Tag Archives: grad school

M is for Marie and Michele.

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How do you choose your next step? Like, in life?

I tend to spend tons and tons and tons of time mulling things over, pro-ing and con-ing, and all of that. But ultimately, I go with my gut. So far, it has not led me astray. (Metaphorically speaking, of course… in the literal sense, I have been led very far astray.)

My senior year of high school, I was certain that I was going to go to NYU– no matter the debt! I was going to live in the big city, I was going to major in political science, and I was going to be cosmopolitan and amazing. But then I visited Houghton, where I had applied to major in chemistry at Michigan Tech, and despite the fact that I was in the middle of nowhere in the UP and I had a raging fever, I knew I was in the right place. I filled out the paperwork, accepted my scholarship, and became a Husky. I met Aimee and Adriane my first day there and knew that even though it wasn’t my original choice, it was the right choice.

My senior year of college, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, so I decided to go to grad school. (That’s the default, right?) I interviewed at four different schools and was pretty much settled on Penn, the first of the four… until I went to DC to interview at USU and met Jess. Penn may have wined me, dined me, and put me up in a fancy schmancy hotel, but USU sent Jess to the airport in her Nissan Altima and made her put me up in her apartment. She let me stay an extra night since getting back to the UP was nearly impossible and we went out to Rock Bottom in Bethesda in a snow storm and chatted and laughed… and again, I just knew that USU was the place for me. I’d make the same choice all over again.

Things got all stressful and choice-y again at the end of grad school. I didn’t want to go into academia, but I needed a job and a post-doc seemed like the right choice (head-wise, anyway). I tried and tried and tried to get one… then this science writing thing at the Marshfield Clinic came about. We talked about that before.

It was my first post-graduate interview and the only one in person. But after I had it, I knew it was the place for me. The thing that did me in in Marshfield, that had me hooked right from the get go, wasn’t a thing at all– it was two people: Marie and Michele.

I had applied to be a scientific research writer in the Office of Scientific Writing and Publication. My interview was on Valentine’s Day of 2011 and I interviewed with lots of different people. Marie and Michele asked legitimate questions, good questions, but not hostile questions. Plus Marie was crazy stylish and Michele was super nice and by the time I had had lunch with them and was headed back to my in-laws’ house in Mosinee I was certain that I had to work with these women. Once again, I just knew… and it was Marie and Michele that did it.

You know how this story ends– Marshfield Clinic offered me the job, I accepted, Seth and I moved to Wisconsin, and here we are. Most importantly: Marie and Michele are my co-workers. More than that; they are my friends.

I could not ask for better!

Marie used to be a surgical tech (ew, right?) in urology (double ew!) and now she’s an editorial specialist (i.e. really, really good at grammar and super detail-oriented, thank goodness she is!). She’s the most faith-filled person I know and also the best at wearing scarves. She is my style hero. I feel like every time she tells me a story about her life I’m just more and more in awe. (Good news– you can hear some of her stories, too!! She’s a bloggess right here!) I’m seriously so lucky to get to work with her every day!

Michele is a writer like me and she’s a genius at everything that has to do with dogs– everything! Also, she’s just a genius. She’s leaving us to go get her doctorate at Vanderbilt University in Nashville soon (also a dreamy country-music singing boyfriend) and I couldn’t be any more excited for her! She was hand picked for this opportunity and it is well-deserved, let me tell you.

Both Marie and Michele make it worth coming in to work every single day. Just like Jess made it worth going in to the lab during those long years in grad school and how Aimee and Adriane made Michigan Tech home. Marie and Michele, Jess, and Aimee and Adriane are all totally different– I really can’t put my finger on the common denominator, except to say that I loved them all instantly. I was overly familiar just as quickly as I was with Melissa and I felt comfortable around them right away… as early as the interview, the ride from the airport, the hall-bonding exercises… they let me be me and my life is better because they’ve been part of it.

Michele may be leaving, but Marie and I will stick together and we’ll be cheering for her from Marshfield. We’ll be sitting in the front row at her defense… and right behind the paparazzi at her wedding!

M is for Marie and Michele. It’s for those people who just get you… who make you know that you’re in the right place, doing the right thing. The ones who make it worth it.

Marie (R) and Michele (L) are so freaking cool that I was able to talk them into doing the wave for my sister while she was in labor!
Marie (R) and Michele (L) are so freaking cool that I was able to talk them into doing the wave for my sister while she was in labor! I just love them!!

Clap for the Clap!

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Ladies and gentlemen, the plague is upon us.

It’s upon me anyway.

I haven’t been sick in a while, I suppose I was due. But my goodness– this cold is miserable! Trying to keep a little perspective, though. Thank goodness for drugs (better living through chemistry!) and the snuggles of my sweet pup. I have a feeling I’ll be on the mend in short order and all will be well by the weekend.

It better be, anyway! Because I’ve got PLANS! Book club on Saturday night… Wes Anderson movie marathon on Sunday. I’m pumped about both– so sickness be gone!

So. Are you ready for a forced and awkward segue? Good!

