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!

My memory of Graduation

My first blog as an alumna (thanks Chris) of the University of Denver! What an exciting weekend. It still feels kind of surreal that I won't have another class, homework, lab, anything for a whole year. When I deleted all my old school stuff off my computer, it felt very liberating. I also threw out many of my papers, but I still need to go through my notebooks and textbooks and figure out what to get rid of.

The weekend started on Friday with lunch with my co-workers. They wanted to take me out to celebrate my graduation, and my co-worker/mentor/best work friend Laura to celebrate her last day here, and the beginning of her MD/PhD program at CU. Soon after lunch, I met up with Daniel and my Dad who had just driven our new car from Nicole's apartment in Columbus all the way here to Denver in 3 days. It was great to see him again, and I was so grateful that he did that for us. Dad and I went grocery shopping to get supplies for dinner. Around 2:30pm, Daniel's parents showed up at our house in their rental car. We showed them around our (their) house and they were very impressed with how clean and well-kept it was- especially the yard. All that yard work last week paid off! A few hours later, my grandparents, Aunt and Uncle, and mom showed up. They took 2 days to drive from Phoenix to Denver. We promptly showed them around the house (Grandma and Grandpa are the only ones who have never seen the house). Then we started dinner. Daniel had the brilliant idea to have every person make their own personal pizzas. He even made a bunch of pizza dough the night before so everyone could toss their dough and make it into a pie shape, then top it with whatever they wanted to. I thought this would be a big mess, but everyone loved it. Score one for Daniel. After taking a sub-set of the family on an emergency trip to Target (everything takes 5 times longer with people over 50!) we drove to the airport to pick up the last of our crew, my sister. When she came back my Mom gave out the first graduation gift- a beautiful quilt for Daniel. She and my sister spent hours measuring, cutting, and sewing to create a queen-size quilt out of Daniel's old DU and Theta Chi T-shirts. It was a one-of-a-kind gift and Daniel loved it. He was speechless. He knew they were making it, because he packaged up all his old shirts. We brought them a box of 20-something T-shirts last winter and they've been working on it ever since. Every time I look at it, I remember where each shirt came from and remember all the great times we had while Daniel was wearing them. Such fantastic memories all put together into one blanket. I also got to open one of my gifts- a brand new kindle! I gave my old one to my Dad. The new one is way better- lighter, smaller, better resolution, longer battery…. I love it. We all said goodnight because we had to be up bright and early the next morning.

I woke up at 5:30am and I wasn't even tired! I was so excited for the day ahead. We picked up the family at the hotel and had breakfast on campus. We took a million pictures that turned out fantastic and then Daniel and I had to assemble for the big ceremony. We assembled in a small gym and with 900 or so graduates, it was crowded, hot, and claustrophobic in there. It was fun to see all of our friends all dressed up though. We were all so excited. The processional in was my favorite part. Coming into the arena, seeing thousands of people cheering, surrounded by my friends and classmates from the last 4 years. I felt very proud. I thought the speaker was terrible. He lost his place many times and was so old his voice shook. But everyone else seemed to like his speech. I couldn't find my family or Daniel until halfway through the ceremony when Daniel stood up to get in line to receive his diploma. We waved and I blew a kiss to him. He pointed out the family and when we finally made eye contact, they were so excited. I waved and waved until Grandpa finally noticed me too. When it was my turn to receive my diploma, I really wanted to express my gratitude to the chancellor. He shook everyone's hand and said "Congratulations, Ms. Burton" when I took my diploma cover from him. The second half of the name-reading seemed interminable. Name after name…. The whole ceremony took less than 4 hours so I guess it wasn't that long. Afterwards, we met up outside and had orange guava champagne (once again, this is what my $40K a year tuition is paying for). The whole family went out to lunch and we discussed our impressions of the ceremony.

After lunch most of the family went back to the hotel while the Rosens, me, my mom, and Nicole went to Costco to get food for our party that evening. I was feeling pretty tired by this point, but I pushed through. We prepared all the food and by 5pm we had a chance to sit down. The family came over around 6pm and then it was time to open presents! I got a beautiful pearl necklace from my grandparents. They bought it in Spain in 1994 when they were there. Grandma actually gave it to her mother, my great grandmother. When she passed away in 2005, Grandma got them back and now she passed them on to me. Instantly I knew I wanted to wear them at the wedding. They will look beautiful with my dress. Then I opened the gift from George and Shirley and they were the most beautiful pearl earrings I have ever seen in my life. Again- I knew instantly I wanted to wear them for my wedding. I put them on and I looked so sophisticated. Everyone loved them on me. I wore them the rest of the day, and then packaged them up. I won't wear them again until December 4!

Okay, this blog is getting long, but I don't want to forget anything! I'll finish later.

Cap and Gown

I picked up my cap and gown today, and finally I am feeling the excitement! Like seriously, I am over-the-top bubbling-with-energy excited. The cap and gown are beautiful, and we all get these gorgeous satin stoles that are randomly distributed in crimson and gold. Daniel and I both got gold. My tassle is gold, and Daniel's is white. I'm not sure what that means, maybe BA is white and BS is gold? I'll find out. But anyways, the whole ensemble is gorgeous! The gown is so much nicer than our high school one- it's very similar to a choir robe with all the pleats and everything. Now I see why we're just renting them and not buying them like our gross polyester high school gowns. I'm just so excited to put it all on, and walk through Magness Arena surrounded by my classmates. In high school, I didn't feel much of a sense of accomplishment at all. I felt like everyone graduates from high school and it's virtually impossible not to unless you never show up. But this time, it's completely different. I worked hard for four years to earn the right to walk with my class wearing the cap and gown. And there are plenty of people who dream of going to college and never get the opportunity. I am so lucky that my family values education enough to save up money from the time we were born so I could attend the college I wanted to. And now for the rest of my life I will have this degree. And this ceremony puts me one step closer to my ultimate dream- becoming a physician's assistant.

That reminds me, I got my official GRE scores today. I scored better than 95% of test takers in the last 10 years on the verbal section. That is unbelievable to me. I am really proud of myself. I scored in the 80th percentile in quantitative (math) and 84th percentile in writing. That is just astounding. I am in the top 20% of all people who take the GRE and presumably are applying to graduate school. I must have really been on top of my game when I took the test! I scored a 5/6 in writing, which is way more than I hoped for. I didn't even study that hard for writing because for the PA program they don't really care that much. And I HATE writing more than anything in the whole world. I always considered myself to be pretty bad at it too- but on that day I guess I was in the right mood to write some pretty good essays. I am feeling much more confident about my ability to get into CU's PA program now. In just 6 months I should be finding out if I am accepted into the program!

I took one final exam today, and I have two tomorrow. So I should finish up this blog and go study for the last time in the next year! Wow this is the first moment I realized that it will be at least one whole year before I will have to take another test. Or write another paper, or attend another lecture. Freedom is less than 24 hours away!!