That wouldn't happen in grad school.

Best part about having a "real" job (even if it is a post doc)?  When your boss says, "It's 4:30 on a Friday.  I should stop taking up your time and let you go."  Amazing.

Wait, you mean ME?!

I've got a pretty big meeting tomorrow at Big Fancy University with a bunch of people I haven't met before.  It's going to take a concerted effort not to giggle when somebody refers to me as Dr. [My Last Name].  I'm pretty sure the only people who have called me Dr. [My Last Name] are friends or family who are mostly joking.  It doesn't help that Dr. [My Last Name] could also refer to my mother, father, or grandfather.  Which is ridiculous, I know, but you can probably understand now how I grew up thinking it was totally normal to go to graduate school.  Anyways, giggling when somebody addresses me as Dr. (as they should damnit!) probably doesn't do much for my credibility...

We'll see if this spurs me back into blogging.

Days like today I really need a couch.  It's been rainy, windy, and gray all day, and the chairs at my kitchen table (currently the only seating besides my bed) just don't cut it.  However I still find rain fascinating and wonderful a month and a half after leaving Tucson.

This morning I booked a campsite for Assateague Island for this weekend!  Woohoo!

Statistics are unbelievably, painfully boring.  It's taken an extraordinary amount of Cherry Coke Zero (like pre-oral studying quantities) for me to make my way through it.

If you had been walking down my street at approximately 5:00 this morning you would have seen me (though only barely, it was dark still), in a raincoat, hanging out my bedroom window (on the 3rd floor of my building) trying to figure out what was making the murderous-rage-inducing clacking sound.  The culprit was a loose slat of siding/roofing flapping in the wind, that I yanked off the house until a sufficiently large nail to hold it in place can be obtained.  I bought some big nails (I only had little ones for hanging things.) this afternoon and hung out my window some more this evening hopefully fixing the problem.  I couldn't hammer through whatever is behind the slat underneath the problem slat.  There was wood behind the problem slat but further up, but the pre-existing hole in the slat (I have no idea what this thing is made of, it's not wood, not slate, it's easy to put a nail through though.) was bigger than my nails, so I dug out some washers leftover from assembling my Ikea furniture and used those to hold the nail head in front of the slat.  Fingers crossed it doesn't clack on the house whenever it's windy anymore!!

My car payment booklet showed up today.  Sad.  Driving a shiny new car is much more fun than paying for it.

Some idiot managed to hit and knock down a light post down the street.  It's a street with enough traffic that you really can't go very fast.  No clue how they managed to pull it off...

I bought a basket of jalapenos to make green sauce a couple of weeks ago, but well, I only used two in the sauce... So I've been making things with jalapeno... Over the weekend Boyfriend and I made this pizza, and later this week I'm planning to make this pasta and these biscuits.

**************************

The three of you who read this regularly may be wondering why I apparently fell off the face of the planet.  When I last wrote I had just sent my completed dissertation (aside from final revisions) to my committee prior to my defense.  Since then I defended, left Tucson, and slowly worked my way across the country as I moved to Baltimore for a post doc in industry.  It's not that I don't have plenty of material that I could blog about - heck, I took notes throughout the entire drive thinking it could contribute to a fun blog post.  But frankly, I just haven't felt like writing.  I've had plenty of time if I chose to do it.  Maybe getting this post out will motivate me to keep writing, though maybe it won't.  In some ways I miss it, but it's not one of those things that's worth making myself do.  So maybe I'll be back, maybe not, but hopefully.

It's out!

Just sent/gave my dissertation to my committee!  I only had to print one copy, as the other two committee members are out of town they got electronic copies.  I really should have taken a photo before handing off the printed copy.  It's just so pretty. :)

The Queen shocked me and actually read a second chapter!  Though why on earth she'd pick the two most boring chapters to read is beyond me (Intro/Background/Significance and Experimental)... Anyway, it's gone to my committee with my advisor's revisions on two chapters!  I think that might give me some sort of group record for highest % of dissertation read.  My labmate who's traveling with her now says she's actually reading another chapter, too.  Astonishing.

Helpful

The day my dissertation is technically supposed to go to my committee is a good day for my advisor to start reading it, right?  Helpful?  No.  Not so much.

This morning I was more than irritated to discover the only thing she had read over an entire weekend of travel was the 350 word abstract that she's already read.  And the only comments she made were ones she could have and should have made the first time she read the damn thing.  I got Chapter 1 from her this afternoon.

I decided last week that I was giving my dissertation to my committee on Wednesday regardless of how much she's read or not read or how many corrections I've managed to get through.

As punishment for The Queen aggravating me I decided to work from a printed copy (at her expense of course) of her revisions rather than juggling multiple documents on my screen.  I really should have printed them in color...

Purging

I'm a month away from moving (and just over 3 weeks from defending!), so I've started gradually packing up stuff I won't need (mostly books so far) and getting rid of stuff I won't keep.  I'm using a U-box (U-Haul's version of PODS) to move, so I'm only keeping what fits in one 8'x5'x7' box.  Which means I'm getting rid of most of my furniture (Thank goodness. The vast majority of it is second hand/goodwill/hand me down junk.) as well as a lot of my stuff.

