In which Roy Lab combs its hair and smiles for the camera.

eek!
Originally uploaded by littlee.

We were ready. Lab coats were hung neatly on the backs of bench chairs. Sinks were crowded with clearly labeled bottles of 10% BLEACH and 70% ETHANOL. Safety goggles were retrieved from dusty cupboards, cleaned off and hung in places suggestive of their frequent use. Everywhere you cast your gaze, fresh biohazard stickers could be seen affixed to incubators, centrifuges, refrigerators and tip buckets, their bright orange color causing them to twinkling like Christmas lights against the drab greys and tans so fashionable for scientific equipment these days.

Earlier in the morning, the pre-inspection inspectors had come to look over the state of Roy Lab, and the morning before that, Craig had done a pre-pre-inspection... In the afternoon, there was an hour long meeting to discuss infractions noted by the pre-inspectors, and to make sure that everyone was aware of the rules of a BL2 laboratory. Rules such as:

Do not conduct experiments in the hallway.

Do not take lab coats or lab equipment home to launder or clean.

Do not keep pets in the laboratory.

Oops. Sorry Pablo. I hope the Connecticut State inspectors aren't reading my blog...


Suffice it to say, the build up to this year's Biosafety Level 2 Laboratory recertification inspection was intense. There's a new pathogen in the lab - Coxiella - that's a little more nasty than our good buddy Legionella. There are more people, many of whom have come from more relaxed institutions and have found it difficult to adjust to Yale's peculiar ways ("No, you really can't drink tea next to my plate o' infectious agents. Why would you want to?) Craig stalked through the lab constantly, looking crazed. His paranoia was semi-rational. Labs can be heavily fined or shut down entirely if the wrong kinds of infractions are found.

He failed to find amusing my "lemonade out or lemons" suggestion that if it all went badly, we could at least have a nice two week vacation while the lab was brought up to code. Looking peeved, he continued to pace, loudly making suggestions such as:

"Uh, maybe you should just hide that for the next day or so."

and

"If they ask, tell them we don't even use that thing anymore, we're gonna dispose of it..." (gesturing at an essential, frequently used but not up to code piece of equipment.)

and ultimately

"Probably best not to do any research on Wednesday morning, we don't want them catching you actually doing something wrong. Come to think of it, don't come in at all. Just stay away from the lab until this whole thing is over."

So I did what he told me and I took the morning off. At 10:30 a.m., when the inspectors were scheduled to arrive, I was sitting at Town Fair Tire having shwanky new tires put on Etta. As the minutes ticked by, I found myself getting anxious, hoping that our little ramshackle lab (but totally safe... REALLY) would pass it's yearly physical.

When I asked the few folks who were in during the morning how it all went, they said dejectedly,

"Yeah. It was nothing. They were here for five minutes. It was totally anticlimactic."

Thus ended the Great State Inspection of 2005.

Easter, Purim and baptisms, oh my!

Happy Purim!
Originally uploaded by littlee.

For the record, Episcopalians stand up and sit down way more often in their services than Catholics do. I only mention this because I have found that whenever christian (non-Catholic) friends of mine play a few rounds of everyone's favorite interfaith game, "Your denomination is weirder than my denomination," they inevitably adopt their most mocking tone when they accuse Catholic masses of being nothing more than memorized mumbling and random jumping up and down in the pews. Having attended an Easter service last evening at St. Thomas' Episcopal church, I can attest that I got a nice workout from all the standing up and sitting down - and there was no shortage of (sort of) memorized mumbling, either.

The reason I was sitting in a dark church holding a candle in a Dixie cup on a Saturday evening is that my friend Leah was being baptized. Leah, a couple of other adults and three little tiny babies all either smiled bravely or cried loudly when a large amount of cold water was poured over their heads at the front of the old, drafty church. The rest of the service was quite educational, with readings about creation, the flood, the parting of the seas and Abraham's near-sacrifice of his only son serving as useful refreshers for Old Testament 101.

