Penguins and volcanoes

It's been all over the news today: the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland has erupted. It's pretty much cut entire Europe off from the the rest of the world by forcing closure of air-spaces all over the continent - Hungary has grounded all flights and is not allowing any planes in its airspace. While it sucks for people who are stuck at airports all over the world, I have to admit that I am inspired by this awesome show of force. We like to think that we are above all, that we are somehow superior to other creatures and forces of nature. And yet, there is this volcano on an island we barely ever think of and its spitting up some ash is now reaping havoc all over Europe because the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. It reminds us of the power of nature and the vulnerability of our carefully crafted control - or at least the illusion of control - over everything on this planet.

On a less philosophical note, today is 1 week to D-day (mcat). I have never looked forward to something being over this much before! Today, I took a practice test, then I had my well-deserved burrito and a nice long walk in the city before heading to the library for me studying. On my way back, I ran into a friend I haven't seen in months, probably since before the whole mcat crazy started. I gave him the abbreviated version of what's going on in my life and we decided to catch up once I will be done. It reminded me of all the things I am looking forward to once I am done with this test! Like the "mcat cake" my friend Janice is going to make me next Friday :)

Which reminds me, Janice defended her PhD earlier this week: she was flawless, confident, graceful, perfect! We had a big penguin-themed party afterwards, went out to a nice Spanish dinner with 20 of our floor-mates and had a blast! The 4th floor of the HSS research building has the absolute best people working on it! They all came together to celebrate Janice, got her a really nice gift - an almost $500 gift certificate to a local culinary school - to perfect her baking so she can become a famous wedding cake baker and we can all enjoy her fantastic creations! Here are some pictures from the evening:

Erase nations

The first thing I did this morning as I got to the lab was asking my friend from Moscow if all her family and friends were ok after this morning's terrorist attack on the subway there. Thankfully, she had already gotten in touch with them to confirm that they were all safe and sound.

A few weeks ago, I similarly asked my Chilean friend on our floor if all his family was all right after the earthquakes there. Before that, it was an earthquake in China, the terrorist attacks in London...

Not to dwell on horrible things that happen in the world, but it made me think of the inter-connectedness of everything. NYC is a global village of 8 million people, all somehow connected to the rest of the world making all the little pieces of the puzzle fit tightly together at the end. The puzzle of people I guess. I was thinking about this on my way home on the subway. In a lot of the subway cars, there are paintings, cartoons with some sort of subway-related theme on them. The one I stood next to today was of an imaginary bug-city: bugs of all different colors and shapes are in an underground tunnel, sitting on various other bug-looking things, which make up a sort of train. All the bugs are chatting away, waiting for their station, either the tulip or the lilly above ground. Not unlike on its real-world counterpart. The essence of NYC.

It made me think about Hungary, then when I got home, I started watching The English Patient. My favorite movie. This is from the book:

"There were rivers of desert tribes, the most beautiful humans I've met in my life. We were German, English, Hungarian, African - all of us insignificant to them. Gradually we became nationless. I came to hate nations... The desert could not be claimed or owned - it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names long before Canterbury existed, long before battles and treaties quilted Europe and the East... All of us, even those with European homes and children in the distance, wished to remove the clothing of our countries. It was a place of faith... The places water came to and touched... I didn't want my name against such beautiful names. Erase the family name! Erase nations! I was taught such things by the desert."

It says everything, no more words needed.

I can't even watch the movie to the end now, it makes me cry like a baby every time!

What I found when I googled myself

I don't usually do this... but, I just wanted to make sure that this blog address wouldn't come up on google connected to my name... you know, writing shit about one's boss might not go too well if by any chance, he decides to google me ever. Not likely, but never know. So instead of the blog, I found this picture, probably from senior year of college, tournament at Notre Dame. I look funny in that outfit :) But I miss it now.

What matters

Another big challenge is coming up in a couple of days: it's called GAMSAT, which stands for Graduate Australian Medical School Admission Test, which obviously is the test used in Australia instead of the MCAT in the US. They have a similar educational system in which people go to medical school after college. While I have no intention of going to Australia, some other English-speaking countries have also adopted this test, among them Ireland and some universities in the UK. I am incredibly unprepared. I thought that I would be farther along in my studying by now, but as always, things have been unexpectedly crazy in the lab and I have been spending way more time there than I want to. Fortunately, the science section is way easier than the MCAT and so I am confident that my knowledge full of holes will get me far enough, but the verbal section is quite different, including poetry analysis, ugh, haven't had to think about that since high school in Hungary! And then the essay section... I am hoping that writing this entry might be practice for that :)

But let me digress for a second, about this time I have been spending in the lab. I have decided finally, yesterday, that this is not worth it at all anymore. The constant negative feedback and reinforcement is making me completely apathetic towards research and my project. People cannot work among constant negative feedback! It's simple psychology: to motivation has to come from success, constructive feedback about specific issues that need to be worked on, and by setting challenging goals that are not beyond a person's abilities. There was a great article in one of the science journals recently about the "art of mentoring", which was written by a PhD adviser who has trained many students and understands what needs to be done in order to create a motivating environment in which students can strive. My mentor has no clue. Or he is just plain mean.

