My Future Career

This week I have had a lot of opportunities to talk to people at work about their career choice, and how they got to where they are now. Most of the people in the lab are Ph.D.s. One guy, Ken, is in the process of getting his Ph.D. right now from UC Denver. When I stayed really late on Monday it was a great chance to ask him about the process. I was really surprised to learn that you actually get a stipend while in school. It's not much (about $25,000) but it's enough to live on for sure. And I would be doing basically what I'm doing now- except earning my Ph.D. and getting paid more. It takes 4-6 years to get your Ph.D. and unlike other fields, in science you usually go right from your undergraduate without getting a Master's degree first. I could potentially become a Ph.D. candidate one year from now. How crazy would that be? I think I'm capable, but the big question I have is if that's really what I want to do. I mean, do I want to do research the rest of my life? Because besides teaching at a university, that's about all a Ph.D. does. And if I truly want to move back to Scottsdale, what kind of jobs are there? Not very many. And I don't think I would go to school in Arizona either. Which would mean staying here, or moving somewhere else. But how incredible would it be to have my Ph.D. before I'm 30 years old? But how worthless would it be to have my Ph.D. and stay home with my children? I'm completely torn. A month ago, it wasn't even on my list of options. Now it definitely is. So I'm going to think about it some more, and ask more questions.

Working Late

What a crazy week this has been. It started on Monday with a close to 14 hour work day. Right about the time I was getting ready to leave, I was asked to help process mice. With 10 mice left to do, at about 30 minutes a piece, this added quite a few hours. I thought I would be home at about 7, so I called Daniel and told him to hold off on dinner for another hour or two. Then at like 9pm, he decided to just go ahead and cook dinner and bring it to me :-) Isn't he amazing? He is so supportive. Judy was really excited to meet him too. I was absolutely exhausted. I didn't get home until almost 11pm. So I slept in the next morning and got to work about an hour late. I also left about an hour early. Then on Wednesday, I got to work and after only about 30 minutes, I thought I was going to throw up. I was going to try and stick it out and see if I felt better, but that seemed silly when I could just come back if I felt better. So I went home. I felt really terrible about missing a day of work, but what good is it to be there if I couldn't do anything because I was so nauseated? It passed fairly quickly, and I was actually able to eat lunch and dinner and keep it down. So I worked the rest of the week really without incident. I logged a lot of hours, even with the sick day in the middle of the week. I was busy!

On Friday, the whole lab was invited out to wish one of the secretary's happiness on her maternity leave. We all went to a nice French restaurant down the street for happy hour. I was really nervous about going. I haven't been to any purely social activities with my co-workers before, and I didn't know how I would fit in. I also don't know the secretary very well so it seemed silly for me to be at an event in her honor. But Judy really wanted me to go. So I went. And I had a fantastic time. Everybody got at least a little tipsy (including me). I thought I would only go for a couple hours, and ended up there for 4 or 5 hours. We had appetizers and drinks all paid for by the boss. I really enjoy hanging out with everyone in the lab. I fit in so well. David, the head boss, was there too and I thought it was really great to gain some visibility and for him to see me interact with everyone as an equal, and not as a student. I was the only student there, actually. The only bad thing is how guilty I felt about leaving Daniel at home. It really wasn't appropriate to bring him since everybody went straight from work and nobody else brought a date. So I'm gone all day every day, working really late hours some days, and then Friday comes around and I'm out until almost 10pm. I just feel terrible that my job is going so well. He is so great though. He's supportive, and encouraging, and he told me to go out and not to worry about him. He takes care of everything at home. All the cleaning, running errands, and cooking dinner. I'm so lucky. I try to remind myself that there will be a time, perhaps in the near future, in which our roles are reversed. And I wouldn't want him to be guilty. I would be happy that he is enjoying his job, and successful at it. So in the meantime, I'm going to do the same: enjoy my job, and work as hard as I can to be successful.

