It's Thesis Writing (aka Procrastination) Time

I'm heads down working on finishing up my thesis and prepping for my MSc. defense in mid-August. That is, when I am not distracted by Pubmed rabbit-holes (Oh! Look, an interesting article on the effects of Lithium on TrkB and BDNF! - seriously, how many tabs CAN a person have open in Chrome at one time and not crash their notebook?), and new articles that show up on twitter (like those describing recent work investigating the electrophysiological properties of  ketamine metabolites...)

I can't believe I'm here already. Seems like yesterday I was handing in my resignation at Alcatel-Lucent and starting my BSc. in Neuroscience.  And what a journey it's been!  I've been very fortunate to be in a great lab, the misfortunes of having been prematurely ousted from our facilities aside...

I almost beat my son to the MSc. He was procrastinating HEAVILY (he's far worse than I am, but we benefited because he COOKED gourmet meals for us when he was in writing-avoidance mode).  He should have defended last August.  He ended up moving back to BC and paying part-time tuition fees while he worked on his thesis.  Then he said he was going to defend in December, and that became January, and finally I told him I was defending in May (a lie, but his wife told me to do it in order to goad him - heaven forfend his MOTHER should get her masters before he did!) He came back out from BC in April to successfully defend his MSc. thesis in Geology. I am VERY proud to say that he is now working as a geologist for an exploration company in BC.  The degree paid off and he's happily doing a combination of mapping and field work!

I think the root-cause of my procrastination is that my master's study is frustrating the hell out of the perfectionist in me - partly because it had some methodological limitations (due to number of animals and age of breeding stock), partly because I had to leave it in the hands of other students for about a month last summer (and some data got lost), partly because we lost precious time in the lab move, partly because the antibody I was using was discontinued and there is no replacement ANYWHERE, and partly because we spent months unable to get a working TrkB stain in perfused/frozen tissue. (And WHY did that other lab use the F669A TrkB mutant instead of the F616A?  I wish someone would write me back to explain... *sigh*)

On the plus side, I pioneered an interesting technique, and had a hand in several other studies, one of which was published, and another is in the final phases of publication review. I experimented with culturing from cryopreserved astrocytes (As easy to grow as Sea Monkeys®!)  I am the Kween of Chronic Unpredictable Stress and Sucrose Preference Testing in our lab and I run a mean Western Blot (I am very adept at working with our new Li-Cor system - goodbye film!). In the process of this study I became fascinated with TrkB receptors and neurotrophins (though my first love will always be NMDA receptors, particularly those with GluN2B subunits), and found a collaborator who is now coming to work with me for a year on her sabbatical. I expect to learn a ton of new techniques and do some VERY interesting science come this fall when I start my Ph.D., including collaborations with other labs that work with viral vectors and ephys.

And on that note, it's going to be a LOT less stressful because this spring I was awarded the NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Doctoral Scholarship (for the fall of 2017). Combined with my funding offer from Carleton, this 3-year, $35k/yr award means that for at least the next 2 years, I won't have to be distracted each fall in a sprint for funding applications, and I can focus on RESEARCH.

When I am not procrastinating by reorganizing my kitchen cupboards, or writing blog entries, (I hear it's a thing during thesis-prep, so I'm not alone), I DO love the research part of the writing process - going through the literature, looking at papers, finding unusual associations, and LEARNING.  It makes me excited about the science and gives me great ideas of new things to try in our next study. I'm actively adding things to the google drive share I have with my new collaborator, and we expect to have a solid project-plan for the next 12 months laid out by the time September rolls around.

Of course, between now and then, I have to finish my thesis, go to Pennsylvania to extract some tissue samples, run a ton of Westerns, defend my thesis, and try to get a STAIN working. It doesn't help that people at the Neurotrophic Factors GRC told me it is notoriously difficult to get TrkB to stain in perfused/frozen tissue - no WONDER there is almost nothing in the literature other than cell culture stains! (My cell culture stains worked brilliantly, btw).  That being said, I'm stubborn about this stuff the same way that I was stubborn about not letting a computer problem stump me.  I'm convinced I'm going to find a technique that works, and I have some ideas to try, when I find the time...  And speaking of which, I should also make time to sleep more.  Thesis-writing mode puts me back in to night-owl hours where I start reversing my days and nights...

Open Letter to Carleton University Administration....

To:  Dr. Roseann O’Reilly Runte, Carleton University President and Vice Chancellor

cc: Michel Piché, Vice-President, Finance and Administration

cc: Dr. Matthias Neufang, Dean, Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies

cc: Dr. Rafik A. Goubran, Vice-President, Research (Interim)
cc: Malcolm Butler, Dean of Science
cc: Catherine McKenna, MP, Ottawa Centre
cc: Yasir Naqvi, MPP, Ottawa Centre
cc: Dr. John Stead, Chair, Department of Neuroscience

Dr. O'Reilly Runte,

As a student of the Neuroscience department, I can tell you that I was delighted to hear that we would be getting new, updated facilities in the Health Science research building in Sept 2017. This date would dovetail nicely with the completion of my Master's degree and the start of my Ph.D.

However, I am completely disheartened to learn that, in the middle of trying to complete my degree, we will be moved out of our current facilities prematurely, with little planning and forethought, and will lose critical research time and focus.

Earlier this week, public announcements were made regarding the ARISE project which will replace the Life Sciences Research Building (LSRB), yet no formal communication was made prior to this announcement, to the students and staff affected by this change in plans.

