Science (non) Fiction

So, it’s official. I have been granted my Doctor of Philosophy degree in Microbiology and Immunology from Wake Forest University! I am a real doctor, though not the kind that help people. I will officially be a December 2008 graduate (missed the August deadline by 2 weeks!), though I won’t walk in graduation and be hooded until May 2009. But the degree is finished, and it feels like an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders in the last 24 hours.

I will now be making some revisions of the thesis document, and finishing up some experiments, and breaking into my new role as professor. I want to thank those of you who have been such an incredible source of support and comfort over the past several years, who have listened to the complaining and freaking out and stressful conversations, who have prayed for me over the years and lightened the load. This experience would have been much less fun and incredibly more difficult without all of you. So thank you. Very much.

With the roomie defending her thesis this Monday, we decided to have a big blow-out party next Saturday the 23rd at 2pm. If you haven’t gotten an invitation and want to come, let me know and I’ll add you to the list! We’d love to see you there!

So. I have been delaying updating here until I could say something real. And I now can. I will be defending my PhD dissertation this coming Thursday August 14th at 2pm, starting with an open seminar (feel free to come if you’d like!) and then a closed session with my thesis committee. I don’t think I can accurately describe what it feels like to be here, finally at this point I’ve been striving for for 6 years. It’s been a long time coming, and yet sometimes seems to have flown by at warp speed. There’s a strong sense of inevitability now that it’s less than a week away, now that the countdown has begun. I’m also nervous, and proud, and amazed, and exhausted, and a million other things right now. I will be beyond happy to receive my PhD, but also I suspect will feel an intense sense of relief, that this time of constant questioning will be over.

As far as details go, I will be sticking around Winston Salem for this coming academic year. I’ll be working in the lab through the end of September to finish up a couple more papers before the boss leaves. But starting on August 18th, I’ll be teaching my first college class at a local liberal arts college, an introductory class for biology majors. I am very excited (and nervous) about this new opportunity, and the experience it will bring that will make me a more attractive candidate for a faculty position in the near future.

So. There you go. An update, finally. I will try to keep up better now that the big news is out, but given what September is looking like, that might be a tall order. We’ll see. I’ll be sure to let you know how things go this week. Unless the biochemistry kills me first.

I stole this from Kari, who was not exactly sure what this list is, but it has something to do with the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read program, though she couldn’t find this list on their website to verify that claim. Apparently the NEA estimates that the average adult has only read six of these books. At least, that is the statistic that is bandied about the internet. So, basically, this is a random unverified list with a random unverified statistic attached to it. But let’s see how I do anyway, shall we? (Hint: more than six.)

Here’s how it works:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Mark in red the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your blog

And I think I’ll stick with Kari on this one and not mark things red - I’ll note on the side if I loved it.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - One of my all time favorites.
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - I’ve read the first 1.5 books. I should finish.
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - I could re-read this every single year.
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - I think you probably know how I feel about these.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - I admit to never reading this yet.
6 The Bible - I read through the whole thing in a year sometime in college.
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - Hate.Hate.Hate. Have tried too many times.
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - I enjoyed them, despite the controversy.
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - I am not, in general, a fan of Dickens.

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - One of my favorites growing up.
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - I haven’t read it since high school.
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - I do love this book.
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot - I’ve started this one, but never finished.

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens - Again, not a huge fan of Dickens.
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - I always want to read this after I see the movie.
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - I wish I’d read it in time to see the movie.
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - Haven’t read it, don’t plan on it.
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - Love this growing up.
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - I want to re-read it as an adult.
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen - Another favorite.
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen - I love me some Jane.
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - The one I’ve re-read most often.
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - Hard to forget.
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - I doubt that I will ever try this one.
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving - One of my favorites from this current year.
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - I went through a Wilkie Collins phase.
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - The whole series.
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy - I have read some Hardy. I liked The Mayor of Casterbridge.
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood - Strange.
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - I never had to read this one.
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan - Really powerful.

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - I’ve always wanted to read this.
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - This is tied with P&P for first place.
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - Again, I’ve tried several times and failed miserably.
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez Do.not.like.

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - This one was ok.
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - Very good.
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac - Started it, hated it.
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - One of the few I enjoy. (maybe because of the musical - hehe)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - I grew up loving this.
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - The only one of his I really enjoy.
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry - So depressing.
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery - I’ve read parts in French too.
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas - I love me some Dumas. (and the movie is good, too)
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare - Why have the whole collection and separate works on here?
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - I’ve actually never read any of his stuff, I think.
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - I have tried many times. One day I will succeed.

So that’s 43. Not bad, I guess. I do love book lists. And that several book club books made it on the list. How many have you read?