Currently starting the process of making cultured soda

I have a mild-to-moderate DIY streak, which for the most part has brought me modest success and not too much trouble.  This may change with the advent of my discovery of cultured soda.

It's a multi-day, multi-step process.  The first several days involve the gentle fermentation of grated ginger and sugar in water (this is known as the "ginger bug").  After a while, you take 1/2 cup of ginger bug and add it to some sort of fruit juice.  I'm starting with pureed red grapes, though apparently apple juice works well too.  I'm curious to see if orange juice would be effective, because orange+ginger seems like it would be a tasty combo.

After that, you transfer the bug+juice to a clean empty soda bottle, and let it sit until the bottle feels like it's built some pressure up, at which point it can be refrigerated and enjoyed.

(I'm skipping all of the helpful tips about occasionally skimming off the mold, because for all I know my friends might be reading this and will subsequently refuse to taste-test.  Taste-testing and objective opinions will be key, because I don't drink soda.  I did mention that, didn't I?)

This is sort of what the ginger bug looks like

 

This is what the finished product will ostensibly look like

And these are among the first results you get when you Google Image search "fermentation explosions".  Fingers crossed...

 

Of journal clubs and starfish

So.  Graduate school begins again.  While I got a lot done this summer, it's amazing how leisurely it seems in retrospect.  Yes, those carefree, careless less-than-five-days-ago days...

I did get a break, thankfully.  I took a last-minute vacation at a friend's vacation home on Lake Michigan.  Much to my delight, I learned that the beaches in this area are basically covered in crinoids.  Crinoids are essentially starfish on stalks, and if you look carefully on this beach you would find tiny cylinders, the remnants of various stalk segments.

Starfish on stalks, Lovecraftian horror...potayto, potahto

And here we see a lovely selection of crinoid fossils, as well as a sample of the primitive form of currency used by their civilization

So here we are.  I'm taking four courses this semester.  It was going to be five, but my advisor's class got canceled due to underenrollment.

Benefits of taking your advisor's class: Easy A, brownie points, insight into your advisor's philosopy/priorities

Downsides of taking your advisor's class: An extra 9+ hours a week with your advisor, which, in this particular case, was almost certainly going to be a thrice-weekly journal club.  

Journal club: A meeting in which people who have not read a journal article desperately pretend to have read a journal article.  In the event that someone has read the article (or even if they have not), the discussion will almost always devolve into a snoot-fest in which the paper is excoriated, the authors are scoffed at, and the journal is derided for having accepted such an utter piece of crap.  Especially if the journal is Nature or Science.

Most exciting class: General Virology, taught by some absolutely fantastic professors.  It's going to be a lot of self-directed study, but it's stuff I need to know for my thesis.  And we're watching a video about Ebola on Friday. 

True story: I credit the Hot Zone as significant motivation for putting me on the MD/PhD path.  I blithely picked it up while staying at my grandparents' farm one summer.  I couldn't have been more than 9 or 10.  I don't remember anything about it except for the opening sequence, where Patient Zero gets sick and pukes up coffee ground vomit on the plane, and a description at the end of necrotic, exploded testicles caused by Marburg infection, I think.  My curiosity was piqued.  It was well worth the 5-10 years of wretched hypochondria induced by this literary discovery.

Most terrifying class: Statistics for Clinical Trials.  In theory, I am prepared for this class.  In reality, the prereqs for the course were horrifyingly insufficient, and I have no idea what the hypergeometric distribution* is.  But I need it for my PhD (and I do, I do want to be the kind of researcher who's not laughed at by statisticians), so I'm in for a semester of office hour visits and lots of work.  

*This also sounds vaguely Lovecraftian, but in fact refers to the situation in which you pull n balls out of a box that contains a certain number of black balls and a certain number of white balls.  

So there it is.  I'm still determined that this semester shall be better than the last.  Ganbatte, and IL-X out!

