Last Day of Work and First Day of Vacation

Yesterday was my last day of work at Karmanos. Of course there was some more stupid drama, this time about the microscope. I have no idea how that will end, but it was really stupid. But after decontaminating equipment and packing up the rest of the other lab, my supervisor took me out to lunch at the Motor City Brewery. They make this awesome pizza there and of course brew their own beers. It was cool and I got to go home early. I'll miss working with my supervisor, she is absolutely awesome, but I'm glad to get away from the drama and move on to graduate school.
Today I drove with my family to Munising, MI on Lake Superior. The drive is pretty boring. I used to think it was super long, but after driving to Iowa and back a couple of times on my own this drive seemed short in comparison. It's actually only three hours shorter, but it seemed like a lot more. The weather is awesome up here right now. It's in the mid-sixties, no humidity, and sunny. It's the perfect kind of weather to me.
I know I'm being slow about the writing meme. I promise I'll finish it eventually. The last week of work was really busy and then my brain was just mush by the end of the day. 

T-10 Days

I only have ten more days left at work! Thank goodness too, because there is more stupid shit going down and it is getting really annoying. We're supposed to be moving to another building, so I've spent the past two weeks busting my ass to get everything packed up. Well, earlier this week my boss finds out that the space we're moving into hasn't been vacated yet, and the guy who is supposed to be vacating it is holding the area hostage while he demands fancy crap for his new space. And the dean is currently on vacation, so we have to wait for him to get back and forcibly kick this guy out so we can move in.
None of this would be a huge deal except that now we have time to do some science since we aren't moving, and everything is already packed up. So doing experiments is a double pain in the ass because I don't know where anything is and have to dig through boxes all the time. I'm looking forward to being done and having this be someone else's problem. 

I keep spending money

The past week or so has been expensive. I'm buying a bunch of the stuff I need/want for moving, and of course it costs money. Thankfully I have all this money plus some, but I don't like seeing my money go away. The most expensive thing I bought was a new bed. I've been sleeping in a twin bed for way too long, so I bought a queen size. Yay! The next most expensive thing is a stationary recumbent bicycle. I want to keep up exercising, but I know that especially the first semester, I probably won't be doing much fencing or going to a gym. Plus I can read while I use a recumbent bike, so I can study while exercising. I like to multitask. Then it's just small stupid things like kitchen stuff, a region-free DVD player, floor lamps, stuff like that. I'm glad I've been budgeting for all this stuff for a while.
I've only got fifteen days of work left! I'm really excited to be done. Technically I get paid through July 8th because I'm using all my vacation days, but it's really only fifteen days left to show up at work. I'll miss my supervisor because she's completely awesome, but I am glad to move on.

It's June!

It's June, and that means that I have less than a month left at work. I am really looking forward to being done. There's been stupid politics going on for ages, but it's just getting sillier and sillier. Luckily my supervisor is really awesome, but there's not a lot we can do to change the political climate. It's frustrating. So I'm getting excited that I'll be able to leave soon. Plus I am really looking forward to going back to graduate school, although I am really nervous about getting grades again. I'll feel better after the first semester is over and I've passed everything. Until then I think I'll be at least a bit worried.
In other news, I went shopping last Monday and now I wear a size 10 jeans! I was also able to buy some button down shirts in a size L instead of XL. It is gratifying to finally be able to go down a couple of sizes. I've lost forty pounds since I was at my highest weight in 2009. I'm not done losing weight; I want to lose another 20 pounds or so. But being able to get into smaller clothes makes me really happy. 

2.14.2011

I think I'm getting sick. I went home early from work because I was so tired, and my head hurt like crazy, and after dinner I started feeling grumbly in the GI tract. I'm sucking down ginger ale, but I have a feeling that I might be working from home tomorrow.
I usually don't have the opportunity to work from home, because I work in a cancer biology lab, but on Tuesdays there's no cell culture to be done unless I'm setting up experiments. There's no experiment to set up this week, so no bench work tomorrow. Right now I'm actually working on the lab budget. My supervisor is working on a grant proposal and we need to include a budget. Since we just became our own lab, we're still trying to figure out how much everything costs. So that's what I'm doing, and I can keep working on that at home. It's interesting and enlightening because I never realized how much some of the stuff we use costs. I can definitely understand the stress of getting grants and keeping them, because without money the whole lab just falls apart. It makes me a little nervous about my future, since grant funding from the NIH is getting harder and harder to come by, but I'm sure it will work out. If all else fails there are usually jobs available at biotech or pharmaceutical companies, so I could always join the dark side and work in industry. Maybe there will be more grants available by the time I'd need to apply for them (I'm not holding my breath) which would make it a little easier. It's like a decade away so I'm not obsessing too much about it right now. But it has been good to get some experience working on a grant, because it's usually some kind of nebulous thing to a grad student in science. You know that you need them to run a lab and have a career, but you don't really know how it all works until suddenly you need a grant. Crazy, huh?

