wendy’s posterous

I had no idea how hard I would find my sixth and final year of graduate school. After fumbling around for four years I finally found my stride last year, collecting lots of data for my dissertation research and dreaming up exciting side projects that could lead to important revelations. Suddenly, this year all of the lab and field work that I enjoy have halted, and I have plunged into the abyss of dissertation-writing. I know I have great data, but I spend hours staring at a blank screen, trying to fit all of the nuances and complexities neatly into a coherent and compelling story.

It's a new idea to me that scientific papers are actually stories about our data and what they can tell us about how the world works. I had always approached scientific writing as merely following the same reason and logic as the experiments that I performed. I am struggling to find my creative side and organize the data to best support my overall interpretation of the data. In this way, the first experiments that I performed could actually make more sense to be mentioned last. For someone who loves color-coding her lab work with matching lab tape and highlighters, this way of thinking does not come easily.

I wonder sometimes if my advisor thinks I am spending my days goofing off because I am producing manuscript drafts so slowly. Quite the opposite is true. I am spending my days torturing myself to find the storyline on my own and without my advisor's help. To me, practice makes perfect so asking her to show me the story won't help me learn to find it myself. I can understand now how graduates students in their dissertation year have high rates of depression and how those who didn't previously drink turn to alcohol for solace. I know that there is no reason that I should have mastered skills in scientific writing because these are the first manuscripts that I have written. However, after having invested over five years in graduate school, it seems like I should have mastered something. Color-coding, maybe.

At home, dirty dishes piled up in the sink means that I'm being lazy. At the lab, dirty dishes piled up in the sink means that I've had a very productive day.

My lab conducts a lot of research that revolves around rain events in northern California. I study a soil process that only happens when there is no oxygen in the soil. This usually occurs after it rains because the soil fills up with water, pushing out the oxygen from the tiny air pockets in the soil. One of my labmates wants to know how changes in rainfall due to climate change will affect how carbon gets stored in soil. For us, it would be great to be able to predict the weather far in advance so that we can schedule when we do our field work.

Last winter, I remembered that the Old Farmer's Almanac gives long-range weather forecasts for large swaths of the United States. Our lab is hyper aware of every time it rains, so I had a good sense of the historical rain patterns for the past six years (how long I have been a member of the lab). In northern California, we typically only get rain between October and April. That's why the landscape looks brown if you visit during the summer--everything dies without receiving water for months. Since January, the almanac's predictions never missed a rain event and were always correct within a week. The real test came in late May when the almanac predicted a small rain shower. It almost never rains in May, but it did this year.

The most important rain event to predict for my lab's research is the first one after the summer dry season. The bacteria that lay asleep in the soil waiting for water can react immediately to the rain and start pumping out carbon dioxide. We are usually scrambling to prepare for our field work when we see a significant chance of rain pop up on the ten-day forecast of typical weather stations. This year, I had my eye on September 11-13, when the almanac predicted--based on their secret formula that includes solar activity--that it would rain. It is now September 14, and the ground is still wet from the rain showers that started two days ago.

If you are planning any outdoor activities around September 28-30, you might want to have an alternative indoor plan because that's when it's supposed to rain again.

I just spent a sweltering weekend in Florida with my family. My niece was her usual very sweet and mature five-year old self (calling herself a "splendid soccer player") while my nephew is at his most adorable age. He speaks only one word at a time right now, but he's very good at letting you know what he wants. For example, when he wanted to spit out some fruit peel from his mouth, he grabbed my hand and put it under his chin. I really do hope my kids will be as cute, smart, kind-hearted, and well-behaved as my niece and nephew. Here's a five minute video compilation from my visit:

I have learned this lesson over and over again in the lab, and yet it never really sinks in. Today I was in a rush to make a solution that involves heating it to help the chemical crystals to dissolve. (Think of how true sweet iced tea can only be made by dissolving sugar in the tea when it is hot. The sugar just sinks to the bottom when you mix it into iced tea.) The little voice in my head said to just turn the hot plate to medium heat, but I decided to use the max setting. Ten minutes later I walked back to the lab to find the technician standing outside saying that something had exploded in the lab. Luckily the noise was only from the bursting of the parafilm I had used to cover the flask that contained my solution. Unluckily I was making a solution of a corrosive chemical that boiled over and stained the nice white hot plate a metallic, burned brown. Rule 1 that applies to all situations in life: listen to the little voice in your head. Rule 2 for working in the lab: never do anything in a rush because you'll probably mess it up and waste your time. And God forbid, you may injure someone. Breaking both of those rules is how I severely burned my hand with liquid nitrogen a couple years ago. Today is the day that I will take these lessons to heart.

Growing up, I always had to listen to my dad's cynical "There is no such thing as free lunch" warnings to me to not get duped by seemingly good deals with lots of fine print. Last night I found out that there really is such thing as free dinner. Thanks to the "drug" rep that took out me, Glen, and another resident! I felt a little guilty ordering a cocktail (pomegranate martini), an appetizer (shrimp hushpuppies), an entree (surf n' turf--scallops, foie gras, and pulled pork), a side (mac n' cheese), dessert (chocolate-filled beignets), and a cappuccino with no regard for the prices. I think that is more food than I ate all week, and boy was it tasty! All I had to do was sit through a two-hour dinner that revolved around surprisingly little conversation about the product that the rep was peddling.

When I first announced that Glen and I were going to visit Peru, friends kept asking if we were going to hike the Inca Trail. I didn't want to spend four days of our short trip hiking because I also wanted to visit Lake Titicaca. Thus, we compromised and signed up for the two-day Inca Trail. On the first morning, we would make the three hour train ride from Cusco to the vicinity of Machu Picchu. We would then spend the late morning and the afternoon hiking the last portion of the Inca Trail, which the tour company assured me was very flat. What sold me on doing this particular version of the Inca Trail is that we would reach Machu  Picchu at sunset, when the park had already closed and emptied of tourists.

               

Click here to download:

hiking_to_Machu_Picchu.zip (24969 KB)

When I first started doing science research in college, I never understood why science had to proceed at such a slow pace. Many of the studies I read about weren't published until three to five years after they were conducted. Now that I am entering my sixth year of graduate school I understand completely. I have a project that has produced results so new and exciting that my advisor and I have received a substantial grant to expand the work. We first started the project almost two years ago, and yet we still can't publish the results. We have repeated the experiment six times with various modifications to improve our technique or to answer slightly different questions. We have managed to get every possible result in each experiment--the treatment stimulates the process, the treatment inhibits the process, and there is no effect. Moreover, we've gotten this range of results for a variety of variables that we measured. Of course I can come up with reasonable guesses as to why we got so many different results, but dang it, I would love for my soil bacteria to behave.

After spending the night in Lima, we caught an early morning flight to Arequipa, a Spanish colonial city at 5000 ft. Our plan was to spend one night in Arequipa to adjust to the altitude before heading to Puno, which is at over 12000 ft. Since we were gaining altitude quickly, we all decided to take Diomox to help ward off altitude sickness. While I appreciated not getting sick, Diomox made my feet, knees, and hands tingly and slightly numb at random times during the day and night--very annoying!

           

Click here to download:

Impressions_of_Arequipa.zip (22342 KB)

I long ago decided that I would post the 10,000th photo that I took with my digital SLR regardless of the photo quality and subject. I just hoped that it would be something worth sharing. I passed this milestone in April without even realizing it. Since my camera starts counting from one again after reaching 9,999, here is photo #9999.