Just Call Me Ms. Fix-It

Every weekend this summer has started with no plans, but somehow I always end up feeling like it wasn't long enough. There's the inevitable laundry, grocery shopping, house cleaning, and yard work that takes up most of Saturday. The grocery shopping part is going to take even longer now that we have to drive to a Costco that's 20 minutes away. The one just down the street no longer carries the chicken that we like, nor the salmon. Really the only reason we go to Costco is for beef, chicken, and fish. If 2 out of the 3 aren't carried in stock anymore, what's the point? So now we drive further to a Costco that actually carries the stuff we like. Then on Saturday night Daniel and I were discussing how high our utilities bill was this month. Now that it's gotten really hot, we have to turn on the air conditioning. Unfortunately our roommates are not as careful as us about their use of energy. They regularly leave lights on and windows open. It's very frustrating. Another large part of the problem is that the upstairs is very warm when the basement is comfortable. In an effort to fix that (without increasing our energy bill) we decided to install a ceiling fan in the living room. Little did I know what a project this would turn out to be. It involved rewiring a light switch to add another switch. This in turn involved climbing up into the attic (which was like 200 degrees) to feed a wire across the ceiling and down to the light switch. It took us 3 trips into the attic (me once and Daniel twice). After the third time, we finally fed the wire through. Then Daniel climbed down and went outside claiming he was going to throw up from the heat. I sprayed him down with the hose, and we got back to work. Almost 5 hours later, we have a fully functional ceiling fan in the living room! I'm so proud of us. I'm so proud of ME! Not only did I climb around in the attic, but I patched two very large holes, repainted those holes, used a screwdriver, climbed on a very tall and wobbly ladder, and figured out how to put together a complicated fan. It would be so much easier for me to just make Daniel do it since he's the guy and his Dad taught him how to do all this household stuff, but I forced myself to pay attention and get involved and help. Good thing too, because even with the two of us it took all day.

Though I don't have children or a career yet, I'm already feeling pressured to pick between the two. Everyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I am ready to start a family NOW. I have been ready for years! I'm in college so that I can get a career that will allow me to support my family. Being able to support children has always been my motivation for going to college. But all of a sudden, I'm feeling a tug in the opposite direction. This summer has given me a feeling for what it is like to work full-time. This is as close as I've ever come to knowing what it will be like when I graduate. And I absolutely love it! I love my work. I love having a reason to get out of bed in the morning. I love the feeling of independence when I am driving to and from work, and the satisfaction of earning a pay check. I love the challenge of proving my abilities and learning new things. I have pushed myself to go above and beyond to impress my supervisors. I even volunteered to go into work at 11pm on Friday night so my boss didn't have to. Daniel is so proud of me because he feels like I am well on my way to a fantastic career. And he is so driven in his own life to work his way up the corporate ladder. It seems like every decision he makes is with his future career in mind. For example, he's president of Theta Chi because it will give him leadership experience to add to his resume. He expects that I feel the same way. He thinks that if I play my cards right, I could be a Ph. D. and be a world famous research scientist. He, and his family, and my family, constantly tell me how smart I am and that I can do anything. But what if what I want to do is have kids? The fact is, it's just not as important to Daniel. He sees children as a bonus once our careers are settled and we have a little extra money. At least that's the way I understood him. His plan is to work really hard for long hours and get promotions and raises until he's the CEO. Then he'll think about having kids. Whereas I see my career as just a way to earn enough money so that I can spend time with my family. There is a little part of me that really wants to climb the corporate ladder too. I would love to have the title (and paycheck) that goes along with earning my Ph. D. I want to be the best at what I do, and earn recognition for that. But if it comes down to choosing, I have to have children.

Best Day EVER

So I know I already blogged today, but I have to add more.

I just got off the phone with my grandparents. They are amazing. The best grandparents in the entire world. They are so supportive. They were thrilled when I told them how work was going. And completely out of the blue, Grandma told me that she wanted me to go visit Nicole in Chicago and she is willing to pay for my transportation there. As in, my grandparents are paying for my (very expensive) flight to Chicago! This is a HUGE relief. I was really apprehensive about spending so much money for a long weekend to visit Nicole. I was going to spend it anyways, because when else could I get a trip to Chicago for only the cost of a flight. And I'm dying to see my sister. She has visited me so many times, and I have never visited her. So it's time. I literally bought my flight and within an hour, Grandma and Grandpa offered to pay for it. I don't want to come across as loving my grandparents because they give me money. That's not it at all. If I never spoke to my grandparents, but I got a check in the mail every time I needed it, it would mean nothing. The fact is, my grandparents support me and encourage me in everything. Their love for me is absolutely unconditional. And my relationship with Nicole means so much to them that they want to help me so I can go visit her.

