31 Things to Save the Day :)

Most of the time, if I don't wake up on the right side of the bed, in the best position, with the best temperature, at the right time, I will be in a hell of a bad mood. Given that alternative results would require so many strict conditions, me being in a good mood is rare. This is specially true now that I am NOT in the right lab... But by inspiration from my friends' blogs here is a list of things that could possibly make me smile even in a bad day...well...maybe..

1- A good hug and kiss from Carlos. Without me going thru a list of things to do or improve during the hug and kiss.
2- The both of us getting home 3 hours before midnight and having time to eat, drink, talk, and watch tv.
3-CHOCOLATE! Be it, Godiva, Kit kat, Hersheys with Almonds, Kisses... Or a chocolate souffle
4- Yali's Caffe latte without foam
5- Weekend breakfast cooked by Carlos (specially poached eggs)...
6-Imagining our children happily running around in the fields of our dream home with a huge shaggy white dog.
7-Being completely immersed in a long experiment while listening to awesome music on my IPOD and being completely sure that I have not done any stupid mistakes..
8-Having a long really funny phone conversation with my mom.
9-Some person coming up to me when I have nothing to do and confiding in me.
10-Having friends hang out at my place and knowing full well that everybody is having a BLAST!
11- Kicking ass a whole semester in a class (Virology).
12- Having more than 2 good figures on a lab presentation.
13- Having someone from my first rotation tell me that they all miss me and need me to come back.
14- Going to some function with my collegues, getting tipsy and making them have a good time (having a good conversation or making them laugh).
15- Halting a conversation with my older collegues in which I've been talking about really deep complicated science, and realizing that I understood everything and have proposed new ideas to them or even new point of views....OR just knowing that I've taught them something.
16-Carlos coming over to my lab and being entertained while I work.
17- Sleeping in.... Sleeping more than 5 hours (RARE these days) Sleeping 8 hours or more (impossible).
18- Having a day in which I do not have to worry about a presentation, about homework, about lab work, about my project, about the Qual, about professors, about people, about rotations.....-Yeah right, like if that were possible.
19-Buying for clothes guilt-free.
20-Getting out of the gym knowing I worked out more than I ever had before. Reached a new set point.
21-Meeting my friends for lunch and cracking up- without having to worry about going back to lab soon.
22-Wearing preaty clothes and having people say I look preaty (very rare in Berkeley).
23- Sunsets that I can see (a cloudless day).
24- 75 degrees ferenheit days with sun and no humidity (Impossible in Northern California)
25-Making my career oponents look like idiots in class or lab.
26-Sleeping without interrruption.
27-Waking up without the alarm clock, completely rested.
28-Lying in bed with Carlos, talking about silly things and having him crack up at something stupid I've said.
29- Surviving a presentation/interview knowing I couldn't have done better than that.
30-Getting tipsy off wine and cheese and chocolate (very rare since I am only sleeping 3 hours daily and have to be awake and completely ok at work).
31- Imagining Carlos' reaction (in the far future) after I tell him I am pregnant. (I AM NOT PREGNANT but I like to imagine this day).

Fabulous Mentors..

So in my first rotation, my rotation mentor (that is the person teaching me how things work in the lab) didn't leave me until he was sure it was okay to leave me. Although I can imagine that I am the most exhaustive person ever, he didn't go on any trips anywhere until I had presented.

Here, well it is another story. My current rotation mentor, Jose, for this lab left to a conference last week Wensday, and now he is going to Mexico for a week. He said he will not be back until June 18th. My presentation is on the 26th. In a way I don't mind that he is gone specially to Mexico, where he has absolutely no signal. This will mean that he can't nag anymore about my results. This way we can't get into nasty fights. This way I don't feel like he talking down to me as if I were a donkey. But that doesn't mean that it is right for him to leave me in the middle of my rotation and not come back until a week before my stupid presentation.

In the mean time I've been left with soooo many things to do and only 10 microliters of Anti-mouse PE conjugated MHC I FACS antibody, Hardly enough for me to be able to do 1 experiment....