Unlike the crinoids and the function, this picture is explicitly Lovecraftian.  It is, in fact, Junji Ito's tribute to H.P. Lovecraft.  I am a huge Junji Ito fan.  I am also a huge H.P. Lovecraft fan, so this picture tickles me immensely.

 

Revamp

Due in part to the start of a new academic year and Meja's revitalization of our program's Communications board, this post marks the resurrection of my blog.

Who am I:
-A student of immunology on a clinical research track starting her second year of graduate school.

What I want to tell you:
 Everyone's first year of graduate school is rough.  Due to unusual happenings and timing problems, mine was extremely rough.  I struggled for a number of months with the thought of switching labs and/or quitting outright.  But at some point (admittedly, it happened later rather than sooner), something snapped and...I started getting on.  I won't tell you I've had wild success, and I won't lie and say that I don't have awful days anymore.  But it's a lot better now.
One of the things I struggled with the most was the thought that these problems were mine and mine alone, indicative (at best) of a failure to cope or (at worst) an inability to do science.  I know now beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is not true.  In posts to come, I'll tell you bits and pieces of what I went through, what I am going through, what I did that helped, and what I had to accept was out of my control.  Maybe you'll find it helpful; maybe none of it will relate to you.  But I want you to know that 93% of the time in graduate school, the problem is not you.  I learned/am learning to deal, and you will too.

Things I will probably write about in the following weeks:
-My first committee meeting
-Why Brad Dourif is the most amazing and underrated actor of our time
-How I became strangely evangelical about running shoes
-How I learned to stop putting my foot in my mouth every time I talked to my PI
-Maintenance of a healthy, positive attitude in graduate school (SPOILERS: It involves lowered expectations, PhD comics, and www.reddit.com/r/pitbulls)
-Axolotl husbandry
-Keeping a proper lab notebook (SO IMPORTANT!)
-H.P. Lovecraft
-Contrary to popular belief, folkdancing is a lot of fun and you all should do it with me!

Things I promise I will not talk about anymore:
-WAAAH I am so fat
-WAAAH I am so unproductive
-WAAAH I hate my project/lab/life choices
-Running away and joining the circus: Y/N?
-Pros and cons of various exotic dancer names

This year is going to be a better year than the last one, I have no doubt at all.

-IL-X

In which IL-X thinks about things that are clearly unrelated to preparing her lab meeting presentation

As someone who has very strong opinions about (her own) weight, I tend to follow weight-related media fairly assiduously.  I'm a huge fan of the Biggest Loser (and the much more sordid UK Supersize vs. Superskinny), and I do get a kick out of good before and after photo compilations.

But recently, I started reading a fat empowerment blog.  The writer is obviously very smart and talented, and I enjoy it, but it's produced a lot of mixed feelings.  I agree with many of her points: fat bigotry is a real, awful thing; it is hard to maintain permanent weight loss; and fat people suffer the consequences of medical eye-rolling far too often.  (I shadowed a neurologist in college who would manage to slip in "You really need to lose some weight" regardless of what the chief complaint was, and, to my eye, regardless of how heavy the patient was.)

But some of it bothers me in a way I was never quite able to put my finger on.  So here is a letter to the author of the blog (that I will not send, because her blog is entirely her business).

Dear fat blogger,

I really enjoy reading your posts, and I think you've hit on a lot of important social issues.  However, quite frequently I feel like you fall into the "SOCIETY!!?!?" trap.  Which is to say, you argue that ideal body size is dictated by societal norms not rooted in fact or health, and because of this, we should fight against having our lives limited by it.  I agree with the first, and disagree with the second.  To illustrate my point, I'd like to set you up on a date with my autistic friend.

