Definitely Final Four-bound!

I'm so pumped for Indy this weekend!!! But I have an alarming amount of work that needs to get finished before I leave, like finishing the poster for the Kewaunee presentations on April 8 (and for SFB in 4 weeks), leading a bunch of labs/office hours for the class I'm TAing, and working on encapsulation stuff. Amazingly, one of the gurus in the self-healing field emailed me back in response to my questions! She was the corresponding author on a paper I was interested in learning more about so I asked her if she could direct me to someone (ie a grad student) who would be able to field (put up with) my questions, and instead she told me she would be happy to answer them! This is pretty amazing, as her work is mentioned in every single paper on self-healing. :-D

I still can't believe I'm going to the Final Four! It's amazing -- I'm going to see someone win the title (fingers crossed for Duke!!) and whenever I think about it I want to jump up and down with excitement! Man, I hope I can keep myself under control until we leave on Friday! I think I can also attribute this increased level in excitement to running more. I have finally gotten back into somewhat of a routine, steadily running 2 miles then walking at a steep incline for the third. I always feel like I have more energy when I've been running and it makes me feel better about myself. I guess I could say I'm working for the summer 2010 beach body, but seeing as how I rarely go swimming that's not really true. But whatever.

Okay: review lab manual, finish HW for TAing so I can answer questions in office hours, hold 3 labs, meet with Leslie (undergrad working with me), hold office hours (by the end it's 5), work on poster, go home, go running, shower, make dinner, clean house, watch House, work on poster. Go to bed. AHHH!

(Potentially) Final Four-bound!

I have tickets to the Final Four and the National Championship!! Of course, this assumes that Duke makes it to the Final Four... but I'm optimistic! It's nice to have something mostly spontaneous to do :-) It'll be nice to spend more time with the BMEers here too. And I'll get to go to Indiana! And perhaps Kentucky, depending on the driving route. Two more states down! And even if Duke loses this weekend (sad) I'm still going to Hilton Head for Easter, which was my original plan and is a damn fine consolation prize :-D

In other news, my review paper is finished! We're sending it to reviewers, then we'll submit it for publication. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. I've also found a method that I want to attempt for encapsulation that looks promising... but I guess I won't know if it actually is promising for awhile. I'm presenting at a poster symposium thing on April 8, so that will be a nice practice run for Society for Biomaterials. Less than one month until Seattle! Spring is amazing. So begins the weeks of travel. High Point, Hilton Head/Indianapolis, Wilmington, and Seattle all in less than a month! Which reminds me -- I need to make a cheesecake tonight for my granddaddy's birthday. I won't have time to make it tomorrow because I'll be going out with the group of recruits and it needs to set.

Poor Keegan has been working a lot of overtime (I guess it's not really overtime since he's not paid for it... so just working a lot) and he probably won't be home until pretty late tonight. I guess that will give me plenty of time to take over the kitchen with cheesecake-related items. But I still miss seeing him for dinner :-( He told me that one of his coworkers was let go this morning, one of the engineers this time. As there are only 8 engineers (now 7) at the Raleigh office, this is a big deal. Today is their "town hall" meeting, so I'm guessing he'll have more info for me the next time I talk to him.

Well, I'm going hunting around the lab for materials that I need to use this new technique to see what I need to order. Then seminar. Then fitness room! Then cheesecake preparation, mmmm.

#11: Homemade smoothies

In honor of the sunny, warm spring weather we've been having (which, unfortunately, looks like will not last through the week) we made smoothies today as our new recipes this week. Although we've made smoothies before, this time we made them with new combos of fruits, juices, etc.





Keegan's is on the left, made with: ice cubes, milk, cranberry juice, peach Activia yogurt, half a banana, and frozen cranberries left over from when I made those cranberry-orange cookies a few weeks ago. Mine is on the right, made with: milk, strawberry banana Activia yogurt, half a banana, frozen strawberries and frozen peaches. Yummmm.

#10: Chicken and feta pizza

Last weekend I asked Keegan what he was in the mood for and he said he wanted pizza... so that was our new recipe :-) I made one that was just cheese with some garlic pizza sauce and then one that was made with tomatoes, Italian-seasoned chicken, feta cheese, and mozzarella cheese. They were both tasty, especially the seasoned chicken! I bought some Mrs. Dash stuff to season some chicken we already had. I think it will also be excellent for when we're grilling chicken on our George Foreman grill. There wasn't too much left over, about 1/4 of the cheese pizza, so Keegan had a little bit of something to take to lunch on Monday at work, but that's okay :-)

March pleasure reading: part 2

Last week I had a cold(/allergies?) and I decided to start rereading a book I have already read. I'm not really sure that I specified in my goals that I wanted to read a new book every month or just a book for pleasure every month... but anyway, I reread Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer. Yes, I am one of those people. I can't help it--I have guilty pleasures. That is why on my Top Played lists in iTunes my most listened aren't the amazing classics but random pop-ish songs that I just can't help listing to (read: "Super Freak").