I'm hoping that doing some work early will make the week between my defense and leaving less stressful, especially because I'm sure I'll want to spend that time hanging out with people rather than frantically packing and cleaning.  I've already pared down my wardrobe to only the clothes that fit and are in good shape, which means I've donated or sold nearly half my clothes.  Lots of books and movies have made their way to Bookman's, and fortunately I've managed not to buy more than I've traded in so far.  (The dinosaur cookie cutters were an awesome find.  I couldn't pass them up!)  

Last night I was going through some less obvious stuff.  Stuff that seems stupid to move, but not really sell-able or donate-able, and a shame to just throw out.  Like the basket of  yarn.  I'm keeping my knitting needles and such, but I don't really want to move a couple cubic feet of yarn.  Or the stack of gift bags, tissue paper, and wrapping papers.  All perfectly good, but foolish to waste limited space moving.

Other than the stuff I just mentioned, purging is So. Much. Fun.  Seriously, it's wonderful.  And not only because I'm looking forward to getting some decent furniture and clothes that actually fit me.

I'm in full on clean-out-the-pantry mode, too.  I don't think I've ever bought so few groceries in my life.  I have a few more weeks of my produce share, so I still have to eat around that, but rather than making whatever I want from my produce, I'm specifically pairing it with stuff already in my pantry.  The eggplant and zucchini salad that called for pearl barley?  I used the rest of my bulghur and some of my wheat berries.  E and I baked for another classmate's final seminar the other day, and we specifically decided to make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and nutmeg maple cookies to use up my E's pumpkin, my chocolate chips, and my maple syrup.  It's almost embarrassing how excited I was to use up my almond flour, almond extract, amaretto, extra chocolate frosting I'd stashed in the freezer, and maraschino cherries making cupcakes for some friends' birthday last weekend.  Angie and I had a blast playing empty-the-pantry in college, though I seem to remember the resulting meals being a whole lot weirder then than they've been so far... (Sadly I still have lots of curry and whole wheat flour.)

(If you know someone in Tucson who wants some yarn, gift wrap materials, or school supplies, let me know!)

Venn Pie-agram!

Nerd alert!  I made this awesome Venn pie-agram for my labmate's birthday a couple of weeks ago.  He uses a LOT of Venn diagrams to describe his research, so ever since I saw this idea online I've been waiting for an opportunity to make him one.

Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the empty pie tins, because it took me a bit of thinking to figure out how to cut them.  The instructions I found online completely removed the edges of the middle section, but I wanted to keep them so I could use more pie crust, because who doesn't like pie crust?  Here's a Microsoft paint illustration of the cut I made. :)  I stacked the two pie tins, made one cut through both tins, flipped one over, and hooked them together.  In the second pie picture the top pie is apple with a lattice crust, the bottom is mixed berry with a crumb topping, and the middle is obviously both.  It was the first time I tried making a lattice top crust, and these instructions from Annie's Eats were very helpful.  The pie was a huge hit at school.  The Sri Lankan students especially liked the crust as they seem to generally not care for super sweet things.

Wedding Cake!

Pretty much as soon as I got back from the job interview we hit the ground running on E & J's wedding cake.  I have never made a wedding cake before.  I'm not sure that I ever will again.  To say it was a project would be an understatement, though I will say it was the best wedding cake I've ever tasted.  Most commercial wedding cakes are made at least a week in advance of the wedding and stashed in a fridge.  I'm sorry, week-old cake can only taste so good.


E's mom made the wedding cake layers and meringue layers on Wednesday.  She literally spent the entire day baking.  Thursday morning E and I made the layers for the groom's cake.  Thursday afternoon and evening were spent assembling the each tier of the wedding cake, assembling the groom's cake, and crumb coating everything.  Friday morning and afternoon everything got frosted and the groom's cake was decorated.  Friday evening after the rehearsal dinner the tiers of the wedding cake got stacked and decorated.


The wedding cake had three square tiers - 16", 12", and 8".  Each tier had 2 layers of almond cake, with a layer of either raspberry or apricot preserves, almond meringue, and another layer of preserves between the cake layers.  Frosting was a butter rum flavored swiss meringue buttercream.  The fruit decorations were made from marzipan.


The groom's cake was a 12" square lemon cake, 2 layers, filled with lemon curd, frosted with lemon cream cheese frosting, and decorated with candied lemon slices.  


At one point I carried the fully assembled and decorated groom's cake from E's apartment to J's (they live in the same complex, but different apartments) to store in his fridge, and my arms were TIRED by time I got over there.  That cake was HEAVY.  Considering the groom's cake was the same size as the middle tier of the wedding cake, I can only imagine how heavy the fully assembled wedding cake was.  The almond cake was really dense, and between both cakes we used 132 eggs and 21 pounds of butter.  I'm sure Paula Deen would be proud.


A couple of our bigger/stronger guy friends actually came over to E's Saturday afternoon to move the wedding cake from her fridge in her second floor apartment to the car for transport across town to the wedding venue.  Miraculously transportation was entirely uneventful with no trauma to the cakes or people's nerves.


The wedding was lots of fun, E looked gorgeous, and they're finally married!  Yay!

Lemon cake batter.  Lots of it.

How many brides make their own wedding cake?

