All moved in. Surrounded by boxes.
Team Move I was fabulous; Team Move II was canceled. Backup Team Move (Rockford and our friend Brent) were fabulous, but now they are tired.
Monthly Archives: September 2007
Parting Shots
Top quotes from my labmates from the previous week prior to my departure:
“Hey, get us some free stuff!”
Said in all seriousness. This was from one of our post-docs upon hearing I will be working for a biotech distribution company.
“Most of all, I want to thank Rockford for planning our lab retreat.”
Apparently I wasted my time at the bench. I should have just been party-planning. This one was from my boss on the topic of what he was proud of me accomplishing in the last year at my send-off lunch.
Sidenote: I didn’t even attend the retreat, which was at the beach, because we needed to pack for the move.
On a scientific note, this next one takes the cake. The setting is lab meeting last Wednesday. I am presenting my last data sets. Really, this was some of the best data I was able to generate and will hopefully become a part of a publication soon. One of the proteins I am introducing/discussing is called Ferritin, a protein involved in sequestering iron. I am presenting some work I did to knockdown the protein and then look at certain innate immune responsive gene targets upon stimulation when the protein is absent. About ten slides into the presentation, after having introduced the protein and having already gone over two or three results slides, a certain post-doc turns to me and says:
“So what is Ferritin?”
Not all the quotes were like these. I can say that some of the best friends I have made in the scientific realm have been from the last year in this lab. Example? Here’s the last thing Kent said to me before I left the lab for the last time:
“You are my first American friend.”
These friends have been very kind and supportive through the last week, and I am grateful for that. Here is a list of things I will miss:
I learned a lot over the last year. Most of what I learned was not from the bench but rather from interactions with my labmates. I wish them all good luck in the future.
Showing her two-ness
Poppy and I just had one of those outings. The kind where the other moms look at you with pity and the less-sympathetic scornfully avoid looking at you at all.
To Poppy’s credit, our outings are rarely traumatic. Today, though, all was not well in Mudville.
Our first stop was the grocery store. For nothing more than half a gallon of milk. Should have been quick and painless. It was quick, but it wasn’t exactly painless.
At other stores, I don’t hesitate to take Pi for a spin in the fancy race-car shopping carts. This particular store’s carts are more bumper car than NASCAR, though, so I try to avoid them. Otherwise, I end up crashing into every display in the store.
So I tried to put Poppy into a regular cart, and she spotted the “Red Cart.” And she screamed, and her little legs turned into iron, and she would not sit down. As I was trying to bend her legs, an older woman came over to offer her advice: “Oh, just give her the red cart. Poor, pretty little thing.”
I snapped her cane in half and lugged Screaming Poppy through the store.
Then we went to the post office, where they do not have race-car carts. But they do have an ample supply of People Who Shoot You Dirty Looks When Your Toddler Collapses in a Fit of Woe.
I think naptime might come early today.