Stillness

Another Murakami book has finally made its way off my bookshelf and into my heart.

"I was feeling lonely without her, but the fact that I could feel lonely at all was consolation. Loneliness wasn't such a bad feeling. It was like the stillness of the pin oak after the little birds had flown off."

Haruki Murakami: A Wild Sheep Chase

The good life

Wow, I have been spacey lately. I started writing a post a few days ago, got distracted and never went back to it. I have just read it again and I like it a lot! Here it is:

Just a few minutes ago, on my way home in the sprinkling rain, it occurred to me, completely out of nowhere, just how ridiculously good my life is. I know I complain a lot, it's hard to always have this perspective - maybe it's hormonal anyway? - but I thought I had to record this now before I forgot how I was feeling today.

I thought: I am a student who gets paid to go to school, to live in Manhattan and to work in a field of science incredibly exciting (even though sometimes it doesn't feel that way on a daily bases) and to travel to conferences like the one I just returned from last night. I got to spend 4 days among the smartest people in my field and then discover a city I had never been to before. I listened to a lecture by a Nobel Laureate - David Baltimore - and one from someone who many say will win the price in the coming years. I tried oysters for the first time in my life, saw the sunset over a gorgeous bay, got to look down on a city from a Space Needle built for a World Fair, got to stay in a really nice and expensive hotel, again, all paid for by my school to learn more about science.

I live in one of the most vibrant cities in the world. In my free time I run around lakes and parks, play with swords, add talk about life and love with friends one can only hope for. As I was walking home after having a beer with one of these incredible friends, I just couldn't help but smile. I even thought for a moment that I liked the rain even though it's making my hair really puffy and it got my canvas shoes all wet but it was so shiny and cool on my skin.

Maybe there was something in my beer...

My thought was interrupted right there at the beer having been spiked with something. I think my roomie had come in my room and we started chatting and then I must have gotten tired. I am really happy actually to have thought of this because things have been great with her recently: we have been talking a lot more and hanging out, both at home and out making plans, watching movies, or just eating lunch together sitting on our beds. I missed this so much! Makes an enormous difference to come home to find a friend I can talk to and spend time with.

Ah, another weekend flew by. Race #4 of the NY running season down. 10K, usual Central Park route, usual rainy start, actually, it poured for about the first 2 miles, then the whole park was flooded and my shoes were filled with water for the entire race. I also decided in the morning to put sunscreen on (God knows why, I must have still been asleep) and for the first 20 minutes of the race, it was dripping into my eyes and I could barely see a thing. Of course, this is probably not why I ended up a minute slower than a few weeks ago. I was trying not to kill myself. Next up: Boston half marathon next Sunday. I am nervous about it, not at all ready. If I think about it, I am actually never really ready for any of these races. I realize now that to be a really serious runner is like having another job. All the time and effort that goes into running 5-6 times a week is just impossible next to grad school. But I never set out to be one of those runners. I just want to be in really good shape, feel good and release stress. I think I can do that in 3-4 times a week. And if my half marathon time stay around 2 hours, who cares?

Much of rest of the weekend I spent doing nothing (finally a relaxing day!!) and running errands and now I am exhausted.

Can I ever catch up with myself?

Adventures in Seattle

Here is proof that I was indeed at the conference; or at the least, I was at the conference center. It was monstrous, the building, the meeting, the whole thing! So many people, 1000's of posters, talks going on in 10 different rooms at the same time: all a little overwhelming and very difficult to focus on. Nonetheless, I liked being at the conference: it makes me feel like I am part of this community, even though I barely knew anybody there, but there was this sense of connection with everyone, just knowing that we're all scientists and immunologists. Whenever we went out around the downtown area, to restaurants or bars, there were people at the neighboring tables talking about T cell, cytokines, interferons, interleukins: it was a little overwhelming and yet I felt part of this community. I hadn't felt like that since I was a competitive fencer traveling to tournaments where I always saw the same people time after time and after a while I felt at home among them. Some lectures were also quite inspiring, among them, ironically, one given by the same scary Russian professor whose question so confused and embarrassed me last week at my research in progress presentation...