Sickness… diseases… bacteria… bacterial STDs… I studied bacterial STDs in grad school…

And we’re there.

Some seriously good news on the gonorrhea/chlamydia forefront last week!! My old boss emailed to let me know that my coinfection model has been repeated. And not just once, but TWICE. Once in another strain of mice (in case you’re “in the know”… I did it originally in BALB/c mice, another graduate student just did it in C57/Bl6) and once by another group up in Boston (total burn moment for the drunk PIs who tormented me at my poster in Banff– mwuahahaahaha!!). Both repeated my entire first paper– demonstrated coinfection with gonorrhea and chlamydia in female mice (which is ridiculously and unfortunately common in female humans) and increased levels of gonorrhea in mice that are coinfected with chlamydia (which incidentally, has also been shown in women since I graduated… word).

So, all that’s good news… but the really exciting thing to me is that while I was in grad school, I found the freaking mechanism. I did flow cytometry, I made beautiful figures, I wrote a paper and planned to submit it to PNAS (it’s a big deal), but since I graduated in 2011, that lovely piece of work has sat there in my dissertation on a shelf. HOWEVER, now that others have repeated the findings from my original manuscript, my grad advisor feels comfortable getting this second one out there. YESSSSSSS!!!!!

Gonorrhea’s pretty exciting, huh? Better than whatever virus is hanging out in my sinuses at the moment, anyway.

So let’s celebrate– and CLAP for the CLAP!

 

(Clap = gonorrhea. But I’m sure you already knew that.)

Silver Lining: No Mice

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Have you ever gone to grad school?  If not, the most important thing to know about it is this: all you want, from pretty much the second you start, is to be done.  And the closer you get to the end, the further away it seems.  You spend an inordinate amount of time in the middle of the proverbial tunnel, unable to see the light at the end, and too far in to see the light at the beginning.  I can’t even tell you how many “last” experiments I had.  So, so, so many “last” experiments.  So, so, so many mice.  I have absolutely no desire to ever see, hear, smell, or touch another mouse so long as I live.  (Or taste.  I don’t want to taste one either, but that’s not something I ever tried anyway.  Figured I ought to throw it in for the sake of five-senses-completeness.)  However, when I was nearing the end and I was gearing up for another one of my “last” experiments, all I wanted were those little ladies to come in so that I could get started… and subsequently get finished, and fast!!

Right before Thanksgiving of 2011, I was expecting a big old shipment of genetically modified mice and I was pumped.  Ready to go, even though it meant working through the holiday.  No biggie.  My then boyfriend, now husband, was already safe and sound in Wisconsin, ready to watch some football without me, and that was fine.  So, day before Thanksgiving I find out: NO. MICE.  None.  Not-a-one.  I flipped… my… lid…  I immediately got on the phone to the hubs and, no preface, just said, “Fly me to Wisconsin.  Immediately.”  A few hours later, I was at Reagan Airport and a few hours after that I was in Wisconsin, ready to eat turkey and pie and mourn the loss of the mice I never even had in addition to the loss of my impending graduation.  Woe was me.  I was practically drowning in anger and self-pity.  It was not a beautiful thing.

While in Wisconsin, one is customarily expected to drink.  Like a fish.  And upon a previous trip to Green Bay (you know, the holy land), we discovered Captain’s Walk winery and the best white wine I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.  (Disclaimer: I am definitely not a wine connoisseur and have been known to enjoy what those who are would call swill.  But it suits my taste, and that’s what really matters when you’re the one drinking it, right?)  So as long as we were in the Sconi-land, we thought we’d head on down to the local grocery store (Festival Foods—best name ever, it’s a party every time I shop!) to pick up a bottle (or two, or whatever… it’s really good).

So, the day after Thanksgiving, my in-laws-to-be took us out for a traditional Friday fish fry at the Belvedere Supper Club (my favorite!!), to Festival Foods for wine to smuggle back to Maryland, and then we stopped at the Marshfield Rotary Winter Wonderland to see the Christmas lights (another favorite of mine!).  On the way, we passed the Marshfield Clinic and I thought to myself, “Hey, self, perhaps we ought to check out the Marshfield Clinic online and see what kinds of employment opportunities there might be for a girl like me someday.  Someone who knows a lot about mice and lot about STDs and knows her way around science pretty well.”  Turns out, they were looking for a Scientific Research Writer, which I didn’t even know was a job that existed and I applied.  I interviewed on Valentine’s day 2012 and they must have been hit by one of Cupid’s arrows because they offered me a job and I started in April.

So let’s recap, shall we.  No mice.  Wisconsin.  Graduation (finally).  J-o-b job.  Silver lining.

All that rage, anger, the self-pity, and the anxiety over a situation that was quite literally out of my control.  Worth it?  Absolutely not.  Necessary?  Maybe.  It’s not realistic to expect that the idea of a future silver lining or a blessing in disguise related to a crappy situation negates the crappiness of the present moment.  But cumulatively, every struggle has a purpose and for me, life is better when I spend less time raging about the struggle and more time searching for the silver linings in the clouds.