Christmas... No matter What...

Hello kitties!
First I want to say MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

This whole thing with the Qual has been a roller coaster really. I get really happy and confident when I meet with the professors, then a few days later I loose faith and get so depressed I cry every hour. Yes it has gotten that bad. Sheri almost slapped me the other day and told me to put myself together. Or she should have. It was the day that Maria was taking her test. I guess I was anxious for myself and for her and when that was together I just crashed and burned.
The hardest part of the whole process has been finding a secondary. Just thinking about it makes my blood boil because it is the most un-useful thing this department/school has ever come up with, to make you do another proposal on something you've never worked on.... Why not just let us concentrate on our own shit? It pisses me off and I swear that if I pass this test I am going to do everything possible to get rid of the secondary. If it weren't for the secondary I would be studying for my primary. I would have had it perfect by now...but no... Instead I've been thru 3 different pathogens and 6 different proposals.

Anyways, believe it or not I am not blogging to complain.

I blogged today because it is Thanksgiving. I had forgotten what all that meant. But today, I didn't want to get off bed and I just had that distant look on my face. Carlos kept telling me to get up and start studying but I was just so tired so out of energy. Then all the sudden he went down stairs put the TV on and there it was. The Macys Thanksgiving Day parade.
He knew that my mom and I would always get up extra extra early to watch it on TV from start to finish. I couldn't believe that I had actually forgotten that the parade was on Thanksgiving Day.
So even though there was a constant voice in the back of my brain saying that I should be studying I sat down and watched it. My eyes filled with tears when Santa came out. And then all the sudden I remembered no matter what it is my favorite time of the year, it is officially, Christmas... No matter what in a few weeks I'll be visiting family. No matter what Carlos and I are going to Dominican Republic together for the first time...

Really on the grand scheme of things, how important is it that I fail or pass? There are other more rewarding, high paying, enjoyable careers out there. Besides, if I am not good enough I SHOULD be moving on. This mission, this career, has taken so much out of my life... Maybe it is time to move on.

I was talking to Dr. Caroline Kane the other day, as usual she filled me with comfort and confidence and I told her I hope I pass because I am not going to do this twice. She said you can do it twice if need be and we'll carry you through it because thats our job...But thats all she said because I am sure she saw that look on my face, the one that says "no enough is enough".

But again, No matter what, it is Christmas. It is that time of the year, when it gets cold, when you put up ridiculous trees with crazy ornaments and lights even though you don't know what they mean. When you buy gifts and get them and hang out with family and kids. It is that time to think about how are you going to make your life better? How are you going to change for the better? It is that time when I allow myself, just for a few seconds, to believe in Santa Clause and elves, and wizards, and mermaids, and Magic.... When I allow myself to think like a kid. And this test is not going to take that away from me...No matter what.

Yes We Can....

I am beyond happy that Obama won. I'm sorry republicans but if McCain would have won the world would not be jumping for joy as it is for Obama. If Obama would have lost, it would have been the expected and Europe and South America would be saying, "Ofcourse he didn't win. He is black!"
But he won, and everyone is so hopeful.
So here is my take on this whole shbang.

I grew up with a Hispanic immigrant family. In my family, the only people that I could be sure were legal were my parents and my grandma. That is it. So it doesn't take a genius to realize that were poor in America. There were many times that my mom should have been on welfare, but she had way too much pride for that, and instead risked having some really hard days, in which we didn't know what or how we were going to eat for dinner. So growing up, I guess my family got used to just getting by. With all the big hurtles that they had to overcome they didn't have the energy to even consider doing something big. So every time I would say, "hey when I grow up I am going to be rich". They would laugh. When I would say, "hey I want to go to Europe, to go to all the museums and see the work of Michaelangelo". They would say "thats impossible". When I said, "I am going to be a doctor". They ridiculed me. When I said I am going to get into Graduate school, my mom said, "Stop acting like if you are some white rich girl. Poor Latin people can't afford to take on jobs like being a scientist. You need a job that pays the bills that is it!"
So... It has been hard. It has been really hard to Prove them all wrong. They convinced my sister out of becoming a ballerina. Which is something I will never forgive them for because she loves dancing. And ever since then, I feel like she has just been lost....

