Every few weeks, I think about how I should post something, but somehow I never get around to it. My bejeweled high score is up to 191,000 though, so at least I'm using the time well ;)
Otherwise, life has been a long series of workdays for both of us. D is certainly glad to be working, but logging 14-16 hour days is getting a bit much for him. And my work seems to skip along a series of deadlines, so that I have to drop working on some projects to get a poster, or talk or paper revision done. I do feel like I'm accomplishing a lot, but it's hard not to look at everything that hasn't progressed lately.
My paper is almost ready to be published, and I don't see any reason that it won't be published once we submit it. I've pretty much finished analyzing the preliminary data for my dual fluorescence project, and hope to start imaging my data in December. I think the analysis will be pretty quick on that once I actually take the pictures, so that will be done by February.
My last project is really the pain right now. I'm having trouble generating successful cases, and it's always a different problem. I think I have finally figured out a staining problem I was having on my tissue. And I really want to finish all of the staining soon, so I don't risk more antibody problems down the line.
I have no idea when this will be done, but I would hope that I won't be doing any more surgery after January. Then it will be a lot of photographing and counting, and write the paper. I think that will give me a few months to write/defend my thesis, and still be done by June.
In the meantime, I have a job interview for a post-doc in New York City this week. The last week has been all about putting together a 30-minute talk on my work, which is both easier & harder than it sounds. I'm glad that I've already presented some of each of these projects, because I've created most of the graphs, tables, and image panels before, so that hasn't taken too long. And my work on dual fluorescence stuff has generated quite a few as well. Still, I'm amazed at how long it takes to change the colors of the bars in an image. I have almost no blank slide left to fill, but I may have to cut some (I've got 37 slides for 30 minutes right now, so something is going to have to go - or I'll have to talk for 45, which I don't really want to do).
Everything else in my life involves household chores, so not very much that's exciting there. Maybe I'll remember to bring a camera to NY with me, but even if it's pictureless, I'll post when I get back to let you all know how it went.
Good night!
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Wedding reception
Well, it's done :)
After months of stress, tears, and struggling with excessive anxiety, we had a wonderful time. The venue was perfect for what we were doing, I think people liked the ceremony-as-it-was, the weather held well, and the people-who-dance-at-weddings got down for most of the night (me included!)
It was wonderful to have the families meet, and to have my mom & sister's family see a little more of Pittsburgh. It may be gritty, but I've come to love it, for all it's geographical and sociocultural quirks. We rode the Monongehela Incline for the first time, walked around Station Square, looked out on the city, gave several tours of the house, and got to stay & eat at the Parador (which I'm pretty sure we'll have to visit again sometime)!
Unfortunately, I neglected to take any pictures, so am waiting to receive some from the kind family & friends who shot tons of photos. Thanks to everyone for a good time, my only wish is that I got to spend more time with each & every one of you! I never knew how much work a wedding involves, even after everything is in place.
Tonight, we'll finish relaxing, putting laundry away, and getting ready for my reappearance at work tomorrow.
After months of stress, tears, and struggling with excessive anxiety, we had a wonderful time. The venue was perfect for what we were doing, I think people liked the ceremony-as-it-was, the weather held well, and the people-who-dance-at-weddings got down for most of the night (me included!)
It was wonderful to have the families meet, and to have my mom & sister's family see a little more of Pittsburgh. It may be gritty, but I've come to love it, for all it's geographical and sociocultural quirks. We rode the Monongehela Incline for the first time, walked around Station Square, looked out on the city, gave several tours of the house, and got to stay & eat at the Parador (which I'm pretty sure we'll have to visit again sometime)!
Unfortunately, I neglected to take any pictures, so am waiting to receive some from the kind family & friends who shot tons of photos. Thanks to everyone for a good time, my only wish is that I got to spend more time with each & every one of you! I never knew how much work a wedding involves, even after everything is in place.
