Anyone? =P

Term 1:




Term 2:

Enticed......

ABSTRACT

I was offered a grad position O__o"

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My PI's really quite the interesting character. He's very hard to get a hold of. A month into my co-op term now and I've only actually talked to him four times, yet each one of those chat sessions lasted more than an hour. He would ramble on about his past, rant about UBC, talk a bit more about his past research, and complain more about UBC.

But the real story started yesterday. I was finishing up my lunch with RayRay, and my PI walks into the room for a chat. He asked us both what our plans after a bachelor's were. RayRay was quick to invoke med school just as quickly as I denounced such an idea for myself.

Strangely enough, such strong convictions against med school was enough to land me an offer for a grad position O__o"

He went on talking about the lab and the research in general, the sort of projects available, and ended off mentioning the MD/PhD program so RayRay wouldn't feel too left out. But me and my big mouth......"THAT'S SEVEN YEARS!!!" I hollered.....and my PI burst out laughing. Apparently those were his exactly thoughts when he was deciding where to do his PhD. It was between 7 years in the states and 3.5 in Hong Kong. He finished in 3.5 years at HKU........"Can I do it with you in 3.5?" I asked. Another bout of laughter.

I met with him again today to talk about my presentation during the retreat. As he was going through the outline, he suddenly had the idea that my project would make a great grant proposal. He asked how flexible my co-op schedule is, whether I'd be available to work part time starting September, and if I could write the grant proposal by Sept 15, 2010. Another laugh. "If you start working on it part-time in September, it would give you a very good start for your thesis, then you CAN finish in 3.5 years!"

I'm not entirely sure what he sees in me......afterall, I've only worked a month and talked to him four times......


CONCLUSION

But as with all things, this is probably too good to be true too, because there are plenty of snags already even before we seriously consider it

1) Honours Thesis - why, oh, why must MICB 448 be so anal!! According to my program advisor, my PI for the honours thesis has to be from the department of microbi & immunology, which my current PI is not. But what I do have in my favour is that my project is immunology related, my co-PI is an immunologist (not in the dept tho), and my PI is willing to pull some strings with the head of the Faculty of Medicine (but not sure if that'd amount to anything).....but there's no way I can take on his project AND a second one for my honours thesis (I know BCIT prepared us for insanity, but a full course load with two projects would be a tad bit much......just a tad....)

2) 8-month co-op - no matter how much I don't want to pass up the opportunity, I just simply cannot let myself do my next 8-month co-op with him. I want at least want some industry experience. From my knowledge there's a local RNAi company that maybe I can work with, and maybe it won't be so difficult to convince him that it would come in handy

3) Grant Proposal - SERIOUSLY?!!! He wants ME to write a proposal for $50K (which in all fairness is not too large a sum for research)....He said he was very impressed by the way I wrote my studentship proposal (which was only for a measly $5K), but I have a feeling he's sorely mistaken......there was one which I wrote, and one which my co-PI wrote, and we submitted the latter....he probably read the latter thinking I wrote it....heck! I would be very impressed with myself if I managed to write that too!

But yes......like I said, I don't know what he sees in me (or more accurately, how he's managed to see anything in me at all given I've only talked to him four times).......

Forgotten....and Update!!

Oh wow.......haven't posted anything up in ages.......it's almost like I've forgotten how to write anything of significant length other than lab reports.......

But I guess life is rolling along as it always does now that summer has started (supposedly, not too sure with the constant rain though...)....but I guess a little update of what's been happening in the last little while never hurts.


- BCIT wrapped up without too much of the unexpected, still feel very much guilty all the slacking off being done now that school's out......maybe I'm having stress withdrawls......

- Co-op at the BC Cancer Research Centre....thoughts on that is definitely worth its own post (but my own bccrc.ca email, web page, and photo ID and card key is quite neat =P)

- Finished watching Digimon season 2!!! ^__^ Oh the memories those bring back =P

- Got a new phone, but the touch screen is less sensitive that the one on the iTouch, so it's definitely going to take some getting used to...