Successful Parties....Experiments that fail

This weekend was Memorial Day weekend, the only 3 day weekend before the 4th of July. 1 month ago I announced to my friends that I was going to throw a party for them at my "new place" in Emeryville on the 26th of May. I had not known then that date fell on the Memorial 3 Day Weekend. Had I known I would have instead gone down to San Diego with Carlos to relax, see the sun for the first time in Months (since theres no sun in Northern California). But then after I had already schedueled things, I figure it was a miracle that everybody could make it on the same day and I sacrificed San Diego for the party.
I had only slept 4 hours on Friday, then in the morning, I had to run to lab to play with my tissue cultures and finish my westerns. Coincidently Jose called me at 10:30 am to check up on me. It was funny that he thought he would wake me up from sleep and instead I was already in lab. So I tried my best to get everything done, and then I went to the supermarket.

By the time I got home it was 1 pm. I had to go back to lab at 3 pm. All day, We were cleaning up and running around. By the time I returned from my 3 pm run to the lab it was 4:00 pm. Carlos looked fresh out of the shower. I baked an Angel FoodCake within an hour and started preparing the vegeterian Lasagna while Carlos took care of the sauce.

It was a successful party, Rick, whom I had not seen since forever showed up. And then the usual suspects, Sheri, Maria, Tania, and David showed up also. Since I had done everything in a rush I had low expectations on the Lasagna and the cake but both turned out to be very good. I was surprised at how much everybody liked the lasagna, including Carlos. Just this sunday morning the first thing he said was "that lasagna was really good". I smiled.
We had tons of fun. We talked about everybody and everything. We made up a Shit List of 9 people we LOVE to HATE! We drank we ate until there was no tomorrow, we listened to music. Carlos and Maria argued 100 times. Rick drank, Carlos drank, and Nick drank. We watched foamy. We looked up webpages.....Talked about everything!
It felt good to finally have my friends over at my CLEAN apartment. Sigh. This was the first day that my apartment looked decent. It is soooo relaxing to have an apartment thats not filled with boxes and that you can actually walk around in.

In the mean time, in the background of things, Carlos had been giving me a weird vive. I just...I don't know.. I didn't feel like he was there with me. It could have just been guilt because I had been a very bad girl the day before. I am not even going to go thru it. We hardly talked all day and I felt like everytime we did say something to eachother we were on the verge of an argument. That didn't help my stress. I kept trying to instigate the fight that was boiling but it just wouldn't happen. Then I tried hugging and kissing....Nope...It just wasn't flying. Truth is that he didn't ease up on me until he got a little drunk. And then finally FINALLY I breathed and smiled and relaxed. He finally opened up on me. There was my husband. He was so funny too. He just sat down, played with his computer and made fun of us. Everybody enjoys his sense of humor.
Anyways, the lasagna was soooo good that there were NO leftovers. Everybody was so full after that they hardly ate the cake. So now I have a bunch of angel food cake at home...> :)
People left when once again, Carlos started snoring. Sitting down, snoring. hehehe. Truth is I was wiped out too.
It was very relaxing, and nice to have everyone at my CLEAN home.
>:) This thing about having real friends, that you can count on, that you can actually talked to, that show up to your parties just to hang out, That thing, It is quite nice!!!! Infact it is awesome.
I've never had that before. Frankly I thought I would never have it but now that I do I got to say, "Thank GOD!"

If it weren't for how my project is going in the annoying lab, life would be perfect. It is 4 weeks til my rotation ends and here I am, NO RESULTS... But whatever, you can't have your cake and eat it too. I rather my personal life be perfect in exchange for a few heartaches in the job.

Thanks guys, for coming over to my party. woooo-HOOOO!

Meeting with Advisor

Well well well,
I met with my current PI and she got into a very stormy nasty mood after. I don't know if it was me that set her off. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. I am so sick and tired of wondering if the professors like me, if I did good. I am tired of trying to get their approval. I don't give a damn anymore. You want to get in a bad mood go ahead. I am not responsible for anyone elses happiness.
The only person I have to keep happy is Carlos and myself.
I am just DONE!
ENOUGH!
I have the feeling that she doesn't like me and for the first time I don't care anyway.

On the other hand I stayed in lab until like 10:30 pm. I had fun talking to Karen and Sumi and even Jose. I found it funny that I was the first one in the lab and the last one out... That is a very common theme to this lab lately. My car was literally the last one in the parking lot. I was exhausted. I had told Jose that I was going to sleep in. I slept 9 hours.
Oh what a sin, sleeping 9 hours. My head should be chopped off, ahhh, how dare I? Oh my God a graduate student actually getting enough sleep?

