. He made Spanish tapas with our own homegrown tomatoes, and even baked brownies from scratch.  He went to the grocery store and bought mussels for dinner and fruit for homemade sangria!  It was delicious and beautiful and exactly what I needed after 2 very long days.

For our Labor Day weekend, we got a lot of chores done around the house, and had some fun too.  On Sunday we went to A Taste of Colorado which is a food festival downtown.  There were all kinds of food vendors and you could buy little tastes of everything, or a whole meal.  I ate so much junk food that night that I got a stomachache.  But it was still really fun.  On Monday we met Hope in Colorado Springs.  We drove to Garden of the Gods which is these giant sandstone red rocks that stick up from the mountains.  We hiked around a little bit and enjoyed the gorgeous almost-fall weather.  Then we went to a little art festival in Manitou.  Colorado Springs is super conservative, and Manitou is the hippie town right next to it.  The festival was small and cute- perfect for a small mountain town.  We got back to Denver in time for me to get some more chores done and have a nice little dinner together to finish off our weekend.  Every time I go somewhere new in Colorado I am overwhelmed by how beautiful it is.  I never want to leave.  I would be happy living here until I die.  I think it is just about the most beautiful place on the planet.

Lab Happy Hour

Work has been absolutely crazy this week. I'm right in the middle of 3 projects. Even though my boss doesn't know it, I'm trying hard to finish as much as I can in the next 2-3 weeks. It will be really hard to leave work unfinished. I'm the kind of person that needs closure. I don't think I will be able to finish completely, but at least I can find a good stopping point. I've also been keeping a very detailed lab notebook because I know that whoever takes over for me will need that information. And unfortunately when I took over for Laura, she had no lab notebook. So if I had a question there was nothing to go off of. I emailed her a lot in those first few weeks.

Since we've gotten back from Phoenix, we have been busy almost every day. On Tuesday, we went out to dinner with friends to welcome back one of Daniel's fraternity brothers who spent the last few months sailing around the world (tough job, right?). Also on Tuesday, Daniel's bank got robbed. While he was working. That was absolutely terrifying. At first when he called me at work and told me "we got robbed," I thought he was talking about our house! I freaked out and wanted to know what was taken, but Daniel corrected himself and said that the bank got robbed. Then my thoughts immediately turned to whether Daniel was okay. Before I had a chance to ask, he told me that he was fine. I was in the middle of something really important at work so as much as it killed me, I had to ask Daniel to call me back in 5 minutes. When we finally got a chance to talk again my first question was if there was a gun. When Daniel said no, I felt so much better. So many things could have gone wrong. I wanted to drive over there and give Daniel and big hug and see for myself that he was okay. But I had to just go back to work. It was hard to concentrate. When I finally got home and saw Daniel, I gave him an extra long hug.

On Thursday our PI David Schwartz (also Dean of the Department of Medicine) had the lab over to his place for happy hour. I didn't really want to go, but Daniel told me that I should take this opportunity to speak with David about my graduate school plans. Because he is so high up in the Department of Medicine, he could have some serious power in getting me into grad school. I also thought that it would be helpful to have some social interaction to diffuse any animosity that might come out when I resign next week. And when I resign I want David to know that I appreciated everything that this lab has done for me. I really didn't want to go, but these were compelling enough reasons to convince me.

I have a hard time with social situations, so an entire hour or two is pretty difficult for me. And I didn't have Daniel there as my security blanket. When I got there, I immediately noticed that I was the only technician- and the youngest person there by probably at least 6 or 7 years. But I didn't let that get to me. I immediately struck up a conversation with the person there that I knew the least- a new MD that we just hired. It was fascinating. He's from Colombia so he has a beautiful accent. And right now he sees patients on Mondays at Denver Health. That's a hospital for low-income and homeless people. He strictly sees HIV-positive patients. Combine low-income with HIV-positive and you get a very interesting clientele. I told him that I hoped to be a health care provider and we talked about what it's like to see patients. It was very informative. And I was so proud of myself for having this great conversation with someone I don't even know. As the night went on, I realized that I still hadn't talked to David at all. I kept one eye on him, but there was never an opportunity to interject. After about 2 hours, Judy suggested that we walk to our car together. So we went over to David and thanked him for hosting. I mentioned that I saw the picture of his daughter and son and he asked if I'd like to meet his son. I said yes, and he brought his son over. He is about my age, and just started school at UCDenver (where our lab is) studying economics. I told him that I had just applied there as well. David asked what program and I told him Physician's Assistant. He said that's a great program. I told him that I didn't know what my chances were of getting in, but I'm very excited. And David told me that there's no chance at all if you don't apply. So motivation #1 for attending Happy Hour was fulfilled. Then Judy left to thank David's wife, and that was the first time that I was alone with David. In my head, I'm telling myself "do it now, do it now, do it now!" so I got up the courage and turned to him and thanked him for the opportunity he gave me last summer to be a student in his lab. I also told him that I have learned so much and I am happy that I got to stay in the lab and continue working after my graduation. He told me that I've done a great job and shook my hand. Then I gracefully turned and thanked his wife, and we left. Motivation #2 fulfilled! As I left I was so proud of myself for spending almost 2 hours in a social situation with people that are much older than me, more educated than me, and that I hardly knew. I was able to have interesting conversations, and get some face time in with PI of my lab. It couldn't have gone any better. I am absolutely sure that the two glasses of wine I had helped me work up the courage to talk to David at the end. I'll have to remember that. Two glasses of wine make me a great conversationalist.

