First Day at UMMS
Started my job today at UMMS and it went really really well, until tonight when we got a tornado warning, which was a bit freaky, but luckily Uncle John called to warn me about it & 1.5 hours later it seemed to not be anywhere near me, but rather north & east of me.
I think I need to go to sleep now cause it's nearly 10pm and I've gotta be at work at 8am!
Labels: weather, work
A long strangely unstressful week
So with the CDC coming to inspect our new facility tomorrow everyone here has been running around like headless chickens preparing for their arrival . . . you'd think I'd be completely stressing, but I'm not! I've reached the point where I know everything I've done for the past 3 weeks is complete and I can't do much about the things which aren't as completely ready, such as the building works which to my knowledge are still going on as I type (or at least I hope they are cause as of noon today they weren't finished!)
I cannot lie the past few weeks have been very difficult for me for multiple reasons (getting visas for my ATW trip, planning parts of my travel, preparing for CDC inspection to name a few) but I'm doing so much better this week. Maybe my "f**k it" attitude comes from the fact that I've been reading my favourite book in the world,
F**k It, by John Parkin.
A combination of reading that book, my trainer saying go for it, & my parents agreeing are the reason I'm going on my around the world trip. I mean I wanted to go as well, but I needed support from others whom I trusted!
Have I shown you a map of all the places I'm going? Here it is, I've even drawn a black line so you can see it more clearly (I hope) I think you can click on it to make it bigger if you want to.
As a friend pointed out recently it's really around the world in the southern hemisphere, and yes she was correct, I start & end north of the equator, but for about 6 months straight I'll be south of it.
Okay, back to work for now . . .
Labels: feelings, travel, work
Friday July 10th - where has the week gone?
I had some topic I wanted to discus, but of course as the day as progressed I've now forgotten it! I apologise for not being better with my updates, but it's summer, we've had a few days of real summer weather & the last time on my mind has been coming inside to sit in front of my computer & type. Also the fact I don't have internet at home has drastically reduced the amount of time I spend on the computer, which all in all I reckon is a good thing!
Oh, now I remember, I wanted to tell you about how wonderful my boss is! Yes, that correct, he's amazingly awesome - actually thinking about it I can't recall ever having a non-wonderful boss . . . yup, that's true, I've always had really fantastic bosses, sure hope this trend continues :) Back to the point, he's so awesome, I wish I could bring him to the US with me! I told him that I've been thinking of moving home at the end of the year. He said he'll do everything in his power to keep me here if he can, but that he understands how hard it is to have family far away (he's Aussie) and that if I decide to move back I will get a fantastic reference from him & will be greatly missed. He also said he wants me to get a work permit for next year, cause just in case it takes me a few months to get a new job at least I can still have this one & he'll pay the £1000 for it - how awesome is that??
Labels: future, work
inspection & economic thought
got the big wigs coming in for an inspection of the building today and our boss is outta the country, next in line doesn't work on friday, next in line is at our other campus working, next in line would be me & co-worker t . . . we're not exactly happy or excited about this inspection - i mean i'm sure we'll do fine, but it's still just a little nerve wrecking waiting around for him/her/them to arrive & start firing away questions at us.
back is feeling better, not back to normal by any means, but slightly less pain & i dare say more rom (range of motion) so i'm hoping that's a sign that my vertebrae have stayed in place like i want them to!
heard an idea yesterday,
government should dole out the stimulus check as a gift card, then you'd have to put it back into the economy . . . what do you think? i think it's a darn good idea, since people love to shop & will even if they don't have the money thanks to credit cards! okay that's my 2 pence for the day.
Labels: economy, injuries, work
March Madness
well not really, just my day today was rather busy, started off with back to back meeting with my boss, followed by lunch with the girls (aka my coworkers), then back onto the computer for an afternoon of faffing about on Prism, a statistical analysis program which I know is wonderful, but I've just had my fill in the past 2 weeks of graphing the same data 9 different ways (and no that's NOT an exaggeration!) After that Tash & I met to chat about what we're going to present at our 2 hour lab meeting on Wednesday, which of course included a carrot cake muffin break whilst looking at the hen do photos she'd taken at the weekend - ya know it helps motivate if you can do something totally mindless for 10 minutes. After that I started reading a paper on the differences between IL-17A and IL-17F and before I knew it, it was 5.30pm, so I left. Came home, made taco salad for dinner for Kaylie & me (lettuce, tomato, beef with taco seasoning, carrots, onions, peas, sweet corn, green beans, cheese, and salsa with a soft taco shell on the side - YUM!) Then Kaylie checked her email & I read for a lil while before going to the gym, yes that's correct the gym at 8.30pm, which I think is a good time for me, the gym is less busy, I've had time to eat & digest and I can come home, shower, blog quickly (like I am now) and then crawl into bed. The trainer left a note for me on my exercise program with a motivational quote, which I thought was very nice. I have to say the staff there are insanely friendly, I don't think I've ever been to a gym where they were so friendly & welcoming. Whilst I was there I saw a girl training with boxing gloves & her trainer - looked like fun, but rather difficult.