One layer of the medium tier, with the layer of raspberry preserves being added  on top of the almond meringue

The medium tier - cake, preserves (you can only see the frosting dam holding them in), meringue, more preserves, the second cake layer, and blobs of frosting for crumb coating

Crumb coated bottom layer

All the wedding cake layers setting up in E's fridge

The finished groom's cake

The finished wedding cake

Interview Saga

Just four days after returning from Vancouver, two days after the bachelorette party, and just four days before E & J's wedding, I flew into Philadelphia for a job interview, with the company that wanted "tactful assertive interpersonal skills."

I was supposed to fly from here to Phoenix, have a reasonable hour and a half layover, and arrive in Philadelphia a little before 5.  Plenty of time to drive the 30-40 minutes down to my hotel, have dinner with boyfriend, make him listen to me practice my talk one more time, and get to bed nice and early before having to be at the interview at 8.  Clearly that didn't happen.

When I got off the (20 minute) flight to Phoenix, my flight had an unspecified "ATC delay" but the earlier flight to Philadelphia was just boarding, so I asked if they had any open seats.  No.  (So they said.)  An ATC delay is when the FAA steps in and imposes limitations on the flights in and out of any given city (Philadelphia and a number of other east coast cities in this case), usually for weather related reasons.  The annoying thing is it's much less specific than another delay.  There is no updated departure time.  The air traffic control tower guesses when they think you might get to leave.  

They initially guessed we might be allowed to leave around 9:30 - not bad, less than an hour's delay, so we boarded the entire massive jet for the cross country flight, and then we sat there.  We sat at the gate, and eventually they said it was going to be at least three hours before we could leave, so they couldn't legally pull away from the gate (thank God).  We sat there a while longer before they encouraged us to get off and get food, because there was no way they had enough food for everybody for the 3+ hours sitting at the gate and the 5+ hour flight.  So I got off, got myself about 2 days worth of food, since I figured I might be getting into Philadelphia after most food options had closed, and sat there at the gate.  Of course the airline's website, FAA's website, terminal monitors, and gate info all have different information.  When the flight was cancelled that info was online at least 15 minutes before it was ever announced or posted in the terminal.  That's right, the connecting flight to my first grown up job interview was cancelled.  I figured that since it was already noon, Phoenix is 3 hours behind the east coast, and there was weather that I was probably screwed.  I called the recruiter to let her know the situation, and sat there debating whether I should wait around the Phoenix airport or go find the shuttle back to Tucson.  Yay for having a travel agent, because I am 100% sure that I never would have been rebooked and rerouted that quickly or even for that day on my own.

My reroute sent me from Phoenix to Charlotte, and then finally to Philadelphia, where I landed around midnight.  So no dinner with Boyfriend (and no carefully saved and packed leftover cookies for Boyfriend), but at least I made it there.  It had already been difficult to squeeze in a date when everybody involved could do the interview, and between E's wedding and other people's travel schedules, it would have been at least 10 days before we could possibly reschedule, and I was already the second to last person interviewed.

Even without a checked bag it was almost 1 am before I got on the highway to drive the half hour to my hotel.  It's totally desirable to get about four and a half hours of sleep before a job interview, right?  I set about 4 alarms to make sure I made it up with plenty of time to make myself presentable.  Unfortunately in east coast humidity it takes about twice as long to dry and tame my hair as it does in Tucson.

I made it to the interview on time (first requirement!  see this awesome link Boyfriend shared for more interview tips, in convenient graphical format), gave my talk, and sat through the panel style interview portion.  I know the talk went well (thank you E and Sugar Pants for listening to me practice and giving me feedback!), and that they enjoyed it.  My dissertation research is really different from what they all (at least currently) do and I could tell they had fun hearing about something really different but neat, and that made it all the more fun for me to give it.  They asked decent, although sometimes funny questions about my talk, all of which I could answer, including the historical/literature question, so that was good.  The actual interview portion felt like it went really quickly.  It was a behavior-based interview rather than technical skills based, which I expected.  I had previously thought about responses to several behavior based interview questions, though none were questions they asked.  I could pretty regularly think of answers to everything they asked, though I was a bit horrified that the first situation that came to mind for most questions was not a lab/science situation!  They didn't seem to think that was problematic though, so I told them about the first relevant scenario that came to mind anyways, promising to return to the question if a lab/science based story came to mind.  I guess since they're looking for examples when you demonstrated certain social interaction, thinking, or character skills or qualities they didn't really care about the context of the example.  After a brief tour, the entire thing was over in less than three hours.

I returned my rental car barely twelve hours after picking it up.  And while I spent the entire afternoon chilling in the Philadelphia airport (yay for free wi-fi at the Terminal C Au Bon Pain!) for convenience sake, the trip home was fortunately uneventful.  Although I got home about midnight.  And had no idea what time zone my thought it was in or should think it was in.

About a week later I got an offer for the job!  Yayyy!  After some back and forth I formally accepted the offer this past week and got a start date this morning.  I'm really excited about the job - I really liked everybody I met before/during the interview.  While that's not essential, it's certainly encouraging.  I think I'll have good bosses who will be good mentors.  The job is a post-doc, but an industry post-doc, which pays a heck of a lot more (~2x more) than an academic post-doc.  It's a nice transition from academia, and somewhat less scary because I won't be expected to know everything and just go on my own because it is a training position.  The work is also really, really different from what I do now (but still mass spec), but also directly related to what I think I'd ultimately like to do, so awesome.  As mentioned in J's guest post, I'll be employed by an instrument company, but work in a lab at an academic institution.