1.24.2011

My grandfather is much worse. At this point we are being told that it is hours to days. The situation is pretty much as crappy as it can possibly be. There's not a lot else to say about it right now.
Work is actually going pretty well. Aliccia has come up with a bunch of different experiments, and she is planning them all in a way that enables us to get out several papers fairly quickly. I'm plating for an ATP assay this week, and next week I'm plating for a ROS assay and making virus for an array knockdown. It's a lot of work, especially since we moved and don't have everything in place yet, but it's nice to be actually planning real experiments instead of just sitting around. Aliccia also said that the goal is to have at least one paper in publication/in press with my name on it by the time I leave for graduate school.
At least, I hope I'll be leaving for graduate school. My application to Iowa State's microbiology PhD program has been complete and in the committee's hands for a little more than a week now. I'm trying to be patient, although that isn't my best trait. I'm really hoping to hear something by mid-February, at least an invitation to come interview. I'm fairly confident that I'll get into the program, but it's not a sure thing and I'm extremely nervous. I really don't want to go anywhere else for graduate school, and I'm not sure what I'll do if I don't get in. If all else fails, I can take a couple of classes at Wayne State and then reapply next year, but I really want to get moving with my life.

1.10.2011

Today we moved out of Steve's lab and into Dr. Bepler's lab. I am so relieved to be off the eighth floor. It was getting too awkward and really weird and dramatic. I don't really want to talk shit about people, but I will say that some people could benefit from acting like adults. It was not fun sitting there wondering what people were thinking and saying when I hadn't done anything wrong. But it's all over now, and I'm on the sixth floor. I met all of Dr. Bepler's lab people and they all seem really nice. Dr. Bepler is really nice too-he wrote a letter of recommendation for me when Steve refused to. I'm looking forward to the rest of my tenure at Karmanos now.
As for my grandfather, he's out of the hospital and at home. He has extensive stage small cell lung cancer, which is the kind people usually get from smoking and definitely the crappiest kind of lung cancer to get. He chose to try chemotherapy, which he starts tomorrow, but it is not nice chemo and I'm really concerned that it will actually shorten his life. But I'm glad that he's not in the hospital anymore, because I would hate to die in a hospital. It's rough on my grandmother. It's rough on all of us, really.

New Year's Eve 2010

I have such mixed feelings about this New Year. There are some things that I'm really looking forward to (grad school hopefully) and some things that I'm dreading (John dying). It's a little weird to know that someone I love is going to die this year. I don't think I've ever been in this position before, and it makes the whole concept of the new year and starting fresh a bit sour, really. But I'm trying to remain positive and focus on the good things, and start fresh as much as I can. I joined Weight Watchers online today, to help me readjust my eating habits and take off this last 30 pounds or so that I gained in college. I also went out today and bought a bunch of stuff for beading. I like making jewelry but I never seem to have the time, so I'm going to specifically determine a day of the week that I can do it, so that I'm at least doing it once a week. I really have to organize my life like that or I never get anything done.
I am looking forward to the lab move. That's supposed to happen on the 10th of January. It will be nice to finally get out of Steve's hair and move somewhere that isn't in the way, especially since he has some new hires coming in. I will miss the lab though, even the people that annoy me a bit. The way everything played out kind of sucks.
Anyway, here's hoping that 2011 doesn't suck as much as I'm afraid it will.

Christmas and other stuff

Last weekend we chopped down a Christmas tree and put it in our house. We do this every year because fake trees are sad. I especially enjoy it because when I move back out, I'll probably be moving into an apartment that only allows sad fake trees. So I relish having a real, pine-tree smelling white spruce in the living room. Now that we finally decorated, it feels a little more Christmassy around here, which makes me less grumpy about it getting dark at 5pm.
What still makes me grumpy is that my science is not behaving. I've been trying to do this GLUT4 blot for two months now, and Aliccia and I cannot get the cells to respond to insulin. We're trying one more time this week, and I really hope it works, because if it doesn't I'm pretty sure we've got serious problems. I hate working ten to twelve hour days when I have a two hour round trip commute so I'm tired and grumpy. So I really hope this works so I can stop working long Thursdays and Fridays.