Glancing at my watch around 9 o'clock, my face inadvertently broke into a nervous smile as I remembered that just about 24 hours before, I had been deeply immersed in the task of stenciling "JESUSLAND" on the back of a bright red t-shirt. You see, Jenn and I were going to a Purim party and we needed costumes, since the first point of a Purim party is to go dressed as something that you are not. To that end - I cooked up a couple of very simple costumes and Jenn and I would be going as red states with STATE stenciled across the front of our red T's (purchased, thematically, at Walmart). And even if some people hadn't gotten the "United States of Canada vs. Jesusland" map e-mail in the days following the '04 election, we thought we'd stencil JESUSLAND on the back for added emphasis. Except for a few folks who'd arrived from Europe in the past couple of months, no one at the party took more than a few seconds to figure out our get-up.

After exclaiming, "Cool! I get it, you're a RED STATE!" people seemed to turn quickly to a Purim party's second purpose - to drink until they couldn't discriminate between good and evil. I'm still not sure if they were just thirsty or if my costume had inspired them to blot something out... either way, the drinking began in ernest.

First Purim, then a baptism and and then today, of course, is Easter. Whoa! Big weekend for someone who still has yet to make any solid decisions about Almighties and afterlives. To continue the holiday themes of both Purim and Easter, I will probably wear my bunny ears, just as I and my fellow running peeps did yesterday when we ran around the East Rock neighborhood. The adults who saw us all sort of frowned and looked a little angry. The kids loved it though, many of them pointing and calling out, "Mom! Dad! Look at all the Easter bunnies! They're already here!" Hopefully, the parents of these kids wasted no time before explaining that we were NOT, in fact, Easter bunnies. I would hate to think that any child would grow up thinking that the Easter bunny dresses like my friend James, in black spandex and a t-shirt clearly reading 'QUEER COWGIRL."

Happy Easter everybody!

Zzzzzzzz....

It is 9 o'clock. My fellow Royals have been folding their laptops shut and calling it a day one by one since about 5. The only person keeping me company now is Taka, who appears to be stuck in some mess of a protocol that involves a lot of time in the cold room. I have a sinking feeling that this is a protocol I have written. I have guilt.

A few hours ago when Eric "Postdoc #3 of 7" Cambronne was buttoning up his jacket to leave, he came into my bay to say goodbye.

"This push you're making... this is the stuff of which legends are made."

"Wuh"?" Looking up blearily from my lab notebook, I just catch Eric's dead-pan expression shift into a twinkly smile.

"Y'know... got up at 3:30. Flew here from Texas this morning. Now you're going all out doin' mad experiments. It's epic."

Number Three is making me nervous. I can't tell if he's making fun of my obsessive need to do the experiment I'm doing, or if he's actually complimenting me on my neurotic work ethic. My other labmates have all solidly taken the former position, making various comments throughout the afternoon:

"Go home, Dude. Just go home."

"You're crazy."

and, the most helpful/colorful:

"You look pretty delirious. You better not f*** that up. Then you'll be really steamed."

All points taken, thank you. And I will go home pretty soon, but for now I'm still cruising around on some mysterious source of energy - most likely derived from a potent combination of really really wanting to now the result of my 'speriment and the numerous toffee almond crunch thingies I've eaten from my most recent care package.

Some people will remember their years in grad school in increments of research success or failure. Others seem to mark the years in terms of how they relate to their advisor (first year: worshipful. second year: worshipful. third year: vaguely distrustful. fourth year: nervous avoidance. fifth year: openly hostile etc...) Me, I think my memories of grad school won't be nearly as chronological. I think that I will remember being tired. I will remember eating a lot of instant oatmeal from packets I hide in my file drawer. I will remember being very glad that I didn't just go home because it was crazy not to do so. And I will be happy that Eric and my other labmates, ever prone to mocking hyperbole, were with me to narrate.

Eva Goes to Texas

Texas BBQ, anyone?
Originally uploaded by littlee.

First off, as it is the morning of Sunday, March 20th (meaning that any and all activities meant to take place on the evening of the 19th must now have occured) I would like to congratulate Dad on a job well done for the Millenium Cabernet, er, Caberet. Brew yourself a cup o' tea, throw a log on the fire to fend off the damp March weather and read a book. Alternatively, I encourage you to watch as much NCAA March Madness with your eyes closed as you see fit.