On Friday Nov 11, graduate students received an email from Neuroscience Department Chair, John Stead informing us that Carleton University administration has stated that all researchers, staff and students must vacate LSRB by March 1. The Health Sciences building will not be ready for occupancy until the fall and the proposed interim space is inadequate and unconfirmed, with no clear indication of what will happen to our animal research.

I am deeply disappointed that the students critically affected by this project have not been consulted, and have had no direct communication or engagement in any process regarding changes to our research facilities.

I am deeply concerned about both the timing and lack of preparation undertaken by university administration for what will be a highly disruptive move.

The proposed option of wet-lab space in Tory building Biology Teaching Labs in summer, is untenable. This proposal does nothing to address the need for wet-lab space as of February 15, which is when we will have to start moving in order to have a hope of fully vacating LSRB by March 1. It also does not address the possibility of slippage in the Health Sciences building readiness. What happens come late August if HS is not ready? The Biology Teaching labs are critically needed for undergraduate courses, and we run experiments on tight timelines. We simply cannot work around classroom schedules. Never mind the fact that the labs are accessed by unskilled undergraduate students, which would put our critical research equipment at risk of damage and loss.  There are many pieces of highly specialized equipment that simply cannot be moved to unsecured labs.  We have equipment that takes up significant space and separate electrical circuits.  For example, where will the nine -80C freezers full invaluable biological samples go?

Additionally, there is still no clear plan for what will happen to our mice, and we need close access to both animals and wet-lab - which will not be available if we are in Tory building or off campus. And I am not the only student affected by this: we have 79 graduate and honours students with degrees in progress that critically rely on the facilities currently in place. 

I am in the 2^nd year of my Master’s degree in Neuroscience, and had planned to continue at Carleton University for my Ph.D. in Dr. Shawn Hayley’s lab in September 2017.  In support of my Master’s thesis work, I have developed an important relationship with a collaborator from a US institution who is expecting me to be able to conduct wet-lab research throughout the Winter and Summer terms, and had planned to bring important transgenic mice here in September 2017, for a year-long on-site collaboration into understanding the neurobiology of stress and depression. My master’s thesis is the underpinning for research which I intend to pursue for my Ph.D. If Carleton cannot support this research then I will lose an enormous opportunity and significant credibility.  

The research I must complete over the winter and summer terms is not only fundamental to our lab’s reputation and MY reputation with my collaborator, but is essential to me obtaining grants for funding my Ph.D research.  Many of my fellow students are in a similar position - we must be fully productive over the next two terms in order to obtain funding from granting agencies.  

I had accepted and anticipated there would be some downtime associated with the move to the new Health Sciences building, but had expected this to occur in August-September 2017 -  a date by which the research and defense for my Master’s degree would be complete.  An additional unplanned move during my Master’s degree will seriously impact my ability to complete research necessary to complete my degree, maintain a credible relationship with my collaborator and publish papers essential to grant applications. The rushed nature of this whole endeavour and the uncertainty due to lack of full transparency from your office undermines both our integrity in the research community, and prospects for the future.     

I chose Carleton because of its excellent and rapidly growing Neuroscience degree program, and the highly collaborative nature of the researchers within the department. Prior to starting my degree at Carleton, I worked as an executive and project manager in the high tech industry, managing and overseeing small, medium, and large scale software and data center migrations, and building site moves. Therefore, I fully understand the need for comprehensive and proactive planning and risk assessments for these kinds of endeavours – and we didn’t have the mice and biological samples to contend with. In addition there is the issue of in-progress and follow-on experiments -  these cannot be moved to an interim facility, as this would confound results and cost us thousands of dollars and, more importantly, months of lost research productivity in a highly competitive field. In my experience, a move of this nature, on such short notice, with the current lack of consultation, is a recipe for disaster.

Given that:
1) The alternative location of  using teaching labs in Tory has not been confirmed, (and does not address all our needs)
2) We have had no communication with a project manager of any kind
3) No two-way consultation with the researchers and students affected has taken place to obtain detailed requirements, or determine if proposed space is viable

...it is clear the projected deadline is untenable for a successful move before March 1. 

I understand that the large grant for ARISE is a windfall, but it is appalling that the institution is willing to sacrifice the credibility of its fastest growing department, and their research reputation, not to mention the students who put their faith and trust in Carleton, in order to obtain this funding.  The short and long-term fallout costs are too great to faculty and students in the Neuroscience department, and to Carleton’s reputation and credibility as a premier research institution.  

To make matters worse, I have only recently found out that in addition to this interim move, the university lacks sufficient funding to finish all the floors of the Health Sciences building. Plus we are being told our new animal housing facility is not going to be ready until November.  Yet there is money to build a new building, and move us twice?  What is wrong with this picture?

Dr. O'Reilly Runte, I implore you to:

1) Immediately start engaging the students, staff and faculty in the Department of Neuroscience in an open and transparent dialogue about options and include us in planning.Could the new ARISE building be constructed elsewhere on campus, for example?

2) Work with the Federal and Provincial granting agencies to help them understand that choosing an alternate location for ARISE, or pushing back the start date until the Health Sciences building is ready, would provide a viable solution that allows for adequate planning and does not result in failing to meet commitments to existing students and researchers. 

3) Respect and honour your commitments to existing students - do not put our futures in jeopardy by forcing us into a poorly-planned interim move to substandard facilities, and a concomitant loss of productivity and valuable research time. 

Please do not make me and my classmates regret choosing Carleton for Neuroscience. 