He is not a real person, but an amalgamation of several close friends and family members.  Regardless of whether or not he exists in the flesh, I know him well enough to predict exactly how dinner will go down.  His volume control is very poor, so you'll alternately have to lean in as he murmurs under his breath and back away as this progresses without warning to a shout.  He'll snap the rubber bands around his wrists constantly.  He'll slap the table top for no apparent reason, possibly causing your drink to fall into your lap.  He'll laugh randomly.  And I hope you like pharmacology, Chinese politics, cars, or roleplaying games, because I guarantee you he's not going to talk about anything else.  If you try to change the subject, he'll either change it right back or nod in what is clearly a remote, practiced way.  He won't care about your interests.  And don't push him too hard, because he's got a very quick temper. 

He's tall, handsome, and makes a good living, but I'm certain you'll find a way to end the date early and send me a long email chewing me out about setting you up with such a complete asshole.  "I know he's autistic," you'll say, "but that's no excuse for being a jerk."

But you know what?  He'll send me an email too.  "I can't believe you set me up with such a fat person," he'll write.  "She was ugly.  It was really off-putting.  I'm not looking for a perfect ten, but Jesus, I could have been smothered by her fat rolls."

Yes, he's blunt.  I'll wince a little at reading this.  I won't show it to you, because I know you'll take great offense.  You've written about how you view the inability to find an entire class of people (eg, the super-obese) as attractive as a form of bigotry. 

But wait--why he shouldn't be just as offended by your email?

"Because he was criticizing my body, and I was criticizing his personality.  He was being a jerk--I was just looking at him."  Well, he wasn't deliberately being a jerk.  He's autistic.  All social norms are going to feel foreign to him.  He was born this way.  He's not autistic out of spite or malice, he's not autistic because he doesn't care what you think.  Why is your criticism any more meaningful than his?

"You can learn social skills.  It takes practice, but everyone can do it."  Why can't I replace "social skills" with "calorie counting"?  Weight loss is hard, yes.  But the laws of thermodynamics do not bend for you and you alone.  Fat is energy.  The fact that 95% of dieters fail to keep the weight off is a testament not to the inaccuracy of physics, but all of the other social and emotional factors that contribute to food and eating and emotion.

Social and emotional factors, I should note, that are foreign to your date.  You might say, "Clearly, he's picked up on some of it, he's bought in to the social stereotype that thin is better!"  Maybe he did, maybe he didn't.  But clearly, you've picked up on some social and emotional factors yourself--ones that are so fundamental and basic you're not even recognizing them.  Eye contact, for instance.  It's rude in many Asian countries, but an absolute necessity here.  And yet, when he was looking everyone in the room but you, I bet you weren't thinking, "Oh, well, it's just an arbitrary social norm."  It's far more likely that you were thinking, "I know he's autistic, but he's not even looking at me!  Is he not interested?  What the hell!  This is really off-putting."

"So his brain is wired wrong, he's an anomaly.  Whatever.  There's nothing biologically wrong with being fat." The "wired wrong" is a very slippery argument.  You can apply it to basically anyone and any condition.  Fat people are wired wrong--they don't know when to stop eating.  Skinny people are wired wrong--evolution dictates we take in as much fat and sugar as possible, so they're they anomalous ones.  Non-autistic people are wired wrong: autistic people are much better suited to handle the information overload and technical thinking required to succeed in this world.

In closing, I guess, I fall flat, because I'm not really sure what to conclude.  I could tell you my personal views about autism and obesity, but I don't think they're relevant here (and this is your blog, after all).  I would just recommend that you take a very close look at your restrictive societal norms: are they restrictive because they don't apply to you personally, or would everyone benefit if they'd go away?  And once you do that, think about them from the perspective of my trim autistic friend.  And once you do that, think about them from the perspective of...I don't know, somebody else. 

We're all tethered by societal chains.  Some of them chafe, some of them don't.  The ones that you don't notice are the ones that drove my autistic friend to an anxiolytic addiction.  Human rights are human rights, this is true.  But making a large group of people feel guilty for wanting to look or act or dress a certain way that doesn't suit you can easily borderline on petty.