Okay seriously, in the time I have taken to write this, a PhD in the lab has asked me 5 different questions. I should be paid more.

Happy Weekend!

Wedding planning weekend

It's Monday, and I'm completely exhausted. I will definitely leave work a little bit early today, but it's no problem because I skipped lunch. The reason I'm so tired is because my weekend was crazy busy. We spent 3 1/2 days in Phoenix in another attempt to wrap up the on-location wedding planning. We managed to fit in a meeting with the coordinator to pick all the decorations (including table settings), some shopping to buy some materials for the table centerpieces, a hair trial and dress fitting for me, a private dance lesson for Daniel and me, and a private dance lesson for Daniel and his Dad. For non-wedding related activities, I saw a movie with my Mom and Grandma, participated in the Rosen family peace pole dedication ceremony, went swimming in the evening, went out for many meals, attended church on Sunday morning, and had a Sunday afternoon brunch for the Burton and Rosen family members in the Scottsdale area.

This is a complete surprise to me, but my favorite activity of the weekend was the dance lesson. I was not even planning on having a dance lesson, but Daniel's mom set one up for us with Daniel's older brother. Rennie just happens to be a professional ballroom dance teacher. He was amazing. In less than an hour he taught us the basics of the rumba. He knew immediately after listening to the song we picked for our first dance that it would fit the rumba very well. And he was right! After learning the slow, quick-quick, slow, quick-quick box step, Rennie started to add in more complicated moves. What an amazing sense of accomplishment when we finally got a dance step down! My Mom stayed and watched and cheered when we finally got it. I did the whole lesson in the shoes I bought for the wedding day. These shoes happen to be the tallest heels I have worn in my life, so it was good practice to dance in them. I am definitely getting used to them and I loved dancing in them. They look so beautiful! What I'm really concerned about is the dress. I hope all the fluffy underneath layers don't trip me up. Daniel and I are going to practice as much as we can between now and the wedding so that on that evening we look calm and relaxed. Right now we look like we're concentrating very hard. I think everyone will be impressed.

Daniel also practiced the waltz with his Mom. They're dancing to "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. If you know that song, then you know it is not a waltz. Luckily Daniel's Mom has no sense of rhythm so that isn't a problem for her. Daniel will have to work hard to dance in 3 to a song that's actually in 4. Rennie choreographed their dance more specifically, while our dance will be more impromptu- just the way I wanted it.

The other goal of this weekend was for me to get another dress fitting in and see what it will look like with the shoes and jewelry. Beth and my Mom were there and they agreed that the jewelry looked good with the dress. I wasn't convinced, but I trust them. The dress is bright white, and the pearls are off-white. To me that looked weird, but Beth said you can't tell from far away. The earrings look fantastic though. The dress still has a long way to go to fit me right, but the seamstress has done a great job so far. She has a great eye for detail and wants to get it just perfect. My last fitting was in March and since then she took 3 inches off the straps, took a few inches in at the waist and top, and lots of other minor things. The top is still too big. She marked the hem yesterday and she will have to take a good 3-5 inches off of that as well. Thank goodness we already paid for all the alterations. By the end, this will practically be a custom gown! But it will fit me perfectly and I know that makes a huge difference in how the dress looks.

I was very happy that the relationships with our family members survived in tact this weekend. It's always a little scary to see what argument will break out. But Robert kept all his thoughts and opinions to himself, so Daniel didn't have to defend himself at all. My Dad also kept his childish tantrums to a minimum. He had eye surgery on Friday morning, so he slept most of the weekend. I tried to do what I could to make sure he felt like I spent some time with him. I got to spend lots of time one-on-one with my Mom which was great. Pretty much my whole Saturday was spent with her- getting my hair done, out to lunch, grocery shopping and preparing dinner, and at the dance lesson.

So now looking forward I am very excited about the possibility of getting a new (higher paid) job! I have an interview on Wednesday so I hope to know on that day or maybe Thursday if I got the job or not. I am going to ask for about 10K more than I'm making now which will be a huge help with our monthly bills. So wish me luck!

Unexpected Opportunity

Last week, I had a very unexpected opportunity present itself. I got a facebook message from someone I met back in April. I was put into contact with her through a DU and Theta Chi alumnus. He told me that one of his friends told him about a job opening that I might be interested in. So I applied for the job, and got an interview. This was my first of many interviews to come. It went great. In fact, I remember thinking that I really fit in well with the people there. Like I could really picture myself working there. But, I didn't get a job offer. I think the main reason is that they needed someone right away, but I couldn't start until I graduated in June. So they hired someone else and I kept looking. Well, clear out of the blue I got a facebook message from the same girl who I originally talked to about the position. Her PI (the person in charge of the whole lab) was looking again, and she wanted to know if I ever found a job, or if I was interested. I responded back telling her that I did find a full-time position with my old lab, but that it was a research technician job, and not a PRA job. For that reason, I am interested in any PRA job they have open. I also told her that I just submitted my graduate school application and that if I am accepted, I will be starting that program next June. I didn't hear back from her for about a week. I assumed that because I already had a job with another lab on the same campus, and because I was hopefully starting graduate school in 9 months, that she wouldn't want to pursue it further. So I was very surprised when she responded yesterday asking for my email address so she could send me more information about the job. I tried not to get too excited, because in my experience NOBODY wants to hire someone for just a year, and even LESS people want to hire someone for just 9 months!