I start September 5th.  The next couple of months will be full of dissertation defending, cross country moving, and beach sitting.  I'm pretty psyched.

E's Bachelorette

E's not really a party girl (anymore), so rather than the penis accessory-filled bar night, several of us had brunch at my place and then headed down to the vineyards in Sonoita for some wine tastings.

I made these blueberry muffins (minus the butter & sugar topping as most of us were/are trying to watch our waistlines), this spinach & cheese strata (no pictures, and I didn't taste it because I don't like eggs, rumor has it it was good though), amaretto-soaked chocolate dipped cherries (do some googling, I didn't follow any one set of instructions), and had way too much fun decorating cookies.  I thought the cookies were super cute, and really fun for a bachelorette without being so vulgar.  At the wineries we really liked we ran back in afterwards to offer them cookies (yes, we drove from one vineyard to another with a container of lingerie cookies), and everybody was super entertained by them.

By the way, I totally recommend Wilhelm Family Vineyards down in Sonoita.  We were fortunate enough to find a Living Social deal, but we had a great time there.  The owner/winemaker is super nice and gives a great tour.  And the wine is tasty - almost all of us took a bottle or two home with us.

Vancouver

ASMS was in Vancouver this year.  Why the American Society for Mass Spectrometry met in Canada is beyond me, but I will say that Vancouver has the most beautiful setting for a conference center that I've ever seen.  Right on the water front, across the bay from snow capped mountains.  The conference center had giant floor-to-ceiling windows with spectacular views.  If it didn't rain 9 days out of 10 it'd be an amazing place.  The brief moments without rain made me really sad that I only had my iPad and not my camera.

Haha! Look at this!

As J mentioned, Little Sister graduated from high school last month.  This particular all-girls, Catholic high school has a tradition of the entire class wearing a long, white dress for graduation.  The same white dress.  Every girl in the class wears the same white dress.  Yes, it's like a group virgin sacrifice.  Some night in December all the girls and their mothers assemble for dress selection.  Ahead of time the class officers will have selected a dozen or so candidate dresses and they model them and narrow it down to one dress.

While I was home, I dug out my dress and tried it on for laughs.  And what do you know, it fits!  Ok, it doesn't actually fit, it's a little too big!  Woohoo!  That iPad app has worked out pretty well. :)

See!  Little Sister even pinned it tighter so it wouldn't look as ridiculous from the front!

Graduation Cake

I made this "cake" for Little Sister's graduation.  She played softball all through high school too, and when I sent her a list of cake options, including some far more complicated and decadent cakes, this is what she picked.  Go figure.  Miss Sophistication.

Sorry for the less than awesome photo quality.  I only had my iPad on that trip and not my camera.

At graduation Little Sister got the biggest award they give.  It's an award that faculty nominate students for and then vote on to select the recipient.  It's more or less an award for being the most awesome all-around person.  And Little Sister won it.  Not only that, she's won herself a pretty sweet full tuition scholarship to a pretty damn awesome school in Boston.  I guess I'm not the only person who thinks she's awesome!  So proud!

Marathon

A couple of weeks ago, as she was in the home stretch of her dissertation, my dissertation date buddy posted the following status on Facebook:

They say getting your PhD is a marathon and not a sprint. What they don't tell you is that writing the dissertation itself is a mini-marathon!

A friend who defended his dissertation last year commented:

The best part is that your dissertation doesn't have to be amazing, or even good - it just has to be finished.  Any by finished, I mean "nothing in mid-sentence."

I think my dissertation is at least a little more complete than "nothing in mid-sentence," but it certainly is heartening to hear from somebody who's survived this already. :)

Abstracts

The abstract was the last thing I wrote for my dissertation.  Each data chapter has an abstract, and then there's one for the dissertation as a whole.  Every time I write an abstract I remember a story Dallas told our first year.

Dallas had a student in his gen chem lab who refused to put his results in the abstract of his lab report.  A scientific abstract is supposed to be a summary of the entire paper/report, including the results and conclusions.  This student knowingly lost points on his lab report every single week because as an English major he refused to "spoil the ending" by giving away his results in the abstract.

Cracks me up every single time I write an abstract.

It's done!

As J mentioned, I finished my dissertation this week!  YAAAAAAYYYYYY!!  I can't tell you what an enormous relief this is.  Sunday afternoon I finished writing my last chapter.  Yesterday I wrote and revised the abstract.  Today I made my labmates' corrections on the last two chapters.  I emailed The Queen this afternoon and told her that all my chapters are in the drop box folder, and reminded her that the deadline to distribute my dissertation to my committee is July 9th (two weeks before my defense).  It's in her court now.  Anybody want to bet that she'll read it?

So I know posting has been sparse, but for good reason.  That dissertation HAD to get done, and the past six weeks or so have been utterly insane even aside from the dissertation writing.