Sincerely,

-Natalie Prowse

MSc Student, Dept of Neuroscience
Carleton University

Burning Man, here I come!

On a non-school related note,  I got invited to join a camp at Burning Man this year, and after minimal soul-searching, I said YES.  I've wanted to go for over 20 years, but never found the time or right group to go with.  (There is a LOT of logistics and set-up that make it nearly impossible to go directly from Ottawa, and utterly impossible to do on one's own).  I seriously debated if I should spend the time and money (when I could be running protein quantifications in the lab), but my sweetie strongly encouraged me to do this. It's on my bucket list, and I'm not officially starting my master's till the fall.  Not only that, but I am already going to Vancouver for a wedding this August (our group will drive out of Vancouver), so the airfare is a done deal.   Once I start my Master's, and if I fast-track, I won't have any time to go to Burning Man for another 5 or 6 years at least.... So it's now or never.  It gets me back late (academic year starts on Sept 4th and I won't be back till the 11th), but my advisor has been totally supportive and said to go for it, and not to worry, he'd handle anyone who had issues with my absence.  So far, the only classes I will be missing are his and a stats class. :-)

Given my side penchant for costume making and my love of Halloween, art, and dancing, can I just say, I am TOTALLY PSYCHED to be going to Burning Man this year!  I am joining a camp that has been to the playa 4 times in the past, and this year they applied for Theme Camp placement within the city and they GOT IT. Amazingly, we have been assigned a space located in the 2nd most requested sector!  I cannot believe my first Burning Man experience is going to be THIS COOL.

Of course, everyone asks if Bri will be going with me. Nope, totally NOT his gig. But he is completely supportive of my attending, and encouraging me to go.   My cousin is going to give me a private showing of the documentary "Taking my parents to Burning Man" in a couple of weeks.  I hope I won't feel too depressingly OLD as a result, but having seen the trailer, it does look cute, and I think it's safe to say, I'm NOTHING like the filmmaker's parents.

My youngest is living out west, working at a bike shop and has saved me a cheapo bike that will be adequate for the duration of the festival (you really need a bike to get around).   I've been buying costume bits and pieces off ebay for the last 4 months, and Bri thinks that I've had so many things arrive from China that I'm likely on some CSIS watch list.  I told him that I was probably already on their watch list from all my searches on google for Ketamine...

So this week is all packing and finishing costumes and deciding what to bring that will meet baggage allowances, and finding a camera that can survive the dust, and DAMN, there just isn't enough time!

It's been a while....

Well, it's been a while since I updated this blog - lots going on in my life with no real time to post an update. This one is long-overdue but I'll do my best to fill you in. (as if anyone out there beyond my friends and family CARES, but hey, maybe it will encourage another mid-life changer to keep up the good fight...)

In January I ran a study (of my own design) involving an experimental drug treatment after a chronic mild stress paradigm.  I managed to get sucrose preference test results which no one else in our lab has managed to achieve. This may be due to the fact that I used Balb/c mice and not the cheaper and more stress-resilient CD1s that everyone was using before. Never-the-less, I still have to analyze the remaining behaviour data and run Westerns on the tissue samples which are currently sitting in the -80C freezer. (Despite the preliminary positive results, I sometimes think the only ones stressed at the end of these studies are the researchers and students working on them.)

This spring I completed my undergraduate BSc. Honours in Neuroscience with a rockin' GPA (Carleton has a weird GPA system, but it's equivalent to something like 3.95 on the 4.0 scale). I also won first prize in Neuroscience for my poster presentation at Undergraduate Research Day.  Honestly, nobody was more shocked than me about THAT prize - my poster was about a drug screen and was so boring I added a picture of a mouse in the FST to jazz it up.   But I guess it all came down to the presentation part - I KNOW my subject area in great detail and that impressed the judges.

In June, I graduated with "High Distinction".  My 74-year-old mother and my stepfather attended my graduation.  It was very sweet of her to fly all this way to see me graduate. In addition to my parents and Bri, my friend and co-counsellor Ian (whom I affectionately refer to as my "academic sponsor" - i.e., "don't let me quit!") was also there and cheering me on. Bri apparently "cried like a baby" during the ceremony.  (Love that guy to death. At moments like that, I forgive him his penchant for TV shows like "Glee" and collectible plates with kittens on them...).

I realized, as I was there, lining up to cross the stage, that I had not walked across a graduation stage in 30 years, the last being my high school graduation. Kind of ironic that I graduate from university THIRTY YEARS after high school. (I never went to my college graduation - I had  move 250 miles away and was busy trying to start a career).  Thus, I have my first undergraduate degree at 52.  (It took a while,  but I got there. Late bloomer, anyone?)

Ironically, I had this entertaining conversation earlier this year with the oldest professor in my dept, (and frankly, the ONLY professor in my dept. who is older than ME).  He is well known and respected in the fields of stress and depression research and his lectures are filled with entertaining anecdotes about characters like Nick Spanos (famous for his studies debunking alien abductions and multiple personality disorders), and his own experiences with aging, memory and anxiety.