I think that a certain amount of negative reinforcement is not bad. We need to learn how to take criticism; otherwise, we will find ourselves in many uncomfortable situations in our lives. This is why I think Hungarian education does work to an extent. When my Biology teacher in 10th grade told me that I would never become a doctor and should think about alternative career that didn't require Biology, I proved her to be wrong by Acing the next test and getting A's throughout the year. And, here I am in grad school on my way to a PhD in Biology. Well, screw you Zelinka! And when my English teacher told me that I would never learn English well, I proved her wrong by passing my proficiency exam and then doing very well in high school in the US, and eventually learning English to a level of a native speaker; actually, I think and dream and do everything in English, not even sure if I could write a cohesive essay in Hungarian at this point.

But, I am no longer in high school. There are no grades or exams that I can do well on. In my field, success is measured by publications. And even the best of the best would only be able to publish maybe a couple of times a year. Feedback comes from peers, colleagues, and most importantly, from the mentor. It has become clear to me that I cannot expect anything positive from my mentor. It does not matter how hard I try, how many experiments I do, how quickly I write a paper, how much extra work I take on, it will never make a difference! It doesn't matter that I gave his lecture at the conference in Portugal, or that I volunteered to try out a new software for the whole lab - all I got for that was criticism about the figures I had made using the software. It doesn't matter that I stay up all night to finish my paper to show him that I do care and I am not lazy, or that I give a great presentation in front of the graduate program. All he could say about that was that he liked my slides, but didnt think that I answered the questions well. But the culmination of this week's hell in lab was at lab meeting yesterday: I was told that I was worthless, not deserving of an advanced degree, that I didn't understand what I was doing, that I wasn't well versed in the literature, didn't listen in meetings, etc. All that did is it made me completely apathetic. I no longer care. All I want is to publish my paper so I can put it on my resume, get my PhD so it will be on my resume and to get away from him, present my work so I can put it on me resume. Nothing else matters now. I have to channel my energy towards what I really care about. No more 16 hour days in the lab, or Saturday nights spent working. I have had enough!

After the meeting yesterday, all I could do was cry - some of my lab-mates asked how I managed to stay relatively calm during the meeting, well, after a few minutes, I refused to look at him and kept staring at my shoes - and have a very strong margarita for lunch. After something like this happens, one can get very drunk - figured that was not gonna be the best before this test on Saturday - or have lots of sex - that is somewhat problematic in the absence of a boyfriend - or have a long angry run - seemed most reasonable. Considering that spring has suddenly arrived in NYC, I decided to go home early, change into shorts and a T-shirt and go to the park. Ahhhhh, soo goooood!!! There is nothing like being angry so that you drive yourself to the very limits of your body. After a few miles, I had to take a brief break. By then, I was feeling much calmer and less angry. Ended up doing a few more miles around the Reservoir, which was absolutely beautiful with the setting sun over the West side in the clear blue sky. Walking home in the dark, breezy spring weather was amazing. I felt so light. And then I slept 10 hours, got up late today, went to lab at 11, did not look him in the eye, and left at 4 to go to the park and sit in the grass in my summer dress, the breeze blowing my hair, the sun warming my skin. Just perfect. I know what I need to do, I know what my priorities are and I know that I am worthy of it. He cannot take that away from me.

Chocolate chip bagel

It's been a while... I apologize to those who check in every morning excitedly to see if I have written a new entry, if there are any of you out there :) I figured it was time to write something running-related. Well, bagel and running-related.

Let's just say that New Yorkers are INSANE! No matter what weird thing you do or wear or say, there will always be 20 others who do it weirder. Us, New Yorkers - after 5 years of living here, I can easily proclaim myself one - are rather dedicated to the things we love. Like running. Take this morning's 8000m race in Central Park, for example. The weather people had been forecasting horrible rain for the whole weekend; on Friday evening, there was a little note on the NYRR website titled "Weather advisory" and it said "The race will be held as planned." Phew, god forbid they ever changed anything due to just a few drops of rain. I mean, really, it's much nicer to run in this weather than in 35C and 95% humidity, which can easily happen in the summer. And, just as a side-note, people would rather be taken away by the ambulance than skip one of those races too. We are proud New Yorkers after all. We don't quit!

I have to admit something: I seriously considered not showing up this morning. But in the end, what counts is that I did show up, right? Which would not have been possible without my new friend and running buddy, Daniel, who was nice enough to pick up my race number while I was stuck at work on Friday night, having a hellish day in the lab. The two of us ran a very pleasant although rather hilly 5K last weekend, which turned out to be tons of fun - but the weather was beautiful, sunny, perfect for a nice Sunday morning run along the Hudson.