NaNo and Work

I passed the halfway point on The Last Days of the Unreal City earlier this week, and it felt like a huge accomplishment. Once the word counter went over 25,000, I felt yes, I can do this. Then I kept writing and now I feel like it's a nearly insurmountable task again. I'm sure I'll feel better once I hit 40K.
In contrast to most of October, I've been quite busy at work this month. The paper we are trying to submit came back with requests for major revisions (experiments, basically). So I've been trying to run a GLUT4 blot for almost a month now. After troubleshooting the heck out of my non-polymerizing stacking gel (bad APS, needed de-gassing) and a bureaucratic snafu regarding the membrane protein extraction kit we needed, it's still not done. Here's hoping that next week will put the lid on this experiment and the paper can go back out. I've learned a lot about the paper submission process even though I'm not doing the actual writing or submitting, and I can conclude that it is a total pain. I'm not particularly looking forward to that part of getting my PhD now.

More work drama

As far as I know, for now my job is safe. My supervisor had a chat with the deputy director, who sounded enthusiastic regarding our research and the shRNA core. At the moment, we appear to be safe, although there's still the question of whether we're going to stay in my previous boss' lab space forever. Of course, if the CEO has some weird vendetta against everyone, he could fire us all, but that sounds less likely at the moment. Unfortunately, we haven't had any meetings to discuss future research yet, so my job is pretty boring, but at least I still have one and don't have to navigate Michigan's ridiculous unemployment website yet.
But, my ex-boss appears to be cooking up some potential drama. Hopefully my supervisor and I can stay out of it and just be amused from the sidelines without getting dragged into anything weird. It's a bit tiring to have to continually deal with all of this, and it isn't helped by the fact that I'm sure this kind of crap goes on everywhere. At least I'm preparing to go back to school and don't need to stay at this job forever.
Other than the drama, I have just a couple of array experiments to finish, and one knockdown+chemical treatment experiment, and that's about it. So I haven't got a whole lot to do at the moment. I am going to Iowa next weekend for my great-aunt's memorial, after taking the biology GRE, so I'm taking a couple of days off work.

Complications

So, as I alluded to in my last post, things have gotten very complicated regarding my work situation. I feel like it is now safe and appropriate for me to go into more detail. Basically, two Fridays ago my boss was fired from one of his positions. He had a dual appointment at the cancer center and the university, and the job he lost was the one at the cancer center. Because of that, he no longer has control of the grant that I am paid off of. So now I have no boss, and nothing to do at my job, and no idea if I will even keep my position. My supervisor (postdoc) and another tech are in the same boat as I am. We haven't received any communication from the Powers That Be, and my ex-boss doesn't have any information yet either. So it's possible that I will lose my job. My ex-boss mentioned to me that he may move to another university and would like to take me with him. That would be cool, but I don't know how long it will take to transfer and if it will even happen at all. So everything is up in the air at the moment.
The good news is that I do have an emergency fund that I can pay expenses off of if I get laid off, and I should qualify for unemployment benefits. In addition, I do have an inheritance coming from my great-aunt's estate, so I could completely pay off my student loans from that. Lastly, I am applying to graduate school next month, so it's possible that I may only be jobless for seven or eight months or so. My health insurance also won't be an issue-one of the good things from the health care bill is that I could go back on my father's insurance in January, so I would only have to pay out the ass for COBRA for a few months.
The worst part of this all is the uncertainty. I just wish that someone would tell me one way or the other if I have a job. That's the most annoying part.

Well...

Things have gotten a little weird at work. I can't really talk about it right now, but it's entirely possible my job could be moving from Karmanos to University of Michigan. I don't know much else at the moment.
In other news, I took the GRE today and got a really good score. The subject test is next month. Hopefully it will also go well.
I finished Tales of Symphonia over the weekend. As I expected it was really good, and to no one's surprise I cried at the end. Why is it my favorite character is always the one who leaves/has sad endings? I guess I just like antiheroes. So now I'm playing Animal Parade again, as well as Sunshine Islands on my DS. I'm waiting for Grand Bazaar, the next Professor Layton game, and a PS2 game called Shadow of Destiny. That will probably be my gaming docket until Christmas.

