A castle on top of a hill

One of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life! The village of Sintra, a 30 minute train ride away from Lisbon, between the Atlantic and the city. It's a tiny village built at the foot of 2 hills: one with a very old castle on top it, the walls of which still stand, and another hill with a palace on top built in Portuguese romantic style. I was standing by the palace, looking out toward the castle and the ocean at the far end, with rolling green hills and many villages in between. The view was absolutely humbling, like a beautiful piece of music, an inspiring story or a Frida Kahlo painting, it made me cry.






Climbing on centuries-old stones and walls made me feel like a kid again. It was very satisfying to trek up to these hills on foot when loads of people were waiting in long lines for buses. Could not think of a better way to spend my last and only free day in Portugal, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite countries.

Impossible is nothing

It occurred to me today how often we say "I can't", "it's too hard", it's impossible" and so on, ruling certain things out even before we tried. In reality, I am sure that we are all capable of so much more than we think and than we give ourselves credit for. In fact, I will go as far as to say that most people don't ever measure up to their potential and never really challenge themselves enough to find out how much they are capable of.

I do understand that some people are just simply content and do not feel the need to do more and go above and beyond and to set new goals and new challenges. Maybe it's just that I am never really content for very long, I don't know how to just sit on my butt. A friend of mine I saw last night asked me what I had done all day, and so I listed all the things: I woke up and unpacked, cleaned a little bit, went for a run (yes, I ran and it was great and I can still walk today!) then I went to the lab for a little bit to check on cells in the incubator, then met 2 friends for brunch, went to run errands and grocery shopping, I even made it to the nearby farmer's market, then got ready to go out and met my friend for dinner around 8 in Forest Hills. The only time I sat down during this time was for brunch and on the subway on route to Queens. During the latter I was reading the incredible book, which deserves its own blog entry. I asked what he had done and he said: absolutely nothing, and it was great. I told him it sounded like a nightmare to me. I really don't know how to sit on my butt and do nothing, and if I ever do - usually on days when I am sick or hungover and am unable to actually move - I feel guilty for being lazy and get really bored after half a day.

My point being: I am the kind of person who needs to do something all the time and needs new challenges and goals to fulfill in order to feel good and happy I guess. Now I realize that what a week ago seemed like an insurmountable challenge - that is, substituting for my adviser and giving his lecture at the conference in Lisbon - was in reality, an amazing opportunity, not so much in the sense that it created an opportunity to make connections that might be super useful in my scientific career in the future, but more so in the sense that by having accomplished this challenge, I feel more confident than ever. Something like what I felt after the marathon. I was able to stand in front of a few hundred people and give a mostly comprehensive talk about the research project I am involved with in my lab and people were impressed. I don't think they expected much from a young graduate student; I also must have looked absolutely terrified in the days and hours leading up to the talk, accurately reflecting how I felt.

I have to admit that once I realized how nice people at the conference were, thinks have become much less scary. The 2 scientists chairing the session I appeared in were 2 of the nicest and funniest people I have met in some time. They introduced me to the other speakers and assured me that all was gonna be fine and one of them commented on how grateful he was that he didn't have to sit through yet another lecture by an "ugly old man" (not referring to my adviser, whom he had never met). Things also would have been very different if it wasn't for the kindness and selflessness of another professor from my school and her husband, also a scientist, who spent countless hours listening to me practicing my talk and thinking of ways to improve it. Where my own mentor failed, they made up for it and did more! All in all, it was a great experience for me in realizing that that were people out there who really cared and understood the meaning of the word "mentor" and also in realizing that if I work hard, I can really do things that I hadn't thought possible before. As the Adidas commercial says, impossible is nothing - the poster used to be up on the wall in our fencing locker room in college. As applicable in every aspect of life as in athletics. We should really remind ourselves every day and make sure that we accept big and small challenges that life throws our way. The high I experience after accomplishing something big is what happiness really is I think.

Too much thinking...

"I think and think and think, I‘ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it."
— Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Year of big challenges

I am happy to report that I have purchased a new espresso maker. Much simpler and more importantly, smaller, than my poor deceased machine, which I have now taken apart with little result. This new gadget is not even really a gadget, just a stove-top espresso makes, but I am very excited to wake up tomorrow morning and not have to rush through my morning just to get to the nearest coffee-shop before my headache kicks in. :)

I have been thinking - since yesterday - that so far, this year has presented me with some substantial challenges, which is a good thing, well, it's good if I succeed. I think it's good to stop - not only at New Year's time - and look back and kind of summarize and analyze some of the recent happenings in one's life. There was the big physical challenge: the marathon, which I succeeded in finishing after a less than ideal training period. Physically, it was the single hardest thing I have done to date. It was also quite a tough emotional challenge - maybe this is not something that often gets put into this category, but to me, as someone who is not always the most emotionally stable (maybe that's just called being a woman), it really does fit well - trying to stay grounded and rational through some big emotional and very irrational roller-coasters. I think I did pretty well on that front too. I am not sure about this next one though...

This Friday I am leaving for Lisbon, Portugal, to go to a science conference. I was very excited all the way up until yesterday, when my adviser decided - well, I can't even say decided because he is so passive aggressive in everything he does that he didn't even say it straight out - not to go, which is bad because he is an invited speaker and his talk is a week from tomorrow and it is way too late to reorganize the meeting schedule and it would look really bad on him if he just canceled, so he came up with the perfect solution that involves the least amount of work for him: I can give his talk instead! This might not sound like such a big deal, but it is! It's a faculty talk, meaning it's long, and it's at an international conference in front of the leading scientists in the field, who know the literature and current trends in research like the back of their hands. And there will I be, a young grad student, thrown in the middle of all this. I guess this is 2009's intellectual challenge for me - not that being in grad school, writing a paper and making some big decisions about trying to change careers aren't enough for a year!