- Convocation coming up in June (the DipT will officially mark the end of two very unforgettable years)

- Publication in Insect Molecular Biology coming out soon (maybe in the August issue?)

- Have to start looking for a microbi PI for my honours thesis......

- A Part-time MDiv alongside a PhD is being considered.....but definitely have to ask Regent for more info first.....I wonder if they'd let me start part time before I get my BSc......afterall, I am only doing two courses during my final UBC term......

- Read through some fairly thought-provoking articles on some scientific magazines lately reagrding the life of a researcher...verdict? If it ever boils down to an either-or between ministry or science, the science career goes, wihout a doubt!!

Keep Holding On.........

With six weeks down and eight more to go, it seems a little surreal that the two years at BCIT is finally drawing to a close......at times it just felt like it was never going to end.....BCIT was definitely quite the crucible, and immensely more challenging than I had ever thought possible.....

It was a little unnerving to hear Rob give us a pep talk that Monday morning two weeks ago. Apparently he saw it fit to take the first half hour of class to address our mental health. He noticed that our mental resolve completely broke down during the last few weeks of the previous term, and despite having it perked up a little after the break, he warned us, interestingly enough, to not let our emotions get in the way. He told us that the worst time to contemplate life is during finals season, and we need to treat this entire term as an extended finals season in order to pull through.

We are at risk of becoming suicidal.

Myra had a different take on the matter. Once we pull through, nothing we ever do in life will be this difficult again.....Boy do I hope she's right......

But at the moment, Rob's advice seems a little more pertinent. There are definitely many things worthy to ponder and sort out, but emotions must be put aside for now. The emptiness must be ignored and the pain must be quenched. Maybe once i set foot into the BC Cancer Research Centre in May, working on a fusion project between immunology and cancer biology, I will have the opportunity to recover some of the things I've decided to throw out and patch up some holes I've let eat away this term

Until then, the Olympic non-break will consist of
- Chem Lab Report
- Biochem Lab Report
- English Research Proposal
- English Discussion Essay
- Micro Lab Summary
- Genetics Lab Assignment
- studying for midterms x4 (ManReg, Biochem, Micro, Genetics......all big ones too, except ManReg.....)

My first purchase this summer will be a new desktop. The one I use now is 6 years old and long overdue for a replacement. A second big-ticket (relatively) item will also need to be purchased. And if there's money extra I will also get myself a MacBook =P

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Keep holding on......'cause you know we'll make it through, we'll make it through............

Odd Odd Day........

Today is definitely one of those very odd days.....it's like nothing happens as expected and yet oddly enough nothing seemed to actually go wrong.......

It all started with Rob and his pushing back class for an hour, thinking the room is unoccupied after our normal class period. And so we were all in the room for a 10:30am start, only to have a second class walk into the same room, rescuing us from the clutches of having to sit through an hour of regulatory standards.

With the extra hour at our disposal, we decided to head to the library to figure out our restriction maps, as none of us have remembered to do it and we needed to know what restriction enzyme to use for genetics lab. But halfway through, we were notified that the first-years were done with the lab, and so we all run back to the lab to start micro, as the protocol indicates a grand total of 3 hours of incubation time during our three-hour lab period (which thankfully was shortened to 2.....)

and speaking of labs, we needed to do genetics lab but genetics lab is actually on the next day......we are all sadly used to the mind-numbingly overlapping labs......do micro during biochem, do genetics during micro, and come into the lab on friday for micro and genetics despite there not being a scheduled lab period........anyways, i digress.

During micro, I find out that someone from the program (Raymond) had an interview with the same person right after my interview, which I totally did not expect and was quite surprised about (maybe even a little unsettled)......but what was even stranger was that the person I was supposed to interview was not there!! She was actually not in her office, and after some running around by an office staff she was still nowhere to be seen XD........so another PI saw me instead, which I must say worked out just as well =P

but yah......too many plot twists for one day, that's for sure......

