Quals update

In my last real entry (some 7 months ago!), I was in the midst of my qualifying exam. I won't rehash the gory details (and they were gory!), but I am proud (and relieved) to say that I am officially a Ph.D candidate! What does that mean, you might ask? Well, at some schools it would mean that I have a master's degree...but not at my school. My school does not award master's degrees for its biosciences programs. Indeed, if I were to quit now, I would have to petition to be awarded a master's degreee (and it would not in anyway be guaranteed). To my school being a Ph.D candidate means I am now capable of thinking. To my P.I. (principle investigator...read Ph.D. mentor/advisor) it means I become cheap labor, yet oddly enough expensive at the same time. Cheap because I get paid the least in the lab, but work long hours (or at least I should), and expensive because soon the majority of my stipend will come out of her pocket instead of the NIH's. But to me, being a Ph.D candidate means simply this...I can stop wasting(?) my time on classes and get on with the real work...research (and one step closer to graduating!).

Blog Revival? and Confessions

I have a confession to make...I am addicted to reading blogs (suprise, suprise!). Literally, I check at least 8 blogs daily. Yet, despite this compulsion(?), I am terrible at updating my own blog (as evidenced by the extremely few and far between entries witnessed here). It's funny because I constantly write little entries in my head, but they never seem to make it from my head to my hands, to my computer and finally to here. Nevertheless, I've decided to give it another go...so here's to my blog revival!