Okay that's basically it for today. My mum leaves NY tomorrow headed across the pond & arrives into Londontown Wednesday morning :) I can't wait to see her, I know I just saw her like 2.5 weeks ago, but it will be fun to have her here at my flat, which she's not seen yet, well aside from video skype, but that's not really the same.
Hope you all had a good Monday!!
Labels: gym, work
UGH, Monday!
hope you're having a good day . . . mine is off to a very slow start, tube station was closed due to over crowding, buses were heaving full so couldn't really get on, late for meeting at 9.15 so now have to go back during my lunch break, by time I got into lab I discovered it was more of a pool than a lab, as in there were inches of water in one of the small rooms and when I opened the door, it just spread all over the main lab - rain water from Saturday night, so as you can imagine the wet cardboard smell is LOVELY around here. and as I'm sure you can guess others "saw" a problem but didn't know who to call so they just left it alone - What the heck?
TGIALT (thank goodness it's almost lunch time)
Labels: public transport, stress, work
Some days are just crap!
Like today for instance, the engineer who was suppose to come & work today through Thursday so he can fix stuff at work called around 10am to say he is delayed. He hopes to arrive sometime this afternoon/evening. This means that now he has to work tomorrow to Friday, meaning we can't start our experiment
on Friday like we had planned and wanted to do. Especially as my coworker is gone all next week in skiing and the week after that is the week before we leave for the Keystone meeting in Vancouver, Canada so we'll be busy getting posters and presentations ready for that, etc . . . UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have I told you lately how much I dislike science?!?!?!?!?!!?
UPDATE 14.41: you learn that you've "won" the caption this contest over on Carmi's page, check it out, here I am feeling much, much better now! It's the little things in life I tell ya - sorta like video skype (right AM & DB?)Labels: caption this, carmi, frustrations, work
One of my life decisions has been made
for the moment at least . . . My boss asked me to stay for another year, finish off my grant & hopefully write a paper on my project & be second author on co-worker's paper - after LONG debates with myself & talking it out with family & friends from around the world (and I do mean
around the world, UK, Iraq, USA, Germany, Australia) over the past 3 weeks I've finally made the decided to accept the 2009 contract.
I know this might come as a surprise to some of you, since I was pretty dead set on coming home in December and joining the peace corps. But I really, really wanna get a paper out of this project (I've decided it's one of my "goals" - one of many things I've learned from
Zee) & it will give me a chance to look into other options before making some sort of quick decision to switch careers without balancing out all of my other options.
I just sent an email to a mate of mine in
SoCal & realised how busy my life has been over the past few months & what's still to come, here's a quick recap:
- June 19-July 14th i was state side for my dad's 70th birthday, my NU roommates wedding, visiting my sister before she moved from CT to TN, visiting my cousins & aunt who i only see once a year & going to an interview with the peace corps
- rest of July was spent working like mad for a HUGE presentation about future funding at work (see below for outcome on that one!)
- August 13th my sis arrived for 2 weeks visit
- August 15th i had my mate Jim's wedding up in Nottingham
- August 22-25 my sis & i went to Prague and met up with my dad
- August 27th - Sept 1, two of my mates who are living on a base in Germany came to visit
- Sept 1st my dad arrived for a 3 week visit
- Also on Sept 1 - my boss announced we got funding for 2009, so I'm working on getting yet another visa so i can stay till Dec 2009 :-)
Still to come on my whirlwind life is:
- Today, Sept 2nd, I'm meeting my godmother & her husband for lunch (they're in town just for a few hours)
- Sept 6th, Dad & I are off to Oxford to visit family friends for the day
- Sept 15-18th I'm in Edinburgh with my dad for a Harvard Business School reunion (his obviously not mine)
- Sept 20th I'm spear heading the 1st ever Norwich University European Alumni meeting
- Oct 1-14, I'm off to Rwanda (http://www.itafari.org/)
Aside from that life's been rather boring - HA HA HA HA - just kidding
Labels: decision, future, holidays, work
COOLEST DATE EVER
who noticed that today's date is 20082008???
probably not many of you Americans cause you think it's 08202008, but since the rest of the world seems to view the date as day/month/year that makes today 20/08/2008 or 20082008, isn't that funny?
