O. Chem Blues

No, no, Hells naw, I'm NOT the one with O. Chem blues these days!!! The student I'm supposed to start tutoring this week has it BIG time and is looking to do well on a final exam in 2 weeks. For the most part, I'm the most optimistic person in the world. But as anyone reading my blog knows, I also keeps it real! And the reality is that I'm just not sure my student is gonna get this done and here's why. Going on vacay for 7 days before your final exam in a class you're not acing just isn't a very good idea. At least in my 45 year old hindsight, it isn't. Being honest, my late teens/early 20's self probably would have done the same thing this student is doing, hence my med school rejection back in 1991, LOL!!!

The image in this photo is of the book I'm going to be using as my teaching text because it literally saved my butt when I retook O. Chem. I haven't seen the latest edition, but because I still have this book from 1985 along with a detailed solutions booklet to the problems in the book, I've hung onto it for dear "pass O. Chem" life. Now that I think about it, I have ALL my chemistry major books from general chem to p- chem, that's Physical Chemistry the hardest, funnest class I've EVER taken!

Anyhoo, I'm going develop lesson plans for my student to study on vacay, and I sincerely hope they work. But I'm gonna be hotter than 15 hells if this student doesn't pass the class, blames my tutoring, then gives me a bad review. Yeah, make that 100 hells. So I sent a disclaimer to this person TODAY explaining that cramming doesn't work in O. Chem so expect NO miracles grade wise if that's the case. My lesson plans are good, but no lesson plan in the world can replace putting the time in everyday leading up to a final exam.

Don't sweat the small stuff and other things I need to do more

I read this book about 6 or 7 years ago and lately, have found myself referring to it often. IMHO, there are MANY applications of this book at every aspect of life from relationships to careers. And careers seems to be where I need the most work, LOL!!!

Last week, I did a lot of hands on work with my new research adviser, which was great! Maybe I should rephrase that, we would discuss what was to be done, she would then put the protocol on my bench, then tell me to let her know when I was done. Now trust me, I'm sooooo NOT complaining, I'm getting what I call the "post-Doc" treatment!!! But given that I haven't isolated plasmid DNA since 2007, a little more pre isolation discussion about it would have been nice. Then I remembered that I've gone from being treated like a scientific imbecile to a PostDoc in one month, so I'd better chill out and get to work!!!! But I was nervous as hell doing it because I hadn't yet made a mistake and given her personality, I wasn't sure how she would react if I screwed something up. So I get to the next to the last step and screw something up, kinda-sorta. I was supposed to wash my DNA pellet in EtOH NOT try to re suspend it which was a pretty big error given the fact that alcohols are used to precipitate DNA! DUH! And just as I realized my mistake, she walked in and asked me how things were going. I told her what I'd done and that I was in the process of spinning the solution down to isolate the pellet again. Then in the sweetest voice she said that I'd probably be unable to get the DNA back but that it was okay since I hadn't done it in a long time. And I almost passed out, I was so surprised! By the time I got over my shock, it was time for me to open the centrifuge to see what was left of my DNA and to my surprise, I had quite a bit left! So I resuspended it in TE as I was supposed to do the first time, and put it in the fridge for my adviser to quantify.

The picture above was taken midway through the process so I was pretty sure I hadn't totally destroyed all my hard work which began with receiving the plasmid in the mail, growing it up in E Coli, and finally doing the maxi-prep to isolate the DNA.
I'd also forgotten how bad the first step in the maxi-prep process smells too, but I got over that quick enough, LOL!!!

So here I am back in the place where I feel VERY comfortable, doing work which is meaningful to me (Lymphoma and Leukemia), and enjoying the people I work for and with!!!

10 for the road

I'm too exhausted these days to create a "real" post, so I'm going to allow myself to post a list of 10 things going on in my life every now and then, so here goes.

1) I'm too exhausted today to post multiple paragraphs, LOL!!!

2) My lab gig is going well and I've learned so much already! Yeah me!

3) I'm starting to see what it is people take issue with reagrding my new mentor. But compared to the bovine I used to work with, my new mentor is an angel!! Complete with a halo!