I stopped by his office to ask a question on designing a protocol. After he answered my question he said, "Can I ask you a personal question?".
"Sure", I answered.
"How old are you?"
Amused, I replied, "Fifty-two."
He then asked, "Why are you here?", to which I candidly responded,
"I was in IT for 30 years, I had a successful career, but it just wasn't exciting me any more. I didn't feel enthused about getting up and going to work every day.  I had always thought I would go back and get a degree, but I never really had anything that grabbed me enough to make me leave, and then I read this book about neuroplasticity, and that was IT. I realized THAT was what I wanted to do. I wanted to study and understand the brain. Carleton then opened up an undergraduate program in neuroscience, so I figured this was a sign, and took a correspondence course in chemistry so I could get in."
He then asked, "So what do you want to do after this?"
I told him, "I want to go on to get my Phd. and hopefully do research.  If that doesn't happen, I have other options, but that's my first goal."
And then he said something I found quite amusing and not at all insulting, he said, "Don't take this the wrong way, but you are not the typical mature student."
"What do you mean?"
"Most of them are here for the wrong reasons."
I can't remember the words he said exactly, but he did indicate that I was doing exceptionally well for a mature student and far exceeded expectations. I thanked him for the somewhat awkwardly worded compliment. It really meant a lot coming from him.

He was most concerned about what I'd do AFTER I graduated from my Ph.D., "Do you HAVE to work?", he asked.
"Yes. I am on the 'Freedom '95 program.  I am bleeding away my RRSPs to be here, but there isn't enough there to retire on."
"Do you have any children? I'm always worried about leaving something for my children."
I laughed. "Yes, I have two sons, aged 27 and 29, and I've told them I am dying poor, and with any luck I'll kick it from a massive coronary at some later stage so they won't have to look after me and change my Depends."

Canada unfortunately does not have a lot of research positions outside of academia, so he was terribly concerned that my age would exclude me from opportunities at universities, but not for the reasons you might think.  Apparently, at Canadian universities, your salary (dictated by union contracts in each province) is determined by the number of years since your FIRST degree (i.e. your BSc.), thus, if I theoretically graduate with my Ph.D. at age 57, and I had received my first BSc when I was 22, I would command a MUCH higher salary than a younger and more recent graduate with the same experience and only 6 years between their BSc. and their Ph.D. - thus, I would be less desirable to a potential university.

I explained that this was going to be my FIRST Bachelor's degree of any kind, that my only other credential was a 2-year diploma from a technical college, and he heaved a sigh of relief.

I also explained that I have a ton of experience in IT and project management, technology, programming, leadership, and a host of other skills that your typical graduate student does not have, and thus, I'm not worried about the job prospects.  One way or another, I'll figure it out and survive. As much as I'd love to go on to do research, my dream job is to start or work for an Ethical Pharmaceutical company (no, that is NOT an oxymoron) where we pursue clinical trials and reasonably-priced delivery of drugs from open patents that would benefit the greater public good (such as from the Salk Institute), and which no other pharma will touch because of the lack of patent protection.

In any case, it was very sweet that he was concerned about me and that he gave me a strangely-worded compliment about my progress to date.

And on that note, was accepted into the Master's program at Carleton with funding, so that helps to lessen the pinch on the RRSP front, especially given the way the economy is going and the looming "R" word. I also won two other grant awards (one of which I declined (by accident - a subject for ANOTHER blog entry), but you can only hold one, so it's all ok in the end). Despite the funding, I'm still technically below the poverty line, but Bri says instead of being merely poor, I'll be the working poor because part of my funding is through TA-ships.

On the research front, I have one study complete (tissue on ice, with both behaviour data and tissue ready for me to analyze), another on which I am co-author recently completed, and another co-author study about to start, for which I have designed the stress protocol schedule.  We have a new professor who is great (she and my advisor are collaborating and having periodic joint lab meetings - it's fantastic), and she has a couple of transgenic mouse lines she brought with her, so I'm going to be using one of the lines on my next study in the fall.  By Christmas, I hope to have 4 studies under my belt, and tissue analysis well under way, positioning me for application to fast track to my Ph.D. in the spring.

I'm still passionately interested in the mechanisms of neuroplasticity that underlie depression and antidepressant responses, but there is a ton of really interesting work going on in other areas as well, so I'm open to new and interesting avenues of research.

Yes, there are definitely tedious parts to research, but the lab is bustling, and I'm still loving it, and that's what counts!

Suckered

We were laughing about the jokes played on unsuspecting new (and not so new) members of the lab, like when Kyle convinced Tetyana to put ice packs under her arms because he "needed them melted". He only let her do that for a couple of minutes before he confessed the joke. I scolded her because she's been in the lab for 3 years and should know better. And Kyle said, "Yeah, but my best one is the one where I said, Hey, do this stereology for months (counting cells) and I PROMISE we'll get published and you'll get your name on a paper."

Damn. Fell for it.

I suck at tests

My son laughs at me when I complain about getting 80 on something.  "OH. MY.GOD. You got an A-.!"

To be straight, I'm beating myself up about getting 80 on a genetics midterm, when my current GPA is about 3.96.

But in reality, it COUNTS.  NSERC looks at your grades (I've failed to get NSERC for the summer 2 years in a row because the cutoff is 3.98). Grad schools look at your grades. Unfortunately, a very small percentage of your final mark is based on assignments, (which I typically rock at).  My physics lab partner and I were trying to explain this to another student in our class who was teasing us about striving for A+  on our reports.  My TA loves me because I actually RESEARCHED why our spectral lines for helium were systematically off in the latest report. (I determined that our diffraction grating was probably not perpendicular to the incoming light from the collimator by approximately 0.3 degrees, WITH REFERENCES and DIAGRAMS to show how the change in angle could effectively reduce the collimator "d" value.. she says NOBODY does that kind of work in "Physics for Dummies" - the version of physics for non-physics majors.).