This book is not really moving or anything, but it's fun to read and that's really all I wanted as I was all stuffed up and huddled up on the couch. I like that it ended the Twilight series nicely, but it was a bit too neat if you ask me. All the conflict that was building in the series was just magically relieved without any sort of confrontation. Where's the fun in that?! But no, really, it's something fun to read even if it is a bit predictable. I'm still looking forward to the movies though! New Moon comes out on DVD this weekend and then Eclipse is being released in June. Then I have The Last Airbender in July and Harry Potter (!!!!) in November. Oh-so excited :-D Then Breaking Dawn comes out in January 2011 and the very last Harry Potter comes out in July 2011. Although that makes me sad :-(

#9: Baked Macaroni and Cheese

This week I made baked macaroni and cheese, simple and really tasty! I am seeing a theme in the foods we're picking. All pasta/Italian dishes, hmmm. Oh well! That's what we enjoy and since our fridge died a few weeks ago we haven't fully replenished our supply of frozen goods, like chicken. Once the meats go on sale again, I'll stock up and then we can branch into different recipes :-)

I'm sure I'll make it again, but next time I'll add ham or bacon. Keegan also has a lot of leftovers for lunch this week.

Responsible conduct of research

On Tuesday I attended another one of the RCR workshops that will count towards my degree requirements. The past semesters none of the seminars offered have really looked interesting to me, but this one was about humility and hubris in research and thinking about the dual uses of our research.

The presenter started out by talking about antibiotics and how they were an amazing innovation in the science world, but how over time they have been abused and prescribed unnecessarily so that resistant strains of bacteria have emerged. (PS: nothing annoys me like people who insist they need antibiotics to get rid of their cold/flu). Essentially these antibiotics were created as life-saving measures, but as a result resistant bacteria now exist that could be used in terrorist actions. Another example discussed was the work of scientists to improve the delivery of particulates for those who need treatment for asthma. Great to deliver medicine for asthmatics, great to deliver particulate bioweapons. It was just really interesting to me to really think about what all my work could be used for; I think as a scientist I don't look at the ways I could hurt someone with my research, but only the ways I could improve the quality of patient life through research and innovation.

The students in my seminar group got into the discussion about how exactly we should approach our research, because really anything we invent/work on could be corrupted and used for unintended purposes. Should we limit the scope of our creativity to prevent some possible misuse of our approach/application of our design? Are there some things we shouldn't even bother researching because the negative aspects far outweigh the positive ones?

None of us felt that this was the case for the very reason that anything we create could be misused, and really, anything we invent could also be invented by someone else, so who's to say that these horrible misapplications of scientific progress wouldn't occur anyway? And face it, if terrorists really want to find a way to deliver that virus or whatever, they'll find the way with or without perverting the existing approaches for particulate drug delivery. Essentially everyone was saying that hell no, we shouldn't limit our research just because it might be misused somewhere in the distant future for some unforeseen purpose. Ideally the best we can do is try to see how our work could be used in other applications and understand those risks going into the project.

During this whole thing I was thinking about how the Supreme Court was hearing a case about the handgun ban in Chicago that day. There is no difference between what we were talking about in seminar and that trial. It is absurd to me that this case should even need to go to the Supreme Court. Uh, hello? Right to bare arms? Why should the liberties of law-abiding citizens be restricted because of the chance that someone might misuse a gun? People who want to legally obtain weapons are NOT the ones that are going to use them to murder/rob people and cause general mayhem. The people who do want to use guns for this purpose will be able to find guns if they really want to, through various shady avenues, but then those of us who would not misuse the weapons are left unable to defend ourselves because of a crippling and unconstitutional piece of legislation. I just wonder how many of the liberal scientists wouldn't see things that way.

March pleasure reading

Well technically I'm not sure if this book should go in the February or March category. I started it last weekend but I read the last 80 pages or so this morning, so I finished it in March. Oh well, it's going in the March category.

This month's pleasure reading is Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia. I know a lot of people who have read this book, and I've been seeing it around for awhile, so I finally bought it last weekend with one of the gift cards I received for Christmas.



I really enjoyed this book! I didn't know too much about what it was about until I actually bought it; I didn't even know it was autobiographical (which, come to think of it, seems to describe most of the books I have read lately...) until I started reading it. She starts out the book describing how/why she took this trip, talking about her nasty divorce and the depression she suffered for no real reason (that she could see).

When she really thinks about what would make her happy, she decides it is to learn to speak Italian, so she moves to Italy for 4 months to learn the "art of pleasure". Following her time there, she moves to India to study with a guru for 4 months to learn the "art of devotion". And finally she moves to Bali for 4 months to learn the "art of balance" where she is able to blend both pleasure and devotion.

I really wish I had the freedom to do this in my career pathway. I am excited to be where I am, but it would be so liberating to just drop everything for a year and go with Keegan to Italy to enjoy the food, to India to learn to pray and find spiritual solace, and then Bali to enjoy the people and the sights. Or anywhere really I guess. But I don't exactly have the writing chops that would allow me to just take a year off, write about it, then get paid lots of money. Or to just get paid a huge advance and live off of that while I write my book (like Elizabeth Gilbert did). Of course maybe some day Keegan and I will be offered the opportunity to live abroad through our work, which I think would be really exciting and would also help us grow as a couple.

So, in any event, I think I will read her next book, Committed, which was released in January, at some point during this year. Of course, I am a bit OCD and since I own Eat, Pray, Love in paperback I really can't handle having Committed in a hardcover. I know. Weird.

I think next on my list will be either Catch-22, which I started and never finished, or The Once and Future King, which I have owned for a very long time and never read. Or perhaps Anthem or We the Living. I have many options...