o l d e r - l a t e s t - g u e s t b o o k - p r o f i l e - d i a r y l a n d
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
How are you, Ali?
Going freaking crazy, thanks for asking.
Of course, no one's asked today, so I had to ask myself. This is one of the nicest things about Diaryland/LJ etc... when you're home alone, and friends aren't online and you're having a nervous breakdown, you can kinda just let it out here and maybe forget about it so you can actually sleep. Maybe. Argh. So, it's time for me to choose my lab rotations, right? And there are tons of faculty in the Immuno program, and we also have an association with the Pathology/Infectious Disease group, so I can do some work in their labs too. I need six choices... I'm only actually going to get three, but I need six just in case three don't work out. So far, I've got three. Dr. Casey, a jovial older fellow who I met on my orientation thing up there, is studying oncogenic transformation, which is one of my biggest research interests (of course it is. It's EVERYONE'S biggest research interest. Argh.) Then there's Dr. Gavalchin, a super nice gal who I also met at that weekend, who studies autoimmunity. Autoimmunity, if you recall, was also the province of that fellow at UConn who almost ensnared me with his romantic tale of a fall from grace. *shivers* Still, I'm really interested in that too, and always have been, so she's a good choice. Then there's Dr. Antczak, who I did NOT meet at the weekend, but I met one of his students at the poster presentations. He studies why the immune system doesn't reject the baby during pregnancy. This was not an interest of mine before coming to Cornell, cause I'd never thought about it, but isn't it a heck of a good question? So, even though it means I'd be isolated in the Baker Institute working with horses, I would absolutely love to work on that. So, there are three people whose labs I would cheerfully give myself to for a whole semester. Then, there are the other choices, which will be culled from the preliminary list of Dr. Bloom, Dr. Whittaker, Dr. Parker, Dr. Schat, Dr. Denkers and Dr. Marsh. I only met one of these guys at the weekend, and his work sounded cool... so Dr. Denkers is probably in. As for the others... I don't know. The environmental toxins and their effect on immune development sounds really neat, but I'm not really sure that's where I wanna commit myself if I only get three chances before I have to stay in a lab for the rest of my time there. Honestly, and I know I'm just kidding myself, but I'd love to have my first lab be my last, so I could start my doctoral work immediately. That way, I could be out super quick! It ain't gonna happen, but a gal can always hope.
Anyway, if there's one silver lining out of this massive thunderhead, it's that I no longer doubt that grad school is the place for me. I'm getting so psyched, thinking about finding the answers to all these questions... that one about the mother-child interaction just killed me. I was floored. I had never wondered that before, and now it's driving me nuts. Sigh! But it's not a very comforting silver lining, when I consider that I may not even get the labs I want. *snuffles* I don't do well under stress. Oh, that's a lie, I do wonderfully under stress. But I don't like it, and you can't make me. :-(
If you want a happy entry about my day, go back one. :-)