Sincerely,
IL-X

Secrets

The secret to running on the treadmill without irreparably damaging my knee appears to be running at a slower pace so I'm forced to take smaller steps.  I ran 5 miles yesterday and today, and as of yet have suffered no ill effects!

The secret to troubleshooting is that fixing one problem will likely leave another one untouched and reveal a third.  (The IL-10 production is back on the scale we had anticipated, and the LPS is working!  But the IL-12 production is still essentially 0, and now my non-tolerogenic cells are acting tolerogenic.)

The secret to getting me to like a movie is to include lots of heavy campy makeup and dramatic singing.  Gothic costumes don't hurt either.

The secret to eating normally appears to be putting off lunch as long as possible.  Not sure why this works.

According to a cooking blog I read, the secret to ideal banana bread appears to be marzipan.  I'll be trying this out tomorrow or Sunday.  Another cooking blog revealed that the secret to gnocchi is that it doesn't need to be smothered in cream or browned butter--a light tomato broth is sufficient.  I also intend to try this out over the weekend.

The secret that I've kept from my PI is that I really need to start working in the hospital again.  We're supposed to do 1/2 a day a week for 10 weeks per semester, and my clinical skills have become ridiculously rusty.  Making it easier: It is required.  I can just wave my hands in the air and shrug.  Making it harder: She's expressed confidence that I will be fine if I devote all my time and energy to research, and that my good nature will carry the day when I go back to medical school.  Um.

The secret every single doctor thus far who has observed me has told me: A good nature is great, but ability to make eye contact is key.

The secret I keep to myself when I smile and nod and thank them for their insight: parents, friends, teachers, and mentors have been trying to teach me to make eye contact since I was 2 and it was clear I wanted nothing to do with it.

Relatedly: I still want nothing to do with it.  I can snap into interview mode and make eye contact and smile broadly when needed.  I can make eye contact with my partners easily, but it's my version of the Naked Rights (Coupling, British version, the only one that matters): the instant the relationship ends, my desire/ability to make effortless eye contact evaporates.  I can make tenuous eye contact with friends and family.  Ugh.  Eye contact should not be required in a civilized world.  It is entirely cultural.

On the whole, though, life is good right now.  I'm a happy camper.

Wide awake

I woke up around 3:45 AM this morning due to an asthma attack.  Fortunately/unfortunately, these attacks are infrequent and never really panic-inducing, just lots and lots of coughing and hacking, so while in the throes of an attack I promise myself I'll get myself a prescription for albuterol, but by the time it wears off I shrug and think, "Eh...". 

So it is currently 4:20 AM or so and I'm waiting for the Benadryl to kick in.  Once it does kick in, I'm basically going to lapse into unconsciousness immediately.  This is sort of like playing blog roulette--let's see how much of substance and coherency I can get down before I pass out!

The New Year.  So far, it's going reasonably well.  I've been keeping the apartment tidier (dishes done every night, bed made every morning, laundry folded quickly) and I've been slowly but surely importing organizational stuff for my ancient clutter.  I've been using my stationary bike reasonably regularly, though I was thrilled to discover it's supposed to get up to 50 degrees this week, so I might be able to do some actual running.

My diet has, on the whole, been better.  I slipped up this weekend with a bag of fun-sized Snickers, but on the whole, I'm making progress.  I'm trying to weigh myself less frequently to avoid it becoming more of an obsession.

I still want to start going to the gym to actually get some upper-arm strength.  I discarded the P90X idea because it was just too expensive and required a ton of extra equipment.  When Winter Semester starts in earnest I'll find a weight-lifting class and attend it religiously, so do I promise myself.

I think I'm most proud of the fact that I've been working on my review paper a bit each day reliably.  Ugh.  It's slow-going, but yesterday I got a full page written.  I'd like to start doing the same with my fiction-writing, but I've been resisting.  I think I'm frightened I'll find out I'm not cut out for it.  I was talking to Intaglio the other day about how I struggle to find significance in some of the short stories I read, and he said, "Yeah, your mind is too black-and-white and straightforward.  I think most of the metaphors would go right over your head."  I was pissed, but only because he was right.  I tend to lose a lot of what I read (and I mean what I read of Literature with a capital L, not, like, John Dies At the End, which is freaking awesome and scary and hilarious and everyone should read it), and I'm afraid that because of my straightforwardness I'll never be able to write anything compelling.