I am not rich but I proved them wrong when I went to Italy multiple times, when I went to Bali, and finally when I got into Grad School. The rewards are amazing. The younger generation of my family is using me as an example but again. It has been such a struggle.

With Obama's victory. Now instead of having 20 aunts, 5 uncles, and my mom saying, "thats impossible. you are crazy. Women can't do that....blah blah blah".
I feel like now, there is someone that is whispering into my ear, "yes you can"... FINALLY! Someone shut my family up. It is just such a relief. I feel like 20 elephants have been lifted from my back. I can't help but get all choked up and teary about it...
At the same time, with such cynicism through out my life, you have no idea how many times I thought, maybe mommy is right. Maybe I am crazy. Maybe I should just give up. And now with this event, with Obama getting all the way from a single mom's home to the White House, now I feel like there is just no excuse for me to give up. Is this what they call motivation?

I have promised myself that from now on every time I feel like just dropping dead right before I do it, I am going to just say aloud, "Yes I can"....

The Primary is Over...for now.

I turned my primary over to Andreas...
Andreas, just to remind you guys is a post doc in my lab. And he is the best writer we've got in the lab. Everybody turns their papers, grants whatever over to him before giving it to the big boss. It is not just that he is the best writer in the lab, he is a very good writer over all. He has gotten awards, he minored in English..etc etc.
This is why I am so scared what he'll say. I really really want him to say something the likes of, it has quite a few mistakes but I understood it overall. Which is something that most of my friends that have looked over it before have not been able to say. And the fact that my proposal, my baby, has not received good reviews before has just plain depressed me.
This is the first serious proposal I have ever written. I wrote a proposal for a class once last year but I basically wrote it within a weekend. So...yeah not much work went into that and then I had my friends rewrite what i did into English and turned it in. I knew that the professor was not going to read it so I didn't care.
This is different. This is my project. This is HIV, this is a big chunk of my life. It is personal. I am trying to convince myself that Andreas is going to say that it plain sucks and that I should quit grad school and to just expect the worse hope for the best, but it is not working that well.
What I have concluded from all this is that I am still not a good science writer. The positive way to look at this is that, I know that it is a skill that I can develop, I just have to work more on it...
I gave the proposal also to Brian. He was already pointing out a bunch of little mistakes and making fun of me. Which is okay because thats what Brian does. If Brian were a protein I would say, that is the Brian's mechanism.
At the same time I want the proposal to not have that many revisions because I have to write my secondary and I don't have time to work on the primary anymore, not if I want to take the week before the test to study.

The Qual Storm

It has taken so much energy and time to write my primary proposal that I am just too tired and depressed to care about whether I pass or not. I want it over with.
It took me about 3 weeks to write "a" proposal down, then it has taken me 2 weeks to revise the content, and now I have to give it to several people so that they can read and see if they approve, if I wrote it in English, how to translate the hieroglyphics.

I've been so busy with the content, the techniques, the rationale that I haven't taken 5 minutes to look over grammar, smoothness, ass kissing, blah blah blah. And now I am too tired of it to hear about petty corrections. Maybe when I start working on my secondary I'll have some free time away from the primary and be in a better mood.
Sigh....
Carlos and I went to visit his mother. She is sick but she doesn't look or sound it. The woman can't sit for a second. She runs around like a chicken without its head 24hrs a day. It is a relief that at least she is not bed ridden, but even now, she is not taking the best care of herself. I'm also worried about his Dad. Guess I am just worried about everything.

Flying over there and having to return made me realize that having family around is very comforting, almost makes life without it seem...sigh..whats the word I am looking for? meaningless? lonely?
I asked Carlos about this but Carlos doesn't need people. He says he needs me and just me... Which is ultra romantic and sweet, but I need people.
I guess what I am trying to get at is that going over there made me feel like I should have 5 children.

Whatever. I don't even understand myself. I am so tired and paranoid, I don't trust anyone. I am having nightmares almost everyday. I am not looking forward to seeing anyone in lab at all. The only thing I have to look forward to is leaving in December to go to Dominican Republic.