neuron-gazing

oops, there went two months.

...

it's been a bit of a course work frenzy, all stats assignments and reaction papers and readings and seminars. but i will be finished all (save 1/2 a credit) of my PhD course requirements in exactly one week! this is undeniably exciting, as it means i can go back to doing actual research on a full time basis. which is, you know, what grad students are supposed to do.

i guess there are a few exciting things that have happened since february 4th. i found a new apartment into which i will be moving with 2 grad student friends at the beginning of may. it is the most beautiful apartment i have ever seen in toronto, almost as beautiful as some of the apartments i've seen in montreal. very cute old little walk-up, well-kept, new track lighting on ceilings, little glass-doored cabinets in pantry area between dining room and kitchen, front balcony, wood-burning fireplace. i could go on. counting down the days til move-in, as i sit here listening to the house mouse scurry around in the ceiling over my desk.

second excitement is that an undergrad student from my neuroanatomy lab in the fall has secured herself some funding to come and do research with me this summer. reasons for my excitement include: (1) my first experiences with research took place around the same time of my undergrad under the guidance of some very enthusiastic and fun grad students, and i am looking forward to picking up the supervisory torch, (2) one of my favourite parts of doing scientific research is sharing the process with other students, and hopefully getting them excited about spending hours in front of a microscope, and (3) i was not in a position to supervise undergrad students in my previous lab, since the departments with which i was affiliated didn't offer any undergrad programs. and i guess, admittedly, (4) it will be nice to have someone around to help out with all the menial day-to-day tasks that comprise the types of experiments that i do. i am interested to see how i evolve as a teacher and mentor in my first *official* supervisory role. will update on this as it happens.

for now, i will go back to writing the first of two term papers, while occasionally glancing out the window at the for-now-still bare trees behind the houses across the street. since i started studying neuronal morphology in earnest (think back to that trip to india), i can't look at bare branches without automatically tracing them out in my mind like this:

la petite cervelle, B.Sc. M.Sc.

the defense? it all worked out.

now to the important bits! celebrated with a pint of my favourite yummy Caledonian 80/- and a half-pint of the very tasty Delirium Tremens, which comes in the cutest glass i've ever seen (those are tiny pink elephants). since all i had for breakfast and lunch beforehand was 2 cups of coffee and a breakfast muslix pita with peanut butter, i supplemented the perfect beers with an elegant oval of mushroom and blue cheese pizza. beer and pizza in this master-ful style was provided by beerbistro.

knowing me, the festivities didn't end there. a couple of hours later, i had a small group of friends join me for dinner at The Rosebud, my favourite Toronto restaurant. highlights were an heirloom tomato and watermelon gazpacho riddled with tender grilled shrimp, and a praline semifreddo with perfectly bitter mocha mousse for dessert. mmmmmmmm.

with the adrenaline from the morning's nerves and early afternoon defending, the landmark of adding a few more letters after my name, the good feedback from my committee and examiners, the company of my colleagues and friends, and the yumminess of drinks and dinner, i would say it was close to the best day ever. sitting between courses at dinner, i think i said that it felt as though it was my wedding day, but i was getting married to myself. i can't imagine what it will feel like when i get the Ph.D. pulled together... in the mean time, yay for me.

that's better

the sun came out for my big day. 4 hours to go...

so close

my master's defense is tomorrow at 1:00 pm. just sitting at my desk right now going through my slides. one of the great things about my new place is that said desk is positioned in front of a huge window. natural light! also, a bit of a view (though somewhat of a dreary gray one today):



peeking out in the back you can see Mies van der Rohe's TD Centre (dark buildings), with a more blatant Toronto landmark way over to the right. i also just realized you can see the cement monstrosity that is my current workplace between the TD Centre and CN tower. huh.

wish me luck!

status update

lately, it seems like every journal article or book that i pick up is saying something uncannily relevant to my life at that exact moment. this helps a lot with thesis writing, and also provides amusement. from small world by david lodge:

when april with its sweet showers has pierced the drought of march to the root, and bathed every vein of earth with that liquid by whose power the flowers are engendered; when the zephyr, too, with its dulcet breath, has breathed life into the tender new shoots in every copse and on every heath, and the young sun has run half his course in the sign of the ram, and the little birds that sleep all night with their eyes open give song (so nature prompts them in their hearts), then, as the poet geoffrey chaucer observed many years ago, folk long to go on pilgrimages. only, these days, professional people call them conferences.

