Not sure if it's the rain outside making me nostalgic, or the boredom of waiting here at my desk until I can pick some cell cultures from a rather disappointing petri dish....one of those dudes has GOT to have my plasmid in them...but I'm digging into some music - new and old - that have been given the honor of a place on my life's soundtrack. (I actually have a playlist on my computer called Life Soundtrack, if you were wondering).

Here is just a sampling :) Stuff I'm listening to at the moment.

1. Reverend and the Makers - Silence is Talking (Alex Metric remix)
I'm sure by now my friends are shaking their heads and saying, "please stop talking about this Alex Metric kid, please stop playing this song over and over and over." Well I can't. It's the newest addition to the LS and for good reason. It's got a great beat, appropriately timed highs and lows, is NOTHING like the actual song "Silence is Talking" (which is still okay, reminds me of the 90's when I wore VANS shoes, and never brushed my hair, but is not LS worthy)

2. Bright Eyes - Four Winds (album - Cassadaga)
This song delighted me. I was in a particularly bad mood, and was looking for some whiny, sad, emotional music to accompany me in my pity-party, so I turned to Bright Eyes. Despite the sunny outlook the group's name gives me, I know it's misleading. Bright Eyes rarely sing about anything bright, or sunny. So big surprise when I figured I'd check out their new album and this came on. It pulled me out of my bad mood, and I listened to it about 59 more times that day. When facing troubled times I still turn the the words: well I went back by random Cadillac and company jet/like a newly orphaned refugee retracing my steps/all the way to Cassadaga to commune with the dead/They said "you'd better look alive".

3. Stereophonics - Maybe Tomorrow
It's an older one. This song speaks for itself. Give it a listen. You'll see.

4. Passion Pit - Let Your Love Grow Tall
Such a true song. Great for driving, especially along Rt. 99 between State College and Tyrone on a sunny day with the windows down and great big white clouds floating above the mountains. This makes the list because (I can't say this any other way, I am settling with the Christmas card phrase I think is most appropriate, cliche as it may be) it fills my heart with joy.

5. Uncle Bob -Swans
This is another song you're just gonna have to listen to. It's short and sweet, and has a killer ending that makes me think the word "epic". But then I'm a sucker for string quartets.

6. Kings of Leon - The Bucket
Another great rhythm. Kings of Leon was introduced to me by my college roommate Katie, and I will be forever thankful. Even my dad likes this one...and he's tough to please, as he is stuck thinking Steely Dan and Three Dog Night are the greatest bands to ever exist (okay, so maybe both of them make appearances on the LS, but GREATEST...?)

7. New Radicals - Mother, We Just Can't Get Enough
"There's something about you......" Ah, just to hear those words sung with the piano lightly building in the background makes me shiver. This song is a LS veteran, and it never gets old. It has a genius combination of what I like to call "build ups" and "break downs"....terms coined by Better Than Ezra as they explained the science of any good song on one of their live albums. Any time I need motivation, or inspiration, or just to feel good....this is the go-to song. NR's "Get What You Give" is on the LS too, it's equally amazing and once I even declared to my freshman English teacher that if I were a country, it would be my national anthem.

8. Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up
Since we're on the funkier side of things at the moment, I though I'd give a shout out to Curtis. Move On Up is actually a family favorite. I grew up in a pretty soulful house, my dad growing up in jazzy Montgomery Alabama plays motown, big band, and funk throughout the house on a regular basis.

9. Phoenix - Too Young
Here's some New Age funk. My best friend Monica and I like to play it when we're cruising down Constitution, pretending like our life is a movie. You should try this sometime. For some reason, whenever I'm in the District I NEED to listen to listen to Phoenix. This addition was actually made to the LS by Conrad Lucas, my 18 year old brother. Must be a family thing (actually that is not true at all.....my sister's music, not going there).