4) In my haste I decided to ride the metro yesterday....then had to walk down 100+ steps at one stop because both the down escalator AND elevator weren't working. URGH!!!

5) My knees STILL hurt from #4!!!

6) I'm debugging a Perl program I designed to cut a piece of DNA with restriction enzymes. NOT as easy as it sounds, but a LOT of fun!!

7) My problem child is getting sweeter by the day, perhaps a combo between missing her sister and wanting not to become homeless one day, LOL!!!

8) One of these days, I'm going to start working out on a regular basis again. Any thoughts on what I can do to get motivated?

9) Despite being exhausted, I wake up, leave for work, and arrive home with a HUGE smile on my face EVERYDAY!!!

10) Realizing that life really is a roller coaster, I know #9 won't always be the case, but until then I'll smile a little harder anyway!! :)

Have a GREAT week!

Super nerd with insomnia

It's about 5 AM and I've been up since around 4 AM when I was awakened by the sound of my problem child trying to unravel the plastic wrapper off the hamburger I accidentally left out on the stove to thaw. And all I had to do to find her, was follow the trail of blood leading throughout the house.

But since my first day in my new bioinformatics/ molecular biology lab isn't until this morning, I've decided to stay up since I'm too excited to go back to sleep. Of course, I didn't get to sleep until after 11 because I'm excited, so this is going to be a function on five hours of sleep kinda day.

I've also decided that since I'll be traveling to DC everyday and the parking situation around medical schools is beyond hectic (and costs ~ $15.00/day for parking alone), I'm going to using public transportation instead. And I actually love this option because I HATE driving in metro DC and I get to see areas of the city I normally wouldn't get to see. But my commute rarely involves riding the metro rail for 4 reasons: 1) I don't think it's all that safe or efficient with CONSTANT delays 2) I don't find it very cost effective at around $17 dollars/day, and 3) I don't find it all that safe or efficient. So I'll be on the commuter/ regional bus which is kinda nice with the big, comfy seats, at least on the commuter bus. Now this commute is going to take 2 hours one way doorstep to doorstep, which gives me plenty of time read journal articles and computer programming books on the way. Driving would be quicker ~ an hour, but I've decided to only drive on days when it's going to be super hot since bad air quality = not too good for asthma. And using the metro would take about ~ 1.75 hours. So, I'll probably end up mixing it up as I don't like to have consistent patterns too much as consequence perhaps of marrying a man that did "special" things in the military and growing up next to the 'hood. Basically, anyone trying to gauge my patterns would get confused quick, lol!

Now it's about 5:40AM and I'm getting sleepy, but I know if I fall asleep now, I'm going to feel like someone cracked me over the head with a metal pipe when my alarm goes off at 6:15. So I'm gonna do my best to stay awake now, and catch a snooze on the commuter bus later this morning!!

Ahhhh, ya' know, life is good!!!!!

What you said, and what I heard

If there's one thing I've learned over the past couple years, it's that many times when communicating with someone, your mate, children, coworkers, miscommunication can occur when the other person hears something different from what was said. Case in point, I recently posted a comment on another blog I frequent and ended one part of my comment with LOL. Now when I see "LOL", I assume what preceded that was either funny or not so serious. Well I need to work more on my LOLing, because the blog author sent me an email asking me to clarify, which I was happy to do. However, since my comment wasn't posted, that will likely be my last post on that blog since I don't want to risk offending the blog owner again in the future.

Now, when I've even partially offended someone, I'm the first to apologize, so I apologized to the author and have been agonizing every since over how an LOL comment could be construed as anything other than a joke( I HIGHLY admire this blogger, so my feelings were kinda hurt that they would think I would make an angry post on their blog). At any rate, this got me thinking about how often I think people (80% of the time, women) misread me, which says it must be something about my communication style that seems to either set some people off or offend them.

I think I've always found communicating with women challenging starting with my own mother. And I guess if you don't grow up with the best Mom/Daughter relationship, it's a little hard to learn those comminucating with women skills as an adult. As an aside, I got along great with my Mother's mother who didn't get along well with my mother at all. Go figure!