The "normal" post I wrote was about that awesome chocolate cake (that Grandpa is still raving about, no joke) just after everybody came out for commencement.  Around that weekend I did a series of phone interviews with the company looking for "tactful assertive interpersonal skills."  Then less than a week after everybody left Tucson, I flew home for Little Sister's high school graduation.  That was a Friday.  At 5:45 am on Monday I flew to Vancouver for another ASMS.  During the conference I spent a lot of time chatting with the NJ post doc guy, and did a face-to-face interview for a government post doc.  Again on Friday I flew back to Tucson, only to leave four days later for an on-site interview in Delaware with the people I did phone interviews with earlier in the month.  That was a one night travel nightmare of a trip.   Immediately after the interview trip "pre-wedding combat" began, followed by E & J's wedding.  After the wedding I did a phone interview with another company, and then Friday of that week I got an offer from the DE interview. Phew.

I will blog about all of these things in near future.  I've certainly still got work to do while I wait for edits (that I don't think are coming) from The Queen, but it shouldn't be so all-consuming.

The "C word" is back.

In December my uncle died of pancreatic cancer.  He was 55 and left behind a wife and three awesome (mostly grown, but still way too young to lose their dad) kids.  In March my grandmother died of just-about-everything cancer, just a month after diagnosis and the day before my flight home.  She and Grandpa were married 55 years.  Needless to say everybody in my family has been hoping we're done with the "C word" for a very long time.

Well, it's back.  Just not in the family this time.  One of my grad school friends, who you all know as my dissertation date buddy, has just been diagnosed with cancer.  Not that cancer is ever cool, but she's 27.  WTF.  She should be editing her dissertation and planning for her awesome teaching post doc, not planning chemo treatments.  She was supposed to defend her dissertation July 5th, which is obviously unlikely to happen any time soon now.

She just went back into surgery this afternoon.  For any of you who are into this sort of thing, she could really use some prayers.

J's account of my life for the past month

Because I haven't been able to blog often enough to satisfy him, J (of E & J) has decided to step in and write a post for me.  Yes, he calls me Annie.  Here's his account of the past month of my life [with a wee bit of my own commentary thrown in]:

I am an avid reader of Annie’s life in a lab coat blog.  I am sure that her other readers are experiencing the same angst as I am, wondering what she is up to.  The following is my account of the happenings since her last irregular blog post.

1.       Lil sis graduated from High School.  This is a momentous occasion.  She is a smart and at times goofy young lady.  I think back to the mix of emotions that I experienced when I graduated from high school.  I was overjoyed to be done with a 12 year educational endeavor and anxious for the post secondary hurdle ahead a.k.a. college.  Lil sis was accepted to a good school and even got a scholarship!

2.       E. had her bachelorette party in Sonoita, AZ, in Arizona wine country.  The party of ladies took several tours of various wineries and handed out cookies to several of the operators who gave unscheduled tours of their operation.  Side bar: I am jealous of this trip as it is on my Tucson bucket list and I have yet to go but, E. had a good time and that is all that matters, ever. [Isn't J a great husband?]

3.       Anne went on several job interviews [actually just one on-site interview, plus a few phone interviews, and a couple face-to-face interviews at the conference last month] for post graduation aka the real world with a real job.  This should not be confused with some no-talent hollow a-holes who end up on MTV drinking too much and in general sucking at life.  She had the trip from layover hell.  To keep it short and sweet, she was supposed to get in at a reasonable time and have dinner with the infamous C. [aka Boyfriend] but, Murphy’s Law and the airlines [and the weather] took over and killed that dream.  She finally, after many hours of waiting, landed at 0000 (midnight for you non-24 clock people [--> E]) and made it to her interview at 0700 tired but there in person. 

4.       J & E FINALLY got married after ~6.5 years of dating!  Anne was the MOH and gave a great toast. The back story:  The wedding was on 6/2/12.  Annie returned from her interview and entered pre- wedding combat.  E. decided to make her own wedding and grooms cakes.  So, beginning on Thursday, she worked for two days baking cakes, making marzipan fruit, crumb frosted, frosted, decorated the cake, and flowers.   She did this side by side with E’s mom who is high strung [no comment].  Being my M.I.L., I will make no further comment.  I cannot express my level of thanks for her help.  The cakes were delicious and looked awesome.  Annie is a truly talented baker and any man lucky enough to have her in his life will eat well.  C. take note. [Yes. Boyfriend, take note.] Pictures to follow.

5.       Annie was offered a post doc position that is affiliated with one of the premier medical institutions [located at one of said institutions, I'll actually be employed by an instrument company] in the country.  Last I heard this was where she was going to accept as a job.  It is a bitter sweet event.  On the one hand it is nice to graduate and get the hell out of grad school.  On the other it is sad as she will be leaving a group of great friends and a town that she has come to love and hate.  I can only wish her the best of luck.  I know that she is a great chemist and will flourish at anything she takes on. 

6.       The dissertation is for all practical purposes done, yay!  [YAY!!!!]  I know this has been a looming cloud for a few months but, it is in the final stages of done and should be finished very very shortly.  Annie and I discussed her monumental achievement this evening; I was informed that she was celebrating with ice cream.  For those of you curious souls: Ben and Jerry’s Half Baked.

I am sure that I left some things out but, this should give you some much needed Annie news.

Thank you for reading this somewhat rambling post and have a good morning/afternoon/evening.

~J. of J & E

We interrupt this irregularly scheduled inactivity...

...to point out that the problem with going to a cafe to write by myself arises when I inevitably need to pee.  I can only hold it so long, and I become increasingly unproductive the more I need to pee.  Time to trust a random stranger to keep an eye on my laptop while I run to the restroom.