So in her email about the job (which I am extremely qualified for by the way) she asked for me to send her an updated resume and references. This posed a problem. All of my references before were people in the Schwartz Lab. But I can't put down my current employer as a reference- then they'll know I'm interviewing for another job! So I called Judy. She's not my employer, and she's leaving the lab in December so she doesn't have a huge interest in the future of the lab. I also trust her. She was almost more excited about it then I was! She said it was a fantastic opportunity and I should absolutely take it, and she would be happy to be a reference. So I emailed back last night with my resume, references (I also included Daniel's Mom as a personal reference) and a informal cover letter. And this morning I got an email back!

They want to know a little more detail about my experience, and also about my current status here on campus. I think she wants to know how easy the transition would be. I wouldn't have to go through new employee orientation, and jump through all the hoops to work in the vivarium because I've already done that. So I think they will be happy that my answer to most of her questions was "yes!" Also, she explained that the position would be open September 15th and that they are currently working with the HR department to see if they can bypass posing the job listing altogether and just have me alone apply. To me, that sounds like they are ready to just hire me without even looking for anyone else!

I cannot believe my luck. I interviewed 6 months ago, and now they have pursued me to hire me for a new position. I would get a promotion and almost assuredly a pay raise. I won't take the job if it isn't higher pay. Right now I'm a research technician. Almost everyone on campus is a PRA- professional research associate. The reason I'm a research technician is because at National Jewish (where we were when I got hired), they don't hire people right out of college as a full PRA. Instead, they hire you as a "trainee". At UCDenver (where I am now), research technician is the equivalent of a trainee. So they hire me as this special position so they can pay me an insultingly low wage just because I'm right out of college even though I have a full 18 months of experience. I think it also has to do with the fact that they are expecting me to leave in June for grad school. So it's a short-term position as well.

At first, I was pretty anxious about all of this. I love my lab, I love my employer, and I feel like it's pretty rude to just leave when the first opportunity arises. It took me a few hours to get over that guilt. But, here are the reasons I am using to justify my pursuing this new position. First, it's a promotion and a pay raise- nobody can argue with that. I think my PI will understand, especially because she's admitted to me that they don't pay me enough. Second, the lab will be fine without me. I'm finishing up my fourth week of being bored out of my mind 75% of the time. Things are just starting to pick up, but I'm definitely not leaving them with massive amounts of work to do without me. Third, we just hired another mouse technician. She starts on August 15, which will give us a full month to transition her into all of my responsibilities. And I think I'll be able to finish my current experiment by then.

Oh my goodness, I have no idea how this happened! I feel so fortunate in this economy to have a full-time job and have another lab fully pursuing me for another position. Thank you Jesus!

A Lesson in Patience

I have had kind of a bad attitude at work the last few days. And I don't know if it's legitimate, or just me being selfish. I'll let you decide.

My position as "student researcher" just ended on July 1. For 19 months, my job was to do whatever I was told, no matter who told me to do it. I helped whichever researcher needed help at the time. This worked fine for me. I was able to learn lots of different things because I did something a little different for each person who asked for my help. I also got to know everyone in the lab pretty well. Most of the time, however, I worked for one of two people: Laura, and Judy. Laura is no longer working at the lab, but Judy is.

On July 1, I became a research technician. This new position is a little different. My job is to work for Ivana. I do whatever experiments she needs me to do. In between her work, I can help other people if I want to. If you've been reading my blog, you know that the last 2 1/2 weeks have been pretty boring. We have been moving into a new lab which means we are lacking many of the necessary equipment and supplies to actually do any work. But on Friday, the first instrument was installed. So we were able to do some work- if it involved that single instrument. Judy asked me to run some of her samples on that instrument. I agreed without any hesitation. I was excited to get back to the bench and do what I love- science.

Then, on Monday, she asked me to help her with a new technique. Neither of us have done it, but we've both done something very similar. It involves many basic laboratory techniques that I am very comfortable with. However, it can be somewhat difficult because it involves RNA. There are 3 things that you have to be aware of when working with RNA: 1)If the samples are not kept cold constantly they will degrade and become unusable. 2)You have to work quickly and get the samples back into the freezer as soon as possible. And 3) you have to disinfect everything in the immediate area constantly because proteins that chew up RNA are sitting around on everything- the table top, your hands, etc. RNA can be somewhat difficult to work with, but if you follow those 3 rules then you're fine. And luckily, I know those 3 rules. So I'm thinking that I can do this new technique without any problem. But Judy wants us to do it together just to be sure it goes okay. On just 4 samples. This is kind of hard to explain if you don't work in a lab, but imagine having 5 people in the kitchen baking cookies together. At some point, there's just too many people trying to work on the same bowl of ingredients. That's how I felt about this procedure. You don't need 2 people working on 4 samples. And because we're working on it together, I have to go at Judy's pace. Which is S-L-O-W. I get so frustrated when I have to stand there and wait while she reads the directions for the 50th time. Or when she goes off on a speech about how careful you need to disinfect everything. Or how she wants to repeat the last 2 steps just to make sure we get everything right (when in my opinion, we did it fine the first time). I will admit that I am not the most patient person, and this pushed me to my limit. There were times when I had to tell myself to take a deep breath, and don't say anything I will regret later. Then, at the end of the day, she just leaves and gives me directions to finish. I guess I should have been happy that she left me alone, and I kind of was, but another part of me felt like "why do you get to leave, while I have to stay here and finish your work?"

