Science (non) Fiction

I’m back!
Thought I’d share this great quote from the Scottish poet Robert Burns - it was quoted in a book I’ve been reading (thanks Becky!) and I found it quite inspirational, considering some of the stuff I’ve been thinking about in my personal life!

Thou know’st that Thou hast formed me
With passions wild and strong;
And list’ning to their witching voice
Has often led me wrong.

Where with intention I have err’d,
No other plea I have,
But, Thou art good; and Goodness still
Delighteth to forgive.

I found it amazing that this man, writing so many years ago and so far away, could understand and express some of the same feelings I’ve had in my heart so many times in the last few years, when I can barely even express those same feelings to myself! But his assurance (or rather, God’s assurance) at the end is what I need to remember - as hard as that can be sometimes!

I’m off to finish up my lab work - with the holiday yesterday and a lab picnic today, I can tell this is not going to be the most productive week ever!

Pic below is from the Memorial Day cook-out at Chad’s house Sat night - I think I good time was had by all, even though there were only a few of us left to take pictures by the time we broke out the cameras! Went to see Madagascar Friday night with friends, including Frances, which was nice since I don’t get to see her much - and now she’s moving to the West Coast and getting married! Anyway, the movie was funny - not Monsters Inc or Finding Nemo, but that’s a high standard to live up to! Had a cook-out of some sort Sat, Sun, and Mon - crazy amount of food eaten over the holiday… and I’ve got a picnic today for lab people, so I better hop off and get my work done so I can go!
By the way, my dad (Mike) will be going to Kenya for a whole month starting this coming Monday - he’ll be working with a couple that runs an orphanage near Nairobi and he’s very excited about it! I (and I know he also) would appreciate prayers, both for the ministry of the trip, and also for everyone’s safety and health - thanks!

Me, Rebecca and Kari at Chad’s Memorial Day cook-out 

Newly discovered (or re-discovered) faves:

Sour patch kids - well, I’ve been addicted for a while now, but I used to not like them…

TV on DVD - this is newest fave addiction - if I had the money and time, I’d totally get a DVR and watch all TV without commercials, whenever I feel like watching them - it’s great! Worth it to just wait til a show comes out on DVD! Like Scrubs - I’ve been watching the first season and I’d totally forgotten how funny it is (and incidentally how much Zach Braff looks like my brother!) - I haven’t watched any ‘real’ TV in a long time!

Wicked - re-telling of the back-story of the Wizard of Oz, trying to explain the reasons behind the Wicked Witch of the West’s wickedness - I really disliked the book (didn’t even finish it, which for those of you who know me well, you know that’s pretty extreme - I’ll finish almost anything!) but the musical is really fun! One of my labmates gave me the soundtrack and it’s pretty good - I’d love to go to NYC and see it on Broadway (that and Spammalot!) - maybe when I’m officially a 4th year! Anyway, I recommend the musical highly!

80s music - thanks to several friends who are 80s buffs, I’ve know become addicted to (at least some) 80s music, especially stuff like ‘I would do anything for love’ and ‘total eclipse of the heart’ - stuff that’s fun to sing really loud in your car with the windows rolled down and volume up!

OK, that’s probably enough for now - I can tell you now that a future fave will most likely be the new movie version of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” coming out in Dec of this year - can’t wait - it looks really good!
If I can’t post again before the weekend, I wish everyone reading this a wonderful Memorial Day weekend - hope you can enjoy it with friends and family!

~Andrea

Oh agar, so smooth and clear,
beaming at me from your simple glass
jar,
cheering me with your sunshiney yellow hue,
providing my bacteria
friends with nourishment,
you are the delight of my lab.

OK, if you didn’t have the privilege of taking microbiology in college, you may have missed this, but agar media is the jello-ish stuff we pour in the bottom of petri dishes - we then grow the bacteria on the agar, which contains ‘food’ for them. Anyway, I was making agar media today and was struck by how pretty it is before it hardens and stuff grows on it - very bright and cheerful and happy! It doesn’t really stay that way too long, so I was inspired to write the above poem in honor of how the agar made me feel for at least a few minutes today!

I got some good and bad data today, so it’s a bit of a wash realistically, but I’ll cling to the good stuff and rationalize away the bad - trying things again a new way to see if it helps… I’ve been much more productive recently, so I’m trying to keep the ball rolling on that - we’ll see…

Also, City Wide was great last night - we had a few more people come out than for the last one and we hope to have even more at the next event in a few months! The teaching was really good and the music was a good mix of stuff everybody knew and a few new things thrown in - created a really energetic and sometimes pensive worship experience. I’m looking forward to planning the next ones and seeing what great things God can do with a group like this!

Peace out

Ok, so after a bummer week, I had a great weekend! Mostly spent hanging out with friends, plus a little time in the lab - all together, not too shabby. Picked strawberries early Sat morning with Beth (the ones I picked are mostly gone already!), then a couple hours in the lab, followed by STAR WARS III in the afternoon with friends - we almost didn’t make it in the theater in time to get seats, but we pulled it off - pretty good movie too, by the way! We decided that we wanted to end things on a happy note though, so after eating dinner in the back of Chad’s pickup truck (from Cook-out!) we watched Star Wars IV and then selected parts of V and VI - late night with a LOT of Star Wars! Church on Sunday morning, attended a volunteer appreciation banquet with a friend (it had a pirate theme - use your imagination to guess how lame it was (in my friend’s words)! Then some of us hung out at Becky’s that night and watched Princess Bride because one of the guys hadn’t seen it yet (I know, gasp!) - then hung out talking til much too late, which is why I keep yawning this morning…
Anyway, now that I’ve caught you up on my life for the past few days, I’m off to get back to work - volunteering tonight so I have to get stuff finished up early or at least on time!
I’ll leave with a fave quote, something I need to be reminded of quite a bit:

