Crazy Week!

I am currently curled up on the sofa, listening to the rain pour outside and eating a bowl of berries in my favorite J.Crew sweats, while Trent works away at the computer. I couldn't be more content. What a week!! Let me clarify;

1. Monday I got climbing certified, Tuesday we got CPR certified, Wednesday was First Aid certification, Thursday was Trent's first day of work, and a huge day at work for me, plus Trent's first meeting the Red Cross, while I had a meeting with the Cell and Molecular Training program I am on, and a meeting with the UNC Triathlon team. So Friday.. it just feels good to be home. We didn't get home before 8 or 9pm any day this week!

2. So, we took all the CPR and First Aid courses for a number of reasons. Trent was required as he is the new rowing coach. The tri team needed someone to be certified, so I was in. Plus, let's face it.. we are kind of accident prone. I really don't handle emergency situations that well, so I figured the training would help. And Trent is getting involved with working with the Red Cross, and it is required for that.

3. Trent loves his new job. The hours are great, he is meeting tons of important professors and contacts, he works in a gorgeous university building right on the main street, and they really seem to appreciate him. He just started Thursday but is already eager to do his best job for them and looking forward to all the events. I couldn't be happier for him.

4. He is such a natural coach. I got to see him around some of his crew team kids and they all adore him. I can't wait to see them race someday soon!

5. I had a huge breakthrough at work. I joined the lab filling the position of a woman who had just left. And while the project was pretty cool, my heart started leaning towards a different question. But I felt too young and new in the lab to demand a change of projects. So I just printed out a few papers on the new topic and resigned myself to keep chugging along on the old. Until lab meeting. A shy, but incredibly hard working, Japanese senior graduate student just made some amazing progress. He worked practically all this time here on a certain assay, and thanks to his dedication, and some great contacts my boss has, we are on the brink of something huge. But this guy is dying to leave. He already had a job in Japan! So guess who gets the project?!? And guess what the topic is?? The papers I had printed out! Too complicated to get into now, but I am basically finding a link that determines the final control on cell cycle checkpoints. And the great news is.. there are only about 40 of these possible "links." And after a ton of searching the literature and some awesome bioinformatics, I think I have saved myself about a year of slogging through experiments and feel confident about a few select candidates. I am sure it won't be as easy as it appears now.. but I am SO jazzed about this new project, I am ready for a few defeats. And yes, I will finish up what I am currently working on.. even though it is SO last year :)

6. Enough of that. So it is raining. Which is SO exciting. It hasn't rained for almost two months. Which is utterly unheard of in the South. This is some very welcome rain. Although it brought some very unwelcome tornado warnings and got me kicked out off the indoor pool this afternoon due to lightning. That was a scary bike ride home!!

7. More Trent stuff, sorry. So we just got the new iMac, which we adore, but we also got the fancy dancy Adobe design software too. I was a little skeptical at first, but somehow Trent has hooked up with a guy trying to get a certain high end car company to sponsor his "Trent just told me I can't say the name" cycling team. And Trent is doing their proposal media! He is working like crazy on it, but doing some beautiful stuff. And apparently it is quite hush hush, I just had to delete a couple sentences on his request. Big times! His volunteer work with the Red Cross is also centered around doing media and marketing, which could lead into a full time position, especially once he gets his masters of public health, which he can do with this job. The pieces are coming together!

Sorry if this post has been too sappy or bragging, but I am just really happy right now with our situation. Having him so engaged and happy with his work/crew team/ volunteering/training, allows me to focus on my science/training without feeling guilty about being away from home. And I have a triathlon coming up the last weekend in September, and the marathon in November, plus all this awesome science to do.. so there is going to be a lot of work going on. But if you love it, it stops seeming like work. Crazy!

Have a great weekend.