Ok, time to resume this prolonged period of inactivity until I emerge from the writing cave.  When I do I will have plenty to say.  Even aside from the craziness of finishing a dissertation life's been crazy for the past several weeks.

Amazingly Awesome Cake

My parents and grandfather were in Tucson this weekend for commencement, and I made this caramel chocolate cake from Annie's Eats for Mother's Day.  Holy crap was it delicious.  So, so good.  I wound up not using salt...I know my mom and I both love salted desserts, but I wasn't sure how popular it would be otherwise.  I do think it would be good salted, but it was also incredibly delicious without salt.  I also made this with store-bought caramel...I just can't make caramel to save my life.  I've struggled with it since the first time I tried, and from my three attempts this go-around, I wound up with 1 slightly burnt batch, and 2 crystallized batches... Boo.  The upside is it still tastes fabulous with non-home-made caramel (even if I did catch some flack for it).

At this point I've tried a lot of recipes, and I know I bake pretty well, so it takes a lot to impress me, and I was totally blown away by this cake.  I'd say this is probably in the top three things I've ever made. This cake made such an impression on my grandfather that Little Sister said he was still raving about it when they got home tonight.

Here it is.  Dark chocolate cake, caramel Swiss buttercream filling, fudge-y chocolate frosting.

Dragging

The week hasn't even technically started and my feet are already dragging.  It's Sunday, I've been in lab for 10 hours, and I'm really not at all close to done with this dumb experiment...  So tired.  Where I was freaking out a couple weeks ago, now I'm just super tired.  Tired because I've been working all day, and even more tired thinking about the next four weeks.  It's going to be a giant blur of poster making, dissertation writing, my graduation, more poster making and dissertation writing, my dad's birthday, my sister's graduation, a conference, job hunting, more dissertation writing, dress fittings, bachelorette party, more dissertation writing, wedding cake making, and wedding.  When all that is done, I'll have about one more week to finish my dissertation.

This experiment took a while to get going, then was going ok, and then my capillary ran dry, so I refilled it, and of course the charge state I'd been working with is gone.  And then I couldn't get protein to spray to save my life.  GAH.  While I'm sitting here waiting on spectra I feel like I should be writing or doing something useful, but I'm just too tired.  I did revisions on a chapter earlier, and opened a new document for the next chapter I've got to write.  But I just can't do it anymore.  I almost wish these were hour long spectra rather than 10 minute spectra so I could nap.

Cinco de Mayo & Supermoon

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!  Ok, so that about exhausts my knowledge of Spanish.  Ok, so not quite, but I really don't know much more even though my vocabulary has probably doubled since moving to Tucson.

I made margarita cupcakes and cookies for a Cinco de Mayo party this afternoon.

I made the cupcakes (from Annie's Eats) about two years ago for a Memorial Day party, but brought them out again for the more appropriate May holiday.  We thought we had conquered the oh-so-finnicky Swiss buttercream frosting, but even though we eventually got it to the right consistency, it still tasted funny to us.  Too buttery.  While butter makes things delicious, you don't want things to actually taste like straight up whipped butter (although I have one friend/former labmate who might...).  They turned out ok overall, though not quite what I thought they should be.  I swear the frosting tasted better the first time I made them when I hadn't really figured out Swiss buttercream yet.

The cookies (from Smitten Kitchen) were delicious, though E didn't think they were nearly as margarita-y as she expected.  I wouldn't mind a stronger tequila flavor, but I thought they were tasty and pretty close.  While I really liked the bit of salt around the edges, I would totally make these again without the salt rim for a non-Cinco-de-Mayo occasion.  I think the flecks of orange and lime zest are just so pretty.

And finally, here's a shot I took of tonight's "Super Moon" after I got home from the party.

Wanted

"Tactful assertive interpersonal skills". Best preferred qualification I've seen in a job posting yet.

P.S.

To those of you who read that last post as one giant paragraph, I'm very sorry.  Blogger on my iPad can't seem to handle even basic formatting such as paragraphs.  It's fixed now.

Shark week started this morning.  Shoot me.  Yay for heightened anxiety.  (Not that I don't think almost everything I just rambled about isn't anxiety-worthy on a normal day.)

The guys from the post doc in northern NJ emailed this morning - their higher ups want assurance that I really will be done by August.  The Queen and I gave them this assurance, along with a summary of my dissertation writing progress and what's left to do.  Since my offer there hinges on this project being funded, I was very, very clear with them when we first started talking about this that I needed to continue looking for other options, and that even if they were funded, if I had a better offer (in terms of money or geography), I'd probably take it.  They were totally ok with this, saying I wouldn't be "screwing them over" if I took something else (their words, no joke).  Though this was when we all thought they had 9 months to fill the post doc upon receiving project approval/funding, but apparently that has changed to 6 months.  And it sounds like they should hear back about their proposal "by May", which for all practical purposes is NOW.  Crap.  The people in Lancaster had better get their act together and realize they should want me.

Oh, the swamp cooler has been serviced and is running for the year.  So there's one thing off the to-do list at least.  My mother would have killed me if she'd come out here for commencement and it weren't running yet.  (Not that it's running and perfect operation will prevent her from whining about the heat.)

Time to find some caffeine and some chocolate.

Sleepless Ramblings

I can't sleep. It's quarter past 3 and I've been wide awake for the past hour and a half.