Aaaand, I'm going to stop at 9, because it looks like I'm gonna have to get to picking some cell colonies. I think it's a pretty sufficient list though.
Grand Scheme: make yourself a LS, and choose wisely. Music changes lives.

Can we really ever have it all?

Looking at my options for any form of higher education in the microbiological sciences. I know for sure that I absolutely want to study those little buggers....but who knew the education required to study this miniscule world would be so darn HUGE AND COMPLEX. So here lies the paradox.

I am extremely interested in bacteria, viruses, the immune system...that whole world. But, starting in 2006 I worked as a tech in a hospital where I constantly found myself moved to tears, inspired by my co-workes, full of joy and full of sadness. I know my life must be lived to serve others - especially the sick - and really I've been ruined for any other job.

My mother has been such a source of inspiration to me. She is so beautiful, and when people comment on our likenesses - appearance and temperment - I am honored. I am not one of those daughters who "can't stand" their mother, or who just wants to run away from my parents. My father is the intellectual side of me, my inquisitive nature, but my mother is compassionate. She is now the ICU nurse manager of a Northern Virginia hospital. She works herself to the bone to provide for her staff. This year she just received an award for all of her hard work, although she never tells anyone. I know my mother works so hard to be able to pay for my education, and I think I'm sort of driven by that. I don't want to let her sacrifice in vain. Her dream for me my whole life was to become a doctor or scientist.
Just recently on a visit back to Virginia, while my mom and I were watching that series "Hopkins", I got up and went to this junk closet in our basement. I dug around for a while before pulling out a tattered box and inside lay my very first microscope. When I was maybe 5 years old we set this up in our kitchen to look at my blood cells after I scraped my knee on the driveway. The things my mom has done for me are innumerable, but this one, this experience, will never be forgotten.

A list of schools on my wishlist for MD/PhD(microbiology): NYU-Mount Sinai (fat chance, but this girl can dream), VCU, UW.....that's a terrible list. I need to do more research.

I've got time though...But here's what I am constantly thinking: Take GREs, Take MCAT, Graduate undergrad, hike the AT, Join the Peace Corps for two years, Enter into an MD/PhD program (that will take me all the way up until I'm 32). And lastly: HOW I'M GOING TO PREPARE TO DO ALL OF THIS WITHIN THE NEXT YEAR!? (it is normal at this point in this regular progression of thoughts to have a small freak-out moment where I decide to do none of it and move to New Zealand - I've gotten all the way to the payment page for plane tickets before...I wonder when I'll actually click the "buy tickets" button) Applications must be filed, tests must be studied for, recommendations must be obtained, not to mention my regular course load.

That's as far as I've gotten, and notice there is no time in there to say "get married", or "have children"....which I want to do....and will eventually....I wish there was someone out there I could talk to who has these same dreams, who's done this all before. I don't want to make sacrifices, I want to do everything, I will do everything - even live in New Zealand. The postdoc I work for told me she only knew one woman MD/PhD, and that scares me.

I can only hope to stop moving forward occassionally, stop planning, and enjoy myself, bring joy to others (and age gracefully). God gave me this brain, God gave me this body, he gave me this soul....if I only used it to obtain the next highest educational degree it would be an incredible shame.

phew, writing that was good for me...and maybe a little psychotic.
SK.

Prepared samples for a Western Blot. The PhD students there must think I'm an idiot because I kept referring to lysis buffer as phosphatase inhibitor, and phosphatase inhibitor as lyisis buffer. Oh well, that's how you learn I guess, by making a fool out of yourself. I have to keep reminding myself that these people have been working on their PhDs for years, and I haven't even finished my undergrad...gotta lighten up. (I have to find a symbol, or font or something that has a P with a circle around it.... "phospho-this and phospho-that" got really old about three years ago).

Oh, and also finally ended my painful saga with the USPS. All in all, I'd say today was a success.

I promise I'll find something much more worth writing about soon.

More music to come; figuring out how to put mp3's all up in this joint.