Tonight, we'll finish relaxing, putting laundry away, and getting ready for my reappearance at work tomorrow.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Work update
For those who are interested (others disregard, it's bound to get geeky up in here!):
I worked really hard for a few weeks on immunohistochemistry experiments, generating tissue for two separate projects. One, my dual immunofluorescence examination of the colocalization of VAT and CHT in limbic regions recipient of ascending mesopontine cholinergic innervation, had to have all the tissue processed in one big batch, which made for some particularly long days. But after a couple of weekends off and a few shortened week days, I'm back to business. I've started cleaning up/ organizing my files, and cross-referencing/cataloging the physical micrographs, image files, actual tissue, lab notes, sampling notes, and excel analysis files. It's a little daunting, because I've put off dealing with a lot of the unfinished projects, which generated a lot of data, but is hard to classify. But, I inventoried two lab notebooks last night, and I'll probably spend a day or two this week burning secondary back-up CDs.
Then, maybe, I can be done with this project. Finally.
I moved forward with my dual fluorescence project today, when a really nice grad student showed me the post-processing steps to use on my image stacks. I still need to spend some time playing with the masking procedure to identify objects as sets of voxels, but I think this will be a good way to do this project. I'm really grateful to the professor who's helping me do these experiments (and letting me use his imaging system), and to the student who helped me today.
My tract-tracing project is moving a little bit farther as well. I got an analyzable case, and I have the slides prepared, and took some low magnification shots of a far-red fluorescent dye called Alexa-647, that labeled the vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAT). I had to paste these together in Photoshop, as the 2x image wasn't big enough to cover the entire section.
So tomorrow evening, I'll start sampling 20x triple fluorescence images. This is A--- 488 for green fluorescent latex microspheres, A--- 568 for CTxB, and A--- 647 for VAT. So far, on a quick scan, I haven't seen much colocalization of the tracers, and I haven't found anything yet that had all three labels. But I looked at very rostral sections, where inputs to the AVN aren't very heavy.
So... maybe six months? I'll bet eight ;)
On that front, I'm going to send resumes/CVs/coverletters to whatever jobs interest me, and see where that takes me. It's a strange way for me to do a job search, I'm used to taking whatever comes up first because I need the money, and not-so-secretly hate being without a job. So wish me luck with all of that, and hopefully I'll love my next career move.
I worked really hard for a few weeks on immunohistochemistry experiments, generating tissue for two separate projects. One, my dual immunofluorescence examination of the colocalization of VAT and CHT in limbic regions recipient of ascending mesopontine cholinergic innervation, had to have all the tissue processed in one big batch, which made for some particularly long days. But after a couple of weekends off and a few shortened week days, I'm back to business. I've started cleaning up/ organizing my files, and cross-referencing/cataloging the physical micrographs, image files, actual tissue, lab notes, sampling notes, and excel analysis files. It's a little daunting, because I've put off dealing with a lot of the unfinished projects, which generated a lot of data, but is hard to classify. But, I inventoried two lab notebooks last night, and I'll probably spend a day or two this week burning secondary back-up CDs.
Then, maybe, I can be done with this project. Finally.
I moved forward with my dual fluorescence project today, when a really nice grad student showed me the post-processing steps to use on my image stacks. I still need to spend some time playing with the masking procedure to identify objects as sets of voxels, but I think this will be a good way to do this project. I'm really grateful to the professor who's helping me do these experiments (and letting me use his imaging system), and to the student who helped me today.
My tract-tracing project is moving a little bit farther as well. I got an analyzable case, and I have the slides prepared, and took some low magnification shots of a far-red fluorescent dye called Alexa-647, that labeled the vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAT). I had to paste these together in Photoshop, as the 2x image wasn't big enough to cover the entire section.
So tomorrow evening, I'll start sampling 20x triple fluorescence images. This is A--- 488 for green fluorescent latex microspheres, A--- 568 for CTxB, and A--- 647 for VAT. So far, on a quick scan, I haven't seen much colocalization of the tracers, and I haven't found anything yet that had all three labels. But I looked at very rostral sections, where inputs to the AVN aren't very heavy.