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up save in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket–safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

C.S. Lewis

OK, so I had a slight emotional melt-down last night - you know, ‘why am I here (grad school, not on the planet earth)?’, ‘what am I doing with my life?’, ‘will I ever be happy doing this?’, those kinds of questions - sometimes I don’t know why I’m struggling so much to stay in grad school when I don’t think I want to stay in academic research for the rest of my career anyway, but I realize that it’s an important step towards my ultimate goal, which is to teach college biology. So, following a good, cleansing sob-fest on my cell phone talking to Mom, I feel much better today and I have a plan to keep this from overwhelming me again in the near future. So there! It bothers me no end to have a bad attitude (as it bothers me when others have one), so I’m resolving to be more positive (with God’s help!).
On a happier note, today is the departmental picnic (at my advisor’s house) - so assuming that the thunderstorms don’t get it cancelled, we should have a good time of eating and hanging out with dept friends! Also, my classmates and I have now all finished our departmental seminars, so we are all well on our way to becoming official 4th years (that’s scary!) - I think we did a pretty good job, personally!
I’ll leave you with the words that are rolling around in my head right now from listening to my ‘Ultimate 80s’ CD (Thanks Charles!):

And I need you now tonight

And I need you more than ever

And if you’ll only hold me tight

We’ll be holding on forever

And we’ll only be making it right

Cause we’ll never be wrong together

We can take it to the end of the line

Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time

I don’t know what to do and I’m always in the dark

We’re living in a powder keg and giving off sparks

I really need you tonight

Forever’s gonna start tonight

Forever’s gonna start tonight

Once upon a time I was falling in love

But now I’m only falling apart

There’s nothing I can do

A total eclipse of the heart

Once upon a time there was light in my life

But now there’s only love in the dark

Nothing I can say

A total eclipse of the heart

This just in!
Topher Grace has been cast in the new Spiderman 3 - no news yet on what character he’ll play, or even if he’ll be good or evil - if I didn’t want to see this movie to begin with, I’ll certainly be seeing it now! Love me some Topher! Hehehe!

OK, based on some irritating things that happened today, I’m going to list some of my pet peevs for future reference - need to get out some grrrrrr!
In no particular order:
1. Elevator etiquette - people who don’t wait to let people off the elevator before they try to get ON the elevator, leading to squished exiting people as they get trampled leaving the elevator - grrrrr! This happens a lot in the hospital (where I work) since the MDs think that they’re so much more important and busy than the rest of us, they own the elevators!
2. Excessive nosiness - ok, now this is something with which I sometimes struggle myself, but not to the extent that it annoys me in other people. I mean, I like to talk and know about what’s going on around me as much (if not more) than the next person, but I don’t walk around sticking my nose into what are clearly other people’s conversations, into which I have no business listening, much less intruding - grrrrr!
3. Being called ’sweetie’, ‘honey’, or anything else ’sweet’ by people I don’t know - maybe it’s because I’m in the south, but when a man I have never seen before (at, say, a gas station) calls me sweetie or darlin’ (yes, without the ‘g’) it makes me want to reach over and hurt his face - grrrrr!
4. People who ask questions and clearly don’t want to hear the answers - this seems to be very prevalent in science as people like to hear themselves talk and ask what they think are insightful, intelligent questions, but then they don’t really care about your answer to said question - or they ask a question and then promptly leave the room/area, which is an even more obvious sign that they don’t care how you answer the question - grrrrr!
OK, you know, I’m really a very positive person, but I just had to let some of that out - feel free to share your own pet peevs if you’d like!

Hey folks! Just wanted to post a quick note about a city-wide worship service for young adults in the Winston-Salem area called CityWide- we had one in January and it was a big success so we’re going to have them seasonally 4 times a year, with the next one Tuesday May 24th 7:30pm at First Baptist Church downtown Winston. Josh Lindstrom from Salem Chapel will be speaking, and there will be awesome worship music provided by some of the peeps from Calvary Baptist. The purpose of the event is to engage young adults, energize churches and exalt Christ by providing a vibrant worship experience to get young adults (20s-30s) excited about getting involved in their own churches - we are not trying to create our own church. This should be a great time of worship and also fellowship with young adults from across the triad area, across denominational barriers. Here is the website!
I’ll post more later!

Hello and welcome to my blog! I don’t know if I have as many interesting and insightful things to say as some others, but I’ll give it a shot. It’s going to take me a while to get used to working this, since I’m not particularly web-savvy, so bear with me, ok?
For background on me, I’m a PhD candidate in graduate school at Wake Forest working on my degree in bacteriology - so I study a bacterium (yes, singular for bacteria) that is the major cause of death for cystic fibrosis patients - my work has some long-term medical relevance but I don’t do any clinical work, just molecular biology for the most part, with some nasty biochemistry thrown in to make me miserable! I’m about half way through now, but the light at the end of the tunnel is still a bit hard to make out… I’d like to teach when I’m threw with school, college-level biology at a smallish school where profs can have an impact on students.
I’m originally from Wisconsin but have been in NC for more than half my life now - parents are near Charlotte and brother lives with his wife near Fayetteville/Raleigh. I have one cat (will try to post a pic - let’s see how that goes) names Dinah - not really a cat person, but I love MY cat!
Well, if you’ve made it through that, you know the abbreviated version of my life - I’ll post more interesting stuff later hopefully!
Thanks for stopping by!