Okay so maybe I have too much time on my hands, but that's cause I set aside today to read someone materials & methods along with her results section & you probably guessed it . . . she's NOT here! With a painful knee I was thinking this would be something good to do today, but if she's not here soon I'm going to go home. I've just got to collect my supernatants from my 48 hours experiment & then I'm outta here with or without her sections to read!
Labels: funny, work
experiments coming out of my ears
good news is i won't be bored for the next 2 weeks, bad news is i'll be swamped in the lab! a quote from my meeting earlier today was along the lines of "i can't ask you to work weekends, but if you work for the next 16 days straight, i'd be willing to give you an extra week off" . . . as if that's actually going to happen (the latter part i mean) i know i'll be working for the next 16 days straight, but now i have no reason to feel guilty about leaving a bit early when my sis is here :)
so if you don't hear from me in the next few days i can assure you it's not my oh so exciting social life as some cheesewizers might think, but instead i'll be strapped to a FACS machine
or with my arms stuck into an isolator similar to this (ours is MUCH larger!!!)
one in our category 3 lab. For those of you not familiar with the different categories of laboratories, here are some cool diagrams I found which might help you understand a bit better my daily life . . . thanks to "Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories" 4th Edition, 1999.
Biosafety Level 1 (BSL 1): well characterized agents not consistently known to cause disease in healthy adult humans of minimal potential hazard to laboratory personnel and the environment
Biosafety Level 2 (BSL 2): agents of moderate potential hazard to personnel and the environment
Biosafety Level 3 (BSL 3): indigenous or exotic agents which may cause serious or potentially lethal disease as a result of exposure by the inhalation route
Biosafety Level 4 (BSL 4): dangerous and exotic agents which pose a high individual risk of aerosol-transmitted laboratory infections and life-threatening disease
Labels: lab, photos, work
berlin bound
off to a conference in
berlin tomorrow, that is if i ever finish packing!! been too busy figuring out my trip to
rwanda in
october . . . looks like
i'll leave
london on
sept 30
th arrive in
kigali on
oct 1st and leave on the 14
th arriving back in
london on the 15
th :)
but tomorrow is
berlin for Immunity to TB, aka Stefan Kaufman's birthday party turned into TB conference, but I'm not arguing should be fun,
Gilla Kaplan will be there to speak along with lots of other big names in TB research . . . be back
sunday to fill you in on all i learned
Labels: berlin, rwanda, travel, work
Big few days ahead of me
I'm off to give a HUGE presentation to the lovely people who fund me (Ministry of Defense over here in the UK) tomorrow and then I have to rush back here to work with some "stuff" they're giving us on dry ice. From there I'll head home, pack & prepare for my trip to St Peterburg, Russia (not South Africa like some people have asked me).
My mate Topher won't be there when I arrive as he's stuck in the states with VISA issues, but I'll see him on Sunday. Luckily his girlfriend, Marina will be around for me to hang out with. And Marina's mate Olga will be picking me up at the airport - thank goodness for Olga!! Not sure how I would have navigated public transport on my own - well we all know I would have managed, just would have been much more difficult. Then on Friday I have to register my visitors VISA & meet up with my dad for dinner, since he's arriving at 4pm I figure he'll be at the hotel by half 6. Hopefully my aunt won't arrive too late either & I can see her, but if not I'll see them at the weekend.
Okay, really need to head home as it's nearly 10pm & YES, I'm
still at work - blood presentation took A LONG time to put together, well that and doing 12
ELISA plates (photo thanks to their website)
& running 2
cytometric bead array on the FACS machine all in 1 day!!!!
I'm doubting I'll have Internet connection whilst I'm in Russia, so don't expect anything for another week. I know you're gutted, but you'll have to find something else to pass your time (LOL).