I wanted to just tell Judy to do her own work in the first place, but that would be kind of rude when the only other thing for me to do is sit at my desk and check facebook for the 200th time that day. So I didn't really feel like I had a choice. And to be honest, I don't mind doing her work- if I could just do it by myself! I don't like having to do it her way, at her pace. It drives me nuts!

I have to say right now that this is nothing personal against Judy. She has been an amazing mentor for my entire time in this lab, and nobody has been more patient than her when it comes to teaching me good laboratory technique. But I'm past that point now. I'm ready to be on my own. So, do I have a bad attitude? Probably. I should take this as a lesson in patience. I wonder if that lesson will ever sink in.

Baby Blog

I've had an inordinate amount of free time to peruse the internet in the last week and a half, and I stumbled upon this blog. It's basically a bunch of women who are in various stages of pregnancy/ new motherhood writing about the unexpected and sometimes difficult decisions they have to make on their way to giving birth. While some of the blogs are perfectly lovely and make me very excited to one day have my own child, some of them scare me to death. Actually, a lot of them scare me to death. I thought I was going to become physically ill after reading one blog in which the mother describes the side effects of magnesium sulfate given to her immediately after delivering (not allowed to hold her baby due to the possibility of dropping her, getting a catheter, repeatedly vomiting, heart racing). If this is just a small sampling of the hundreds or thousands of women that give birth in the United States each day, then what are the odds that something like that is going to happen to me? It sounds awful- not at all like the magical moment you see in movies and on television. Many of these women opted for a natural or even home birth (probably owing to the fact that they were drawn from NPR's audience). Daniel and I have actually discussed this briefly, and we both agree that we would prefer a natural birth, at home if possible. That's mostly my preference, but Daniel is on the same page. So many of the women describe last minute complications that caused them to rush to the hospital in a panic, throwing their idealistic birthing plan out the window on the way.

The scientist in me feels that childbirth shouldn't be that scary. Women have been doing this for thousands of years (in our current evolutionary state- millions if you count our primitive ancestors). It seems to me that our bodies should have evolved to a place in which giving birth is relatively easy and safe. Hospitals and medication have been a routine part of childbirth only in the last 60 years. All of this tells me that it should be perfectly fine for me to give birth at home with little medical intervention and no pain medication. But then, a little voice creeps in that reminds me that for thousands of years women, and their babies, have died in childbirth. I know I have a lot of time to do more intensive research and really figure out what's right for me, especially considering I'm not pregnant or planning to become pregnant anytime soon. But reading this blog just makes me think about everything that could go wrong. And it feels like having the birthing experience that I want is going to be a long shot. Reading about all the medical complications also scares me to death. But I can't tear myself away. I want to read every gory detail, even though it terrifies me. I guess I can't wait to have my own story to tell, whether it is the perfect medication-free at-home-birth, or the rushing-to-the-hospital-to-get-an-emergency-c-section-birth. Of course, I hope for the former.

First week at UCDenver

It's been one week since we moved into our new lab, and very little progress has been made. We still don't have any instruments set up and ready to use. We have most of the supplies we need, but not all of it. There was very little for me to do last week. I had the obligatory online training that took me a couple hours one day, and we had two meetings on Thursday. Besides that, I basically just passed time at my desk.

My favorite part about the new lab is my desk. It is so quiet and peaceful. Right now nobody is working on the bench, so all the PhDs are in their offices which is through 2 doors and down the hall from where I am. So I'm all by myself next to a big window that looks out to the Rocky Mountains. I haven't even been bored. I have kept very busy finishing my graduate school application and planning our honeymoon :-) I officially "e-submitted" my application this morning. It cost me almost $300 which is mildly irritating. We don't really have $300 to spare, but we'll find a way to pay for it. It's important enough. And Daniel and I figure we just have to make it until March and then Daniel will get a full-time job and we will be able to pay off any credit card debt we accrue between now and then, if any. But I feel very strongly against having any debt at all. The only debt I personally have ever had is student loan debt. We don't make payments on our cars, and we don't even have a mortgage, though I would be fine with that kind of debt as well. It's really just credit card debt that I am opposed to. I just feel that you shouldn't spend more money than you can afford. Period. Even though we are making so little money right now, we have to live within our means. So I really don't want to carry a balance on any credit card if I can help it. Daniel feels a little differently about that, probably because he knows more about finance, business, and the economy. He thinks it's worse to have cash sitting in the bank doing nothing than to carry a small balance on a credit card. I like to have a little cash sitting in the bank. It makes me feel safe.

So I had so much extra time last week I couldn't avoid writing my graduate school application essays anymore. I had to write 3 total: 1) my motivation towards becoming a PA in 5000 characters or less, 2) my life's history and experiences in 3200 characters or less, and 3) a stressful experience in my life and the resolution in 1600 characters or less. The first essay I wrote months ago and it's way under the limit. The second and third I wrote last week, and I had such a hard time keeping them within the limit. 3200 characters is about a page, and 1600 characters is about a paragraph. Try writing a story about a stressful experience in a paragraph! It's not easy. And the prompt about your "life's history and experiences" is so broad, I didn't even know where to begin. I was so grateful to have my sister's help. We're still so in sync with each other, I can practically predict what she's going to say before she says it. Just yesterday Daniel and I were talking on the phone with her and she made an argument that was almost verbatim what I had told Daniel weeks ago. It was so funny sitting there listening to her say exactly what I said before. Even though we've lived in different states for 4 years, we are still right in sync with each other. I think it's a twin thing. I hope we never lose that.

