Still Standing!

So last week was a bit of a whirlwind as I was back and forth to the hospital checking in on my friend and his family, and also interviewing for research gigs too. My friend came out of his coma and is doing well despite some scary moments last week. He has little feeling on his right side, an outcome that may unfortunately be permanent. But we won't know for sure until he completes his stint at a local rehab facility, where he's being transferred to next week.

Gigwise things are okay and I honestly hesitate to say "great" (even though that's how I'm feeling) since I've been disappointed gigwise for a few months now. The PI I met with claimed to have 3 open slots and was only interviewing 4 people so I know that statistically speaking, my chances of landing one of those gigs is great. The issue is that there's 1 gig of the 3, I want FAR more than the others because I'd like to use most if not all of these hard earned skills in bioinformatics I've developed over the past few years. OTOH, whatever I don't get research wise with this next gig, I WILL get with my academic program, it just makes a LOT more sense when your research and coursework line up for LOTS of reasons. The other really great thing about this gig is that this area of cancer is seeing a resurgence in funding and I was told that there would be dissertation opportunities in the future because of that. Of course I heard this about dissertation opportunities before with my last gig over the summer, so I'm sure my readers will excuse me if I seem less than enthusiastic about what this PI has told me. I guess I just underestimated how challenging it would be to find a supportive group to join at one of the top academic centers in the US where opportunities are supposed to be plentiful.

Movin' on, my MCAT verbal review is going well and I'm obviously very happy about that. Between the MCAT tutoring I've done over the past 2 years and my own "attitude" adjustment about the exam, I can honestly say that I'm looking forward to taking in again in April.

I'm also scheduled to begin volunteer training at a local hospital in a few weeks and that's especially exciting! I'm just soooooo excited about this place in my life, I can hardly contain myself!

Lastly, I'll be out of town next week, volunteering at an Informatics focused meeting and that's just, WOW, the most exciting thing happening next week!!! As I understand it, my old group from the summer will be there and one of the PIs will be presenting. So I can't WAIT for them to seem ME again, LOL!!! The thought of that reminds me of some things my mentor said to me recently and I'll quote her email below:

"............Don't give up because of a few bad apples. There are some wonderful research groups out there..... Anyone in research has gone through the exact same thing. It happens time and time again........ You can't let that discourage you from achieving your dreams.........Chop it up to that and keep it moving!" 

No matter what field a person pursues for a career, you WILL need supportive and encouraging folks around you at ALL times, so do whatever you have to to create that "village" of folks around you.

Speaking of that, I had a rather odd conversation with my Mother yesterday after she viewed my linkedin profile (unbeknownst to me at the time). And if you've been reading my blog for a while you know my Mom is NOT supportive of the path I'm on and frequently says things to discourage me....like go to nursing school. Anyhoo she sounded impressed with what she saw, saying things like I had no idea about what you've been doing for the last few years, and about how difficult what I do sounded to her. And I'm thinking (after I unstuck my eyes from the back of my head because I rolled them so hard, LOL) it would have been nice to have had some support for this, because being a Black woman in a filed dominated by foreign Asian men has REALLY been "something". I can't say that she's now supportive of what I'm ultimately trying to do, just that it doesn't matter to me one way or another. My "village" of support and encouragement is a tight as drum!!! :)