since last week when i found some very happy results for the second experiment of my thesis (as evoked by rainbow photo of rat brain section in post below), my supervisor has agreed we should submit the data to an upcoming conference. while i thought i'd go conference-less this summer (having opted out of a meeting in brazil, figuring i would be caught up in my MSc defense at approximately the same time), it seems i'll get to do a tiny bit of travel, present some exciting results, and see some of my favourite people on the second weekend of june.

also since last week, i've come up with some equally happy results for the third and FINAL experiment of my thesis. i was excited about said results this afternoon, when i made it through the data analysis. now i'm just tired. before i fall asleep, i'll remind myself that i don't have to trace any more beautiful neurons for at least a few weeks.


to bed - i have a thesis to write tomorrow.

the good part

i finished collecting the data from another of my ongoing experiments this past week. amazingly, the results agree with my previous data and support my thesis. there are really no words to describe the feeling of being the first to find something out.

after 3 years in grad school

-it is important to set aside the occasional afternoon to read and think.

-the majority of my used hard drive gigs are devoted to data, not music.

-time becomes relative. without the structure of semesters and courses, months and weeks are qualified based on their distance from the next goal. 2 days until next class meeting. 1 week until abstracts are due for a conference. 15 days until committee members need my thesis. 1 month until a mini-vacation.

-still have difficulty deciding how to describe where i wake up and go, and then spend my days and evenings. as in, "i go to work" versus "i go to school". even when i eventually finish my PhD, and a post-doctoral research stint, and hopefully land an academic job, would i be coming home from 'work' or 'school'? technically, a university is a school. but technically, i receive money that supports what i do at the university. i'm continuously learning, so it feels like school. it doesn't usually feel like work. amazingly, i have stumbled on the opposite of a job. i am in science. i am in life.

-journal articles are useful as coasters and placemats.

final drafted

after nearly seven (count them.. SEVEN) months of procrastination, i am proud to say that this afternoon i finished the first draft of my paper. this is not just some term paper (wrote that be-FORE xmas), but rather the kind of paper that formally describes and pontificates on the results of an experiment that yours truly carried out with her own hands and brain. in order to not feel like a total slacker, i need to remind myself that in the SEVEN months since i started writing i was distracted by a week-long smarty-pants conference in montreal, my first trip to new york city (which was partially for academic purposes), submission of an operating grant proposal to CIHR by my supervisor, the realization that i need to reconvene my studies elsewhere by sept 2007, submission of four PhD funding applications, prep and travel to the annual neuroscience meeting in atlanta, two experiments for my thesis, one experiment for fun, one GRE general test, and two grad school applications. oh, and that comparative cognition course with the term paper that i wrote on the weekend before vacation.

so maybe i'm not a slacker, but i'm still minorly disgusted with myself for taking seven months to write the paper.

i don't really believe in new year's resolutions, since you shouldn't have to wait until january the first of every year to decide to change something in your life, but if i were to make a small resolution for the occasion of 2007 i would aim to fully characterize and understand my procrastination patterns. i have always been a procrastinator, and it has never posed me any problems. because i am also obsessively organized, everything gets done on time. i typically just end up losing a bit of sleep... one thing i have noticed is that the more busy i make my life, the less room i have to procrastinate. for example, in my last year of undergrad i was working at the housing office, TAing for two courses, teaching two evening dance classes, running the Dal dance society, serving on a student services committee, taking a full course load, carrying out my honours experiments, and somehow having a fulfilling long-distance relationship on the side. i was at my most busy, but also very efficient, productive, and happy. when i started grad school in toronto, i figured that i should cut back on accessory things in order to spend more time on my research and course work. this has worked out OK, as i have oodles of hours to devote to all aspects of my experiments, but i don't feel that i'm as productive as i was in that year at Dal. conclusion? in order to feel productive, i need to be able to dabble in more than one or two activities.

perhaps i'll re-incorporate fresh pasta making into my weekly routine. productivity can also be yummy.