Labels: mates, presentation, travel, work
CFSE labelling of heat killed Bps
I know I probably should have "asked" you all if anyone had advice before I started my experiment today, but I've been rather busy "chatting" with Miss A via email, cleaning the lab, doing vaccinations for Tash, doing category 3 harvests for Tash, and setting up stimulation experiments for myself, so suddenly I remembered I wanted to do this experiment, so I looked up a protocol from a paper I'd recently read (
Use of CFSE staining of borreliae in studies on the interaction between borreliae and human neutrophils. Tuominen-Gustafsson et al, BMC Microbiology October 2006). So my point which is somewhat non-valid anymore as in a few hours I should have the answer for myself, but let's have a mini-contest to see who can guess the if it's going to work or not (
obviously if you have a science background & can give me more validation as to why you think it will or will not work that would be wonderful as well!)
I would like to label some heat killed Bps with CFSE & then see if I can see them on the FACS machine. I think it would be REALLY cool to then give these bugs in & then look to see where they go &which cells they're interacting with, the problem is I'm not sure that dead Bps will pick up the CFSE stain in the first place. I'm not worried about the fact that they're dead & won't divide, I understand that, just wonder if my morning of staining is going to work or not in the first place. It's a very crude experiment & now I'm just waiting for the FACS machine to be free.
So my question to all of my readers (
all 3 of you) do you reckon this will work & why????
UPDATE 18.15: I know the results so please give a guess & I'll let you know tomorrow.Also Laura & I just booked our tickets to Berlin for a TB symposium in June, we're so excited to get a day of sight seeing on Saturday as well!!Labels: Bps, CFSE staining, conference, question, science, travel, work
Working UK Style
In most of the UK annual holiday (vacation) is 4-5 weeks and goes up with time, while most of you already know the US vacation scheme is nothing like that. Public holiday are a bit different (or so I'm told as this still confuses me a bit). According to the US, which public holiday is given as a paid holiday is largely determined by the employer (apparently some only give 5 days, but the federal ones are New years day, Martin L King's Birthday, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labour Day, Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas) In the UK all public holidays are given as paid, but a reasonable average is 8 public holidays a year (New years day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Early May bank holiday, Spring Bank holiday, Summer Bank holiday, Christmas, Boxing day (26th Dec))
Over here companies contribute 100% and more of what the employee pays for pension plans, while in the US it's rather variable & according to stats I've seen the average is 5-15% contributions from the company.
Salaries are a bit different as well with the USA normally getting paid every two weeks, while over here in the UK most workers are paid monthly. Another minor detail is that I'm use to the US term of a salary increase in the USA being called a pay "raise", while in the UK it's apparently called getting a "rise".
And this last part is according to what I've been told, but in the UK employees can only be "fired" for provable dishonesty. Being let go for bad work/inefficiency has to be supported by a lots of verbal and several written warnings (all relating to a similar offences in a specific time period). AND, the kicker is that even then this can be overturned with the help of a labor attorney (if changed you can get back pay and even return to work).
Labels: differences in the UK, NaBloPoMo, work
thursday update
glad i wrote that post yesterday as this morning has been an utter disaster,
from the tube train stopping between
euston & kings cross "for an incident at kings cross" which of course always freaks EVERYONE out on the train, turned out to be nothing & we were able to continue on,
to inhaling a toxic fume (on accident of course!), to having the people who were suppose to be ready at 10am not be ready till 11am,
to once having everyone assembled to realise nobody had read the 1 page protocol, so I had to read it aloud so nobody messed it up on our second go around,
to having to try to fit in my original experiment that is now running 2 hours late, hopefully this afternoon things will turn around (FINGERS CROSSED!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Labels: NaBloPoMo, stress, work
Knocked Up
At work quickly for some work (quickly collecting some 48 hours supernatants from a stimulation experiment I set up on Thursday) & then running off to see the Arsenal v ManU match followed by seeing Knocked Up . . . busy busy day - LOL
UPDATE (19.52) saw knocked up - it's hysterical - i highly recommend it - not just a stupid teen movie! AND arsenal tied manchester united 2-2 - yeah!!!!!!!!! arsenal are on a great streak now after thierry henry has left - i reckon he was a bit too much relied on & so the other players didn't play to their full potenial so if he was off the whole team sucked, but now they're playing as a real team & are doing soooo much better - i'm really excited about it - if you get a chance to see the game it was ruddy good one!!Labels: arsenal, football, movies, NaBloPoMo, work
on the road again . . . just can't wait to get on the road again
I'm having that need for a holiday feeling again . . . luckily I only have to wait 2.5 weeks . . . my road to recovery is still slowly plodding along, I reckon by this time next week I'll be 100% better.
