“Ok, so is everybody clear - any questions?” It was a nice thing of my lab professor to ask - I appreciated the fact that he checked in with the zeitgeist of our knowledge midway through our four hour lab marathon. In my mind, I responded: “I do have a question - but it’s of a rather general nature. What’s that? I should ask it? Oh, ok … what the crappin’ heck is going on?”
It wasn’t that the fluorescent antibody tagging system used in FACS was all that complex. You have your cells. You want to know something about them. You have something that sticks to certain antigens on certain cells and lights up while doing the sticking … and there you go. No, the underlying concepts were not the problem. Neither was his explanation of those concepts. It was the practical application: I spent 15 minutes pipetting dye into vials and then into other vials that had been spun down earlier, which had in turn been prepared from the crushed spleen and/or lymph nodes of a recently euthanized and dissected lab mouse. It was only after I was pipetting for 14 of the 15 minutes that I finally realized what was going into what and where it came from. Usually there comes a point in a lab where you hold it all in your head and it makes sense. In this case, though, I’d think I had it and then bam he’s drawing this massive table of antibodies and their addition to tubes. “I am flummoxed,” I said to myself.
Everybody was doing something during the lab, there were a couple of looks around the room of “…?!” and in the end I think folks were doing the right stuff, but my goodness was it random. Later in the semester, we do our own experiments - let’s hope things make more sense then.
In the interest of explaining why in the Sam Hill there haven’t been any images for almost two weeks, I’d like to apologize and ask for your patience just a little bit longer. They (the photographs) are on their way - there is simply a bit more to do on ye’ olde version 15.x of tumbledry. I’m digging up time for it in between homeworking sessions, hence the delay. The entire redesign, though, is 90% functional, with only a few key components remaining. I’ll walk you all through the new features when they are released - the most visible changes will be in the community aspect. As tumbledryer’s, you’ll feel more engaged with the site and with one another. Unless you don’t. In that case, I will have failed. But I will have had fun doing it!
Oh, and there will be a whole lot less of the the random letter reading with those security images on the comments. Hurrah! Or, more appropriately given the weather, burrrah.
The comments of support, advice, and sympathy in the days following my dental news made me smile with gratitude at having such friends. Communicating with people, both online and offline showed me the good side of so many folks … it seems that there is nothing you can’t get through if you are blessed with friends and family. Rewind to Friday afternoon and I was barely getting by; every free moment my mind had was spent contemplating my situation, wondering what was next, alternating between disgust with myself for not getting in and a quiet calm looking forward to a year of planning, freedom, and waiting.
Then my Mom at home calls … they’d gotten another letter from the U saying I was an alternate candidate. What? I thought I’d been rejected. We tried to figure out what was going on as fast as possible, and then I ended up dialing the U. Hi … yeah … you said I was rejected and then a coupl’a days later you tell me I’m waitlisted. What’s the deal? The few minutes waiting for someone on the line to go look up my name and tell me what my real status was were the longest of my life. She comes back — I am waitlisted. This is good news, compared to rejection … but now the waiting game resumes. It could be March, April … even as late as July before I know for sure if I am in or out.
So here I am, feeling silly having elicited so many kind people’s sympathy, only to find out it’s not quite as bad as it seemed. That said, everyone’s advice still stands. It’s still a good idea to find a job, consider traveling (strongly recommended by both Sagert and Nils), and continue engaging the “real” world. I also really appreciated the comments of incredulity at my having been rejected. Those made me smile. While I frequently lack confidence in myself, it’s quite heartening to hear that other people have that confidence. And so we press ever forward.
When I was in university, there was this major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw, who said, ‘The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.’ I know it’s not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but it’s an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic.
I was going to think about this post for a long time, attempt to be as eloquent as possible, and then type up a long tale recounting the events that have transpired since my application to dental school. Perhaps that post will still be written, but this post is not that one. I didn’t make the cut for the University of Minnesota class of 2011 dental school. This Tuesday, the rejection notice came in the mail. No wait list for me. No dental school this September.
I am trying very very hard to see this as a nice year off from school, an opportunity to build a stronger application, and time to reflect on my general thoughts about life. Sure, I would have loved to have been going to dental school this fall, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. For my biggest trick and biggest change yet, I will attempt to plan for the future while enjoying the present.
Ridiculously talented model/fashion photographer - Most pictures on flickr try to emulate a certain style, and almost always you’ll see parts of them that simply look strange. They are, after all, snapshots. These pictures, though … the lighting is absolute perfection.
The Nintendo Wii … on a 1.5” TV - Ok, and get this - this guy managed to connect a Wii to a DOLLHOUSETV. You know, those tiny, working televisions that are included in some dollhouses? Crazy.