WHOA, getting woozy.  Okay.  Sleepy times for IL-X.  Let's hope I can wake up at a reasonable hour!

Reflections in bulleted form

Things I did for the first time this year:
-Visited the West Coast (Seattle and its surrounding areas for Intaglio's brother's wedding)
-Took Step 1
-Did a mini-rotation in the hospital
-Started graduate school
-Spent Christmas without my family here in Madison
-Settled into cohabitation
-This would be as good a space as any to mention the fact that Intaglio and I got engaged over Christmas
-Voted in a presidential election

Accomplishments that made me proud:
 -Passed Step 1
-Ran a half-marathon
-Maintained a good GPA the first semester of grad school
-Taking better care of my physical health: Exercise, vitamins, flossing, skin cancer screenings...it's like I'm an adult or something.

Things I learned this year:
-Exercise does wonders for my mental health.
-So does RuPaul's Drag Race.
-Keeping a good lab notebook is both essential and not too taxing.
(I harp on the notebook a lot, but it's been a thorn in my side, as I've alluded to in the past.  Even now, it's far from ideal.  I'll think I've written down everything I possibly could, and then a week later I'll try to repeat the experiment and realize that, you know, I didn't write down how much LPS I added per well or something infuriating.)
-Reading for pleasure is both a delight and a necessity
-I am not a social butterfly, but I need to be around people.  The friends I've made during the course of the MSTP have become more important to me than I could ever imagine. 
-"Collect data today like your machine will break tomorrow."

Things I have learned, but am slow to act on:
-Sugar is not good for me.  It causes horrible mood swings and depression the following day.  Regardless of whether or not this is psychosomatic (and yes, it likely is), my life is simpler when it's removed or heavily restricted.
-It's very easy for me to get sucked into repetitive internet surfing.  Checking facebook every four minutes, that sort of thing.
-One must do the thing that is frightening.  I've been dragging my feet finding a preceptor for the shadowing program during my PhD years, because I'm afraid of my PI's response, time constraints, research constraints, etc.  None of my reluctance changes the fact that I need to find one, and soon.  I'm just making it harder on myself.
-Change is most effective in incremental bits.  Write this paper for an hour a day!  Exercise every morning!  Take notes on M3/M4 stuff so you don't lose it all before you re-enter med school!  One life coach, trying to motivate a woman to go to the gym, told her to put on her gym shoes every morning for a week.  That was it.  The next week, she exercised for five minutes after putting on the shoes.  Change is much less aversive and much more sustainable when broken into small chunks, and yet I consistently try to dive in head-first.

Resolutions for 2012:
-Keep a gratitude journal (very Oprah-like, but I've found that it does tend to stabilize my mood)
-Eat one dessert a week.  This will be the most challenging resolution, and the one I'm most likely to break.  It goes against my last point about not diving in head-first, but as far as sugar is concerned, for me it's pretty much all or nothing.
-Lose 10 lbs, keep it off
-Keep the apartment tidy by not slipping into laziness: eg, washing dishes before the food dries on them, folding laundry right after it's done in the drier, disposing of junk mail immediately.  Likewise, do homework <48 hours after it is assigned.
-Via the bit-by-bit approach, start writing every day.  
-Figure out what my goals are.  I don't really view resolutions as goals--they reflect my desire to stop falling short.  In terms of longer-term goals that extend beyond "stop the self-sabotage"....I don't really have a clear picture yet.  I'd like some goals.

Happy New Year's!  Despite my somewhat melancholy-sounding introspection, it has been a great year, and I am hugely grateful for all that I got to experience and learn.  Here's to a wonderful 2013!