Fortunately, we had plenty of time to discover the city as well - partly a conscious choice: there are only so many hours a day one can sit and listen to people talk about immunology. Some of my favorite things in the city: Pike St. Market with all the colorful flowers, fresh fruits and veggies, fish and all kinds of sea creatures, street musicians, hippies, lakes and parks, people not rushing everywhere - the three os us from my lab had to consciously stop ourselves from jaywalking at every "Don't Walk" sign - the Space Needle, people being nice and helpful, taking a water taxi, watching the sunset over the water. Some pictures of some of these beautiful things:











I even made it out to run a couple of times. There was a big lake - Lake Union - near where we were staying and I even found a way around it the second time around. The first evening - after sitting on a plane for 6 hours and then at talks for another 3 or so - I desperately needed to get outside, breath some fresh air and get some exercise. Erin and I headed out to find this lake and started around it in a random direction. After a while, the lake narrowed into a canal and we couldn't see any bridges and it started getting dark so we turned back and had no idea how far we actually made it. A few days later, I headed out again, this time alone - while the girls were taking a nap - and got some directions from a guy I know whose lab just moved to NY from Seattle and he's a serious runner. So I followed his directions - or tried to at least - and made it to this really cool park by the lake called Gasworks Park. I paused to look out over the water and it was so beautiful, with downtown and the skyscrapers on the other side, and I thought how there was no better way to see a city than by running through its streets and pausing often to take in the view.

I also got a little panicked when I realized how far I had gone from downtown and it was starting to get dark and rain started drizzling. I also had no idea how to get around the canal that we had run into a few days before. There were a lot of people out playing in the park and I went up to a guy who was doing some sort of strange stretching exercise. I have to admit he was very good looking and even though what he was doing looked a little strange, I didn't care :)
He was very nice and helpful and gave me detailed directions back to my hotel and around the canal. As we were talking, I noticed that he had a really nice looking sword on the grass. It had some sort of Asian characters on it and was very shiny. I asked him about it and it turned out he was just getting ready to do some Tai Chi and we talked about martial arts and fencing and then he was cool enough to let me try out the sword. I have to say that my fencing experience is in no sense useful when it comes to dealing with a real sword and I am sure that it would be totally useless in a real sword fight. This sword was quite heavy and its end was very flexible, like those in the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was so cool!

Back in NYC now, I will miss the clean air and all the green around, the lakes and the bay, all the amazing seafood we ate, $3 beers and all the nice people! On our way home from the airport, we had the meanest taxi driver, who, when we asked him for a receipt, said "First pay me my money, then I'll give you receipt" and then almost drove off with our bags in the trunk! What a nice welcome back!

Scary Russian scientists

This week has been pretty crazy with having to make a poster for the conference I am leaving to tomorrow morning and also having my annual research in progress presentation today. Now that's it's all said and done, I am extremely relieved and excited to go to Seattle! The presentation went very well all the way up until the newest faculty member of our program - typical Russian scientist type - who happened to discover a really important molecule in immunology and is thus, really well known, asked me such a convoluted question (well, it makes sense in retrospect, but as a friend of mine said, you need special skills to be able to understand a question asked in a Russian accent while a room full of people is staring at you expecting a really intelligent response) and I got super confused, and actually said, after mumbling something, that I was confused, which some people mentioned was cute. Not sure if I was looking for cute. I tried not to be totally humiliated. Oh well, it's over now, he probably does this so often that he won't remember me anyway.

After the talk, my whole lab went out for a big lunch payed by my advisor (as soon as he left for a meeting, we started ordering sake, hehe) and then I spent the afternoon doing nothing before getting a few beers with some friends at my favorite German beer garden on the Lower East Side. Overall, a pretty good day.

Now, it's packing, again. It's been almost 6 weeks since I came back from Europe and I have not left NYC in those 6 weeks. It's some sort of record I think. While it was nice to be staying put for a while, I have worked almost all of those weekends that I was in town for - I pretty much need to leave the state in order to get away from lab - so going on a little adventure will be really nice. Even though it's for a conference and I am presenting a poster, I plan on seeing a lot of sights and relaxing too.

Well, I am off now, to get some sleep before my 5 am wake-up call to go to the airport.

...

Procrastinating... can't focus. I keep thinking about a girl I knew in college: she was a good fencer, on another team, younger than me, so we only fenced against each other during my last year, but she was tough. She was also one of those fighters who just never gave up. She was loud and emotional and she really wanted to win. That's how I remember her at least. We were never friends and I am not even sure if we ever really talked. I heard a couple of days ago that she had committed suicide. It horrifies me to hear something like this. To try to imagine how desperate and unhappy and lonely one has to be in order to decide that there was no other option. It breaks my heart. Rest in peace, Mel.

Supernatural running

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szólj hozzá: Bear Butte Running Camp

2029

My coworker found this in a catalog, ad promoting an organization helping women succeed in science. It reads: "2029 Julia discovers a cure for for leukemia". It's now above my Toll-like receptor pathways poster, just to remind myself :)