Work is Fantastic!

I am so excited because I got recognized in a big way at work! It will take a little explaining....

So yesterday was our monthly "journal club." Everyone in the lab is emailed a journal article to read ahead of time and then we all meet to discuss it. The article is usually something relevant to our research. In the meeting was everyone in the entire lab, including the head of the lab David Schwartz. He basically IS the lab. Without him, we don't exist. He started up our lab about 2 years ago. He secures all our funding, he hires everyone, he is the boss and makes all the big decisions. He is a very important person in the entire medical/research community as well. Right now he is thinking about becoming head of the department of medicine at University of Colorado. That is a HUGE job! Basically anything with his name on it is highly regarded in the scientific community. I haven't had a lot of interaction with him yet. Though he is the head of the lab, he is a very busy person. He isn't actually in the lab very often. More often he is in meetings, in his office, or at conferences. To me, he seems kind of like a rock star in the research/medicine world.

So, back to the lab. We're all in journal club discussing this article. I brought up a point that David thought was really relevant and important to our discussion. We ended up going back and forth and discussing it for quite a while. He thought it was a great point and agreed with me completely on it. By the way, none of the other student interns said one word during the entire meeting (or any other meeting for that matter). So I had a feeling that I kind of impressed him. I was willing to speak up when none of the other students were, and I brought up a relevant, interesting, and valid point of discussion. My direct supervisor, Judy, told me at the end of the meeting that she loved how I asked questions and participated. I went home feeling very proud of myself.

Then, at work today, Judy told me that David was impressed with me. She said that after I left for the day, David went to talk to Ivana (Ivana is Judy's boss and David is Ivana's boss). So David went into Ivana's office and told her that he wanted to keep me. As in, when the summer is over or when I graduate, he wants to hire me! This wasn't a job offer of course, it was just him speaking to Ivana. But that is AWESOME!! Even more so, because I have made it clear to Judy (who has then told Ivana) that I really want to work here after I graduate. And Ivana told that to David! Judy also loves me and she really wants me to stay on. We work really well together and I just fit in so well in the lab. So I impressed my boss, and her boss, and her boss on top of that. Even if I don't end up getting a job in the Schwartz lab after graduation, any recommendation letter with David Schwartz's name on it will count HUGE getting me into PA school or any other graduate program.

So as you can tell work is going amazing :-) I absolutely love it. I love all the people, I love the work, I love what I'm doing. So much so, that I volunteered to go tomorrow night at midnight. That's the thing with research- when you have a time point you have to hit, then you have to do what it takes. Since I live only 10 minutes from work (Judy lives almost an hour) it will be really easy for me to pop in, take care of the time point, and go home. It will only take 30 minutes at the most. And as Daniel pointed out to me, when you want to move up and get a raise and get a promotion, it's things like this that put you ahead of everyone else. The other students are not speaking up in meetings. The other students are not volunteering to come in at midnight.

Another thing I did today to further my career, is that I volunteered to help Laura take care of our mouse colony. David Schwartz recently fired a research technician. His job was to take care of our mice. He put in orders, kept things organized, and kept track of our mice. It appears that he stopped doing his job some time ago. And when he stopped doing his job, a certain strain of mouse was allowed to breed out of control. The result is that our lab now has thousands of mice that we will never use for research. We didn't ask for these mice to be bred, and we have no use for them. Now there is a huge room somewhere in the Biological Resource Center with mice that are just sitting there. Some of them are 2 years old! That is ancient! We usually use mice when they are 8 weeks old. And for every mouse that sits there, the BRC charges us. National Jewish has a full-time staff whose job it is to clean cages and take care of everyone's mice. They charge us to take care of our mice until we need them for research. With thousands of mice just sitting there, we are being charged $18,000 EACH DAY for those mice that we will never use and don't even want. All because this research tech didn't do his job and make sure that mice were not breeding uncontrollably. That is just ridiculous. David was very upset when he found this out. So tomorrow Laura and I are going to the BRC and getting rid of any mice that are not specifically designated for a current research project. It will be a massive undertaking.