So... maybe six months? I'll bet eight ;)
On that front, I'm going to send resumes/CVs/coverletters to whatever jobs interest me, and see where that takes me. It's a strange way for me to do a job search, I'm used to taking whatever comes up first because I need the money, and not-so-secretly hate being without a job. So wish me luck with all of that, and hopefully I'll love my next career move.
Poached fished with ginger and vegetables
Shoot, I just realized I didn't take a picture. Well, my Asian food never really looks appetizing anyway, so you'll just have to picture it for yourself.
I bought a couple of bass the week before last; they were gutted, but still had bones and scales/skin. I foolishly thought that I would save a lot of money by doing this at home, but neglected to properly weight the fact that I don't know how to de-bone a fish. They still had dorsal fins. Ew.
Okay, I really do wish that I'd taken pictures now.
They'd been defrosting for a few days, since I pretty rarely cook these days, but I pulled them out, rinsed them out, and made a first attempt to saw through the bones with a long slender knife, that I think is supposed to be used for filleting. Of course, I was kind of cutting in the wrong direction, but soon stopped. The fish was just a bit too smelly for me to feel safe cooking it, so I tossed it back in the freezer to wait for trash day, and went to the store. I picked up some more bass, this time already prepared for cooking, though still with skin, and some veggies, ginger, and lots of other random things that we needed.
So, about an hour later, I put the groceries away, and pulled out some shrimp stock I made, and froze, back in May. Melted that in the pan, then diluted it, and tried to skim off some of the stuff that was suspended in the liquid.
Poached fish with ginger and vegetables
1 1/2 cups shrimp or fish stock
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
1 lb bass fillets, with skin on
Heat stock in a large, shallow pan to quick simmer, add water if necessary. Stir in ginger, then place fillets, skin side up, and cover for 4-5 minutes. Reduce heat if necessary to poach fish. Remove fish from pan with tongs/spatula. After all pieces are out of the pot, you can add the remaining fillets, and finish them up. Take a fork, and scrape the skin/scales off of the topside each fillet. Try to get it all in one piece, I think it reduces the number of scales that you end up eating unwittingly. Throw it out - I don't know if I want to compost this, b/c of the smell, and I don't know anything else to do with it.
Pour the stock out through cheesecloth and a fine mesh wire strainer, to get the liquid. Don't (as I did!) forget to put a bowl or some kind of container underneath the strainer, so that you can actually get the part you want, rather than sending it down the drain. Luckily, I only did this with half , and my shrimp stock was stronger than I really wanted it to be [which is a whole nother story involving leaving the stove on while D & I both went out for 3 hours.] Dad, I think this means I can no longer make fun of you for doing the same with the great stock debacle of '92 or '93.
Okay, so I diluted the stock some more, in a big Pyrex measuring cup. Rinsed out the pan, and reheated it on mediumish heat.
If you happen to have a handy electric rice maker, now is a good time to start the rice.
And I can't believe I actually use one of these. I have a strong conviction that many gadgets don't really make things easier than doing it by hand. I don't ever make microwave popcorn, though I do use the microwave to heat up coffee/water, melt butter, and bake potatoes. I resisted a food processor for a long time, but for some things, it's worth taking it out for. I used to make fun of people who had rice cookers. Rice is not hard. You boil some water, add some rice, cover it & reduce heat, then check it a couple of times. Voila. But the beauty of the rice cooker is that you don't have to boil the water first, then add the rice. Just put both in, and turn it on. It's pretty much the only step worth eliminating. And, you don't have to check it at all - it switches itself into "Keep Warm" mode.
1 cup (dry weight) rice, prepared
(I used jasmine)
2 tsp oil
1/2 onion, sliced thinly
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup zucchinni, julienned and cut to ~ 1-2 inches
1/2 cup carrot, julienned and cut to same length
1 cup green beans, snapped to same length as above
2 tsp freshly grated ginger
Heat the oil, and add onions, then garlic. Stir-fry for a couple of minutes (3, maybe?) on high, until onions are browning at the edges and crispy. Add the carrots, and a few tablespoons of the stock. cover for 1-2 minutes, maybe turn down the heat a little. Add the peas, and 1/2 C more liquid, to steam the vegetables a little. Recover and cook for a few minutes. Add the zucchini, and recover for 2 more minutes. To the remaining stock, add some rice vinegar, spices, etc, to spice it up a bit.