As for me, I'm in Austin for my friend Michelle's wedding. This is my first trip to the Lonestar State and every person I've told about this adventure has responded the same way,

"Eva in Texas...that's an interesting idea. Well, good thing you're starting out with Austin."

According to its billing and depending on the person talking, Austin is the Berkeley of the South, or Berkeley is the Austin of the West. It is NOT, I have been told dozens of times, like the REST of Texas. I have been told that the "Keep Austin Weird" to "W'04" bumpersticker ratio is high and the 20 year olds with shell-encrusted dreadlocks are thick on the ground. This idea of Austin as a safe haven for Deaniacs has loomed large in my consciousness over the past few years as Sophia mulled over the idea of setting up camp here. She talked enthusiastically of the tasty food and the copius live music. She painted a pretty convincing picture of Berkeley's southern outpost and I found myself looking forward to having a place to crash in Austin.

But I have to admit, I have always been dubious. Texas is huge, Austin is right smack dab in the middle. How could such an island of liberalness evolve? Once evolved, how could it persist in the face of such massive surrounding, uh, "non-liberalness?"

It was with this conflict of emotions that I set foot in Bush Country yesterday morning. Though I'd been up since 3:30 a.m., my eyes were wide open as I walked through the airport, expecting at any moment to see a bucking bronco careen around the corner with some wranglers close behind. As I walked towards baggage claim passed a couple of perfectly normal-looking airport memorabilia type stores, I start to laugh at myself. "Duh, Eva, it's not like this is a different planet. The inhabitants are still humanoid..."

Then I saw the guy in the giant black ten gallon hat, matching black boots and crisply ironed jeans held up by a belt sporting a saucer-sized silver belt buckle.

"Ah ha!" said I. "I knew it! Texans!"

As I explored around the city for the next couple of hours, I continued to play the skeptical Yankee detective, keeping a mental tally of evidence both for and against Austin's place as Berkeley's sister city. Toyota hybrid with a Human Rights Campaign sticker? One point for Berkeley. Taxodermy shop on the side of the highway with a sign declaring "The Buck Stops Here"? Score one point for Texas. Or maybe two points - there were actually quite a few taxodermy shops on my short drive out on 71 W.

Much later, after I'd witnessed my first golf ball-sized hail storm safely from inside my room at the Hampton Inn, I set off for my first wedding-related event, the rehearsal dinner at a restaurant called The County Line. The invitation said some stuff about Texas BBQ and "come hungry." I felt a true Texas experience was in my near future.

I sat at a table with my fellow Connecticut/Yale transplants as well as a number of Michelle's friends from her college days at Texas A & M. The natives took great pleasure in instructing the foreigners on the finer points of BBQ consumption and I think I did pretty well. It was noted that I had a tendency to wipe my fingers a little too frequently, a flaw detected indirectly from the lack of BBQ sauce on my beer glass. But overall I think I passed the BBQ test. I also learned that the thinly sliced beef we were eating is called brisket not flank steak, and that the bread is dark brown not because of heavy amounts of whole grain flour, but because of molasses. It was all delicious and I ate way too much.

Stuffed and happy and still covered in ribs from ear to ear, I headed back to my hotel, my mind too occupied with thoughts of brisket to care whether the muddy pickup with a fully-loaded gun rack driving in front of me was very "Berkeley" or not...

Everyone remain calm!!

GST-Alfie far western blot
Originally uploaded by littlee.

Data! I have DATA!! Okay. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I had promised to post lovely pictures of my surroundings that make you happy about my life far far away on the right coast. And now, to the right of this text you see a lot of black smudges, some colored dots and a couple of black lines. Not the prettiest thing you've ever laid eyes on for sure. And certainly not the most recognizable.

But do not scoff! This, my people, is my first Far Western Blot. And while I do not show you the "control/GST alone" blot just beside this one, I assure you that right below the red dot where there are two lighter bands above a dark band, well that there lower light band is unique to GST-YlfA! (You don't have to know what's going on here... just go with it.. FEEL the enthusiasm.) See? Isn't that cool?!

Sorry... This is a little strange, I know, but this is, like, a really BIG DEAL. Especially since Craig, right before I finished the assay and got this result, tauntingly declared,

"Well, this is the first time you did this. You don't even know what the right conditions are. It's not like it's going to be INTERPRETABLE, anyway."

