Yuky classes eeeu

HI everybody

Sorry I haven't written in a long time. The blog went crazy on me and wouldn't let me in.
I am supposed to be finishing my Statistics homework and figuring out the paper I am going to present on Thursday, but I just don't feel like doing any of the two. I feel confident about the paper. I understand it, but last year when I had to present a paper I usually had to read it like 1000 times. This one I've only read 3 times. It scares me into thinking I am overconfident.
GOD the things you worry about in GRAD School! Jesus Christ.
So I've been enjoying the heck out of lab. I like the people, I am like the techniques, everything is fine. I freaked out when they said I had to present. I am still freaked out! Presenting a miserable paper is does not compare at all to presenting all the work youve been doing for 3 month.
Rick has been soooooo nice about everything though. I got to give him that. The guy is a quiet one but not mean. THANK THE LORD AND ANGELS OF SCIENCE. heheh.
I've been trying to match him with Maria, eventhough Maria already has a boyfriend. haha. I just tease her thats all.
I am becoming a true grad student though, in the sense that I love being in lab, and HATE going to class. eeeeuuuu class eeeuuu! smelly teachers JUK! Even the classes I thought I would enjoy this semester are just annoying things that stand between me and pipeting.
My favorite technique right now is Western Blots.... Hahaha! they are simple cute and almost always give results.
Northern blots are from Hell. I am convinced this is something the devil invented to fill up my week with radiation and incubation periods, and annoying hybridization. It is just soooo complicated.
My second favorite technique, well in this case is not just one technique it is several: Tissue Culturing.

I guess that no matter what you do every semester, there is always going to be a class that you hate down to the pit of your stomach and back, and you are just totally incapable of dropping the darn class because it is required. Last semester it was "Molecular Biology and Biochemistry" and this semester it is Statistics..... My GOD do I hate that class! But I have to admitt I hated "Molecular Biology and Biochemistry" even more.
Tomorrow is Wens. The whole day is filled with stupid classes and keeping me from pipeting.
:(
I am sooo happy though.
My husband and I are finally going to be able to live in the same house. WOW For most people that have gotten married this is an easy logical thing. FOR us, it has been almost impossible! hehehee...This is just another sign that we belong together.
Two weeks after getting married (married= 12/30/2005), I lived with him for like 8 months in LA, and then I got accepted to Berkeley. Berkeley and LA are an hour's flight away. So he has been coming up here every weekend, being the cutest thing on Earth for me while I went thru hell (last semester {see first post}).
Now he is moving up here with a new job. He is scared, so am I but it seems like we are destined to live in the middle of constant change.

A little piece of Heaven

Yeah, so you know that feeling when you are lying on the water in the ocean, you are facing the sky, the sun is beaming, there are no clouds and if there are they are little and resemble a few grains of popcorn? That warm feeling...You sigh from how relaxed you are. Theres no one around, you are just listening to the waves in the distance? Yeah....Thats how I felt today.
I was doing some tissue culture. Everything was working out. I noticed that I was smiling the whole time I was doing it and then this ocean picture came to my mind, and I realized thats how I felt.
It is strange. I've been doing science since 1996 and I never felt the way I felt today. I always felt anxious, scared, stupid.....not like this.

I hope this is a sign of things to come. ;)

A good Start

So went to my rotation today. I started and let me tell you all, I AM SOOOOO HAPPY!
God when Rick gave me a chance just make media in the hood, my eyes shined, I couldn't help but smile. Also he was very nice and understanding! I hope this is a sign of things to come and not just a sweet start. Also for a while I couldn't figure out how to design those stupid primers and I finally figured it out. I am excited. I can't wait to learn how to make Northern blots and Southern blots! It feels good to finally use those stupid techniques for something other than multiple choice answers to a test question!!!!
YEY! I survived! I survived my first day!!!!!!!!! YEY!
Tomorrow I am supposed to culture bacteria, and I forgot what else (oh oh). But Rick has promised me that we will be doing quite a bit this week. YEY! It looks like I am going to be learning most of the techniques within the next two weeks....
YEY!!! I can't wait to tell Maria that I survived my first day..Ofcourse this will be no big deal to her but it is to me.

THE SCARIEST SUNDAY ever...at least for now

It is Sunday. But this is not just any Sunday. This is the SUNDAY before the "MONDAY" in which I start my rotation (research for a brief time in a lab so that one can figure out if they like the lab or not). Why is this a big deal? The truth is that I don't know except that I have never in my life been this scared. Let me explain the level of fear here. There was one time my mom caught me making out with my high school boy-friend in a parking lot. I think I am just as scared of tomorrow as I was of my strict catholic latin mother that day. I hope the strict cathoic latin mother explains why I was so scared (MY life was definitely in DANGER).
The guy that I am supposed to work with, Rick, he is a graduate student too. He past his Qualifying exam last year around this time. He already looks like a Ph.D professor. He has this mustache beard thing going on, and seems to be for the majority of time very serious. Anyways I am not going to write his biography here. The point is that when I went to meet with him about the project I was going to work on he was so brief, cold, disconnected like if he'd never been scared himself. Like if he'd never been a first year graduate student in his life, like if he were a Harvard professor. Even if Harvard would have accepted me I would not have gone cause then I would have found many professors acting like how Rick acted THAT day!
First reason why I am scared: I don't know SHIT! Second reason why I am scared: Rick did not act friendly, no comfort what so ever! Third reason why I am scared: I once worked with a French raging pscyhopath post doc on a research project and I am completely traumatized! She would scream at me at the top of her lungs for mistakes. (It took me 3 months to figure out how to do an ELISA because my brain would reverse into a 1 year old after her screaming.) I am so traumatized from that experience that I have decided to never work in France.
Anyways I am just scared that Rick is not going to understand that I do not know anything and that unfortunately it is his job to teach me EVERYTHING.....
Wish me luck you guys.
I wish I could be possesssed by a dead brilliant scientist, just to get me thru tomorrow.