At any rate, I'd really like to be a good communicator with everyone, and not just patients and men. But as I get older, I'm finding myself more and more challenged when communicating with some women, particularly in professional settings. Interestingly, I receive high marks for my people skils in the volunteer breast cancer outreach work I do and the same when I worked in medical clinics. And I'll admit, I'm in compassionate mode when dealing with patients but business mode when I'm handling my work/school related business. But the idea of being " softer" in a business/school settings seems highly contradictory to me. Actually, it's more of a catch 22 that I feel as a Black woman. If I'm soft it will be seen as unprofessional, lacking in confidence, or as incompetent. If I'm too hard, I'm a bee-oytch. So, why can't I just be myself anyway? I think we all know the answer to that.

All that said, I do try to stay aware of how easy it is to have anything I say, written or spoken be misconstrued, because as I've learned the hard way, it doesn't matter what my true intentions are if the person I'm communicating with heard it differently.

So, if anyone out there has any communicating tips, please share!!

PS - The person who coined the phrase "perception is reality" needs to understand that sometimes, perception is delusional!

PSS- Okay, I'll admit to being a little on the hard core side when talking to Black folks about cancer.

PSSS- There was neither anything "bullying" or "snarky" about my comment on that blog.....at least I don't think so, LOL!!!

Ready, set, go!!!!!!

Yesterday, I got an email from a PI in the department of Bioinformatics of a local university who had received my CV from a colleague. And she wanted to meet with me to discuss the possibility of working in her lab to learn Bioinformatics hands on. The only drawback? I won't get paid, but since I'm not doing anything else between 8-5, M-F right now, I figure I may as well give this a shot.

So I met with her, but only after running into 2 women I'd known at the university for years. And who are both aware that I've been sitting on my dream for a LONG time. The first woman is the same one I blogged about randomly running into last year, who basically asked me what the hell I was waiting on as far as applying to med school was concerned. My conversation second one, who has a LOT to do with medical school admissions at this particular school, told me straight out that she thought I was too old for med school, that I needed to distinguish "my dreams from reality". But instead of becoming irate, I asked her why she felt that way. Then I made MY case over lunch. And at the end, she had NO doubts about my commitment to my goal and agreed with my plan for the next year. And then it occurred to me. People question my goal because it appears "I'm all over the place" when it comes to how I need to achieve those goals. And that I "get" because in some way I agreed with them, emphasis on the past tense form of the word agree. I've been clear for a minute now about about what I want and why I want it. The last thing I think I needed to work on was HOW I was going to get there. So when she asked me if I was considering DO or the Caribbean for medical school, I told her absolutely, that I'm being heavily recruited by DO schools, so I think I have a realistic shot getting admitted there. She asked how I intended to pay for it, knowing that I was going to reach my financial aid limit right in the middle of medical school. And I told her between the Indian Health Service, Public Health Service, and loan forgiveness, I would find a way. I added that my nest will be long empty by then so the sky's the limit as far as that's concerned. Then she asked me why the 3rd MS degree in Bioinformatics(which she initially called illogical, LOL). And I responded that the certificate in Bioinformatics requires 4 classes and that I need 4 classes to have the MS degree. That she said was a no brainer. For real, LOL???

One thing to mention here is that as I get older, I realize that I need to be REAL careful who I share my "dreams" with. These days, that unfortunately includes my mother who if I'm keeping it real here, is wishy washy with her support of my goal but is the first to brag to someone about what it is. And the hypocrisy of this both angers me and inspires me to work harder at the same time. Most of the time I realize she just doesn't "get it" and you know, that's okay. Because I'm paying for it and have many mentors and other support in place (including my blog readers, YEAH!!!), I really don't need her to. Don't get me wrong, it would be real nice if I had it, but I don't, so it is what it is and has always been since I was an undergrad.

Back to the ladies I saw today, they both told me that the woman I'm going to work with over the next 4-6 weeks is "difficult" and after the second woman said that, all I could do was smile. Smile you ask? If you've been reading my dairy you know that I've been working around "difficult" people for the past year. 11 months of SUPER DUPER hell versus 6 weeks of difficult? Yeah, I think I "got this", BIG TIME!!!