I've just finished making my poster for the World Melioidosis Conference in Khon Kaen, Thailand - well minus any "interesting" data I collect between now & when we leave on 19/10, but I'm rather excited about it!! Maybe I can shrink it in size & put it up here for all of you to see . . . I mean I know you're all dying to see it!!!!
This just really cracks me up - how do you reckon they discovered this fact!?!?!? I mean who publicly bans mile high club activity you ask, well apparently Singapore Airlines does!
I'm sure
this study is correct, but I think that when kids hear "you have to be thin to not get cancer" then you run the risk of eating disorders at a young age, but that's just my two pence!
Let's see what other exciting things can I tell you about while I wait for my photo to upload (I think I've discovered a way to show an older version of my poster), oh bugger Blogger is having errors with photo uploads! Okay guess maybe I should just focus on my "real" work, maybe it's a sign . . . Happy Halloween everyone!
persistence pays off :)
Labels: work
GB's Lab Outing
So today our lab had our first "lab outing" - sorta long story, but we've hit a few bumps along the research path which are rather frustrating & in some cases half of the lab has to change their whole entire project, which as you can imagine if you're trying to do a PhD project can be rather daunting. A few weeks back Karen (a post doc in the lab) and I decided we needed an outing with all the members of the lab to sorta bring some fun back into the lab, so today was that day. And did we ever have fun!! It rained VERY hard for about 15 minutes, but we were in the rain forest enclosure & were able to stay dry! We had such a good time, to prove it I even have a few photos for you, just
click here. Okay I'm off to Tescos for a bit of food shopping.
Have a good weekend, oh and yes, I am safe, so no need to worry about what seems to be making
headlines news around the world - I guess in a way it's just part of every day life - it could happen any place in the world and you just have to try to live your life as normally as possible.
Labels: news, work
beauty is in the eye of the beholder
How lovely is that? I mean even if you don't know what it's showing, it has pretty colours, right?
Labels: work
still waiting
So in attempts to keep myself busy whilst STILL waiting for reagents to arrive, I did leave early yesterday just around 14.00, after of course having a leisurely lunch with MissyLou, Jeremy, and ML's lil brother Neal who were on their way to Aberdeen (Scotland) for Neal's college graduation ceremony which is today.
I got home around 15.45 since I stopped to do a bit of food shopping at Tescos. When Estee got home we decided to go for a walk around the neighbourhood & check out the library, since the weather looked like it might not piss down on us (first time all day that it looked semi clear sky). We walked up to the high street, around a block, popped into the library where we got membership forms, then headed back home. We sat out on the swinging benches in our garden chatting for a bit & then made some dinner, before she headed off to meditation class at the rabbi's house and I went to read in my room & try to figure out why my phone was not working (still haven't figured that one out yet!!)
Today I've been to lab meeting & been reading an interesting paper, here's what I've learned thus far:
- Antigen (Ag) pulsed dendritic cells (DC) induced proliferation of naive spleen cells (ex-vivo)
- Ag pulsed DCs with CpG induced significant proliferation, with the CpG either as an adjuvant during injection or conditioning agent in culture), proving extraction of common epitopes from different strains
- Immunisation with DCs matured with CpG caused spleen cells to produce significantly more interferon gamma (IFNg) positive cells than those matured with antigen alone
- Serum titers were also higher
- immunisation with DCs matured with CpG = highest level of protection against challenge (80% with any of the 4 strains of bacteria) and immunisation with DCs and CpG adjuvant = high protection (60%) where as immunisation with DCs only gave 10% protection and naives had no protection
- post challenge survivors. showed no bacterial growth in blood or splenocytes - YEAH!!!
All of that proving that a vaccine that could stimulate DCs in situ to cause protective immune responses would be helpful against Burkholderia psuedomallei, since we all know that you can't just bung a bunch of cultured DCs into a humans arm because each individual would require a "personalised" vaccine . . . so we need to find a way to activate DCs, perhaps by binding recombinant B. psuedomallei antigens and toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands.
OKAY no more science talk . . . got nothing else to tell ya today, so I'll just let you go with a wish for a Happy Tuesday!!
Labels: work