Aside from the predicted high of only 80 on Thursday, summer has hit in Tucson. We had a record high of 101 on Sunday. Overnight lows are in the 60s, so I suppose at least we're not to the worst of it when it stops cooling off overnight (lows in the 80s, which is still insane to think about after 5 years). But it's mid April, so the swamp cooler isn't on for the summer yet, I'm cold without my sheet, but hot with it, and not yet reacclimated to sleeping with a fan on me.

I've been dieting for the past 2 1/2 months with the help of an app on my iPad. It's actually been going quite well, except Saturday I got fit for my bridesmaid's dress for E's wedding in June, so I can't lose anymore weight before then of the dress won't stay up (the tailor is already taking it in 2+ inches on both sides...whoops...). So I switched the app settings to maintain my current weight, and after working out this morning and playing softball tonight I finished today 775 calories under "goal." After really not eating particularly healthy or skimpy today. I don't want to not work out between now and the wedding because that isn't healthy either and I don't want to lose all my muscle! This is going to take some getting used to... 

The anxiety in the office surrounding the move seems to have at least temporarily calmed as people are over the shock and looking into their various options, but my anxiety just seems to be getting worse. I'm getting more and more worried about my last experiments not working and not having enough (good) data to put on my poster for ASMS or the last chapter of my dissertation. ASMS is going to be a huge time suck between now and May 25th. I kind of wish I weren't going, but I argued my way into going because I was worried I wouldn't have a job by then and then I worked hard to gather more than enough outside travel funding, and got a poster abstract accepted and then had to convince the organizers to reschedule it for another day when it conflicted with Little Sister's high school graduation. So I have to go, and yes this means I'm taking the 5 am flight from Boston to Vancouver the day after graduation.

The whole not having a job yet thing is also a major source of anxiety. There's a potential post doc in northern NJ that looks promising - they've submitted an internal proposal for the project and if they get funded (they think their odds are good) I will have an offer. But the project would be a collaboration with The Queen, and the more the move situation unfolds the more I want to just cut ties and move on completely, and the outskirts of NYC/Newark is really pretty high on my list of places I've never wanted to live. I found a post doc opening actually in Lancaster last week that I am unbelievably perfectly qualified for and obviously applied right away, but I'm nervous I won't hear anything at all back from them (like most of the other jobs I've applied for) or that the salary will be garbage or that it will be another case of a company trying to save themselves $30k by listing a "real" PhD-level job as a post doc (yet another thing I've discovered I have to be wary of when looking at job postings). But speaking of "real job" vs post doc, I'd much rather have a real job than a post doc, but very few people seem to be hiring new grads and most want proteomics expereience, which I don't have and really hate anyways.

Then there's this weird pain in the lower right corner of my mouth. If it's actually something real I'm sure it would be super expensive to fix, and surprise surprise, the student health plan doesn't include dental coverage, and the thought of thousand(s) of dollars of dental expenses when I'm trying to save for a cross-country move and potential unemployment makes me nauseous. Not to mention I HATE the dental practice I've been going to and don't remotely trust 95% of what they tell me. And dental work = through the roof anxiety. Just listening to somebody in the next room getting a filling sets me on edge. I leave every dentist visit drenched in sweat and with achy back and shoulders from clenching my muscles so hard. God I hope my wisdom teeth haven't finally decided to make their presence known.

I'm terrified that between ASMS, mine and Little Sister's graduation schenanigans, and E's wedding (crap, have to figure out bachelorette stuff still) that I'll never finish my dissertation in time. Our group admin is trying to schedule my final seminar and defense for some time in July, because The Queen leaves in early August and I'm not sure I can be done any sooner, but The Queen is going to be out of town for like half of July (and who knows about the rest of my committee members...). On top of worrying that I won't finish in time, my best guess at the moment is that my dissertation will be about 200 pages, which looking at past dissertations out of my group seems inadequate. A friend commented today that she's at 236 pages and not even close to done. I keep telling myself that nobody wants to read even 200 pages of dissertation, never mind 300+ pages, but 200 pages just doesn't seem like it could possibly be representative of 5 years of grad school misery. And I'm quite sure I'd cry on the spot if they told me at my defense that it wasn't going to cut it (never mind that I'm not at all convinced that anybody - including The Queen - will read it and I've never heard of anybody failing their defense here, and my committee seemed satisfied at my 6 month meeting in December).

Great. Now it's 4. You can probably why see I'm having a hard time sleeping. Tomorrow/today is going to be a mess.

Wine vs Whine

I have to say, dissertation writing at home, with a glass (or two) of wine, is SO much better than dissertation writing in my office, surrounded by annoying, crazy, and or extremely stressed out people.  Not that their anxiety isn't currently warranted, but still.  It rubs off, and makes me anxious and less productive.  I've written 5 pages already today, and it's only 2 pm.  (While that may not sound like a lot, anybody who's written or currently writing a dissertation knows that it is!)

P.S. My classmate who came over to write, just asked me if "hydrogenator" is a word.  If it's not, it definitely should be.

When is a "good" time to give bad news?

So The Queen made her big announcement Friday afternoon, approximately 3 1/2 months before she leaves.  Graduate students who are moving with our advisor theoretically don't have to go at exactly the same time she does (although that would certainly make the most sense for most situations).  Theoretically and practically speaking, people probably have about 2 months to decide what they're doing.  While there isn't a particular hurry for grad students to decide if they're staying or going, the longer they take to decide the more time is "wasted" towards getting their degrees.