Add the rest of the stock, ginger, a handful of chopped cilantro leaves and put the fish pieces sans peau back in, cover, and cook 2-3 more minutes. Serve over rice with dry white wine.
We ate outside in the LB Memorial Patio, by candlelight, and with the cats frolicking in the plants :)
It was okay, better than my usual attempts. I think, despite how much I hate it, I need to break out the Wok, and get the oil hotter before I cook the vegetables. At least the Indian is pretty fool-proof, and I have a dishwasher, which makes experimenting with multiple pot cooking possible.
I bought a couple of bass the week before last; they were gutted, but still had bones and scales/skin. I foolishly thought that I would save a lot of money by doing this at home, but neglected to properly weight the fact that I don't know how to de-bone a fish. They still had dorsal fins. Ew.
Okay, I really do wish that I'd taken pictures now.
They'd been defrosting for a few days, since I pretty rarely cook these days, but I pulled them out, rinsed them out, and made a first attempt to saw through the bones with a long slender knife, that I think is supposed to be used for filleting. Of course, I was kind of cutting in the wrong direction, but soon stopped. The fish was just a bit too smelly for me to feel safe cooking it, so I tossed it back in the freezer to wait for trash day, and went to the store. I picked up some more bass, this time already prepared for cooking, though still with skin, and some veggies, ginger, and lots of other random things that we needed.
So, about an hour later, I put the groceries away, and pulled out some shrimp stock I made, and froze, back in May. Melted that in the pan, then diluted it, and tried to skim off some of the stuff that was suspended in the liquid.
Poached fish with ginger and vegetables
1 1/2 cups shrimp or fish stock
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
1 lb bass fillets, with skin on
Heat stock in a large, shallow pan to quick simmer, add water if necessary. Stir in ginger, then place fillets, skin side up, and cover for 4-5 minutes. Reduce heat if necessary to poach fish. Remove fish from pan with tongs/spatula. After all pieces are out of the pot, you can add the remaining fillets, and finish them up. Take a fork, and scrape the skin/scales off of the topside each fillet. Try to get it all in one piece, I think it reduces the number of scales that you end up eating unwittingly. Throw it out - I don't know if I want to compost this, b/c of the smell, and I don't know anything else to do with it.
Pour the stock out through cheesecloth and a fine mesh wire strainer, to get the liquid. Don't (as I did!) forget to put a bowl or some kind of container underneath the strainer, so that you can actually get the part you want, rather than sending it down the drain. Luckily, I only did this with half , and my shrimp stock was stronger than I really wanted it to be [which is a whole nother story involving leaving the stove on while D & I both went out for 3 hours.] Dad, I think this means I can no longer make fun of you for doing the same with the great stock debacle of '92 or '93.
Okay, so I diluted the stock some more, in a big Pyrex measuring cup. Rinsed out the pan, and reheated it on mediumish heat.
If you happen to have a handy electric rice maker, now is a good time to start the rice.
And I can't believe I actually use one of these. I have a strong conviction that many gadgets don't really make things easier than doing it by hand. I don't ever make microwave popcorn, though I do use the microwave to heat up coffee/water, melt butter, and bake potatoes. I resisted a food processor for a long time, but for some things, it's worth taking it out for. I used to make fun of people who had rice cookers. Rice is not hard. You boil some water, add some rice, cover it & reduce heat, then check it a couple of times. Voila. But the beauty of the rice cooker is that you don't have to boil the water first, then add the rice. Just put both in, and turn it on. It's pretty much the only step worth eliminating. And, you don't have to check it at all - it switches itself into "Keep Warm" mode.