See y'all later!
Isa

Forgetting this week

We all had a bad week here. It has just been crazy. None of our experiments worked this week. Yesterday morning I was talking to Tania and Sheri and telling them that all we needed now was a death in the family. But I spoke too soon. Tania may actually have to go to NYC next week because a new family member of hers, an infant niece, is sick.

We are all graduate students. What does that mean? We take pride in the pain that we can take. We don't like people to think that we can't take crap so most of the time when we are going through hell you'll hear us repeat many times, "I'll be okay. This is nothing. I've been through worse." The way to know if a graduate student is "actually" going to be okay is that after she/he says these little comments, if they sigh, then that means they are NOT okay at all. They are just saying they are okay so that you can have the opportunity to walk away and ignore them, like many fake idiots around them do. This is also a strategy many graduate students use. They tell you that they are okay, unconsciously sigh, and then if you walk away you are forever labeled as an idiotic fake butthead. It is just that simple. Yes, it only takes that little.

So yesterday morning, Sheri was sighing away, I was on the verge of tears, just like I had been for the last 3 days, and Tania was sighing away too. Remember Tania only recently joined our "Scoobie Doo Gang" so she doesn't realize yet that we are real people. So when she said, "I'm over it. I'm okay." (She was referring to being kicked out of Oldfrows lab. {She didn't know about her niece yet})
I said, "You don't have to be strong for us Tania, just be miserable, we understand".... We couldn't stop sighing. We couldn't complain anymore. Sheri said, "I need the party today cause I want to forget about all this."

I said,"Why don't we just go to my place? I'll make you guys dinner, we'll buy some cookies, watch a movie or two. You guys can even stay over. That way I'll be home, where I want to be, Carlos will be fed the minute he gets home and we can all 'just forget' "...
So we got together at my place and it was just so much fun and relaxing. We shot the shit (talking). I finally got the chance to show them my baby pictures and my modeling pictures. I think now they can understand why I believe myself to be fat.
We talked about so many things that I don't even remember. Oh and Tania actually liked my paintings. {Sigh...I miss painting}

We watched Under The Tuscan Sun. I cooked my salmon alfredo fettucini. And we drank baileys, beer, wine, grape juice, water. We ate cookies. We also watched the beginning of Monsters Inc. Sheri had not watched under the tuscan sun and Maria had not seen Monsters Inc. Carlos started snoring (literally) around 1 am. Sheri got real tired all the sudden, and everybody left.

No rotation...Still an Orphan...

What a week. I have had fights with everyone on Earth. I fought with a post doc I don't even know, with my husband, with Jose. It is a miracle I didn't end up fighting with a dead wet cat in the street.
I am so depressed I might as well throw myself from Warren hall. The professor at UCSF rejected my ass. I wasnt getting a good vive out of that lab because of the post doc anyway. I want to die.
Can someone just kill me.
Now I know what you all are going to say and yes I already contacted another HIV professor at UCSF. This is basically my last chance.
IF this guy doesn't accept me Old Frow is going to have to take me.
:(
Can I please get some weed, antidepressents and lots of alcohol and sex and chocolates.
Some one shoot me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Isa

An Interview and a Post Doc from HELL!

So I finally interviewed with a professor from UCSF. This guy is big time in HIV research. He was very sweet to me. Really nice. He told me that he was not sure he could take me though because he didn't know how long he would be there. He was very nice. The one that was not nice was his post doc. OH MY GOD what an asshole! He told me that I didn't have enough Immunology background. Can you believe this idiot?
Me the woman whose taken 2 immunology classes, is going to take another one next semester and then did research in immunology for 2 and 1/2 years! AND I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH BACKGROUND. I told him: I've taken 3 immunology classes and worked in the research field for 3 years I feel very well grounded. Thank YOU!

He kept batting balls at me like if I wasn't going to be able to handle his crap. He told me a bunch of crap but I put them all down. I didn't know that American post docs could be so stupid, unnecessarily cruel and narrow minded. WOW! This one was just as bad as that French post doc I had to deal with once. SIGH.... There's always an asshole. He upset me so much but not in an "Im going to cry" kind of way, more like a I want to snap his balls off and make his mother eat them for breakfast in the morning, while he watches. I was so angry I gave him "The look", The look my mom used on me when I was doing something wrong and she was about to punch me out of my chair. The look every single latina in Washington Heights gives her boyfriend when he is looking at a fine piece of butt. It is the look that lets people know, "YOU have crossed my limit and I am not responsible for wringing your neck for it".