So there Craig. Foo on you. Unfortunately, despite my desparate urge to repeat and refine this experiment immediately if not sooner, I must put all my bugs and my pipets away and pack my bags for Austin. Repeats will have to wait. Ack! I can't stand it! All right... enough of this madness. Time to go home and bounce off the walls for a while.

In which Eva "Cranky Pants" Campodonico runs smack into a change of perspective.

Papa Vinny
Originally uploaded by littlee.

The day started out well. I was in an endorphin-enhanced, pleasant state after my morning run with a view of sunrise over Eastrock. After waving goodbye to my running buddies I headed north up State Street to Montesi VW, humming and sweating happily as I drove. Today was the day to take Etta for an oil change and another attempt at fixing The Rattle that the mechanic has blamed on everything from a rusted out exhaust system (replaced) to bad wheel bearings (repacked).

"Looks like you're due for a 40,000 mile tune-up," said Andy.

"Yikes," said I, thinking that having arrived at 7:15 a.m., I would have been able to wait for about an hour while they poked and prodded Etta's underbelly and then I'd be off to the races.

"How long will that take?"

"Oh, two - two and a half hours including a look at The Rattle. I'll get you in first. Do you want to wait? It shouldn't be that long."

"Uh... okay." I'd brought a change of non-stinky clothes and some reading for my class so I went upstairs to de-stink and get settled.

After two hours, I'd read ahead several weeks' worth of assignments and I'd tired of listening to one of my fellow waiting room occupents trying to convince his neighbor that Jesus really did die for our sins and we shouldn't stray from the path of righteousness, etc... Not wanting to appear impatient, I thought I'd wait for the half hour to go by so that I'd pop my head downstairs at the late end of Andy's estimated time frame. During that half hour, it occured to me that while the reading materials had been a very productive impulse, a more pragmatic item to have tucked in my bag would have been BREAKFAST, especially after a four mile trot. Minutes began to creep by more slowly, Andy was nowhere to be found. The christian guy was now handing out pamphlets for his church to everyone in the waiting room.

As 10:30 wandered aimlessly toward 11, I tracked Andy down.

"Oh, yeah. They're working on it. Probably another 20 minutes."

At 12 p.m., I shifted camp downstairs so that I could sit in the sun and warm up and also so that I would be directly in Andy's line of vision in case he was forgetting me. If he couldn't see me, he'd definitely be able to hear my stomach growling. Eventually, he and the guy who had actually been tinkering with my car came out to talk to me together.

"So, you know that rattle you've been hearing?"

"Yeah. The rattle that started after you guys installed a retrofit that has never, like, FIT? Yeah, I know that rattle, I have you guys tighten things up every time I come in."

"Well, let's see if you can replicate that for us, let's go for a drive."

Fifteen minutes later, we're back. They have concluded that I'm hearing things and that most likely the rattle is coming from all the gear I haul around in my trunk. Ah, yes. The rattle of a box of powdered detergent... that must be it. Just in case though, Andy offered to replace the retrofit.

"How long?"

"Twenty minutes."

Unconvinced, I retreat to my sunny perch, hoping that at least the rattle will be gone for the first time in two years. I am now completely starving: it's almost 12:30, I've been there for five hours. I take to pacing in front the check-out desk. Every so often, I get glimpses of Andy meandering around the service area. I ask the lady behind the counter if she could check stuff out for me. She throws back some static about "Just twenty minutes" and "I'm just the messanger."

At 1 p.m., Andy comes to the front desk, looking skittish.

"So, uh, turns out that rattle you were hearing WAS coming from the retrofit we put on there."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, uh, it was a bad mold, y'know, like it was cast wrong, and uh, each time you hit a bump it was hitting a little nob that pokes out from your rear brakes. We replaced it."

"Thanks. Done?"

"Just finishing up..."

"Andy, I want my car back."

"Okay."