1 cup (dry weight) rice, prepared
(I used jasmine)
2 tsp oil
1/2 onion, sliced thinly
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup zucchinni, julienned and cut to ~ 1-2 inches
1/2 cup carrot, julienned and cut to same length
1 cup green beans, snapped to same length as above
2 tsp freshly grated ginger
Heat the oil, and add onions, then garlic. Stir-fry for a couple of minutes (3, maybe?) on high, until onions are browning at the edges and crispy. Add the carrots, and a few tablespoons of the stock. cover for 1-2 minutes, maybe turn down the heat a little. Add the peas, and 1/2 C more liquid, to steam the vegetables a little. Recover and cook for a few minutes. Add the zucchini, and recover for 2 more minutes. To the remaining stock, add some rice vinegar, spices, etc, to spice it up a bit.
Add the rest of the stock, ginger, a handful of chopped cilantro leaves and put the fish pieces sans peau back in, cover, and cook 2-3 more minutes. Serve over rice with dry white wine.
We ate outside in the LB Memorial Patio, by candlelight, and with the cats frolicking in the plants :)
It was okay, better than my usual attempts. I think, despite how much I hate it, I need to break out the Wok, and get the oil hotter before I cook the vegetables. At least the Indian is pretty fool-proof, and I have a dishwasher, which makes experimenting with multiple pot cooking possible.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The porch is gone!!!
The dumpster was picked up on Tuesday, and now we have one less porch. =)
I've been working alot - running two experiments simultaneously now, which I swore I wasn't going to do anymore. But I think project #1 is going to work this time. The last time I tried to generate tissue for this project, I got a horrible staining artifact that made capturing decent pictures impossible. So I had to tweak a few things, and try again. I think I got rid of it, but won't know for sure until I can check it on the scope up the hill.
The other project is a tract-tracing one, and right now I'm just checking the placement of my injections. So I headed into work reasonably early, and got started. Everything was fine for awhile, and then the fire alarm went off. This happens more frequently than you'd think, and it's usually cleared up in a few minutes, so I headed out of the building. (Plus, of course, there might actually have been a fire, so....)
One hour later, we were all still waiting to go back into the building. Grrrr....
I finally went to another entrance, where the campus police were not hanging around, and went back in. The fire department had come and gone, and we were apparently just waiting for the building manager to figure out what had gone wrong with the alarm system. I had to adjust my plans for the day, and will be in tomorrow to finish it.
After I burned a couple of CDs (back-ups of finished projects), I caught a bus up to our friend Mike's, and met Drew there. He'd been helping Mike with some yardwork & gardening, and since Mike lives near the Pittsburgh Trader Joe's, we took a spin over there & picked up some things that aren't available at the Giant Eagle (our normal grocery store). Then back home to improvise some dinner.
Things I did not get to today: building a fence around the garden area to foil the groundhog. Putting away the clean dishes. Scooping the upstairs cat box (I may still get to that one, perhaps on my way down to bed.)
Stuff I did manage to do: Well, work. Folded and put away some of the clean laundry. Blogged. Called my dad. Took a shower (Don't laugh, sometimes I just don't remember to).
I've been working alot - running two experiments simultaneously now, which I swore I wasn't going to do anymore. But I think project #1 is going to work this time. The last time I tried to generate tissue for this project, I got a horrible staining artifact that made capturing decent pictures impossible. So I had to tweak a few things, and try again. I think I got rid of it, but won't know for sure until I can check it on the scope up the hill.
The other project is a tract-tracing one, and right now I'm just checking the placement of my injections. So I headed into work reasonably early, and got started. Everything was fine for awhile, and then the fire alarm went off. This happens more frequently than you'd think, and it's usually cleared up in a few minutes, so I headed out of the building. (Plus, of course, there might actually have been a fire, so....)
One hour later, we were all still waiting to go back into the building. Grrrr....
I finally went to another entrance, where the campus police were not hanging around, and went back in. The fire department had come and gone, and we were apparently just waiting for the building manager to figure out what had gone wrong with the alarm system. I had to adjust my plans for the day, and will be in tomorrow to finish it.
