Fish

One of the coolest textbook figures I have ever seen! YAY randomness!!

"Principles of Biochemistry,"  Fifth edition by Moran, Horton, Scrimgeour, Perry.  Pearson, Boston: 2012. page 278

Gratitude

During a church service I received the distinct impression that I should be more grateful. As such, I dedicated myself to write down something that I was grateful for each day for seven days. This is what I came up with.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

I am grateful for my intellect. The ability to learn and grow is the very essence of true happiness. We must learn how to love, how to behave, how to serve, how to relate; we must even learn how to learn. Learning is something that we will do as a consequence of being conscientious. The choice is ours as to what we will learn. As a garden, it takes a great deal of work before something beautiful emerges but even left unchecked something will grow. It is therefore up to us to decide what we want to be. If we desire to be great we must begin by learning the attributes of greatness and then learning how to personally gain those attributes.

Monday, October 17, 2011

I am grateful for friends. Friends are truly God’s gift to His children. While I associate with many people at school and church, great friends occupy a much smaller circle. They are those who I know genuinely care for me; they even care for my silly pursuits simply because they are my pursuits. Friends are those who ask, ‘How are you?’ and sincerely mean it. While we may have true friends that sincerely care for us, it is us who chooses to let those people into the intimate aspects of our lives. If we do so we can find greater happiness than we can ever experience alone. The power of kindness, caring, and genuine love that true friends provide is yet another manifestation of our Father’s love for us.


Tuesday, October 18, 2011

I am grateful for my body. I have been given a great body that can do a myriad of awesome tasks. Sure, it doesn’t work as most bodies work. Fine motor coordination? Shot. Balance? Not so great. Voluntary muscle contraction? Yes, at least for almost all my muscles I control them. Look at what else I can do. I can ride my bike for several miles, I can hike, I can sleep and eat. If you really think about it, I can move the way that I want to move pretty much unimpeded. I can also think, learn, solve complex problems, perform dissertation research in biochemistry. Cycling, hiking, learning, growing...are these not synonymous to being happy. It is true, I am very grateful for my body.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

I am grateful for my two wonderful PIs (primary investigators), Dave and Jane Richardson. They are my mentors here at Duke. I am especially grateful for their enthusiasm for science; it makes research in their lab exciting. They are extremely supportive of their students; they both are helping me a great deal to prepare for my prelim. I literally can think of no other scientists that I would rather work under as a graduate student than Dave and Jane. The research that is done in the Richardson lab is not only extremely interesting but also rather unique. They are both great scientists and I feel privileged that I get to benefit from their mentorship.


Thursday, October 20, 2011

I am grateful for hemoglobin. Yes, I just said that. I am studying allostery and as I am sure you all know that the prototypical model for allostery is the effectual binding of O2 to one of the subunits in the tetramer hemoglobin. I am now spinning on rollers rather than riding on the road. Stationary cycling allows me to focus on the aerobics side of cycling. I have been so grateful for all the hemoglobin in my blood willingly delivering the needed O2 from my lungs to my leg muscles as I stubbornly ignore their screams of ‘STOP!’, a.k.a. the buildup or lactic acid.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Today I am grateful for cold medicine, perhaps the only medicine that does what it is suppose to do. My body has been trying to come down with a head cold all week and finally succeeded today. Unfortunately, a cold seems to take the edge off my mental aptitude; as such, studying is useless. But hey, I have a presentation to get ready for! So I thank you Acetaminophen and Phenylephrine.


Saturday, October 22, 2011

Today I am grateful for computers. My fine motor coordination isn’t exactly what it could be. As such, I have a difficult time with many of man’s mundane tasks: drinking out of a glass, tying my shoes, buttoning buttons, and, of course, writing. It is glaringly obvious that the computer has helped out a great deal with my inability to write. However, my gratefulness extends much further than that. I love biochemistry; I better, after all I am getting a PhD in the subject. A short twenty years ago one would highly doubt that I, given my physical limitations, could even attempt a PhD in such a field. Almost all biochemical research was done on the bench, I guess that is still true. But here I am in 2011 with no doubt that I can get a PhD in biochemistry. For that I thank you computers!

The preliminary exam prep

Well, it has been quite a while since I have written now, has it not? A lot of rather neat things have happened since my last post. As you know I am getting ready for my prelim, the exam I need to pass to officially become a PhD candidate. ‘Prelim’ is short for preliminary exam. OK, what’s that?

The preliminary exam consists of two major components, the written and the oral. By far, the oral is the bigger part. Don’t get me wrong though, the written is pretty tough too. The written is basically an NIH grant proposal where the student proposes what they will do for their dissertation research. When doing a dissertation a committee has the job of judging the research, make sure that the student is really doing PhD level work. When you hear a PhD candidate say that they are going to defend, it is the committee to whom they defend, they are defending their dissertation research. But that is still many years off for me. Back to the prelim. I have completed the written portion of the prelim (research proposal). The committee then inspects it and, if needed, requests revisions. I am at the point now where I have received the revision requests and am making those. I should be done tomorrow, at which point I will send a final draft to my committee. The oral takes place in two weeks.

In the oral the student, me, gives a 30-minute presentation on the proposed research. After this the committee asks questions to the student pertaining to not only the proposed research but also any topic in biochemistry. The questioning usually lasts for 2+ hours. Based upon your answers the committee will either pass you, thereby declaring the student competent to pursue the proposed dissertation research, or fail you. If the student passes there is great rejoicing. If they fail the student hits the books harder and then tries the prelim again in a couple months. If the student fails twice Duke will hand out a Master’s degree and send them on packing. “Thanks for trying!”

Random Crystal

So there you have it. I am right in the middle of preparing for my orals, studying my butt off. The main problem with my research is that it is more physics than biochemistry; remember that the committee can ask any question pertaining to the field of biochemistry. So basically I am trying to relearn material that I learned 4 years ago at Utah State. I rarely feel stressed, its just who I am, almost nothing in this world is so serious as to cause stress, right? However, this past week I have felt pangs of stress as I have come to realize that I don’t, and can’t, know everything that I think I’ll need to know for the prelim. I have received a small amount of comfort as I was told that, in the end, the committee is more concerned on how you can reason rather than how much you know. Still, the best way to prepare to reason through biochemical problems is to study biochemistry and gain as much knowledge as is possible.

With two weeks to go I feel there is a long way to go before I can confidently declare that I am ready.  Nonetheless, I feel like everything will work out just fine.