As for the honeymoon planning, I am making lots of progress. The final details of the wedding day are coming together, so I can focus on the trip now. It's funny that you spend so much time and effort on that day, you forget there's a huge vacation the day after. We booked our flights and got what I think is a great deal. We have been looking for weeks and finally found a Delta flight around the time that we wanted for $720 roundtrip for each of us. We were ready to book it, but Daniel's parents asked him to wait a few days because they're paying for his flight as a graduation gift. By the time we got around to booking it, we found a US Airways flight at almost exactly the same time for $625 roundtrip- Score! I booked both of our B&Bs that we're staying at on the Big Island, and researched some fun activities. We're going to go horseback riding at sunset, snorkel with manta rays at night, and go stargazing at Mauna Kea Observatory. The stars must look incredible when you're on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I think it sounds so romantic. And I bought a new bathing suit this weekend! I think it's a rule that you have to get a new bathing suit before a trip to Hawaii. I know, all of this sounds very expensive. I'm pretty concerned. But, if worse comes to worse, we can dip into our savings. We have almost $5500 saved up. We're hoping not to use any of it, but if we have to then that's the way it goes. It's hard to plan when you don't know how much gift money you're going to get. But I'm trying not to worry about it. The part that's going to cost the most is the rental car. We have to get a 4-wheel drive to get to some of the beaches and to go to the top of Mauna Kea. That will cost us close to $800 for the whole trip- and that's with USAA waiving the $25/day underage fee (thank goodness!). I really don't want to blow that much money on a stupid car, but we don't have a choice. All we need is something to get us around the island with 4-wheel drive. I would much rather spend $800 on an incredible experience, nicer hotel, or something super romantic- not something so practical as a rental car.

Well now that the honeymoon is planned and my grad school application is finished, I'll have to find something else to occupy my time until the lab is up and running. Any suggestions for wasting about 6 hours a day on the computer? I've got another week or 2 until I'll actually be able to do any work.

The big move is underway

Work has been crazy this week. Yesterday was our official move date. We spent all Friday packing up everything from our old lab at National Jewish. The lab was filled with boxes. I didn't have that much to pack up because I didn't even get a desk until about 5 weeks ago. I purposely didn't settle in because I knew we would be moving very soon. For the past 2 weeks we have been ordering lab supplies to be delivered to the new lab and our lab manager was unpacking boxes and setting things up. But now it's day 2 in the new lab and there is very little supplies here. So little that we can't actually do anything. Yesterday we each gathered supplies for our own bench from the larger store that the manager set up. We also got our brand new computers and set those up. We hired a professional moving company to move all our boxes and freezers over here. We unpacked as much as we could, but there isn't much to do yet. We need computers for just about every instrument and we still haven't gotten those. None of the PhD offices have permanent furniture in them, just tables to use until October when the real furniture comes. My desk in the lab had no chair so I was sitting on my desk until this morning. The biggest job was moving all our freezers. We had about 10 minus 80 freezers that had to be moved, as well as 2 minus 20 freezers and 2 4 degree refrigerators. Even though it's only a few miles from National Jewish to the University of Colorado, it's super important that everything stay cold. They had to be moved as quickly as possible to keep everything inside from thawing out. The freezers are full of our samples that would be ruined if they thawed and re-froze. So all the freezers are here, but we're still waiting on one refrigerator. All our files and notebooks are also moved, but no computer data. We have one guy who is in charge of copying everything onto a giant hard drive and then moving it to our new computer system. It's taking much longer than anticipated since we have over 1 TB of data to move from lots of different hard drives.

I am really enjoying the new lab so far. We split it in half and put the researchers who work with human samples on one side, and mouse on the other. I am the only tech who works with mice (everyone else is a PhD or MD) so therefore I am the only one with a desk on this half of the lab. When I'm sitting at my desk, nobody can see me and I can't see anyone. It's actually kind of peaceful. But on August 15 our new mouse colony manager is starting, and she'll probably have a desk at least near me. I also get a lot more space in this lab. We have only filled maybe 10% of the shelves and drawers so far. I can claim as many as I want until we hire more people and start filling up the space. So right now I have 3 desks completely to myself. I also get my own phone extension at my desk. All of this may sound mundane to some people, but I'm excited. It's just more independence and responsibility. I just wish we could start doing actual work. I have a long list of experiments to do, but I can't do any of it until our instruments are up and running. I have no idea how long that will take, but probably at least the rest of this week. Until then I can pretty much do whatever I want. I completed a bunch of online training about sexual harrassment and disposal of hazardous waste. I'm glad I got that out of the way because it is so boring. I'm planning on finishing up my graduate school application this week as well. I have already written my first draft of my autobiographical essay, but it has to be cut way down. I haven't began my stressful experience essay.

This will be a nice easy week, but exciting too. It's like Christmas getting all brand new supplies! I hope I don't get too bored.