Why did he do it? Everyone keeps asking me that. I think there are 4 possibilities here

1) He saw that I was a girl and he hates the idea of women being successful.
2) He saw that I was not white blonde with blue eyes and he hates that.
3) He got envious that I have so much research experience when he has probrably been doing the same thing all his life.
4) He graduated from UCSF and can't stand the fact that I am from UC Berkeley.

Either way. All of those reasons are so petty it is just disgusting. This guy is just about the same lines of morals as our little Melissa at UC berkeley. Like I said theres always a smelly asshole. I was so pist off after that I got stopped by a cop for running a light. Don't worry I didn't get a ticket. He told me I ran a light and I said: I didn't see a light at all DUDE. I don't know what was he doing giving me a ticket no one else in San Fran obeys traffic laws.
Tomorrow I have to meet with my current PI... Sigh... I have no results.

If I don't get into the lab at UCSF I am going to go to Old-Frows lab. Just because I have an idea for a project. Yeah, I am that depressed. I am suicidal.

A typical Grad-SChool Day!

Quote of the Semester, "We fool ourselves into thinking that up to the present moment we have not done our best to suceed"- Dee.

So yesterday was such a how do you say....hmmm. Oh gee well, awful day!
First I come in to school and Maria and I still had to work on our Bat Statistics paper. Maria wrote most of it while for every sentence I provided her with synonyms or assurement. She allowed me to write 1 paragraph. I looked up more information on papers. Anyways Maria was typing away like if this were her thesis. Like if the most sexiest thing in the world were bats. She almost became a bat herself but then she finished the paper at 2:30 pm. David and Sheri all the sudden showed up. We were so happy. In the mean time Maria was trying to send both of us the paper by email so that we could print it out in Haviland and therefore turn it in.
We were so proud of our Bat paper. But then all the sudden Maria starts crying because the paper has dissapeared. I wasn't worried, I knew I could find it. So I grab my computer start looking for it. NOPE no paper. Oh gee let me try this. NOPE no paper.... Search Search Search. I give the computer to David... Oh gee let me see what happend...Oh no paper. Then I call Carlos because Carlos has gotten me out of hard times like these like 2 times in my life. And we end up downloading 2 recovery programs...
Finally to make a story short we couldn't recover the document we could only recover a "PREVIEW" of the document. It was already 4:30 pm. The paper was due at 5 pm! What the hell were 3 first years and 1 second year graduate students to do?
Well we decided that we were going to dictate a 6 page paper to Sheri. THe poor thing. I was so frustrated, confused, anxious and at the same time I was having PMS. I had not really eaten lunch so my stomach was killing me and I had a headache from hell. A splitting headache. I was soooooo upset I took a walk. I started the 2nd part to my western. Poor Sheri finished writing the paper at 6pm. I went to develope my Western blot (which so far, the only thing that Jose can say about them is that "at least they are consistent"). Then like at 6:30 we went to Jupiters to eat and drink. I took a glass of wine, slices of pizza, and then we just sat down and talked a lot of shit about teaching classees, about Sex, about my idea for Lake Tahoe, etc etc. Finally the headache went away and so did the horrible stomachache. I went back to lab.
What do I find in lab? Well, Jose was pissed off at me for taking my time with Dinner. But I ignored him. I was kind of tipsy and he noticed which made him even more pist off. I ignored him and just developed my film. At one point I had to yell at him, "Calm down already!" Only like an hour after did I turn on my phone and saw that both Jose and Carlos had sent me a bunch of text messeges. I apologized to Jose and told him, "Im sorry I didn't get your text messeges, my phone was off and since I was watching the time I knew that it was not time to develope the western yet" (I mean for Christ sakes I was only 15 minutes late). So then while I am waiting for the membranes to wash I get this brilliant idea to call my husband.
"Hi baby, I am sorry I didn't call you earlier, my phone died on me", Thats what I wanted to say.
But instead Carlos yells at me, "Are you alive?"
"Calm down, my phone died on me and thats why I am calling you."
"I don't want to talk to you right now."
"CLICK"

