School finished up nicely. I don't think I was as ready to be done as some people, but the changes in my schedule have been welcome. It was odd, though, having absolutely nothing to do the weekend after classes ended. I had asked my advisor if I could start in the lab the Monday immediately following finals, and I'm glad I did. I was starting to get bored. It would be nice if I were better able to just relax and do nothing, but I've never been able to do that. If I have things to do I don't mind having no school or work, but I can't just sit around and be distracted by a big screen TV all day.
Working in the lab has been interesting and enjoyable thus far. My advisor might just be the most laid back Ph.D. I've ever met, which makes the lab environment very relaxed. I appreciated something he told me the week before I started. He said that he wasn't going to be breathing down my neck all the time, but that he would be there to support me and answer questions. He knows that this is my career now, and that I am driven and want to get stuff done. The new research building that I'm working in is incredible in many ways, but the one disadvantage is that the office of my advisor is a good little distance away from the lab. So asking him questions isn't the most convenient thing to do. He's also very busy. Thankfully, there's an awesome Chinese postdoctoral fellow in the lab. I can't speak highly enough of him. He's a great teacher, he's patient, he's generous with his time, and he's skilled at doing animal surgeries. And we have something in common in that we both like food, a lot. He told me he could eat 15 or 20 eggs. That's kind of gross.
These first two weeks in the lab have mostly been taken up by reading and practicing a fairly difficult procedure which involves isolating and cannulating an arteriole from the gracilis muscle in rats. Most of it is microsurgery, and I love it. I'm ordering rats for my actual project this upcoming Tuesday. I'll be looking at the mechanisms by which blood flow to skeletal muscle tissue is impaired (exercise capacity is diminished as a result) in obese rats. The subject matter is interesting and the experiments are fun. I'm having a good time.
I've settled in at the new house along with one roommate, and am looking forward to my other two roommates moving in in about a month. When we're all moved in, it's going to be an American, a Brazilian, a Chinese, and a Zimbabwean. I was thinking about hanging our four flags outside the house. :-)
The summer should be a good one. World Cup, two weddings, beach week in North Carolina. No other big plans that I know of, but every day is an adventure!
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