The Future of our Family

Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I have wanted to be a mother for a very long time. Pretty much since I was 16 I've been going through life waiting until the most responsible (and socially acceptable) time to have children. Not to mention waiting for Daniel to be ready. Because as badly as I want to start our family, I definitely don't want to do it until Daniel is on board. It wouldn't be very much fun if Daniel wasn't excited about being a Daddy. So I have been living my life, doing everything I can to work towards the day I can have children. Of course there are many things that must be done first, in my opinion. Finish college, get a job, become financially independent and secure, and get married. Well as I sit here I have completed the first two, am well on my way to completing the third, and in 4 1/2 months I will have completed the fourth. Which means that technically I am ready to start our family.

Up until now, Daniel has not been ready. He loves kids, and wants to have a family, but there are lots of other things he wants to do first. He wants to travel, own a beautiful home in a great neighborhood, start his own business, and make lots of money. All of these things were much more important to him and in his opinion, impossible to do with children. In the past 6 months he has made huge strides towards all of those goals- namely, starting his own business. He spends hours researching similar businesses and asking friends and families for advice. He attends every business class looking to glean information that can help him start his business. And all of this means he has spent exactly zero time looking for a job, or thinking about what kind of job he is going to get when he graduates in March. He will have a master's degree in business administration. Here's where the conflict began.

Every time we talked about our future, we were in serious disagreement. Daniel wanted to start his business immediately when he graduates in March. He thinks he will make enough for the first year or two to pay our bills (his estimate was about $30,000/yr), and we'll just take out more loans to pay for my graduate school. Then, when I finish graduate school 3 years later and get a job (starting pay is $70-80k) we can start thinking about saving for a baby. After we pay off student loans of course.

My plan was significantly different. I was thinking that once he graduates in March, he will get a great corporate job that will make at least double what we are now (I think that's pretty reasonable with a master's degree). It will be enough to support us and pay for at least some of my graduate school and pay off our student loans. After a couple years of his much higher salary, we should have enough saved to have a baby. The best part of this plan is his getting a corporate job that pays significantly higher than what I make now. I am tired of being poor. I feel like after 4-5 years of school, we have invested enough time, effort, and money to make much more than we are right now. Which is why I'm going to get my master's degree. But part of my expectation is that Daniel will use his master's degree to support us while I am working on mine. I was so thrilled a few years ago when Daniel decided to get his MBA because I thought that meant financial security for our family. And it felt to me like he was pulling the rug out from under me when he declared that he wanted to start his new business right away and that meant another 3 years of barely paying our bills while continuing to accumulate student loan debt. And then after those 3 years, it's ME supporting our family. Which makes it kind of hard to start a family.

So we have been going back and forth between his plan and mine for 6 months now. Every time we talk about it, I feel like my dream of being a mom gets pushed further and further into the future. And I feel like Daniel is putting his dream of starting a business before mine. Every discussion ended with hurt feelings for both of us and we got nowhere. Until yesterday.

Daniel basically told me that he thought about it and he liked my plan. Sort of. His idea was to graduate in March and get a job. He can continue to work on his business plan and start it up slowly on the side. Meanwhile, he'll be making enough to pay our bills so that I can go to graduate school. The program I want to go to isn't really expensive; it's only about $10-15k a year for 3 years. Depending on how the first year or 2 goes, we would like to have a baby between my second and third year of graduate school. I have spoken to 2 of my friends who are in the program now and they both say it's very much like undergraduate. It's not 8am-5pm in class every day. You have many afternoons off, and sometimes whole days off. You still get Christmas break, summer break, and spring break. So if we planned it very carefully, I could have the baby in June and go back to school in September. I think that after my first year I will be able to tell if I could handle that. Then when I finish the program I can work full time with a toddler a home while Daniel starts up his business. Our income wouldn't change a whole lot if Daniel quits and then right away I start working. I know there are a lot of pieces that have to fall exactly into place to make this work, but the important part to me is that Daniel has agreed to get a job in March. I feel like we only have to get through the next 8 months living paycheck to paycheck. That's such a relief.

What a great exercise in compromise. I think this proves that we have a great foundation for our marriage.

I have had an incredibly busy few weeks. We had guests staying in our
home the last two weekends, and then this past weekend we went up to
the mountains for our mini summer vacation. It was fun having so many
things going on, but I'm completely exhausted. I am really looking
forward to this weekend, when I have no plans at all.

The last weekend in June, Daniel's childhood best friend (Patrick) and
his dad came to stay with us. Patrick's little brother was in a
lacrosse tournament here in Denver so they wanted to come and cheer
him on. Patrick's Dad was incredibly generous. He took us out for
many meals and wouldn't let us pay for anything while he was here. He
also took Daniel white water rafting on Monday. I couldn't go because
I had to work. I'm so glad Daniel got a chance to spend time with
Patrick. They hadn't seen each other since high school when my
family, Daniel's family, and Patrick's family all went on a cruise to
Alaska together. We are inviting the whole family to our wedding and
it seems like they might make the trip out to Phoenix. Patrick and I
really enjoyed talking about science. He just graduated with an
engineering degree and got a great job in Boston. He is considering
medical school and was very interested in the research I'm doing.