Right now, I am pulling a steady "80" in genetics exams, even though I'm pulling 95-96 on assignments and explaining to my classmates how to calculate recombination frequencies and ensure that they've got the genes in the right order. I'm DOWN with tetrad analysis. And I feel like I really GET it.  But multiple-choice take me out.  All it takes is 3 or 4 wrong answers, and I'm out of the A+ range, but I typically score highly in the short and long-answer questions.  Ironically, it doesn't seem to matter if there are 50 M/C or 30 M/C, I seem to always get 2-4 wrong.  (I wish they'd either make them worth less, or put more in)

The grand irony, is that I'm rocking physics.  I got 100% on my last lab, and I have nothing less than a 94% in labs.   I'm hovering around an 89% in the lecture portion.  

Until recently, any course involving a lot of math killed me because my skills were so rusty. But now I really feel like my math skills have improved significantly.  Today, in the final physics lab, a student came up to me and said, "The TA told us to come talk to you, if you are willing, to explain what we might put in our discussion about why the thermocouple results for temperature based on our calibration are inconsistent with the standard calibration curve."   I smiled. We were done well ahead of everyone else. I had time.  I tried not to give him everything, so I asked questions.... "How many measurements did you take during the calibration?  What was the range of temperature?  Can a linear curve approximate a quadratic curve? (He said, "No") I said,  "Yes, it can, but only for small ranges of the curve. Think about it. Right?  What was the temperature of the CO2 slurry?  Was it within the range of your calibration?  What substance temperatures could you have measured that would have given you CONSISTENT results?".  I could tell when the light bulb came on....

He finally GOT it.  I GET it - when it comes to doing real experiments and real work.  

In fact, on the pre-lab quiz for Ray Optics, I solved a question that none of my classmate friends could. (Of COURSE I shared the solution, with Brian chiding me... "You are RAISING the class average.  You shouldn't DO that." But I can't help it. It's the "hippie" in me (as Kyle calls it) that makes me think that karmically it's better for all to SHARE knowledge than to horde it.)

  

What bugs me about physics and chem, is that it's the math that took me down initially, and yet, in highschool, mathematics was my BEST subject.  Even 10 years later when I went back and took calculus, I still got the best mark in the class, beating out 18-yr-olds who HAD calculus in high school the year before (I only took honour's Algebra in HS).   But when you count on computers to do it for you for 30 years, you lose the mental skill and agility for mathematics and especially algebra. It's taken me 2 years of work to get it back to something reasonable.  I can now look at an equation, know how to invert it and move the unknown to one side to solve, without actually writing anything down. I know, it's really basic, but I see that as a major accomplishment.   I can even solve for an unknown in a fractional exponential of "e".  Even my TRIG is coming back now. 

Of course the big thing in biology labs (and neuroscience) is dilutions.  You have a 10% solution. You need 30 mL of  a solution containing  0.2% of the substance.  How much do you put in of the dilutant vs the original solution? Or, you have an antibody solution that is pure (1g/ul). You need 100ul of an 800,000:1 dilution. The smallest pipette only goes to 1ul.  What serial dilutions are required to produce the correct 100ul solution minimizing the use of the (very expensive) antibody?

Ironically, I have ALWAYS understood the theory in all my science classes very well.   Just before the chemistry final last year, I was explaining crystal field splitting theory and electron orbitals to people who DIDN'T GET IT until that very moment that I explained it in terms they could understand (RIGHT BEFORE THE FINAL).  I'm SURE they did better on the exam than I did. Why? Because I SUCK at memorizing equations. That''s why I do SO much better at physics - they give us an EQ sheet. And let's face it - that's SO much more "real world'. On WHAT planet would you do IMPORTANT complex calculations, pulling equations FROM MEMORY for real world applications and have NO TIME to check your answers?  None. Unless some kind of EMP bomb has gone off and all the computers are dead (or SKYNET has taken over the world networks), OR, you are up in a space shuttle and all 7 backup computer systems died. (Given that the shuttle program is dead, I have no risk of becoming a shuttle astronaut, so I think it's safe to assume that if I need an algorithm, I can find it on a computer or network at some point). 

Like chemistry, before the genetics midterm, I was explaining simple techniques to ensure that you had the gene order right in a series of 3 linked genes (I have a simple technique that ensures you have placed the genes in the right order before you start calculating recombination frequencies.), and how to do Tetrad analyisis.   Yet people I know who have LESS real understanding than I do, did better on the exam. (even someone who had the genes OUT OF ORDER did better)  *sigh*.

Like I said, I SUCK at traditional exams. (I don't always get over 90, and only ONCE have gotten 100%)) But am not humble in admitting I rock at researching, solving problems and proposing interesting alternatives for potential solutions. I hope that's what counts when it comes to getting into graduate school.  Because where I excel is at solving problems where there ISN'T a pat answer or known solution, or a memorized "right answer".  I rock at problem solving  because I am tenacious at researching everything that I can find about the problem, and even branching out to things that may not SEEM to be immediately related, but ultimately may be. I also have this huge body of experience that sometimes results in seemingly intuitive leaps of logic.  (It's not intuition - it's my subconscious putting all the disparate pieces together).  In the software world, when presented with a particularly tough problem, I would often say, "I need to go and cogitate on that for a while."  I had one really good boss, who GOT it, and said, "I know. It means that you will go away, NOT really directly think about it, but let it percolate, and you will come back with a solution in a few days, regardless."  Yep. That's about it.   

I also hold strongly to the tenet that if you absolutely, and completely believe that you are RIGHT, your mind is NOT OPEN to the possibilities that there might be other answers, and that can lead to missing really important insights.

