What language do YOU speak?

I'm usually pretty excited when the first day of class comes around. But this time around, I was actually pretty nervous and I have NO idea why. Luckily for me, 5 minutes in, and I was settled in and ready to go!

So, I'm taking a programming course called Python this fall and while I'm THOROUGHLY enjoying the class so far, I'm wondering why in the hell the creators of this program named it Python, as in one of the meanest snakes on the planet! And I looked into photos of pythons to use as the image for this post, but since I really HATE snakes, I decided against using one after viewing a few.

Turns out that my husband's suggestion for a course sequence in Bioinformatics was right on the money, his advice being that I start with Java which I did last Spring/Summer. And while I "*itched and moaned" about it at first, having started with the computer program from hell was a master stroke!! EVERY computer language I've come across since then has been relatively easy with the exception being Perl, which wasn't so much difficult as I think it's tedious for NO good reason!

In not so great news, I learned that the funding on my position would be on hold which brings to mind the "challenges" of working with a faculty member who doesn't have tenure yet. However, I've got some other funding possibilities lined up, the main issue with one of those being that it would take until around Jan 1 to go into effect. Not to worry, there may be a TA position that I could fill for this semester until one of the other funding sources comes through.

Anyhoo, I'd better get back to work, I've got a program for class due next Tuesday!!!

10 for the road, August 25 2012

Here are my most recent top 10's:

1) I don't care what ANYONE says, race relations in the US are far worse than ever in the time that President Obama has served as president.

2) Being treated like a Post-Doc gets real old when the real Post-Doc from your lab, who's supposed to be training you, is STILL on vacation after defending her dissertation. URGH!!

3) This Monday, I'll have to start getting up at 5AM everyday thanks to the commute from hell. But after talking with my Banker last Friday, whose husband has a 2.5-3 hour commute one way EVERYDAY, I've decided NOT to complain about it.

4) I'm on a wait list of sorts, for a teaching gig at a local University and I desperately hope a spot opens up in the next 3 days. I really miss teaching at the collegiate level!

5) I wish more Black bloggers would blog more about the negative realities of being Black in America. Sure, we shouldn't dwell on it but rarely mentioning anything gives folks the false idea that everything is "swell" when this is FAR from the truth.

6) How can a presidential candidate get away with not releasing a certain number of tax returns? We all KNOW he paid a lower percentage than the average secretary, so he may as well come clean.

7) Speaking of presidential politics, I'm so disappointed at all the social issues President Obama failed to address in his first term. Would a Jew ignore anything about the Holocaust? I seriously doubt it.

8) I'm still very much missing my "middle child". :(

9) I succeeded in designing my first primer this week, after NUMEROUS tries. Now I'm trying to do the same using Bioinformatics tools. YIKES!!!

10) Finally, I'm really loving our new neighborhood because it has that "homey" feeling I experienced living in the South. And I'm still really loving being back in Academia for the exact same reason!!!!!

Seasons change

I LOVE kids, but I think Starbuck's where I'm currently trying to get some work done, should open a store for SAHM's and thier kids and one for the rest of us! So since I'm quite cearly NOT going to get much done here, I figured I'd update my blog until the library opens at 10AM.

So many wonderful things happening in my life, WHERE do I begin. First, after years of talking smack about the "Bougie" Black folks in metro DC who live in a county with one of the worst school systems and highest taxes in the state, we decided to move there. And I have to admit that it's something I'd been contemplating for YEARS. Why? We were spending a pretty good amount of time in this county on the weekends where we recently started to attend church, where I would study on the weekends, and where my daughter recently joined a chess club. And to be quite frank, after years of living in one of the whitest and wealthiest counties in the US, we, my daughter especially, were in desperate need of being immersed in "our" own culture. We'd also had one too many "racial" incidents as well in our old neighborhood. But the kicker for me happened 2 days into overnight Engineering camp earlier this summer, when my daughter called to tell me that she wanted to attend an HBCU (Historically Black College/University) for college based on her limited experience living in a dorm. Uh oh!!

Somewhere in having an "American Dream" I think Black folks, my self included, got "caught up" in this idea that if we did the "right" things in life, got educated at top notch schools, worked hard, that we would be rewarded with this glorius life in the suburbs, where we would live in culturally diverse neighborhoods, our kids could attend great public schools, and where we would be reasonably safe. But when I look back on our lives in this DC suburb over the past 12 years, I've questioned whether or not it was in the best social and cultural interest of my family to live here this long. And it's because I've realized that having a strong sense of culture is what's going to make or break Black folks moving foward into this global world we live in.