I love my job :-)

4th of July Weekend

At the last minute I decided to fly out to Phoenix last weekend. I had been kind of lonely since Daniel was out of town and I was sick, and I didn't feel like spending another 2 days by myself. I had Monday off for the July 4th holiday anyways, so I could spend almost 3 whole days in Phoenix. My dad was so excited, he offered to pay for the flight. So on Friday I got home from work at about 5pm, and by 6pm I had a flight out of Denver at 9:15pm. Unfortunately, that 9:15pm rapidly turned into 10:45pm and eventually 11:30pm. My roommate drove me to the airport, and agreed to feed Jackson on Saturday. And my brother got the long weekend off too, so he was flying to Phoenix. I was so excited to spend some time with him, and see my parent's new puppy! Rocky is so adorable. He is the same breed as Spud and he's only 10 weeks old. Watching him made me miss Spud so much. Australian Shepherds are great dogs.

I was also happy to have something to do for the 4th. I had no plans in Denver, and it was doubtful that Daniel would be back in time since he was flying standby. But in Phoenix, I got to see some of my favorite people! We went over to the Bulkeley's house. Their house is up on a hill so we could see the fireworks at a nearby church really well. Even though I traveled over the weekend, I don't feel exhausted or anything. I still had plenty of time to relax and enjoy my day off of work. It's been a strange couple of weeks. I took 2 days off because I was sick, and then the holiday off, it feels like I've missed a lot of work lately! I'm feeling especially stressed out about money lately for no real reason. I'm making more now than I ever had since I'm working full time. But I also have a lot of expenses. Traveling is the biggest expense- though I can't turn down a trip to Chicago to see my sister for basically the cost of a flight. I also just bought a TV. Our current TV is leaving when Eric moves out on August 1. That was a huge deal for me. Spending $500 is just not easy at this point. Because all my basic living expenses are covered by Grandma and Grandpa, I feel guilty buying anything but the absolute bare necessities. The fact is, I'm making money now, and my family doesn't expect me to live on ramen noodles. I did a ton of research and found what I think is a great deal. Panasonic 42" plasma TV for $499. I couldn't find that price for a 42" anywhere online, so I jumped on it. My brother also went with me to look, and he said it was a great deal. I trust him because he sold TVs for a couple years at Circuit City. Then I remembered I had to buy a TV stand too. So that added another $100. I hate spending money. And our utilities will also go way up starting this month since our promotional first year with DirecTV is now over. But at least it will be split 5 ways once our new roommates move in.

Work is kind of slow for now, so I'm going to try to get out to Chicago in the next week or two. The ozone machine is still broken, and we don't know when it will be fixed. It's difficult to conduct an experiment on how ozone affects the immune system, when you don't have ozone. But I just can't bring myself to book the flight. It is going to cost close to $700 for both me and Daniel. That just kills me. But it will be totally worth it.

Daniel was absolutely amazing today. While I was at work, he cleaned the whole house, planned our meals for the week, went grocery shopping, exchanged my jeans for the right size, did research on where to buy TV stands, played with Jackson, and looked over my preliminary powerpoint presentation. I so appreciate what he does while I'm at work. It makes my life much easier that these little things are done when I get home. He is the best! :-)

Work and Vacations

I haven't blogged in a while because things are just normal. Nothing big has happened. Work is still awesome, and I love it every day. Things have slowed down a lot this past week. We finished our control experiment, so we can't move further until the ozone machine is fixed. In the meantime I have been running lots of multiplexes for Laura. It gets really old doing the same thing over and over, but I'm glad I have something to do at all. Many of the students spend hours everyday just sitting around, reading journal articles, and killing time on the internet. It's difficult for their supervisors because they are really busy and just don't have time to teach them everything. David has ended up just kind of tagging along with whatever I do. Sometimes I really appreciate it, and other times I find it really annoying. It depends on my mood.