Sadly, no courses I have taken thus far, test those kinds of skills.

Frustrations...

I'm exploring fellowship, scholarship, and grant options for grad school, and it's very frustrating that so many have the word "young" in them as a qualifier... (generally means under 30, and sometimes under 25)....

Words of encouragement

I was told by a well-meaning grad student last night that I have enough in the pipeline now, as an undergraduate entering my 4th year, for a "shitty-to-average" Ph.D. project/thesis".  :-|

He really was well-meaning.... What he meant was, I already have enough project ideas and areas I want to explore to carry me through a Ph.D., so presumably by the time I finish my undergraduate degree, and I am 1 year into my master's, I'll be in a much better position to design a more comprehensive and thorough set of Ph.D. projects.  In essence, he was trying to tell me that I'm ahead of most of my peers right now.

Despite his odd way of expressing encouragement, he was very helpful in explaining the options for completing a Ph.D., and in particular, fast-tracking.  What he really meant was, for an undergraduate entering her 4th year, I was well ahead of the game.

The problem is, I don't know what I don't know - despite all my reading, there are likely many techniques and protocols that I'm not aware of that could further my research goals, and what we have at Carleton is decidedly limited.  Some of the lab techniques for exploring sub-cellular mechanisms that I know about now, and I'd like to do, aren't an option here...

"We child-proofed the house 3 years ago... but they keep getting back in..."

This spring, my oldest graduated from an honours program in geology.  It took him a few years, off and on, and a couple of false-starts, to finally settle on an education and career path that sparked his interest.   He completed the last 3 years of his schooling while living with me and my partner during the school year.  For the last 2 years we have attended the same university.  Sometimes he'd even acknowledge that he knew me. :-)  At one point, I told him that if he didn't get his ass in gear, I'd graduate before him (which I think mildly panicked him, considering I'm only 1 year behind).  Last year, we were both on the Dean of Science's honours list.  I think that's pretty cool: mom and son both make the Dean's List...  He also landed an unexpected job working for one of his professors, "Hey!  I got a job today."
"Really? I didn't know you had applied to anything."
"I didn't.  A professor saw my presentation and sent me an email offering me part-time work."

He lived here rent free, but paid his dues by cooking many meals, and he is an EXCELLENT/gourmet chef.
In fact, I jokingly asked if he would consider doing a master's degree just so we could continue to partake of his wonderful meals while I finished school (my sweetie thinks breakfast cereal or kraft dinner is an acceptable substitute for dinner when I'm not home).  But alas, despite the fact that he is one of the few students on the planet who graduated with money in the bank (thank-you Canadian-Rite-of-Passage, aka Tree Planting), my son had other plans, like a life, and an a job that earns a decent income, and living in Canada's mecca: Vancouver. And his girlfriend wanted to further HER career as well.

And then, two nights ago, after midnight, I get a text message from him, "you awake?".  I called him and found out that he received an email from his former professor, offering him a fully funded master's position.
Like the job, he didn't apply for this. The professor was just so impressed with him, he wanted to offer it to my son.   Now he has a tough decision to make. The exploration market for gold is in the toilet due to the low prices for gold, so his friends in the industry are telling him it's a great time to do a masters, PLUS the project would give him valuable skills in other exploration markets.  He's still trying to sort things out, because his girlfriend had planned to go back to school and do a law degree at UBC. Him coming back to Ontario to do a master's degree would throw a real kink in those plans.  Life is loaded with difficult decisions and compromises and I don't envy them theirs.

Of course, he's welcome back here if he chooses to do his master's, and I won't charge either rent if they are both on the school track.   Help out with food and do some cooking and cleaning, and I'm a happy camper. He's just damned lucky I didn't rent out his room... (I was THIS close....)

There goes the summer...

I had a bit of a break during May and June - just volunteer lab work and plus training and finishing up some EEGLab programming, but now that July is here, I can feel the summer slipping away from me.

In July, I started 2 half-summer courses (which means they are crammed into two months) with 3 evening classes that run 6:30-9:30pm (physics) and two 3-hour daytime classes on two of those days (genetics). The physics is the 2nd half of 1st year physics (Electrical fields and forces), and it's been a slow start because it's been 2 years since I took the first half of the course. I've forgotten a bunch of basics, like the formula for gravitational force between two objects and vector math... It's all coming back, but SLOWLY.  And of course, I HAVE to do every one of the prof's examples myself to make sure I understand, and of course SOME do NOT give me the same answers he got.  I hate that.  Then I don't know if it's my lack of understanding of a concept, or his bad math (It's his bad math, btw). And so, it's been slow going...

I managed to get out to the cottage a couple of times in May and June, and I caught some very nice fish (including a lovely 4.4lb Large Mouth Bass that I returned to the river for someone else to catch), so I feel like I got a bit of relaxation in. But I haven't been up there for 2 weeks now, and today I woke up at 5am and couldn't get back to sleep. All I could think about was the fact that I have a physics assignment and a physics lab to complete before Wednesday, and I have a genetics midterm on Thursday, after which I have to complete the online pre-lab quiz for the physics lab that night.  Oh, and minor surgery on Wednesday morning to remove a cyst on my neck that is threatening to become a second head...

Ok, it's not quite THAT bad, but still...  it feels like that.  (but then, I also felt like an alien was going to chew its way out of my stomach when I was pregnant, so I may be a bit over-dramatic when it comes to things like this).