Moving on, lab work is going well and I'm getting used to being treated like a Post-Doc, LOL!!! I'm also beginning another programming class this Fall (having not finished my self-study course in Perl :( ), so I'm really looking foward to that. I think. I'm also still working on my research proposal in cancer health disparities and I continue to be amazed by the lack of significant research into the biological contributions to health disparities. As far as I'm concerned, the social aspects have been examined to death, and it's long since been time to incoportate that bench to bedside mantra that seems so popular these days.

Speaking of research, a funny thing happened while I was walking down the hall with my old research advisor, we ran into one of his collegues where he introduced me as a future MD/PhD student, YIKES! It's like I wasn't aware of how daunting (tranlated crazy for a middle aged Black woman) an MD/PhD program is until that exact moment! But I can't imagine doing ANYTHING else at this stage of my life!

So given that my life is full of so many wondeful and exciting changes, I decided to post this video which reminds me of where I am in my life right now as well as being one of my favorite songs from the eighties! Enjoy!

The health disparities "myth"????

"There is absolutely no survival gap by race" at St. Jude, said Dr. Ching-Hon Pui, chairman of the oncology department at the Memphis hospital and lead author of the study.

The findings, he said, confirm the benefits of St. Jude's aggressive, individualized treatment practices, which are extended to all patients regardless of their families' abilities to pay.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I was a fellow at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) during the time the Center To Reduce Cancer Health Disparities (CRCHD) was being formed and because of my ties to folks high up in administration of the NCI, I was given a front row view of the challenges this most recent institute of the NIH had in justifying it's existence. I'm going to repeat that because I STILL can't believe what I observed getting this organization up and running. This institute had to justify it's existence as if the cancer morbidity/mortality of Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans needing ANY justifying at all.

So it's been interesting to me as I write my proposal to get funding from this institute from now through to MD/PhD, to see info on the web which contradicts what the data tells me. Until I dig a little deeper and realize that the fact that a place like St. Jude can demonstrate NO disparity in ONE cancer because of "St. Jude's aggressive, individualized treatment practices, which are extended to all patients regardless of their families' abilities to pay". The message there is glaringly obvious to me. Yet so many seemingly intelligent and educated people wanted to keep an organization like CRCHD from being developed in the first place.
Well I guess that's water under the bridge as my mother would say, hopefully I'll be back to being a funded NCI fellow VERY soon!

I also wanted to report on how my first Orgo tutoring session in the last I don't know how many years went, and it went surprisingly well!! My student happens to not only live in the neighborhood across the street from mine, she also attends my Alma Mater. So, we had a LOT more to talk about other than Orgo. We covered a LOT more than I was prepared to cover based on our prior discussion, but I was able to help thanks to my Fesseden and Fesseden Orgo book from 1970, LOL!!! And I sincerely hope she reviewing what we discussed on vacay because she seems like a good kid, as in I'm old enough to be her Mom! WOW!! Hopefully, I didn't come off too parental and I guess I didn't since we've already scheduled our next 4 sessions for just before her final. And for what I'm being paid, I'm kinda thinking I'm in the WRONG business, LOL!!! But I know deep down that doing this full-time would never work because no patient involvement and paper reading is required. Plus, I really only went back into it to make myself a better candidate for a teaching position at a local community college.

Speaking of paper reading, I know many people who believe it's impossible to read and listen to music at the same time, but the music by the artist album cover below just gets me in "paper reading" mode because for me,when Erykah's music comes on I know it's time for business!!!

Moving on to the lab, work is going well and I've already met quite a few mew people of color with recent PhD's who are helping me a ton! And when you're almost always the only person "like you" in a research environment, it's just an added plus to have some cultural commonalities besides the obvious interest in science.

Finally, I recently learned that the ENTIRE division of my last gig is being disbanded, as in I'm not surprised a bunch of insecure and incompetent sycophantic suck ups aren't needed anymore. And while I'm usually sympathetic to people in these situations, anyone reading my blog regularly probably understands why I feel nothing at all except relieved that no one else will EVER have to deal with what I endured dealing with those folks. I say what comes around goes around, and that my "golden parachute" held up just fine!

LIFE IS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!