In any case, after getting over the initial shock of my alarm going off at 6:30 this morning, I was all ready to race, only until I actually got the start line and was already soaked! Ugh! We started off really fast for me - I was cold and wet and just wanted to finish as fast as possible - and I knew I would not be able to keep that up for the whole race. He was nice enough to stick it out with me even though I am sure he could have finished minutes ahead of me. At one point, trying to be positive and encouraging, said that at least the wind wasnt so bad. Naturally, a minute later, I was almost blown away by a biggish wind gust. But, in the end, it was all good, us, along with 2500 other crazies, finished the race, with a pretty good time even for me, who has not been running outside of races at all, with 8:43min miles.

And then, as always, I walked up to the bagel stands and asked the usual "is this raisin?" and to my biggest surprise, it was a chocolate chip bagel, a little soaked, but nonetheless, chocolate chip! This is rather exciting, actually. What could be better than the combination of bagels and chocolate??? When I was in college, the building where all my Biology classes were held had a bagelshop that sold those, and not only that, but they also had a million different flavors of cream cheese. My daily routine included a morning chocolate chip bagel with strawberry cream cheese. Yummy!! No wonder I was not in the best shape then! Then I moved to NY, and even though this is supposed to be bagel capital of the world, it's really hard to find chocolate chip bagels. For a while, years ago, NYRR used to always have them after races, but then they changed something and started giving out raisin bagels instead, which I cannot stand. So I usually just get an apple and a plain bagel. This morning's rather pleasant surprise was just what I needed! It made my day - doesn't take much these days! And I am so glad I woke up and dragged my butt over there and felt truly like a part of why New Yorkers are often called insane.

En Garde!

The essence of fencing... great video!

Small victories

They say that both good and bad things come in threes. Once something good happens, it creates a positive energy or outlook in a person, and there you go: it's all you need for further good to come. Last week was one of these "good" weeks for me, finally! A series of small victories.

One of the most amazing things anyone has ever done for me: sometime late last year, I met a very nice couple through the part of my host family who live here. It's a couple they'd been friends with for many years, from New Orleans, both doctors, the husband having a temporary appointment at the New York VA Hospital as head of Neurosurgery (wow). They became interested in meeting me because they had heard that I was planning on going into medicine and apparently they like helping out "talented foreigners" - this is what they told me. They also have a neighbor in New Orleans who is an olympic champion fencer from Hungary - and a doctor, naturally - so they saw the dots connecting. In any case, they have taken me out to dinner a couple of times - very fancy places both times - and have sent my resume to at least one very valuable connection at one of the top medical schools in the country (double wow). Last week, I got a call from them, offering their apartment in NYC to my parents for 3 weeks in the summer, while they go on a tour of Eastern Europe. WOW WOW WOW!! Unbeleivable! They have never met my parents or have spoken to them before, and had only met me twice, and here we are, my parents with plane ticktes in hand already, coming in June, having their own apartment for 3 weeks in Manhattan! Subsequently, I met the husband for brunch on Sunday, at the Yale Club (you have to be dressed business casual at least, even for breakfast:) - it's their favorite place, very very proud Yale alumni! - and I just have to say that this is one of the mos generous things anyone has ever given me. And really, I have to thank my host family, who introduced me to these people, and to so many others in the US, making it so much easier for me to settle here.

Often, people talk about the superficiality of relationships in this country: how difficult it is to make meaningful connections and true friends and meet people who go beyond acquitances. Even if it's generally true, about any place in the world, it just shows the dangers of generalization, as always. I am hopeful that my generation can learn something from the ones that came before and that the world could really work on a pay-it-forward basis.

Just the day after I got this call, I had a very inspiring talk with a professor here at school, whom I asked to write me a recommendation and whom turned out to be so excited about supportive about my plans, that I was very pleasantly surprised - even though I am sad that my own mentor can't be this way.

And then, suddenly, my experiment worked!!!! I have been trying to work out a new system in the lab, which basically means tons of troubleshooting before things go right. It was an experiment that lasted more than 2 weeks, and basically, if anything went wrong at any step along the way, things wouldn't work out at the end, but I wouldn't know until the very end. My readout was for cells in a culture dish (isolated from mice 2 weeks before) to turn blue. And voila, there were those beautiful, blue macrophages:



Especially this one, an extra gift with the experiment, looking so cool: somehow 2 cells fused, and the nuclei are the eye-looking things in the middle. I printed this out and ran around the lab, showing everyone and screaming that my experiment worked!!! If anyone still had some doubts about my sanity, they sure don't anymore.

And to top things off, the weather this past weekend was just perfect, the way I like winter to be: chilly, but sunny, not a coud in the sky, breezy, but not too much. Perfect for a run, early afternoon, once the sun is high and there are lots of people in the park. For the first time in a few months, I got to the perfect moment during my run, which is what people must call "runner's high", when there the feet and the road are somehow connected and everything is smooth and the mind empties and lets something great inside, when all of a sudden, emotions break through and there are tears in my eyes, not tears of sadness, but of happiness because I am running and I feel so connected to the entire universe and I can see myself crossing the finish line at some great marathon. And then as quickly as this moment came around, without any warning sign, it's gone and it dawns on me: this is happiness.