The following weekend my Dad came to stay with us. He was on his way
to our favorite family vacation spot, Estes Park. We have gone there
every summer since I was about 4 years old. This year he had to go by
himself because the rest of us were scattered across the country and
couldn't get time off work. The first thing we did together was go to
a Rockies game. After the game there was an amazing fireworks show.
My Dad got us really good seats too. I practiced some calming and
de-stressing techniques and was able to watch the fireworks without
even covering my ears. I was still very tense, but I was able to
enjoy it without aching arms and ears. Over the weekend he also took
us shopping for our wedding gift- a new kitchen table and chairs! I
am so happy because I've been wanting to replace ours pretty much
since we moved into our house 2 years ago. It was given to us by
Daniel's family and it was the table that he sat at when he was a
little kid in the 1980s. And it shows. So we were very excited to
get a table that reflects our style a little better. And now we're
inspired to change all kinds of things in the house. We don't have a
ton of money right now, but we're going to save up and change things
little by little. Also while my Dad was here we picked out our
wedding rings and ordered them. I finally found one that looked good
next to my engagement ring. Daniel has known what he wanted for
months so it was just a matter of ordering it for him. And finally,
we started our registry! My Dad helped us pick out some things he
thought we might need/want for the house and kitchen. We went to
Crate and Barrel and got fantastic service. An employee took us
through the whole store giving us tips on what things family members
like to buy, and the products themselves. She spent a lot of time
telling us about the dishes and the materials they're made out of.
She also had answers to all of our concerns like how to get all our
gifts back to Denver, and how many sets of dishes and glasses and
things to register for. It was so much fun to go through the store
and pick anything we wanted no matter the cost! He left on Monday
morning, the 4th of July. I went into work for a few hours on the
holiday so that I could come home when the furniture was delivered on
Wednesday. I'm so lucky my work is flexible. That's why it pays to
be on salary and work in a professional environment. My supervisor
even told me she doesn't care if I have to leave or anything, as long
as my work gets done. :-)

Speaking of work, it's been going really well. Things slowed down a
lot last week so I haven't been nearly as busy. On July 1 I
officially became an employee of the state. I now work for the
University of Colorado as a research trainee. That means I'm on
salary with full benefits (including matching up to 10% on my 401k!).
We got to go over to the new lab and see what our workspace will look
like. It's the same size as our current lab now, but with half the
people! We also have extra rooms around the perimeter of the lab that
frees up some space in the lab itself. We will officially move July
18th if everything goes as planned. This Wednesday is our orientation
so I'm really excited to learn about my benefits and enroll.

This past weekend Daniel and I went to Estes Park. We picked up my
Mom from the airport and met my dad up there. It was a very short
trip, but really fun. I just love the mountains and it was so nice
and cool up there. We went on a very steep hike and I'm still a
little sore from that. Jackson loved sniffing and exploring the
wilderness. We also spent time with our family friends, the Cylwiks.
They meet us up there every year. Eric and Scott both brought their
significant others, so with them and Daniel and I we actually
outnumbered the parents for the first time. It was interesting to see
the dynamic shift from the parents taking charge to the kids. We got
back last night and I'm back at work today. I am looking forward to
having Daniel all to myself this weekend! And then in 2 weeks, we'll
have another house guest for 2 weeks, and then my Mom is coming to
visit again. I love having so much to do this summer. Our whole
lives feel like vacation, but better because we get to sleep in our
own bed.

My New Job

Wow the last 3 weeks have gone by so fast, I just haven't had time to blog at all. The new job has been way more work than I ever imagined. I worked full time last summer (well, sort of- I would leave early often if there wasn't any work to do) so I figured this would be just the same. But it's not. I am incredibly busy from the moment I step into work until the moment I leave. And I never leave on time. This isn't the kind of job where you have certain hours and once your hours are up you get to leave. Not even close. I've been working 9-10 hours 3 or 4 days a week for the past 2 weeks. Luckily I get to come in fairly late at about 9am. I guess researchers generally aren't morning people. But I usually don't leave until 6pm and once or twice it was 7 before I could leave. We have been doing massive mouse harvests of 16-20 animals in one day. That is a lot of work and it all has to be completed immediately. If you leave samples overnight to process the next day, the RNA can degrade so the samples become useless. Which means you have to just stay and get it done no matter how long it takes. Somehow I am the one who has been designated to do all the processing of the samples. So we (me and 2 other people) spend 9-10am preparing for the harvest, all 3 of us spend 10am-3pm harvesting, and then I get to spend 3pm-6pm processing while the other 2 sit in their office or go home. I'm not really sure how that happened, but I really shouldn't complain. I prefer a really busy day over staring into space for 8 hours. It just means that I have a million things to do and I can get overwhelmed sometimes when I have 5 thousand emails to answer and hours of benchwork to do.

All this mouse harvesting has given me lots of practice. In the past 2 weeks I've learned to bleed the mouse perfectly. This was extremely frustrating for me at first. You have to stick a needle directly into the heart without opening up the chest cavity. So you have to learn where to stick it exactly right. If you don't get it right, then the blood clots and you can't get any out. You can also end up puncturing so many holes in the heart that the blood just pools inside the chest cavity and makes a big mess when you try to take out the lungs later. After practicing on 5 mice, I finally got it. I'm still really slow compared to the other 2 researchers who help me. It takes me about 15 minutes to do one animal, while it takes them 8-10 minutes. I also learned how to tie a suture while working on the mice. Maybe that'll come in handy some day when I'm working with humans!

The only disappointing part about my job has been the pay. I got my first paycheck yesterday and it was surprisingly little. It's really scary for me. This is the first month that Daniel and I are paying our own bills out of our own income. If our income together isn't enough then we won't be able to pay our bills. We both believe in living within our means- which means no credit card debt. Neither of us have ever gone into debt (except for student loans). I would hate it if we couldn't pay off our credit cards this first month. But I realize there may be a small learning curve. And I'm still on my ridiculously low $8/hr student pay until July 1 so my income will go up at that point. Though working 9 and 10 hour days is much more attractive when you're on an hourly income.

