The Graduate Student Chronicles (Issue 5): A few weeks of firsts -- cold sore, symposium talk on sturgeon, and committee meeting!
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Published: March 3rd 2011
Well hello again all. Wow, these few weeks have flown by because so much has been happening! Not only are we all getting ready for our field seasons, but there is a lot of paperwork to do to finish up our first year in the Department of Zoology. These past few weeks…or rather months…have been crazy for me and it was starting to show. After going to Darwin Day at the museum, I went home and my lip started swelling. By the next morning, the right side was about twice as big as normal and hanging over my lower lip. It was my very first cold sore…I put up with it for about two days before I decided to go to Olin to get some advice about whether I should ice or heat it to make the swelling go down or use some time of cream on it to clear it up. The doctor was actually pretty cool and when she asked, "Have you been stressed out lately? Have you gone through any emotional trauma lately?" I just sat and stared…crickets hummed before I said, "I'm a...grad student..." Before I said another word, she said, “OH, NOW I understand” 😉. She
also put me on some anti-virals (did you know such a thing exists?) and was very impressed when I told her I already knew there was no instant cure for taming viruses and the anti-viral was more of way to stop them from replicating. In the back of my head, I really wonder how effective these 200mg blue tablets are that you must take 5 times a day. Placebo? Possibly…
The next day I led discussion at our lab meetings and introduced my lab mates to the wonders of the Devil’s Hole pupfish. These little fish show large developmental plasticity and huge differences in behavior even though their habitat is only about a foot deep at most. They also are genetically isolated since the desert where they live has had a lot of disturbance and made their giant pool into tiny little pools of water where these fish dominate. It was a fun paper, but the whole time, I got grilled on how this relates to my project and what was the bigger picture.
After that, I returned to the lab and after much practice and realizing the proper technique to load a vertical, acrylamide gel and not
have it come out smeary and looking like crap, I went out to celebrate! A bunch of my friends headed to Crunchy’s for karaoke night and we had a blast at this grad student favorite locale as a giant Polar Bear showed up, promoting his wonderful brand of vodka. We also all got free tickets for a shot (gotta take advantage of free stuff as a grad) and toasted the family only dreading sucking down the disgustingly sweet liquor immediately after. Stupid polar bear – he tricked you into his bad alcohol with his cuteness. He also wandered around and gave us tattoos (bear paw prints) which once we all had a little more alcohol decided would be fun to put on our faces, cheeks, or shoulders. Then we enjoyed some karaoke and almost got kicked out of the place for a 2nd time because the bouncer didn’t like Bene’s enthusiasm when she rushed to the microphone. We just looked at him and said, “she’s French” but he didn’t like that answer so much.
Besides playing, the weeks have been a little busy and crazy with work and volunteer stuff as well. I helped Lynn give another Gilman presentation
and shortly after, my own interview was added to the Gilman Youtube site. You can check it out here:
"> Lee actually took these last fall when I was in Chicago for the training seminar. They came out really nice. After our presentations, I started critiquing essays which was nice but took quite awhile. It was nice to hear where people were going and why they were interested in their countries. We ended up getting 52 applicants overall and I critiqued 15-20 essays total. I guess it was a nice boost from previous years.
In addition to that service, I’ve also been volunteering at the Capitol Area Humane Society. Since I’m more of an animal person, I thought it might cheer me up a bit so I went to the orientation and heard a sad story about a dog that got beaten, hog tied, and thrown in a ditch and left to die. A guy found her, pried her frozen but still alive body from the ground, and called the CAHS. I guess she didn’t show evidence of being a fighting dog, but was beaten on the head pretty badly by someone. She’s doing better now as authorities
look for her owner and I actually saw her the other day. She was super sweet, affectionate, and just a happy dog. So why would she be beaten? She’s a pitbull. Apparently, they get more abused because of their bad rep and there are a high percentage of them left at animal shelters. I’ve been interacting with a few at the shelter and they are all amazing. One black and white pitbull Sedona is amazingly sweet and very obedient so it just goes to show you it’s not the breed. All the dogs are amazing, the puppies are cute, the cats are either very finicky or crave attention, and the staff are die hard animal lovers. It's going to be fun but hard not to want to take them all home! I’ve already fallen in a love with a 9-month-old German Shepherd Lab mix named Chance who thinks he’s a lap dog and likes to lay across you then stick his butt in the air and chew on his toy while drooling all over you. I fell for him pretty quick. =)
I also presented at the Fisheries and Wildlife Graduate Student Organization symposium on February 25th, 2011. I
Post-docs from Jenny's lab!
Jason and Lily study sticklebackguess you could say I was a little nervous. I just started talking and talking science, moving quickly but solidly between slides, trying to explain every concept in a way that everyone could understand and reminding myself to explain my axes. I was almost at my conclusion slide when it suddenly hit me -- I was almost done and my cell phone hadn't vibrated telling me that there's only 3 minutes left which I had programmed so I wouldn't go OVER time. So I slowed down just a little and had a nice ending. The only person to ask a question was my friend, Bene, but I was relieved when it was over. Amazingly, I got 2nd place in my category and got approached by my friends, people I didn't know, and people I kind of knew all telling me my talk was very nice and they were excited where my research would go. It was a great feeling! 😊 And then...I ran into my advisor. Well things just were blah after that but I kept my head up and was very excited for my 2nd place. This was last week and so this week, two days ago (March 1st),
I had my first committee meeting which I finished a 20 page annual report for and spent every last minute reading up on literature so I would do well. It was all kind of for nothing as within 10 minutes of the meeting, it was no longer my meeting...and it was an utter disaster. Coursework barely got discussed, my lack of a Master's Degree was suddenly a problem, my research ideas were good but too many and too much, and most of this criticism was not from the committee members I had chosen...yeah, that's about all I can say...Afterward, during the impromptu one-on-one meeting, I got a nice lecture about how ineffective my powerpoint from the GSO was, how when I get nervous I say "kinda" which is very unprofessional, and how I probably got 2nd place because the crowd did not understand anything I was talking about (aka they're more management focused and not so much genetically). It was a little much. So first I got really sad, went to the restroom to recover, and then I got pissed. And right now...I'm still pissed...
Needless to say, I have scheduled individual meetings with all of my committee members
for the week after spring break and despite pressure from authoritative figures, I am choosing ONE experiment this summer and following it through as my committee has suggested. But it's going to take some work so I have brought a whole stack of articles and two books to read during my "vacation" this week. I've been in a mad rush the last two days to get everything done and almost forgot the big news. I am now a Michigander! I switched everything over and even got my new license plate on Tuesday! Yay, Michigan! And during one rush through the house, I looked over and saw the sucker in the fish tank had come out of his hole and snagged a quick shot of him. I've also gotten a Twitter which seemed useless, but I have learned SO much science knowledge. I subscribed to all these tweets and now get on to see shark info almost every morning. It's a great way to start the day!! =)
Well, these last two days have been a rush because I am actually heading to Alaska today and am now sitting in the Detroit airport, waiting for my flight to Sea-Tac. It's
kind of exciting and my friends have been emailing me all week, way excited to see me and hit the town tomorrow night for dancing, but it's also a little bittersweet to be going to Juneau. I'm excited -- especially to see that Glacier again....Wish me luck for both the visit and to not be a neurotic grad student and think about sturgeon every day!! 😊 Signing off from Detroit...
~Kari
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Debby
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Love It
Love the blog. Good to hear what you been up to. Keep your spirits up my beautiful, earth traveling niece...