After I burned a couple of CDs (back-ups of finished projects), I caught a bus up to our friend Mike's, and met Drew there. He'd been helping Mike with some yardwork & gardening, and since Mike lives near the Pittsburgh Trader Joe's, we took a spin over there & picked up some things that aren't available at the Giant Eagle (our normal grocery store). Then back home to improvise some dinner.
Things I did not get to today: building a fence around the garden area to foil the groundhog. Putting away the clean dishes. Scooping the upstairs cat box (I may still get to that one, perhaps on my way down to bed.)
Stuff I did manage to do: Well, work. Folded and put away some of the clean laundry. Blogged. Called my dad. Took a shower (Don't laugh, sometimes I just don't remember to).
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Another dumpster....
We have another dumpster, to get rid of the lath, windows, door + frame, back porch, and whatever other trash I can get my hands on. And the best part is: (drum roll, please) D got the dumpster permit, dumpster, and scheduled the porch demolition all without any involvement from me! Yay! I can just work on my school stuff, while other things get done! :) (Plus he did dishes today, and mowed the front lawn, which I'd been gently reminding him about for two or three weeks).
So I am obviously happy. My paper is almost done, just one more meeting (I hope!) with my statistician, and maybe one more edit (before the final edit/fixing of stuff we didn't see before), and then it will be off! I met with advisor today, and we accomplished alot, plus I ran the idea by her of not submitting an abstract for SFN this year. I have no positive data yet, so it would be very hard to write one by Thursday. I'd rather spend my time on getting my thesis work done, even if it means paying for the trip myself (if it turns out I feel I should go for interviewing/job-finding purposes). Sorry, let me explain - SFN is the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, which is generally attended by ~30,000 neuroscientists. I've gone to D.C. twice, Atlanta & San Diego once, and this year it's in Chicago. I really want to go to Chicago, but it's an expensive, and extremely tiring, meeting to go to. Right now, I'm cold e-mailing people about post-doctoral research opportunities, jobs, etc., but at SFN they have a NeuroJobs search & interviewing process that lets you talk to people face-to-face. It would be good, but we'll see how I'm doing research-wise at that point. The good thing is that when I broached the subject with Susan today, she indicated she'd be willing to foot at least some of the bill (from her grants/GSR funds), so it won't be as expensive as I thought.
I also made a pretty good Indian food dinner last night. I bought a book a few months ago: South Indian Cooking (or something like that). And another one: An Introduction to Indian Cooking, by Madhur Jaffrey. I haven't actually made anything from the Madhur Jaffrey book, though I am know tempted to go to the store that sells goat meat in Oakland someday, so it can be authentic. After I received both, I went to the Indian grocery store, and bought most of the dal (lentils, and there are more types than you'd ever imagined), spices, and exotic stuff like tamarind paste & shredded coconut & asafoetida powder that I'd need. So it's pretty easy to just cook something up, should I remember.
So I knew I had a bunch of vegetables I had to cook - bell peppers, zucchini, cilantro, kale, tomatoes - and I got to work. Most of the recipes I've tried so far, this started with some lentils (in this case toor dal (small, flat & thin yellow split peas)), simmered in water until creamy. Heat some corn oil, throw in some urad dal (white lentils), black mustard seeds, asafoetida powder, fenugreek seeds (methi) & a chili pepper, cover and cook until the mustard seeds pop. [From last night's experiment, I know that it doesn't really matter if they burn a little bit].
Throw in some onion and tomato, and the toor dal, cook for a minute or two, then add a cup of water & some tomato sauce, cilantro, salt, more turmeric powder, and something called sambhar powder (hot!), and simmer another few minutes. In this case, I added some bell pepper and cooked, covered another 10-15 minutes. Serve over rice [I do jasmine rice, or brown basmati, and a rice cooker is a pretty cool kitchen accesory].
I also stir-fried up the kale in olive oil with some garlic & onions (caramelized before adding the kale) with just a splash of white balsamic vinegar. I thought that would be a good side, but it ended up being pretty good mixed in with the Indian food.