Another benefit of working full time is that for the first time I get to see all the bureaucracy that goes on. Until we are able to hire a mouse colony manager, I am sharing the mouse duties with a graduate student in the lab. This means that I get tons of emails about food, housing, sick and dead animals, ordering, etc. etc. I'm slowly learning how to handle all these decisions and extra responsibility. With the whole lab moving to the University we have a lot of paperwork to take care of as well. I've had to submit a letter of resignation to National Jewish, I just got my offer letter at the University, and I've had to sign up for a new employee orientation. To work with animals in the new facility there is a whole other set of paperwork and doctors visit and meetings and training to go through. It's all very confusing and it seems like so much work. But when you're dealing with the welfare of animals, I guess I would hope that there were significant regulations involved. You don't want any old person walking in and experimenting on animals. Our move date is currently July 18th. At that point I will be driving to the University of Colorado every day instead of National Jewish. The commute is about 25 minutes with traffic and everything. That's 10 minutes longer than I'm driving now, but it's still not that bad. I'll also have to pay $57/mo for parking! I think it's ridiculous that we have to pay for parking at our own job. (by the way, a bus pass is something like $75/mo so I wouldn't be saving anything by taking the bus to work).

So, to summarize: I love my job. It's really hard work, but very rewarding. I come home completely exhausted every day. I make very little money. I love my life right now!

Graduation continued

So after I opened gifts, the party started. A bunch of our friends came over. It was great because our family got to meet some of our closest friends. One of them came into the front door, looked at Nicole and said "Hi Rachel!" Daniel laughed and then she saw me and realized what happened. It was pretty funny. It doesn't happen too often anymore that we get mistaken for each other. So it's really fun when it does happen. We sat out in our backyard and watched the sun set. It was a beautiful evening. Warm, but with a cool breeze. We ate cake and had a champagne toast for all the graduates. My family and my friends got along great. I was so grateful to my friends for coming. I'm sure they were just as tired as I was, and had lots of graduation parties to go to, but they came to ours anyways. We have some really awesome friends. But everyone was tired, so the party ended early. By 11pm everyone had left and the whole house was cleaned up. There was so much leftover food it kind of made me anxious. It's hard to explain why leftovers make me anxious. I think because it was all junk food and perishable. And Daniel and I hate throwing out food and we try to eat very healthy. But it's three days later, and most of it is gone already.

The next morning Daniel and I drove Nicole and my mom to the airport (in our new car!). They flew from Denver to Barcelona for their cruise. We spent the rest of the day with Daniel's parents. The rest of my family all left to go home early that morning. Daniel's dad used that time to interview us on video for our wedding slideshow that he's making. It's a little awkward speaking into a camera lens about the first time you met and everything. But I'm sure the end product will be well worth the effort. Daniel's parents left by 2pm and we both collapsed on the couch in the basement. We took a nap, and went to bed fairly early as well. I wanted to clean the house because after so many people came over the floors were sticky and dirty and gross. But I was so tired, I just let it go. And I was pretty nervous for my first day of my new job. I didn't really know what to expect.

There was no need to be nervous because my new job is going fantastically. I hadn't worked full time since last summer, and even then it was more like 30-35 hours a week. I left when the work was done, which usually didn't take the full day. This time, I have to stay a full 40 hours a week because I'm on salary. I also have never worked independently before. For a year and a half I have come to work and asked my supervisor "what do you want me to do?" I have learned in the past few days that it is completely different when you are expected to make your own schedule. On Monday morning I met with my supervisor and she gave me a long list of projects to do. We discussed what had the greatest priority, and set some goals for this week. That helped me get organized, but I was a little overwhelmed. After speaking with her, and then some of my co-workers who asked for my help with some of their projects this week and next week, I couldn't keep track of it all in my head. Sticky notes have been very helpful. I just started writing everything down so I could organize it. I made some plans (which have since completely changed, but I guess you have to be flexible) and started tackling my to-do list.

This involved rooting around in the -80 degree Celsius freezer for a good chunk of the day searching through hundreds of plates looking for 5 specific ones. -80 is REALLY cold (it's -112 degrees farenheit!). So cold that even with really thick gloves, you can only handle things for a few minutes before your fingers start to hurt really bad. And the freezer alarm starts going off if you leave it open too long. And the plates I'm searching through can't thaw out so you can only take them out of the freezer for about 30 seconds at a time. But you need more than 30 seconds because everything is covered in a layer of frost which you have to scrape off to read the label written on the plate. I shouldn't be complaining- this is my job. And to be honest, I love it. I love the independence of having a list of things to do, and tackling them in my own way.

I've also spent a lot of time working with mice the past few days. I've learned some new techniques that involved putting them to sleep and performing surgery. It's pretty frustrating and I still haven't got it down completely, but next week I'll get more practice. We accidentally killed one mouse that we left in the gas for too long. Instead of going to sleep, he just died. I also accidentally slit a mouse's throat from the inside when I was trying to insert a meal piece down its trachea. But it's all part of the learning process.

So overall I've been pretty busy and enjoying my new job. It's hard to believe that this is my new life for the next year. But there are lots of exciting things coming up. In a month our lab will be moving to the University and then everything will change. In 6 months Daniel and I get married! And soon after that, I'll start making plans for graduate school. Exciting things are coming!