In addition, I've foolishly scheduled to redo my animal handling training Wednesday afternoon, PLUS sit with a grad student to learn how to score the Forced Swim Test via videos she has taken.  And then I have physics.  

And somewhere in the next couple of months, I have to time to read a ton of papers that I have bookmarked and identified as relevant to my project.  In fact, there was a new study just published on the role of astrocytes in synapse formation that I think may be relevant, and I'm trying to determine if I can leverage those results. One of my greatest strengths is synthesizing information from disparate sources.  But it takes time to read, and assimilate and follow the information trail...  and then the threads need time (and space) to settle into ideas.  Right now my brain is crammed with course learning, and while it is foundational, I don't find it conducive to creative thought. 

I just keep reminding myself that all of this is in order to be able to graduate in spring of 2015 so that I can start graduate school next fall and start the REALLY interesting stuff.  And in the end, I have to say, as much as I loathe the testing, I still love the learning. Even physics.  :-)

Learning the ropes...

I've been incredibly fortunate to have an awesome grad. student take me under his wing. he's not only teaching me techniques and protocols, but also helping me understand things like grad school applications, study design, etc. Last fall I completed a round of stereology (cell counting) for his project, and we are hoping the paper will be published soon. (It will be my first publication in neuroscience!). Today he patiently spent more than two hours coaching me in an insufferably hot lab, as I laboriously (and unintentionally) mangled my subject matter in the course of learning how to do prep for neuronal cell culturing. More practice is required.

Tomorrow, another graduate student is going to teach me protein quantification, and I'll be doing some slide preparation. I feel very grateful to the students who are very busy with their own projects and yet take the time to help me learn the ropes. It's one of the advantages of working in a lab in a small institution - the people are great, and very supportive.  And of course, I'm open to any opportunity to learn something new. Every technique I learn now will be invaluable in my honours thesis project. (And if they need me to wash labware, I'll do that too, except that they now have a first-year student on a summer internship, so HE gets to do dishes!)

And on that topic, I also managed to develop some ideas for my project that will allow me to further explore the pathways involved in protein suppression that occur during major depression. This is a topic of particular interest to me so it's great that I have a supportive thesis advisor who is encouraging me to pursue my interest area and come up with my own research project. The downside is that my searches on google for "ketamine" will likely have me on every NSA and CSIS watch-list out there...

And I continue to finish up my work in the human behaviour research lab, finalizing software (written in matlab) and documentation for EEG data processing. (Oh Strongly Typed Programming Languages, how do loathe thee? Let me count the ways...) That professor (not my advisor) wants to pay me again just to keep me in his lab. He keeps trying to woo me to do my honours thesis with HIM, which is flattering, but I'm committed to Lab #1 for my thesis. I want to do work that elucidates the pathways involved in suppression of translational machinery during depressive states. If we can understand the pathways and circuits, we have a better chance of getting to the root causes of the neuronal synapse dysfunction and lost plasticity, rather than just treating symptoms.

At some point, I imagine this will take me back to human behaviour research, because I'm also interested in how cognitive therapies change brain biochemistry and alter these pathways (and when effective, they are as efficacious as drug therapies). Unfortunately, at this point, we don't have good tools/protocols for looking at those mechanisms in the human brain (And ethics wont allow us to chop people's heads off and look at what's going on, *sigh* ;-) ).

I'm now 2 years and 1 month into this new adventure and still loving it.  Okay, maybe not EVERY minute - exams still suck - but the majority of it still excites and enthuses me, and as a dear friend puts it, makes me "sparkle". 

Dear Mathworks, how to NOT "Do the right thing"....

As part of my student volunteer work for a human behaviour research lab, I was tasked with modifying some Matlab code that takes advantage of EEGLab (an open source suite that runs on top of Matlab).  The code is intended to simplify batch processing of participant data for students running studies.  In order to do this project, I BOUGHT the Student edition of Matlab.  Unfortunately, at the time I bought it, only the 32-bit edition was available in the Student version, though I am running Windows 8 on a 64-bit system.  I subsequently found out that I'm faced with critical "out of memory" errors, even though I have 8GB of memory.  Even more frustrating, the 6GB core 2 duo in the lab can run more files without memory errors, than I can...  The answer, I am told, is to move to the 64-bit version, which was released just 90 days after I had purchased my 32-bit license.

I emailed customer support and requested what I hoped would be a free upgrade.  They flat-out refused.

Ironically, their Mission and Values statement says,

Our guiding principle is "Do the Right Thing." This means doing what is best for our staff members, customers, business partners, and communities for the long term, and believing that "right" answers exist. It also means measuring our success, not merely in financial terms, but by how consistently we act according to this principle.

Dear Mathworks.  I actually BOUGHT my software.  When literally thousands of people out there are using ILLEGAL copies, I DID THE RIGHT THING.  Once upon a time, software companies used to give their LOYAL customers free upgrades if they released a newer version within 6-12 months of the date of purchase.  I really WANTED the 64-bit version, but you didn't have it ready.  Then, when you finally DID have it ready, a mere 90 days after my purchase, you want me to buy it again, even though there are KNOWN issues in terms of memory utilization with the 32-bit version running on a 64-bit system. Wouldn't it be DOING THE RIGHT THING, to allow your customers who are running 64-bit systems and have made a purchase in the last year a free upgrade to the 64-bit version?

Personally, this kind of "squeeze the customer for every penny" attitude is what is driving so many in the biological sciences (and economics) to open source systems like R.  I hope Mathworks wakes up and figures out what "Do the Right Thing" really means when it comes to treating their customers fairly, or they will continue to lose them in droves in the coming years.  

