Breaking News!

I’ve been meaning to write up an update since I returned a week and a half ago about my winter break escape from the lab and my start to the new semester. I had things to say about my trip to see the BodyWorlds exhibit at the Franklin Institute and how I am completely unable to escape thinking about cancer-related issues, as my week in Aruba was tainted as I spent the days laying on the beach, wondering if the UV light was causing thymine dimers, and which repair mechanism (replication fork regression or translesion DNA repair) would be used to fix the DNA errors. However, none of this seems relevant anymore, as I have some Very Big News regarding my career as a graduate student.

Decision making is not something at which I excel. While I can be rather decisive when it comes to certain things (i.e., what movie to see, what to wear, what to pack for lunch), the big meaningful decisions leave me agonizing and sleepless. I’m not the most efficient decision maker either – writing out a list of pros and cons has never really worked for me, and talking to others just leaves me more confused than attempting to tackle the problem on my own. Thus, I have resorted to the highly immature method of pondering and thinking things through until I am completely stressed, and when I can no longer handle thinking about the decision any longer, just picking what is most convenient at that point in time. I’m quite sure that this method will fail me at some point in my life, but to date, I’m doing just fine. I struggled and struggled with the decision of where to attend undergraduate, and after going back to look at one school a second time, was so sick of the decision that I just put down my deposit right then and there (if I had looked at the other school that day, I would have wound up going there instead). The decision worked well for me – I have no doubt that my educational experience would not have prepared me nearly as well if I made the other decision, as I was able to have a well-rounded education majoring in biology and political science, and was able to have fabulous internships which do not exist outside of Washington, DC, including a year of interning on the Hill in the House of Representatives, six months doing research at The Institute for Genomic Research, and a year as a research intern at the National Cancer Institute. I once again struggled with the decision of where to attend graduate school, and ultimately, when I could no longer handle the thought and all other methods failed (polling my friends, attempting a pro/con list, ultimately the coin toss) just went with a school. Now that I am here, I am quite sure that I made the wiser decision when it came to an oncology program, as the cancer resources here are far superior.

Once again, I find myself making a big decision because, after spending weeks going back and forth, it just seemed to be the right choice at the right time. Yesterday, while talking with the PI of my current rotation about the future direction of my project, I made the big commitment decision because at that precise moment, it just seemed like the right thing, and I was sick of losing sleep going back and forth, confused over what to do. Despite having only completed two of my required three rotations (I have not yet been able to find a PI with funding and space to allow me to enter their lab for a third rotation, which was part of the reason why this decision was made), I became the first of the first-year PhD students to choose my thesis lab. That’s right – I committed myself to a laboratory and to an advisor, and now know in exactly which lab I will be spending 90% of my waking hours for the next 6ish years.