Year-end Epiphany

Maybe I've phrased the question I've been asking myself lately wrong.....Maybe instead of asking myself what I want to do with my life, the better question would be to ask what I have the courage to do with my life.......the whole dilemma between an MDiv and a PhD may really just rest on what I have the courage to pursue.

The prospect for both these options are arguably equally bleak. On the one hand, with the PhD, I'd have to find a supervisor, I'd have to think of a project that I even remotely care about, and then even after getting the degree, there's the issue of post-doc and what to do after. On the other hand, with the MDiv, there's the issue of where I'm going to procure the money for that, where to do my vicarage, whether I care enough to stay Lutheran, which church to go to after.......

But it's the MDiv option that I don't know if i have the courage to pursue. Can I bear the disappointment of all those (which includes myself) who think I'll be wasting my potential in academia? Can I bear the ridicule of all those who think I won't be able to do a good job? (It's not like we have a great example to look towards) Can I bear the scorn of all those who think I'm ignoring my duty to provide for my future family and putting my future children at a disadvantage by choosing a path that is not financially stable? Will doing an MDiv be truly worth standing up to all of this?

And yet, doing a PhD seems to be the more logical option. I mean, even if i absolutely detest it, switching to an MDiv afterwards is so much easier than switching from an MDiv to a PhD, especially one in science......and i just have this gut feeling that if I don't do my PhD now, I'll never get around to doing it.....

I suppose I can do both, but I also don't want to die in the process........three terms of excessive work, with the four and final one starting in 3 days, has made me learn the hard way to stay away from insane workloads whenever possible...............

Damage Assessment

So, after a week of actively denying anything wrong with my life, it's finally time to sit down and see what sort of hell three cumulative terms of BCIT have wrecked........

Preliminary Assessment: Beyond Repair

The first thing that I've come to realize was just how tightly I've wound myself. Went back to DT the other day, and asides from the rather amusing comment from Mr. Wang about how I have to get a PhD from Harvard or I risk losing Jennifer to *insert Mr. Wang accent* "another boy", conversations with Ms. Denchfield and Miss Eisner was rather intriguing. I was telling them how I plan to find a co-op placement before term started again but wasn't having much luck, and their common response was not to worry about it and just take a break......if only it was that easy......

The other odd thing is that for some reason, the first part of 21 Guns just wouldn't get out of my head, and yet, oddly enough it's true......I feel like I'm in ruins, and even all the Sunday school answers I have in my head, that I can tell myself over and over again, just doesn't answer anything......it feels like I've lost so much this term.....if you only peel off that thin layer on the surface - the grades, the days in school, the weekends at church - there's nothing left underneath.....hopes and ambitions, love and happiness, meaning and purpose.......it's all been devoured, and the only thing left to do is either to rebuild it, or to layer on more disguises to hide the true emptiness.........the latter seems like the easier option.....

and you would think, at a time like this, church would be the place to turn to......but something seems to have happened, a turn for the worse i would say......maybe it's just me, but fellowship these days just feels like a group project gone horribly wrong......it's like some unending nightmare, where to every person you turn to there is always some church work to talk about.....since everyone is entitled to their opinions, I too will risk eternal damnation and voice mine......maybe, just maybe, in our haste to perform, in our haste to be effective and in our haste to make something of this church, we have forgotten what it means to be a family in Christ, or rather, more accurately, we never knew it or never bothered to show it in the first place, and so now we just find ourselves struggling to keep our balance on our shaky foundation as we try to reach out.........but anyways, i'll shut up now.........church is good, doo dee doo~~~~~~


Final Assessment: Utterly Hopeless

Recommended Course of Action: Resistance is futile. Just dig a hole, brace yourself for term 4, and prepare to be thoroughly screwed over. With any luck you just might crawl out the other end with a missing limb or two, no promises though......