I am trying to look at this positively - after having an anxiety attack yesterday - and thinking about how great this will look on my resume (will it?) and if it goes well, then I can make a good impression on people in the field, which might be very useful at some point in my life (but what if it goes terribly?) and after all, I like presentations (but not in front of an international audience with the creme de la creme of the field) and I am still going to be in Lisbon and the weather will be amazing and my parents will be there (my Mom's shoulder to cry on potentially) but it can still go really terribly. Ok, back to being positive... sunny, warm Lisbon and seeing my Mom and Dad... that's about all the positive things I can think of right now.

But, for my adviser, in his last email he wrote to me with 9 different PowerPoint presentations attached to it so I can put together the talk (he could have at least organized them!) he wrote on the bottom: "Thanks, and PS: you will make my wife very happy." No joke. I am not even trying to figure out what that means.

On a Brooklyn rooftop

After a rainy Saturday morning, the sky completely cleared out and the day had turned into one of those incredibly clear and crispy ones. You could just see forever and ever, out towards the ocean (sort of, maybe I just imagined it) and all the way to Manhattan, which seems so peaceful from far away - not that Brooklyn is far.

I had so many things in mind to write about; my dead espresso machine, which I decided, deserved a separate post, recent adventures on my bike, why I like hanging out with retired people, why spending time with children makes me want to be a child again, swinging like a monkey, how feeling the wind in my face as I am speeding down the street does make me feel like a kid again, but right now I am not happy with myself, I feel selfish and self-absorbed and yet upset by the fact that an unfriendly comment from a stranger, or an unreturned phone call from a friend can make me feel so crappy. I want to be a better friend, a better lover, a better student, a better scientist, but how do I do that without getting so wrapped up in details?

To the love of my life

You have been my dearest, most loyal companion for the past 4 years, with me through the best and the worst, always supportive and there for me. Whenever I was in a bad mood or just needed a friend, you were there to make me feel better, more alive, more productive and energized. You never walked out on me or lied to me. Not only have you helped me through some of the toughest times of my life, you were also there for my friends whenever they visited and needed some caring. I am saying good-bye to you with great grief and sadness. There will never be another one like you. I will never forget you and will miss you forever. I will always remember the fear and hopelessness I have felt when I saw the little, red, flashing light go off and all sounds coming from your end disappearing. Tomorrow, when I wake up, I know I will be helpless, frightened and anxious knowing that you are no longer here with me. I hope you are now at a better place, where somebody takes better care of you than I have in these past 4 years. I hope that you will find it in your heart to forgive me for forgetting to clean you for weeks on some occasions, and for probably being the ultimate cause of your early demise. My most beloved Espresso machine, please forgive me and rest in peace! I hope we meet again in heaven and you will be making me those most delicious lattes again for an eternity!

Yours, with love, always,

~Julie

Was gravity stronger today than usual???

I know that everybody has those - THOSE - days, when nothing seems to work out, everything that possibly can seems to go wrong. They still suck, and you still have to go through them; time even seems to pass slower on days like today. As if life was telling you "Fuck you! I want you to really experience every moment of this shitty day!" I guess it's why we appreciate the good ones. Or do we? Next time I am gonna have a really good day, I will think back to today and note the difference and enjoy that day as fully as I can, to try to make it as long as today.

I have been on an early schedule, coming to lab an hour or so before anyone else gets here, which is the most productive time of the day. This morning, as I was half-asleep looking for some stuff in the lab, I noticed my mentor just kind of browsing, looking around as if he was looking for something or someone. He is a pretty awkward person and been on my case about me not wanting to give his talk - he is an invited speaker for God's sake!! - at the conference I am going to next weekend. Also, me and another grad student have been in charge of going through resumes from people who apply for the lab manager post which has recently been vacated in our lab. We had a candidate come in to interview yesterday and everyone really liked her, of course, we were all wondering what the boss would think. Apparently, this morning, he wanted to tell me that he didn't really like this girl and was asking about other resumes (we have been getting applications from people way way overqualified for the job, bad economic times, I guess) and he seemed disappointed in me when I told him there was nobody else promising... bad way to start the day.

Then, things just kept falling around me: tubes, papers, beakers, and then, another girl's experiment, which was full of cells, which I managed to drop on the floor. Ouch, I felt so horrible, I had a total meltdown - thankfully, the only person there was someone who has seen me melt down before - and took me half the day to recover. The girl whose experiment I ruined was rather nice about it, I offered to do her experiment next week, but she kept saying no no no... arghhhhh, is gravity stronger than usual today??

Thinking about nicer things now... last weekend, I finally got to do - almost at least - what I have been wanting to do for a while: bike around Manhattan, after all, I do live on a rather smallish island, and the roads by the water are super nice everywhere. It was a bit of an adventure, considering I had left my map at home, and the bike-road ends at one point, in the middle of Harlem. However, I realized that no matter where you go, what kind of people live there, black or white, rich or poor, people are the same everywhere. Even in the poorest parts of Harlem, people were out on a beautiful day in the parks, having picnics and barbecues; only not in Central Park, but in their little local parks or wherever there was room.

Eventually, I found my way back to a bike-road, which wound its way North along the Harlem river and that's where I found a little treasure called Swindler Cove Park.





A small boat-house, where you can rent boats and go on tours of the rivers around the city, a little waterfall, and just a lot of greens and quiet and peacefulness. Lovely little spot, I wish it was a little closer to my place, but truly, it's worth the ride, I think I will go again this weekend if the weather is nice still.