doctor auntie lorna

this past friday my aunt (i.e. younger sister of my mom) was conferred her PhD in Nursing by the chancellor of McMaster University. i snuck out of the lab for the day to attend her convocation, and was treated to a whole 24 hours with my cousins, cousin's girlfriend, aunt & uncle, granny, mom, and various others intermittently. i am so proud of her for this accomplishment, and for her choice to also complete a post-doc at McMaster and continue her research. she studies issues surrounding quality of life in individuals with dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

congratulations auntie lorna! :)

i have discovered over the past few years that i am a total sucker for ceremony. i cried through the entire first half of the convocation, just as i cried through my brother's entire high school graduation, my own undergraduate convocation, and my cousin's undergraduate convocation. something about the organ and the bagpipes and the academic robes and the guy who carries the sceptre... what particularly got me is the simple act of a supervisor placing the hood around the graduating student's neck. to me this represents the transition from a mentor-student relationship to a colleague-colleague relationship, like the official welcome to a circle of individuals who have a little fire burning within themselves over the pursuit of knowledge. despite the minor setback that has emerged with regards to my PhD studies (more details on this next post), i am more excited than ever to continue being a part of the academic world and to achieve all that the PhD entails. maybe one day i'll get to carry the sceptre. ha ha.

remember me?

so... haven't been around for a while. seems i last posted at the end of august, and i've been pretty much in the grant writing and experiment zone since then. as you might recall, the funding proposals i was working here did not get me any $$, so i've been aggressively putting together 4 (yes 4!) PhD funding apps this year. just submitted the last of them on Friday.

i have to get back to the lab to do a whole bunch of stuff, but to appease everyone who's been waiting for news for the past 2.5 months, here is percy in all his adolescent glory. with a decorative autumn gourd.