All the sudden my hand started shaking my heart was going at a 100 mph and I just wanted to cry. I looked at Jose and he looked at me. I smiled trying to pretend that everything was just beautiful! I all the sudden start rushing. I almost add the wrong antibody to the wrong gells but Jose stops me. He gets mad at me again because he once again concludes that I can't do shit without him. I try to play it down.
I start thinking about how maybe mom is right about Carlos only being able to stand this "grad school shit" for only so long. Grad school shit=working all the time + unpredictable experiments at the last minute I must run + depressing weeks because nothing is working + exams + etc.....
I start wondering why he is so mad. I think well maybe he got home early and cooked expecting me to be there. Maybe he needed something. Maybe he didn't finish something at work just to meet me at home and then realized I wasn't there. I finish up my gel as soon as humanly possible. I am still acting like if absolutely nothing is wrong with Jose. He actually feels sorry for me and drives me to the parking lot.
As soon as I get into the car I start feeling relieved that I don't have to pretend to anyone that everything is "just fine". I drive like a bat out of hell, looking for cops telling myself to slow down cause this would not be the time to have an accident or get a cops ticket. Then I start thinking how things would be if I had an accident, "the ambulance/police would call Carlos because I have my drivers licence and my insurance car in my wallet". I get home, I can not believe I am home ALIVE. I made it there! My stomach start hurting, my heart is racing, my cheeks are on fire. I am doubting everything!!!!
Carlos comes out of the bathroom and we just stare eachother down like in a Western. "what does he want? What? How can I make this better? I don't want a divorce. I need him. I want him. What will I do without him? He is the only one that understands me."
But instead we start having a fight.
"I can't do this anymore."
"Be strong Isa" I tell myself.
"What the hell do you mean that you can't do this anymore?"
"I can't take another one of these where you don't have the consideration to call me and let me know that your phone is just dead. Do you know how worry I was about you? It is 10:40 pm for Christ sakes! I went all the way to your school's parking lot and your car was not there! Where the hell have you been?!"
WHERE the fuck did the time go? It should be 8 pm but instead it was 10:40 pm. No wonder...
I apologized. While in my mind I was pissed I was crying, I was thinking screaming, "I don't want to loose US!!!!!"
I was at school there are other parking lots. I can't park in that parking lot if I get to school after 9 am. Carlos offered to change our dynamics. The new strategy being that he will no longer give a shit at what time I would get home. He will not depend on me at all. I fought to keep our relationship just the same. I explained to him that it was not that I didn't care, it was not that i didn't think about calling him.... I told him how much I worry about us. 90% of couples divorce within the 2 first years of graduate school- this was a statistics none of my New York friends allowed me to forget. He couldn't believe that I had not taken the time to call me to text him, to email him eventhough I had had the time to go out for drinks! (He had called Maria and she had told him that "we had gone out for drinks")......
I went into the shower to cool off, to grab some comfort. I was too upset to cry. I felt better after an hour of showering. It was now 11:40 pm. Carlos came over to me and apologized for not understanding. He started crying. My eyes just couldn't get wet but there was that feeling in my chest that let me know you should be crying.

In the worst moments of my life I find, I am completely unable to cry, I cry days after, hours after it is all over but while the hurricane is passing I just get pissed.

I was staring at the ceiling finally I hugged him and apologized for 2 hours while he did the same. We went to sleep. At 5 AM the alarm went off. We got up at 6 and I cooked breakfast. And now, here I am ready for a whole new day.

GO Ahead Gradschool SHIT what are you going to throw at me today? What? My experiments are going to suck? Then go ahead make them suck...What I am going to have a terrible interview tomorrow? Go ahead! Be terrible. I don't give a shit anymore!

Bats after midnight

Quote of the day, "Don't feed the graduate students."


Yesterday was mothers day. I called my mom around 1 pm as I was getting into my car to go to lab. I thought I would only go to lab for like 4 hours. I thought that would be more than enough time for me to set up a gradient western gel, lyse my cells, do a bradford test, load my proteins, transfer them, block them, and leave the primary antibody over night. It turns out I didn't take many things into account. For example, I didn't take into account that I would have to do 4 gells, that I had around 36 samples, and most importantly that I didn't know where anything was. I didn't think finding things would be so hard since at some point or another Jose would show up. I was wrong. I was thinking he would show up around 6 pm. But instead he showed up at 11 pm.
So everytime I couldn't find something I tried my best not to but I ended up calling him to ask where it was. No where along the line did it occur to him to tell me that this would take long to just leave it for monday.
Well long ass story short, I ended up eating lunch at 10:30 pm, and dinner at 11:00 pm. Then Maria showed up to write the final assignment for Stats like around midnight. Our paper was subject on the data about different species of Bats. This data was collected by her brother. We found out that unlike the male bat, the female's length of call can be predicted solely by the intensity of the call. While the male bat's call depends on all kinds of things.
Yeah, we ended up getting out of UC Berkeley campus at 2 AM...
I was so pist because my whole sunday was down the drain. I was planning to read all of the papers related to my old project and Jay Levy's recent papers on innate immunity and HIV. But I ended up doing the most annoying western and writing about Bats til after midnight.
"Welcome to Grad School" sigh.....