Some people think she should have told students sooner.  But I'm not sure there really is a good, or even better time to give news that is inevitably going to flip people's lives upside down.  Does having four, or six months, rather than two make that sort of decision any easier?  I'm not remotely convinced that it does, though at the same time, all the reasons for not telling people, especially students, sooner mostly sound pretty selfish.

Obviously for students who are going to switch groups, the sooner they find out, they sooner they can make the change and continue making progress towards their degrees.  Although for students who are going to drop out, delaying the announcement means they have more work done, and have more research done that could go into a masters thesis (assuming the previous couple of months have been "good" lab months).

The sooner students know, students who are going to move are much more likely to make sure they're not going to be in a situation of breaking a lease.  Breaking a lease can be super expensive.  More expensive than most grad students can really afford.

I definitely agree with an advisor not saying anything until the decision is definite.  (Although in this case I'm quite sure that The Queen was sure about this a LONG time ago.)  There's no reason to throw people into upheaval and angst if it may not turn out to be necessary after all.

From an advisor's perspective, it's easy to see why one might put off such an announcement as long as possible.  They're facing a "lame duck" period no matter what.  It's awkward to tell your colleagues and superiors that you're leaving, especially when many people will be upset by such an announcement, and then hang around for any longer than absolutely necessary.  Not to mention you'd only be extending the lab's inevitable down time.  In an ideal world, the lab can be packed up, moved across the country, unpacked, and sensitive/delicate instruments up and running within 2-3 weeks.  In reality, it's probably going to be longer than that.  Productivity will also decline in general well before the lab is packed.  Students who switch groups will do that as soon as possible, and that could mean a substantial percentage of the lab's "workforce."  Anybody who is moving with the lab, but unhappy about it, is unlikely to be productive.  Happy grad student is much more likely to equal productive grad student than an unhappy one is.

I don't know what the "right" time for such an announcement is.  It's all going to be a giant mess no matter what.

Upheaval

Have I told you lately that I'm very, very glad to be graduating soon?  Maybe?  Well now I have extra reason to be very glad I'm almost done, and extra motivation to finish as fast as possible.

The Queen announced last Friday that she's moving to another university in August.  Yikes.  We have a really large research group - 18 grad students.  That's A LOT of lives to turn upside down.  Fifth years and up will graduate ASAP.  Fourth years might have the option to stay behind and finish, depending on personal circumstances, project, and actual closeness to graduation.  Third years are royally screwed.  The second years and first years are early enough in their graduate studies that switching groups (if they decided not to go with The Queen) wouldn't set them back very much (if at all) if they decided not to go.

Third years are really too far from graduation for them to stay behind to finish their research, but they've already made substantial progress towards their dissertation.  They could move with The Queen, leaving behind the lives they've been building here (and homes owned!) for the past 3 years much sooner than they were planning.  They could conceivably switch groups, but this would likely set them back at least a year, and would require a complete change in project.  The only possible exception to this is one student who could possibly switch into his collaborator's group and continue more or less on what he's been doing.  They could also drop out.  Sadly, it's entirely possible that at least one of them will.  They could get MAs, which would only require filing paperwork.  Or they could quickly wrap up what they're currently working on, and write up a thesis for an MS.

I'm so incredibly grateful that if this had to happen that it's at this point in my graduate career.  But it still sucks watching my friends and labmates struggling with a really, really difficult decision.

Random Funny

I saw this poster taped to a utility box on my way to school a couple of weeks ago.  Apparently it was an actual event.  Too funny.

Birthday Cupcakes

A friend's birthday was Friday, and I offered to make/bake something for the gathering that night.  I wasn't sure she'd want cake/cupcakes, because she really isn't into sweets (although give her a bag of potato chips...).  I offered a few suggestions I thought she might like - booze based or salted caramel to appeal steer clear of the super sweet stuff.  She replied that her favorite cakes were tiramisu and carrot cake.  I've never made tiramisu (though I have successfully made lady fingers!), and I'm under the impression it has to soak for quite a while, so I went home from working planning to make carrot cupcakes.  I knew there was a recipe I liked (aside from the cream cheese frosting of course) in my cupcake cookbook.  When I was looking for the carrot cake recipe I found a recipe for tiramisu cupcakes - that didn't require soaking!  Looking at both recipes, I was only missing 1-2 ingredients for each, and couldn't decide between them, so the obvious solution was to make both. :)

The tiramisu cupcakes were awesome.  I really, really liked them.  They weren't really the same texture as tiramisu, but they were the right flavors.  The "frosting" actually had raw, whipped egg whites - the frosting was more in line with the texture you expect from tiramisu.  It was the first time I served anybody uncooked egg.  In principle it doesn't bother me (though I know it bothers E big time), but I figured serving them to a bunch of drunks would be a safe opportunity.  If people got sick, excessive alcohol consumption is a far more likely culprit (unless EVERYBODY gets sick, but shhh!).

You see the carrot cupcake?  Good.  Now imagine them with cream cheese frosting flecked with cardamom and orange zest.  I'm a space cadet and forgot to take a photo after frosting them...

Tiramisu cupcakes