I drove home in a total hunger panic. What I shoved into my face is still a blur, I think there were crackers and cheese. Peanut butter was involved. And melon, definitely melon. Showered and fed, I cruised into lab at the fashionable hour of 2:30, still stewing and fuming and generally wretched about the nasty combination of bad time estimation and subtle condescension I'd been experiencing all morning. Just as I resigned myself to having a classic Eva the Dark Cloud kind of day, my friend (and fellow Middlebury College/Spatafora Lab alum) Vinny appeared around the corner from his lab next door.

"Guess what..." he said, bursting into a huge smile as he shoved a small sonogram photograph of his 14 week along baby towards me.

"I'm gonna be a dad!"

Of course, my rank and odious mood vanished instantly. Damn you Vinny! Just when I thought I could stew for an entire day about petty inconveniences, you have to come and show me something really wonderful and uncomplicated and good! Now I can't stop smiling! Damn you! Oh and the rattle really is gone, too, by the way. That's my story.

Signs of Spring?

Queen of the St. Patrick's Day Parade
Originally uploaded by littlee.

It might seem odd that my brief anecdote from yesterday involved as a central element of the plot, a giant snow storm while today, I relay an account of my trip to the New Haven St. Patrick's Day parade. "Where'd all the snow go?" you might ask. "Wasn't if freezing?" The only thing I have to say is that this is New England and Lady March is a big tease. One day will be bitterly cold, making the following day's highs of 40F seem like clear evidence of global warming and/or the possibility that spring has finally arrived. But no, a week later we'll be mummifying ourselves in high tech fabrics and chipping ice off of frozen car door locks for a five minute trip to the grocery store. The point is that today, the snow was gone and the sun was out and the St. Patrick's Day parade paraded itself down Chapel Street to the inebriated hoots and hollers of several thousand onlookers all dressed in green. There were lots of men in kilts, a small gaggle of revolutionary war reinactment groups and a fair number of ROTC contingents, the members of which looked way too young to be anywhere near a military uniform. If the crowd hadn't been in such, er, high spirits, it might have been a rather sobering sight (pardon the pun) to see 15 year old boys and girls marching behind a Marines color guard. But the beer was green and flowing freely so the moment passed without such dark thoughts. And of course (?) there was the St. Patrick's Day Parade Queen. She was having the time of her life wrapped in a green shawl cruising down the street on the back of a silver Mustang. All I could think was, "Who gets to be queen of the New Haven St. Paddy's Day parade? Do you have to apply? Are there, like, neighborhood competitions in February leading up to the big event? Is competition fierce?" Eventually, despite the spring-like temperatures (around 38F) my toes did go numb standing there on the curb and it was time to wander back to Mansfield Street. I got home just in time to catch the beginning of the A's vs. Diamondbacks split squad game down in Arizona on the internet radio stream. Yep, that's right Lady March, I said spring training. You hear me? SPRING training. It's coming and you can't stop it. Baseball said so.

Perfect Running Weather

Mansfield Street
Originally uploaded by littlee.

Every Saturday morning I get up excited to go running with my Frontrunner peeps. We run a scenic loop around the East Rock neighborhood, conveniently finishing about a block away from Lulu's, a tiny cafe that serves seriously high octane java. This morning though, I knew that my Saturday routine was in jeopardy when I looked out my window and discovered that last night's predicted one to two inches of snow had been obnoxiously covered up by an extra half foot of white fluffy stuff. An e-mail from our fearless leader, Amy, clinched it. "New Haven roads are unplowed and/or slippery. All Frontrunners commanded to stay indoors and sip hot chocolate." Feh, I say to indoor chocolate sipping. Slippery shmippery. Don't these people have moms who give them fancy shoe grippers for emergencies such as these? So on went the running togs and the shoe grippers, on when the headphones and the Shuffle and off I went to careen around the snowy, empty streets of The Haven without a care in the world about the slick surfaces below my feet. (For example of ridonculous road conditions, see photo snapped this a.m. just before starting my trek.) It was awesome. Almost made me want to go live in a place where there would always be snow to tromp around in. I got plenty of looks - people driving (read: fish-tailing) by seemed puzzled as to why I had such solid traction while their SUVs swerved and veered down the narrow roads. One poor guy had to watch me run right past him as he sat at an interesection at a green light, the rear wheels of his sedan spinning madly in place. The light turned red again and he just had to sit there as I plodded off down Livingston. So Mom, if I haven't thanked you already, thanks a bunch for my super, extra fancy shoe grippers. No one can stop me now...