Tsk Tsk Finals

So I am not expecting much of a grade in Infectious Diseases Class because tomorrow is my final and I have not studied for it at all. I am having a really bad case of senioritis only I am a pure freshman. I am in an "I just don't give a crap" mode. I just feel like everything about that class is bullshit. The professor takes points off when we don't spell things exactly how he said them. He doesn't encourage other's view points. Everytime me or Maria say something he shoots it down. I just don't respect the class and any respect I have for him is because of what he has done outside of the classroom. Like his career...

It seems like everybody is getting published....YEY! Sheri is gonna get published, Maria is getting published. I've got nothing to complain about cause I got published already. I kind of wish I could be getting published again though...

I have an interview next week with UCSF to see if they'll let me do a rotation over there. This is with one of the big guys in HIV. Everyone is excited for me. In the mean time I am just sooooo scared because he has a bad reputation. He is supposed to be a very bad boy, I mean he is really cruel. He made one of my friends cry in an interview. Now that I know this about him, I know I can take him but still I am scared. I've also got a lot of work to do like I need to read my old papers and his papers at the same time and I better know my crap.

Lab has gotten so much better. I think the lab has finally accepted the fact that I am going to be there for the next 2 months and that they are just gonna have to enjoy me whether they like it or not. Yeah, people have finally warmed up to me. I just don't get people like that. I believe that when you meet someone you just get to know them. You don't put up a wall of brick and make them feel like crap and then 3 weeks later start talking to them. What the hell is that? What are they afraid I will dissapear? What the hell? I don't get it. I mean what do you have to loose? Anyways, thats the Gringo way dude. And there is just nothing I can do about it. The point is that I hit a rough spot with this people and now, well it is a rocky rode but it is a lot better.
So I actually got results yesterday from a western blot. YEY!!!! Oh thank GOD! DOn't tell the evil gnomes please, they'll give me bad ju-ju again. If I can just get 3 slides of results I'll be completely satisfied and ready for my next rotation.

PI's are amazing though. On the first day back my current PI starts going off on how her top choice students are still thinking of going to her lab. I was like "and what am I spoiled eggs"? Everyone in the lab brought it up to her attention that she still had another rotation student in lab that she couldn't be talking about "TOP students and how all the lab spots were taken". Then like 2 days later she is talking about when my rotation is going to be over. I've gotten to the point where unless a PI is telling you something about how to do a project or something important like that you just IGNORE the hell out of it. Laugh at it...HAHAHHA! Because these people are just crazy! They've got multiple personalities and schizophrenia all at the same time. The only one that I am still susceptible to is the "Old frow". I am just so intimidated and scared from him/her. Yeah, i am not even going to distiguish the sex.
So I am not mad at my current PI but we just don't seem to be hitting it great. Maybe she is just like the lab. She too has a brick wall of a barrier.

Anyways. I luvs all of u's! I am so hyper.
:')

Pictures

Here is a picture of Carlos.... Doesn't he look super sexy?
You don't want to see any recent pictures of me... Graduate School has taken a toll on me and now I look less attractive than an old crow.

Hey that rhymes, crow and toll. Not really.
Oh well!

(Major Procrastination going on here...I don't want to study for finals.)

