Family cold

It is no secret that toddlers stink at keep their germs to themselves.  Ally has had a couple colds this winter, and of course, I have caught all of them too.  The three of us are just now getting over one.  Ally had the runny nose first and sure enough, Ben and I had runny noses a couple days later.  I will not lie, the mucus output in our house was quite plentiful.  Ally's and Ben's upper respiratory tracts have now cleared up, but mine is not quite there yet.  I don't know if these sorts of infections hit you harder when you're pregnant, but I sure am looking forward to being able to smell and hear normally again.

Actually, I did find one positive aspect of having a cold.  In my Physiology class last week, I was teaching my students about the parts of the brain, and I brought in a cadaver brain for show and tell.  Of course, the thing had been preserved in formaldehyde, or whatever similar chemical they use these days, and so it had a pretty strong preservative smell.  I am not a fan of that smell, and in my pregnant state, my gag reflex is a lot more sensitive than usual.  But because I had a completely stuffed up nose, I couldn't smell a thing! 

And in case you are wondering, yes, it is a little weird to hold a former person's brain in your hands.  And yep, it is pretty squishy.

The data collection plugs along

Not much excitement in the lab except that I keep plugging along with my data collection.  It is at times tiring and stressful.  Well, the actual data collecting part isn't bad, it's the part afterwards that can be a little tricky.  I run all my blood samples on a flow cytometer to measure my NK cell proportions, and I'm never 100% sure if the machine will cooperate with me.  Last Friday, the flow cytometer was not nice to me; maybe it sensed that it was Friday the 13th.  But this morning, everything seemed to work fine.  Maybe it was because my advisor tagged along (he was not familiar with flow cytometry), and so the machine sensed there was a guest and decided to behave.

I am definitely experiencing whatever version of "senioritis" corresponds with the final year of a PhD program.  I am so ready to be done with this data collection because I really want to see the results.  But I know that patience is the key here.  Also, I think I am ready for a change, meaning that I am really looking forward to transitioning from Beth the doc student to Dr. Evans the faculty member.  I hope to know something more on that front in the next month or so.

In the meantime, we keep plugging along. . .

The colon is a funny organ

Last week, Ben's family came to visit.  We had bunches of fun with a total of 13 people and 1 large dog in our house.  Of course, the food was plentiful, and we took turns cooking meals.  Ben's brother Paul made this really good bean dish that was kind of like baked beans with sausage and peppers in it.  I do want to emphasize though that is was pretty heavy on the beans, and I'm not going to lie, several members of the family experienced some "outgassing" shall we say.  You can't really talk about lower digestive system issues without it getting pretty funny, which brought to mind a column written by the humorist Dave Berry.  It first appeared in 2008, and is about his experience getting his first colonoscopy.  I have re-read it several times, and each time, I can't help but laugh.  I am posting the link to his colonoscopy column here.  Enjoy!

Major things I'm looking forward to this year

In no particular order:

1.  Graduating with my PhD
2.  The arrival of Baby #2
3.  The transition from graduate student to some sort of faculty-ish employment
4.  The Olympics
5.  The presidential election

Happy New Year!