Yeastie Beasties

Yeastie Beasties
Originally uploaded by littlee.

Whoa. I think I'm done with science for today. It all started early with a 10 a.m. thesis defense seminar given by my friend Phil. Phil works on the genetic basis of lupus autoimmune disease. Phil talked about lupus for over an hour and a half. It seemed like a long time, but I suppose it wasn't all that lengthy for the summary of six years of work. Then, over lunch I had to catch of an some literature and I spent another hour cramming a ham sandwich into my mouth and a paper about SNARE proteins into my brain. At 3 p.m. the Roy and Galans lab met for our usual Friday meeting and another two hours passed listening to Eric talk about itty bitty molecules no one can see, followed by Gabriel talking about how to use Salmonella as a vaccine. That's right. This is a guy who wants people to voluntarily have Salmonella injected into their bodies to prevent other diseases like the black plague. No one ever said scientists were rational... Anyway, in honor of all this science, today's photo is from a plate of yeast I recently made that I had to scan today in preparation for an upcoming lab meeting. And in honor of my yeastie beasties I now declare that it is time to go to the Immunobiology Department happy hour to drink almost cold beer made with some other very helpful yeasties. I must be careful though, if anyone says anything science-y to me I think my head will explode. Cheers!

A Bowl with a View

A Bowl with a View
Originally uploaded by littlee.

Usually Pablo sits up on my shelf, out of harm's way and conveniently holding up a stack of CDs. Sunny, the newest postdoc to join Roy Lab, says that Pablo only wakes up and swims around excitedly when I show up - other random passersby do not elicit so much as the twitch of a fin. He obviously knows who has access to the Beta Bites.
Sometimes I bring him down for a field trip to the window sill where he gets to swim around in the sun for a while and deepen to a nice dark red tan. From the sill of his third floor window, Pablo commands a view of several parking lots, a Greek Orthodox church and a narrow slice of Long Island Sound in the distance, just at the horizon. He seems to like it. After about 15 minutes though, it's back on the shelf. Small bowl + bright sunlight + too long = boiled fish for lunch.

So I thought it was about time I started a blog...

Okay everybody (i.e. Mom and Dad and maybe So), here's the deal. I've got me a fancy new (to me) digital camera. I've got a blog and I've got an account at Flickr. I'm not sure what all I can do with these things, but I know that I want you guys to see more of my world here in the wilds of Connecticut. Maybe I'll post pictures that I take as I walk around town, maybe the occasional piece of cool-looking data. I will, if inspired/procrastinating, post tidbits of things going on 'round these parts, like stories of me getting stuck in elevators or teaching undergrads about orgasms - the stuff I do that isn't eating, sleeping and science-ing.

It may seem excessive that I am going to such lengths to show you ordinary minutia. But as the years and months count down to the time that I might actually return to The Bubble, er, I mean the Bay Area, I find that I am preemptively nostalgic about all the different ways that snow falls and the ordered chaos that is my lab bench here in The Haven. I want you all to see me in my element, surrounded by my lab people and my tubes of bacteria, or illegally camped out on my sunny porch grading another stack of midterms. Maybe it will get cheesy, but we'll see how it goes.

The first installement of pix is from my walk to school this morning. It was cold, like 16F (1F with windchill.) I don't think I'll ever be nostalgic about the way my fingers ached when they thawed out...

early morning, cold whale

early morning, cold whale
Originally uploaded by littlee.

sidewalk? ice rink?

sidewalk? ice rink?
Originally uploaded by littlee.

and it LOOKS like it's 16 degrees, too

and it LOOKS like it's 16 degrees, too
Originally uploaded by littlee.

even the cars feel cold

even the cars feel cold
Originally uploaded by littlee.

new haven doesn't believe in snow plows

new haven doesn't believe in snow plows
Originally uploaded by littlee.

look ma! no undergrads! (it's spring break)

look ma! no undergrads! (it's spring break)
Originally uploaded by littlee.

super extra secret yale society crypt

super extra secret yale society crypt
Originally uploaded by littlee.

this is where i teach

this is where i teach
Originally uploaded by littlee.