New Friends....New Labs...Spiderman and More bitchin

So Tania has turned out to be very cool. She reminds me of the post docs I met in New York. Very well grounded, knows what she wants and no one could possibly stand in her way. Not in a million years. We watched Greys Anatomy last week. It was fun. I ate all of her crackers for dinner. Sorry Tania. I was really hungry.
I went out to lunch with Dave this Friday. It felt good to finally talk and hang out with him. We are always so busy. But it changed my view of him in a weird way. I mean it just showed me another side of him, a more confident more grown up side of him.
Anyways it feels so good to have a circle of friends to bitch, complain, and cry to.
Maria got sick this week. She has an E. coli kidney infection. I feel so bad cause I didn't go with her and Sheri and Dave to the ER. I didn't visit her in her place while she was sick. Lab has taken over me. It is like the evil Spiderman suit it is bringing out the disgusting me. I felt so bad when I stayed behind and Sheri took her to the hospital. I felt like I should have been in that car. Then I got super nervous and scared. I was scared for her. What if this turned out to be something serious? What if..... My heart raced for like an hour and a half. Manolo (My new Rick) didn't know what to do with me. I was a wreck. But I had to stay behind to count cells. I ended up counting the GODAMN cells 4 times! And every single time I lost my way. My emotions were overflowing. I scared the shit out of the Riley lab. No one there likes me anymore.
I basically screamed at all of them because Maria needed someone to treat her mice while she was out. Here I am telling them that she's gone to an emergency room and they have this blank look on their faces. Their blank look pist me off, it annoyed me. So.....the evil Isa came out.
I'll find a way to repair the wounds I want to heal. There are a few I don't care about, to be honest.
I can't wait to get out of this lab. I pray to God and the angels and the stars and whomever is out there that my next rotation turns out to be just as good as my first one. Despite the fact that it will be in San Francisco I want this one to work out. In my current lab, I like the project but the enviroment is not what I want and besides everybody is leaving this year.

Anyways as you can tell I went to see Spiderman III today, instead of studying or getting some lab work done. It was okay but Spiderman II is still the "BOMB". Like I was telling Carlos, with Spiderman II I cried, I laughed, I fell in love.... In this one... Well I love Venom. IT is too bad they wasted it all in 4 shots instead of it having its own part. I think it should have been venom and Spidermans bad sute alone without the Sandman. AND MaryJane should have died, like she does, in the comics. I can't believe that the director didn't have the balls to kill her.

Anyways, guys. Sorry I am in such a stormy mood lately. Shit is happening. What else can I say?
Gots to go back to Science now.

Rotations...and other horrifying experiences

It is surprising that Universities actually let you do more than 1 rotation. It is even more surprising that we, the graduate students, actually stay after the first rotation.
A rotation is a 12 week period in which you engage in research in a particular lab of your choice and learn not only the techniques used in the lab but all the dirty secrets of the lab. You learn all the bad things about that professor all the bad and good things about the students and post docs. The problem with this set up is that usually the students of the lab scare the hell out of the rotating students and tell them the most horrifying secrets ever told on Earth.

I remember when I was working as a tech in other schools, the graduate and post docs of those labs would tell the incoming rotation students every single bad detail so that the new students would be completely disillusion and pick another lab. We always thought it was for the best of the rotating student. What we didn't realize is that this was happening to the student in all the other labs also. Imagine spending 12 weeks in 3 labs, thats a total of 36 weeks, with people telling you horrible things about those labs and then you having to choose which one is the lesser of the 3 evils. The lesser evil in which you will become a new slave to, for the next 6 years of your life.
Sigh....
When I applied here, I was so sure of which labs I wanted to rotate in. I knew which lab I wanted to stay in. I remember crying like a baby on my bathroom floor when I thought I would not get accepted to grad school, when I thought that I wouldn't be able to work in that lab....sigh. Things change my bloggies, things just change and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it cause we are nothing but graduate students, we are the scum eaten by the bacteria on the fungus on the mountain of feces in a field of cows. In another words we are nothing. We are powerless.

I am so sorry but I am ultra-depressed because I am in my second rotation and I am just not feeling the joy. At the same time I can't return to my first rotation because of the secrets.... the horrible secrets... "If you stay in this lab you are NUTS" (thats all I hear)

And then, at the same time I do not have any where else to go. I don't have another lab to rotate in. I am so scared. I am a graduate student without a home. I just want to go home. I want to be in a lab that I look forward to working in at 10 pm at night. I want to feel like I felt in my first rotation, yes the one I can't go back to.
For those of you that are confused: I loved my first rotation (the project, the students, even the pathogen) but I learned some secrets of the professor and the system of the lab that do not allow me to return. I just keep remembering one night in which I was doing a large prep (DNA extraction from a bacteria). It was 8 pm and then it was 9 pm and then it became 10 pm and I was fine in lab. A little tired but I was enjoying myself. There was another day in which I was in lab at 10 pm doing a western blot and I was happy. There was an earthquake that night and i was in lab, all by myself and I was completely happy.

Conclusion to this email: I am not happy when at 10 pm I all the sudden remember that in the morning I have to be in lab. I am not happy when I find myself in this new lab at 1pm. This is just not my home.