Various Life Things

A lot of stuff has happened since I last updated.
First we had an issue at church, and that compounded with my mounting feelings of not belonging, I decided to stop going for at least a month. I have a lot of complex feelings about the whole thing. The essence of my issues is that I have no problems with God, but I have a lot of problems with a lot of his supposed followers, and I'm not sure where that leaves me. I may consider going to a Unitarian Universalist church, just because they don't hate anyone. I'm not sure.
Second one of our neighbors died. He committed suicide and set his house on fire. He was an old guy who lived alone and has no nearby family, and I feel bad. I wish that I had reached out to him; I don't know if it would have made a difference, but I hate to think that he died thinking nobody cared about him. That is also weighing very heavily on me.
Third, I started tracking my weight and food intake again. I've reached the point where the weight that was easy to lose is gone, and now I have to really push to get down to my goal weight. This could be difficult.
Fourth, work is going well. I have two major experiments that I'm preparing for right now. Both should be started at the end of September. I'm looking forward to getting the results and I'm glad that I'm not bored.

First Trip on a Sailboat

Last Friday my boss decided that we all needed to go have a picnic at the marina where he keeps his sailboat. Steve loves his boat, and we hear about it all the time. Needless to say, some of the older lab members were bemoaning the boat and hinting that Steve would want to spend all evening there. So I was worried, because I like spending my Friday nights not with my coworkers. I like them all, but I see them all week, you know.
Anyway, it was actually pretty fun. I got there and had a couple of beers (Leinenkugel Oktoberfest) and Steve grilled hamburgers. Then it was time for the boat. Thankfully, there were too many people there for everyone to go on the boat at once, so we split into groups and each boat ride was only 1.5 hours. I'd never been on a sailboat before, only canoes and motorboats, so it was neat to see how a sailboat worked. We went out a couple of miles into Lake St. Clair, and it was cool when the motor was killed and we were going only on the sails. It was neat, and it was nice to be out on a lake since it's been a while.
So overall, it was enjoyable. I had fun, and I didn't have to stay all night, and now I can say I've been on a sailboat.

More video games, job thoughts

I finished the main storyline in Star Ocean 3. All in all, it was a fun game. It had a decent story, although a bit hackneyed, and it was entertaining. The voice acting made me cringe though-I'm glad I decided to turn it off for all the parts that I could. I did a couple of the optional dungeons but decided I had enough and turned to another game I never finished.
So this week I started for the second time Tales of Symphonia. It's another huge long epic RPG involving saving the world and all that jazz. Lloyd and Colette are just as irritating as Fayt and Sophia, but Kratos makes up for it in spades. I'm trying to get used to the battle system because I have less maneuverability than I did in Star Ocean on the battlefield, and not having a map to complete is oddly weirding me out. But otherwise, so far so good. I did crack and order a strategy guide for this one though, because I know it's a huge game and I'll miss a million things on my own.

Other than that, my life has been fairly dull. Work has been very slow, since people are going on vacation often and we're in between experiments. I have been studying for the GRE, which I'm taking in September. I also decided to apply for the PhD in Microbiology, not the MS. Working in a lab for almost a year has helped me realize that I do want to do research, and that I'm good at it, so I'd rather just go for the PhD at Iowa State. I'm pretty sure I'll get in, but I'm still nervous as hell about it.

What the heck do I do at my job anyway?

I've worked at Karmanos Cancer Institute for almost nine months now as a research assistant in one of the breast cancer research labs. I got the job in a roundabout way that involved my step-aunt's best friend, the CFO of Karmanos, passing my resume to my now-boss who called me because I was apparently well-qualified. The upshot being that I work as a research assistant now, which means I do most of the work without getting much of the glory. Oh well. It's not forever.
At the moment, I am in the midst of a rather large experiment involving a panel of genes that are candidates as either oncogenes or genes that are regulated by an oncogene. What I do with these candidate genes is make an shRNA against each one and infect my target cells with said shRNA to knock down the gene's expression. Then I wait and measure growth and viability with a luciferase assay to determine the effect of knocking down the gene. In this experiment I have 20 genes and 148 shRNA constructs. That means I spent all of last week making 148 viruses to infect my target cells with. It was unpleasant. This week I get to infect my target cells, which are MCF10A and SUM225 lines. I do the infection in triplicate, which worked out to 444 wells, or four and a half 96-well plates. It's also unpleasant, mostly because I have to add the virus one at a time and can't use a multichannel pipettor. After that, I wait and see what happens. Our constructs have a GFP tag in them so after 24-48 hours I should be able to see some of my infected cells glowing green, and that's how I know that the infection worked.
Anyway, that's what I'm doing at the moment. Previously I did some work on PHGDH knockdown and insulin independence, which was mostly growth assays, Western Blots, and qPCR. I'm not fond of Western Blots. I'll complain about them another time. I've actually learned a lot in the nine months I've been working, and I feel a lot more confident that I can do science and could have a career as a research somewhere. Although I feel my leanings are toward some part of microbiology, the time I've served in cancer research will definitely benefit me.