Anyway, the tomato sauce/lentil base is awesome - this is much like the sauch over chicken tikki masala, but the sambhar powder makes it spicier than that sauce. I've made it with carrots before too (sliced pretty thin, added at the same time as the bell peppers above, but cooked longer), and that was good too.
I thought about taking pictures, but it's actually pretty tough - things have to be added pretty quickly, and it's definitely best to chop everything up before you start heating the oil, or you may get caught without the right ingredients at the right time. I'll try next time I venture to subcontinental cuisin. Also, I'd like to thank Kristen for making this possible - the blue enamelled cast-iron pot is perfect for cooking the lentils, and the covered cast iron double handed skillet is good for mixing everything together. I'd also highly recommend wood utensils, and a wire basket wok tool for blanching kale (or spinach, or deep frying anything). The tools are all available at Wal-mart, or any kitchen store (but Wal-mart is way cheaper, although I always have mixed feelings about anti-labor Wal-mart policies).
That's all the new that's fit to print! M (D's mom) & D & I are still trying to get wedding reception plans together - it's insanely more expensive than you'd think, so there's alot of options to be explored at this point. I confess, I have thought about cancelling several times wistfully, but we still want everyone to be there who can, so I guess we're on the hook now :) Still, the house is still coming along slowly, and it looks like we need another Subaru (the old girl is coughing and sputtering, and I think has a bad CV joint), so we'll see what we can get away with.
Love you all, and hope you have a good night!
So I am obviously happy. My paper is almost done, just one more meeting (I hope!) with my statistician, and maybe one more edit (before the final edit/fixing of stuff we didn't see before), and then it will be off! I met with advisor today, and we accomplished alot, plus I ran the idea by her of not submitting an abstract for SFN this year. I have no positive data yet, so it would be very hard to write one by Thursday. I'd rather spend my time on getting my thesis work done, even if it means paying for the trip myself (if it turns out I feel I should go for interviewing/job-finding purposes). Sorry, let me explain - SFN is the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, which is generally attended by ~30,000 neuroscientists. I've gone to D.C. twice, Atlanta & San Diego once, and this year it's in Chicago. I really want to go to Chicago, but it's an expensive, and extremely tiring, meeting to go to. Right now, I'm cold e-mailing people about post-doctoral research opportunities, jobs, etc., but at SFN they have a NeuroJobs search & interviewing process that lets you talk to people face-to-face. It would be good, but we'll see how I'm doing research-wise at that point. The good thing is that when I broached the subject with Susan today, she indicated she'd be willing to foot at least some of the bill (from her grants/GSR funds), so it won't be as expensive as I thought.
I also made a pretty good Indian food dinner last night. I bought a book a few months ago: South Indian Cooking (or something like that). And another one: An Introduction to Indian Cooking, by Madhur Jaffrey. I haven't actually made anything from the Madhur Jaffrey book, though I am know tempted to go to the store that sells goat meat in Oakland someday, so it can be authentic. After I received both, I went to the Indian grocery store, and bought most of the dal (lentils, and there are more types than you'd ever imagined), spices, and exotic stuff like tamarind paste & shredded coconut & asafoetida powder that I'd need. So it's pretty easy to just cook something up, should I remember.
So I knew I had a bunch of vegetables I had to cook - bell peppers, zucchini, cilantro, kale, tomatoes - and I got to work. Most of the recipes I've tried so far, this started with some lentils (in this case toor dal (small, flat & thin yellow split peas)), simmered in water until creamy. Heat some corn oil, throw in some urad dal (white lentils), black mustard seeds, asafoetida powder, fenugreek seeds (methi) & a chili pepper, cover and cook until the mustard seeds pop. [From last night's experiment, I know that it doesn't really matter if they burn a little bit].
Throw in some onion and tomato, and the toor dal, cook for a minute or two, then add a cup of water & some tomato sauce, cilantro, salt, more turmeric powder, and something called sambhar powder (hot!), and simmer another few minutes. In this case, I added some bell pepper and cooked, covered another 10-15 minutes. Serve over rice [I do jasmine rice, or brown basmati, and a rice cooker is a pretty cool kitchen accesory].
