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.