Here's the deal as I see it. I've been BEGGING for someone to teach me something in Bioinformatics in an academic environment at a medical school for over a year, and now I have a "difficult" PI offering to do just that in the department I'm getting a degree in. I talked to her about making my time there permanent and she said she would be willing to help me write an NCI grant to get me fellowship funding. I talked to her about my ultimate interest in cancer health disparities and she said she would introduce me to people who are doing research in area. I talked to her about needing strong mentorship at this point in my career and she said she could be that and allow me to enlist others at the school as well. So if 4-6 weeks of "difficult" is what I have to deal with to get me one step closer to my dream, then so be it. I'm ready.

Finally, I've decided to stick with the blog addy path201X since I think that no matter which clincal field I get into, deep down I'll always be "Path".

In heavy iPod rotation:

Back where I belong/change of internet address

Well, almost back where I belong. I'm interviewing next week with the PI I did my most recent Master's degree with and I probably don't need to say how excited I am. I'm thrilled!! I'm also making a TON of progress in my Bioinformatics programming classes and feeling very blessed that I have this time to devote to it.

The only real difficult thing I have going on in my life now is turning down job opportunities in Pharma. But I realize more than ever that pursuing ANYTHING outside my master MD/PhD plan, is a dumb a$$ idea! Why? For the obvious reason of me needing to stay completely focused on the goal!!!! I said it before and I'll say it again, I'm not even looking in the direction of anything that doesn't support my future MD/PhD!!!

And in other updates, I've be alone since Sunday for the first time in I don't know how long! And by alone, I mean my home is empty, save for me and my "problem child" kitty cat. Now I'll admit, that I had a BLAST those first 2 days, but now I'm starting to get a little lonely......PSYCHE! I'm enjoying not having to worry about anyone but myself for an entire week!!!!

Countdown to the future!!!!

Now that the job from hell is officially a thing of the past, I now move on to my future where every career decision from now until Fall 2014, will in some way or another bring me one step closer to medical school!!!!

And the feeling of elation and motivation I feel about my future can NOT be measured in words!!!!

First up, 2 breast cancer volunteer activities in the middle of next week!!!!! Yeah me!! :)

Slow your roll!!!

Focus can be an especially difficult thing for a middle aged women with ADD, LOL!!! But it's something I constantly have to work on. So in thinking about the health Informatics(HI) versus Bioinformatics(BI) it occurs to me that changing to HI means I'm no longer a few classes away from being ABD, needing only to complete a dissertation to have a PhD. But honestly, I'm sooooo adverse to ANYTHING having to do with the lab or lab work right now. I also know I need to separate my current angst being in the lab from my future PhD, but it's just not the easiest thing to do right now. Especially since I haven't had any recent feedback about gigs in Bioinformatics.

On the new job front, I had 2 phone interviews last week, one for a lab manager position and the other for a cancer gig. Why I even bothered to interview for the Lab manager position I don't know, so I asked to have my name withdrawn from consideration. The cancer gig would have been sweet, but my interviewer didn't think I had enough experience in one area, so I'm back to spending part of my weekends looking for new gigs. And that's okay, everything in it's own due time!!!

The most frustrating thing I deal with these days is the realization that I feel 180 degrees away from what I really want to be doing right now and that's studying medicine. But I keep telling myself that my time isn't as far away as I think it is, that I just have to continue to be patient and take in all the lessons God is teaching me right now. A few weeks ago, I received an invite from a med school to attend a regional meeting of medical schools recruiting students and turned down the invite. Why? I've been out of work a LOT lately, and don't have leave time available to attend on a week day. Besides the fact I'd feel a little uncomfortable saying that I'm really looking to apply next summer instead of this summer, when the expectation was that I would apply this year after my Sept 2011 MCAT exam.

So I guess that's about it for now, I'm supposed to get some good news relating to my career in the middle of this week, so I'll post as soon as I do!!