I also stir-fried up the kale in olive oil with some garlic & onions (caramelized before adding the kale) with just a splash of white balsamic vinegar. I thought that would be a good side, but it ended up being pretty good mixed in with the Indian food.
Anyway, the tomato sauce/lentil base is awesome - this is much like the sauch over chicken tikki masala, but the sambhar powder makes it spicier than that sauce. I've made it with carrots before too (sliced pretty thin, added at the same time as the bell peppers above, but cooked longer), and that was good too.
I thought about taking pictures, but it's actually pretty tough - things have to be added pretty quickly, and it's definitely best to chop everything up before you start heating the oil, or you may get caught without the right ingredients at the right time. I'll try next time I venture to subcontinental cuisin. Also, I'd like to thank Kristen for making this possible - the blue enamelled cast-iron pot is perfect for cooking the lentils, and the covered cast iron double handed skillet is good for mixing everything together. I'd also highly recommend wood utensils, and a wire basket wok tool for blanching kale (or spinach, or deep frying anything). The tools are all available at Wal-mart, or any kitchen store (but Wal-mart is way cheaper, although I always have mixed feelings about anti-labor Wal-mart policies).
That's all the new that's fit to print! M (D's mom) & D & I are still trying to get wedding reception plans together - it's insanely more expensive than you'd think, so there's alot of options to be explored at this point. I confess, I have thought about cancelling several times wistfully, but we still want everyone to be there who can, so I guess we're on the hook now :) Still, the house is still coming along slowly, and it looks like we need another Subaru (the old girl is coughing and sputtering, and I think has a bad CV joint), so we'll see what we can get away with.
Love you all, and hope you have a good night!
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Time to submit.... a paper
My advisor and I are almost done with my first, first author manuscript. I'm a little nervous, as we're submitting to the Journal of Comparative Neurology, which is pretty much as high as neuroanatomy journals get. I trust my data, and the statistics that my wonderful consultant has done for us, but the text of the article is freaking me out a little bit. I've been wrapping things up in the past couple of days, just inserting citations for statements that I know I've read before, but as I search the literature, I'm not finding much to back up those assertions. I have found where I read these things, but know I'm not sure that I believe those sources.... So I'm afraid the reviews might be scathing....
I'm trying to step up the pace on a couple of other projects as well, since my committee decided that I just need to finish those two things for my dissertation. Unfortunately, the immuno is not co-operating. My co-localization study is almost ready to get off the ground, but I'm getting a weird background staining that I have yet to abolish. Luckily, the professor who's helping me with the imaging is very understanding, and chalked it up to, well science, today when we met.
So I've got a few more tests to run, before I can generate the tissue for that one.
D gave me some good news about the house today though - our back deck is coming off this weekend! So at least we're getting some progress there :) And last weekend we went and picked up some plants (tomatoes, collard greens, cucumbers, rosemary, coneflower, and brussels sprouts (D's choice, not mine)), and put most of them in the ground. We're lucky to get plenty of rain, so as long as we can keep the groundhog away, I think we should be all right.
Sorry it's all about work today, but there's not much else going on!
I'm trying to step up the pace on a couple of other projects as well, since my committee decided that I just need to finish those two things for my dissertation. Unfortunately, the immuno is not co-operating. My co-localization study is almost ready to get off the ground, but I'm getting a weird background staining that I have yet to abolish. Luckily, the professor who's helping me with the imaging is very understanding, and chalked it up to, well science, today when we met.
So I've got a few more tests to run, before I can generate the tissue for that one.
D gave me some good news about the house today though - our back deck is coming off this weekend! So at least we're getting some progress there :) And last weekend we went and picked up some plants (tomatoes, collard greens, cucumbers, rosemary, coneflower, and brussels sprouts (D's choice, not mine)), and put most of them in the ground. We're lucky to get plenty of rain, so as long as we can keep the groundhog away, I think we should be all right.
Sorry it's all about work today, but there's not much else going on!
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