 

It's not about the money. REALLY.

This past week, I've been learning how to slice brain tissue (mouse), on a cryostat and then put it on slides and stain it.  Right now I'm just working on perfecting my slicing technique and being able to identify where in the brain I am slicing (striatum, start of hippocampus, SNC, etc).  I hope to be learning neuronal cell culture techniques later this summer.  I still keep my hand in the human behavior research lab, but my real passion is in the biological mechanisms that create and influence behaviour.

In my perfect world, I finish my Ph.D. and go on to do translational research in neuroplasticity and synaptogenesis as it relates to mental health, depression, and/or recovery from brain injury.  Unfortunately, research positions are pretty rare, so it's a risky path.  Of course, if that doesn't work out, I'll look at other options, but my primary interest is a research career where I work to increase our understanding of neurobiological mechanisms, and potential new treatments for debilitating disorders.

Given my background in programming, I COULD focus more on human behaviour research, and have perhaps greater opportunities of landing a position at Google, or IBM, or other another tech. company - after all, "neuro"-anything is hot right now.  And certainly I have some interesting ideas around sensory integration and technology, but it's not my first love.  I didn't quit my job to take the safe route. I quit to pursue a passion and a dream, so I'm going to go after that with everything I have.  If it doesn't work out, that's ok too, but at least I'll have given it a shot.

And it's hard to get some people to understand that. Just yesterday I had yet another conversation with a friend where I had to explain it wasn't about the money. She was convinced that with my entrepreneurial spirit and history in tech companies, I'd go on to invent something or start a company and make big bucks.  I reminded her that I LEFT a job making big bucks to go back to school - if I'd wanted to be assured of making lots of money, I'd have stayed in the career track I was in. I left because I love learning and solving problems and because I wanted to do something that inspires and excites me.  And that has nothing to do with money.  Yes, I ultimately want to make enough to live on, but my goal isn't to get rich. My kids are grown, our house is worth 4 times more than the mortgage, and money just doesn't drive me.  Working on solving really INTERESTING problems that have the potential to alleviate suffering, is what drives me.  Yes, I'll definitely leverage my computer skills, and they'll be a big benefit in my new career path but I'm not working towards a Ph.D. so that I can go back to a career in a high-tech company. At least, not at this stage.

(and I find it amusing that the grad student who supervises me refers to me as a "hippy" for this and many other reasons...)

Pleasant surprises

I had forgotten about some "equity" shares I had been granted back at my old job. They vested this year.  It was a nominal amount, but paid for my son's graduation + 28th birthday present.  Good job kid - it only took you 10 years to get your undergraduate degree... ;-)  He's a chip off the old block.

On top of all of that, the economy has been doing well enough that, knock on wood, for the last 2 years I have not touched the principle on my retirement investments.  (I was convinced I'd bleed them dry by the time I was done).  This is good news indeed.  And I actually have a summer job as a Teaching Assistant.

I have to not remind myself that for 2 months of work it will pay less than half of what I made in a week at my old job. Yes, this is not important...  I'm actually looking forward to being a TA.  I like coaching and teaching, I really like the instructor, and it's one of my favourite courses. 

Another year done, and on to the next

Well my marks are finally in for this semester.  One truly craptacular one (yes, to me a B+ is craptacular), and the rest are acceptable.  There is nothing more frustrating to me than getting into an exam situation, KNOWING all the material, and just not having enough time to get through it all.  I mean, if I didn't know it, that would be a fair assessment, but when I'm only being tested on how fast and accurately I can punch numbers into a calculator and then write down the steps and results (I'm talking statistics here), it's truly disappointing.  I was going into that final with an A+.  I got 100% on my last two assignments and over 90% on all the others.  I KNEW how to do every question - I just couldn't get it all done in time.  The fact that I scored 70% on a final when I only completed 5 out of 7 questions tells you I aced the 5 that I completed. But that took me down a full letter grade.  *argh*.  We don't call it "sadistics" for nothing.

Years ago I remember watching someone expounding on the problems with the current education system.  I wish I could find the guy (I've googled to no avail - so if you know who said this, please let me know).  I remember he said, "Only in the penal system and the education system is the time served more important than the lesson learned."   It's one of my few frustrations with being back in school.  I take time to THINK about things.  And this isn't a factor of age.  Even back in high school, when I excelled in math, I was slow. I have another friend who has a degree in mathematics and he is a self-professed "plodder". But the education system only measures how FAST you can do math accurately.   Unless I'm going to be an astronaut and have to hand-calculate some complex equation because all the computer systems failed on my re-entry vehicle, I will NOT need to be crunching numbers on a calculator under horrendous time pressure.

Unfortunately, you cannot get granted more time on tests unless you are diagnosed with a learning disability. That's not likely to happen with my GPA.

On the positive side, my long suffering partner, bless his heart, sat with me for hours each night before finals, and "quizzed" me to help prepare me for exams.  He now knows more about the functions of the amygdala than your average man in the street, and you just ask him how many days it takes for us to recycle our olfactory receptors or taste receptors.  He knows!

I have managed to garner some study partners this year.  (It was really hard my first year. When you are literally old enough to be your classmates' mother and you are older than all your professors, finding study-buddies is challenging).  But it really helps to have people to quiz you.  When I'm in a pinch though, my sweetie comes through.  Unfortunately, there is nothing he can do to help me get faster at statistics.