Swimming or Swept away?

Thinking I could maintain weekly posts was ridiculous. The current is too strong.

Omaha skyline and Missouri River

Speaking of which, I heard a very powerful story about a baseball player who tried to swim across the Missouri River while in town for a game against the Royals (something every Omaha-an has thought of doing at some point). Now being married to a man who has a family history of male relatives ending up 6' under due to boating/water-related accidents, the possibility of something going terribly wrong on the water is very real to me at least.  Undertaking this post-doctoral teaching experience was like jumping into the river without knowing anything about how it flows.  I feel like I don't know where my career is taking me, except that I am trying to stay on the "fast track" and it's an exciting ride. I'm just hoping the undertow doesn't overpower my will to fight to stay on top of it.

Since my last post, I've administered a midterm, celebrated Easter with family, and obsessed about getting "caught up" which has very little chance of happening (see prev. paragraph). I actually took a week of quiet time at home. My husband and I took some major steps toward making our little house more liveable. I turned down some opportunities to attend seminars. I just felt like I needed rest. My family and friends started to buzz with worry. Then that worried me. Should I be worried about myself? Is there something going on that I can't see?

P4 activation by group 3 metal arene complexes

23 January, 2012

Wenliang Huang and Paula L. Diaconescu

Chem. Commun., 2012, 48, 2216-2218

This week, I had dinner with two women profs who have survived the tenure process. It was refreshing and inspirational. I also sat on a panel of profs representing different choices regarding graduate school, there were 6 women Ph.D.s on the panel in neuroscience, ecology, microbiology, organic chemistry, physical/biochemistry and analytical/biochemistry (me). It was interesting to be a member of the panel, hearing the other prof's advice, meeting the personnel from career services, and fielding students' questions. With their level of experience, it is even difficult for juniors and seniors to know what to ask, and this is why it is so hard to make a solid (informed) commitment to a graduate program right off the bat.

I also attended NSF Day @ USC, which presented junior faculty and staff with an overview of the federal funding process. The program officers were informative and approachable, encouraging us in every way to submit our ideas to the review process. I'm looking forward to getting some of my/our ideas down on paper and translating that into resources for my research group, which has grown in number to 3 students!

Merging chemistry and biology is a message I shared with my students this week as we talked about the chemistry of life (made up of just a few elements: C, H, N, O, P, S). This is part of the superpowers harnessed by the being known as Swamp Thing. It could either be a living mass occupied by the soul of a former biochemist, or perhaps one could think of it as the research love-child of the Alec Holland and his wife Linda, fictional comic book characters who invented a Bio-Restorative Formula that would solve any nations' food shortage by allowing plants to grow even in a desert. Seriously, this is right up my alley! Abiotic stress and plants' ability to survive it via metabolic reconfiguration is exactly what I study and it was great to share that with my students, along with the cutting edge research we are exposed to via seminars.

AND, we are doing some outreach this week in celebration of Earth Day! I'm looking forward to seeing my students (college age) interact with elementary school students, as they make green cosmetics.
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Chem_p022.shtml
http://pbskids.org/dragonflytv/show/makeup.html
I'm so proud of what this cohort of freshman has learned in Chem 14/15.
Cool pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/55505874@N08/sets/72157629332257440/

¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!

Also coming up is the 2012 VEX Robotics World Championship at the Anaheim Convention Center and we're going to Disneyland.  Just like my Smart Car, smaller can be better, as Mus musculus has known for 4 million years, or thereabouts.  I'm looking forward to seeing the innovations of our country's most talented youth.  Go Robotics!