Baby names

This just in... Bridget and David have decided on a name for their new little boy - Owen David Ashcraft. Let the record show that Owen is one of my all-time favorite boy names, so I'm very happy that someone I know has chosen it:)

So far, they have Rhianna Francis and Owen David.. Well done guys!!

Forgot to announce this

Check out this webpage... It's about my grant, and it includes a little blurb about my project. Just scroll down until you see my name and then click the "[+]" at the right to read. Looks like only 3 pre-docs were chosen for the grant which makes me feel special:)

Enjoy!

http://www.ctf.org/professionals/yia.htm

Congrats to the Ashcrafts!!

This just in, Bridget gave birth to a healthy 6lb baby boy today around 1:30 (Montana time)! Baby, Bridget, Dave, and Rhianna are all doing well - huge congrats to the Ashcrafts on their new addition to the family!:)

Oh yeah, there's still no name... That'll be in another post.

13 Days and counting!

I have 13 days until I am free from my candidacy exam!! Let me tell you, I'm very excited to have this done. What's more exciting is that when I talked with Larry today he found out that no one else wanted revisions of my written proposal, so he followed suit and said that I didn't have to worry about it!:) (In case I forgot to mention, Larry had "significant revisions" required which meant I would have a lot more writing to do) His exact words were "I don't want you wasting any more time on it." Larry, I couldn't agree more. So that's a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, which is only marginal compared to the weight still lingering for the oral exam, but it's still very helpful. I'm not really sure if it's because I am sick of this exam or if I subconsciously feel smart but I'm somehow not very nervous right now. (Key word: right now). Surely this will change soon as 13 days becomes 2 or 3. Oh yeah, I didn't even tell you... The date for the exam is October 3rd at 2:00pm - wish me well!!

As for the part of my exam where I was "scooped," I'm not really worrying about it too much. For those of you who don't know, being scooped basically means that someone else published work on something that you're either currently working on or writing a grant to do. For me, it just so happens that a group published a paper saying that part of my hypothesis in my candidacy exam is actually true. The problem is that my proposal was supposed to be novel (aka never done before). In my defense though, it was published online ahead of schedule on the same day I handed in my proposal to the committee, and it wasn't in print until about a week later. They don't know this yet, but I will be upfront and honest with my committee during the oral exam if it comes up. However, as of now there's no need to sound the alarms. Hopefully they'll see it from my perspective that it was really beyond my control, and maybe they'll commend me for at least being right!:)

Other than candidacy I don't have much else new and exciting to tell. Bridget is due to have her baby any time now. I read on Tuesday (I think) that she's 70% effaced and 5 cm dialated, and it seems like it's taken her quite a while to get there! Keep truckin' Bridget! They're expecting a boy, and no names have been released as of yet. I don't normally expect people to have their children named much before the birth anyways - I'm fairly certain I'd change my mind about a hundred times, so I don't blame them for keeping it secret;-)

Still going...

Okay, now I'm hitting the edge. I just found out that the fees for being a student here are more now than ever. According to OSU we need to pay for the city bus (which I never use), a student activity fee (which I can't complain about b/c I actually use that), and now a higher rate for the new athletic facilities they just built... That fee used to be non-existant, then it went to $42, but now it's a whopping $78 every quarter!!! I don't even use these stupid facilities but I still have to pay for them. The thing that really burns my ass is that undergrads don't take the hit like grad students do b/c they have student loans that they can just tack the fees on to. However, since our tuition is paid for us, we grad students don't have student loans so the money comes straight out of our empty pockets. I was recently notified of a "raise" that we're getting at the end of October, but now given the hike in fee costs it's basically like we're getting nothing (or less than what we are getting now!) So all total, the fees will cost me $102 every quarter (which is only 10 weeks long), and taking into account that our raise would have only given us about $30 after taxes per month, I'd say we're getting stiffed. This sucks.

Officially Stressed Out

I turned in my qualifying exam on August 28th, and so far I've heard back from three of my four committee members. Based on the tardiness of the one PI who took over 3 weeks to read a 250-word abstract, my guess is that 2 weeks will not be enough for him to read 10 pages (single spaced, mind you). However, I will give him the benefit of the doubt seeing as he still technically has until this coming Monday (the 11th) to get back to me. The good news is that two committee members gave me "Pass with no revisions," however Larry (my PI) gave me a "Pass with significant revisions." I suppose I should kind of expect it from Larry since he's my primary advisor and wants me to do well - but it certainly worries me for the oral portion of the exam. Which brings me to my next point: when is my oral? I was foolish to think that this might be easy to schedule since according to most of my committee, the end of September would be perfect. But to no real surprise, the one committee member (that I'm still waiting on) is not able to do it then because of an upcoming grant deadline. I can sympathize though, because I wouldn't want to take 2-3 hours out of my day if I was on a tight deadline either... It just sucks because starting early in October it gets hairy with the other committee members. And to make matters harder, I have to get this thing scheduled this week because I have to notify the Graduate School Office at least 2 weeks in advance, and one of my committee members is leaving town on Saturday for the whole week. Also, Larry is in Paris for another week and a half and is not checking his email so I'm just hoping that the day I pick will turn out to work for him. What's more... I was really hoping to have the exam in the morning, but due to more scheduling conflicts I will now have to make it for the afternoon which means I'll get to sit around being nervous all morning beforehand. (The good news about an afternoon oral exam would mean that it's closer to happy hour time at which time Tim promised to treat me to celebratory cocktails:)
I guess I could be overstressing about all of this, but truthfully I think I've had enough and today I might have hit a slight breaking point. I just don't know how to explain it. Here's the story: About a month or so ago I dissected some embryos for a study that I'm doing and proceeded to embed them in a freezing compound so that I can later section them into thin slices, put the sections on slides, and stain them for the stuff we're looking for. The only catch... Now that I'm ready to stain them, they are no where to be found. Yep, gone. We always keep frozen tissues in the -80 degree freezer, and I swear I looked in every box of that stupid freezer and nothing. Nada. Zilch. I looked THREE TIMES even!! I can't possibly explain this and it frustrates me to no end. I was supposed to have finished sectioning these stupid samples this week and have them all stained and pretty so I could finally start writing a paper on this project. Larry's been on me a lot lately about writing more, and it seems like all I do anymore is write! But yet I still have two papers waiting on me to write them... One of which I was supposed to have finished and submitted already, but some experiments needed to be repeated. That's been a lot of fun lately too... In order to do the experiment over again I need to have primary Schwann cells to use as a control. In order to get the Schwann cells I have to mate mice and take the embryos at precise timepoints during the pregnancy. What helps immensely is if the mice would actually mate. I can't believe these stupid mice aren't mating!! Isn't that what mice DO?! Just eat, sleep, and mate? So needless to say, I don't think Larry's going to be too happy with me when he gets back from Paris. In the meantime I'm sitting here stressing out, when I should be studying for my oral exam that I can't schedule yet. But that seems so daunting to me now I'm almost scared to get started.
Ahhhhh!! I need a break!!