Today I am running my first ELISA all on my own. I have very specific directions, and I've done pieces of it multiple times. But I've never done one from beginning to end by myself. Judy is out of town until Thursday, so I don't have her to answer my questions and guide me through. Luckily Lesly is nearby and she does lots of ELISAs and she is very helpful. The most critical and easily messed up part is the standards and samples. That step came at about 10am this morning. I had to calculate how much standard I needed to make up the concentration I wanted. But I didn't know the starting concentration of the stock solution. This should be written on the tube that I took the standard out of. There was something written on it, but unfortunately it was completely illegible. I looked up the product number on the chemical manufacturers' website, and I couldn't find it. So I went on a hunt to find who wrote on the tube, and ask him what it said. I found him and asked, and he couldn't read his own writing. So he went into his lab notebook and found where he wrote it in there. How annoying! In a lab, writing legibly is very important for this exact reason. So I wasted about 30 minutes doing that. Then I felt a lot of pressure to hurry because the last incubation period was ending. I had exactly enough supernatant for two plates. If there were any errors in my calculations or pipetting, then I would be short. It took me about 30 minutes to make up my sample dilutions. It was a very stressful 30 minutes. If I accidentally pipetted the wrong amount, or into the wrong well, then the whole thing would be wasted and I would have to start over from the beginning- which means sacrificing more mice and the whole thing. That would be terrible. But I got through it, and overall it went pretty well. I was a little short on some wells, but I noted it in my lab notebook and I'll figure it out later. The rest of it is pretty easy, but boring. I have to wait 2 hours between each step so I may be here pretty late today.

I've been talking to Judy about possibly working here full time after I graduate, until Daniel finishes and I start grad school. She seemed to think that's a great idea. Then I found out how much it pays. The starting rate is $23,000 a year. Yikes. I think that with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry I should be able to make more than that right out of school. With experience here, which I will have, I could start as high as $28,000. Better, but still not much. I have to think about that. Is it worth the guarantee, knowing who I'm working with and being familiar with the job? Or looking for a new job that may pay more, but I don't know anyone or how things work there?

Yesterday Daniel fixed my new bike! If you don't remember, I bought one at an auction on campus in May. It needed a little bit of work. Daniel got it from campus and took it to sports authority for a tune-up. There was pretty much nothing wrong with it, besides flat tires and a little dirt and grease. Last night we put new handlebar grips on it, and a new kick stand and it was good as new! We rode to the park and back on a beautiful night. I'm so happy I have a bike now! I guess it was a pretty good find, too. It was made in the 1990s and new it cost about $350! I spent 10% of that. Plus the tune-up and the new grips and kickstand, it probably cost me about $90.

I'm trying to figure out when I'm going to go visit my sister in Chicago now. I already got the okay to take off a Friday and a Monday to visit my brother. I decided that with airfare and hotel it would be too expensive. In Chicago, I can stay at my sister's apartment, and eat her food, so it will basically only cost me airfare. I'm so excited! I haven't seen Nicole in so long and I miss hanging out with her. There is nothing like your twin sister. We still know what each other is thinking and can finish each other's sentences after living apart for 3 years now. I'm also looking at going back to Phoenix at the end of August. Nicole will be there, so it will be a great chance for all the girls to go dress shopping and cake tasting! That also comes down to if I can get the time off. My presentation is on August 12, and I'll be in Estes Park with my parents the weekend after that. But I think once I present my project, I will be able to take some time off before school starts up again. I hope so anyways.

Daniel is still looking for a job. He is getting lots of stuff done at home though, and cooking me dinner every night. I like that :-) However, I don't like the money situation. We're doing fine, but it would be nice to have another income. He's trying so hard, and he won't give up until school starts again. We'll see. It's hard to plan a trip to Chicago when we don't know if he's going to have a job or not. We were looking at Egypt guide books last night. I'm going to buy one and start reading up on it. I think we've decided on Egypt for our honeymoon. It sounds so exotic, and when is a better time to go on an exotic vacation than your honeymoon? I'm so excited and it's a whole 18 months away!!