Thesis Committee Help!

I'm at the point where I've started putting together my thesis proposal and forming a thesis committee. Technically speaking, this is required to be complete within one year of completing comps. One year would be the second week of January... but while this seems like I'm waiting until the last minute, I'm actually the first student of my year to actually start to formally put together my committee (let's just say that the program let's this year deadline slip unnoticed). My background is complete, I have my big-picture general hypotheses written, and three main aims with multiple sub-aims. My PI/adviser said today that I have roughly 140% of a thesis on paper, meaning that I have more theoretical aims than I will need to complete, but we both think this is a positive since it's easier to cut out part of a project than add to it.
At this university, thesis committees consist of 5 individuals: the adviser, 3 other internal members (one of whom must serve on the program oversight committee), and one outside member. I know who my ideal internal members would be, but my adviser is the only one on the oversight committee and he doesn't count since he is my adviser. Unfortunately, this means that I have to eliminate a potentially very useful committee member to make room for another potentially less-useful member. As far as my outside member, I'm going to wait and see what direction my experiments take over the next year before I decide if I am pursuing a crystallography direction and thus would want a crystallographer, or if I am pursuing a helicase direction and thus would want an enzymologist. My PI had great suggestions for one of each, both within driving distance, so I am optimistic for finding a suitable outside committee member.
That said, I now need to formally ask the internal members to serve on my committee. Female Science Professor's recent post on seeking advisors has made me think about the best way to ask these individuals. After all, there is really little benefit for agreeing to serve on someone's thesis committee -- published papers will go under my PI's lab, not theirs, it's unlikely that (with the exception of one of my hopeful committee members) I will be doing major collaborations with them, and it's a lot of time and effort on their behalf. To add to that, my project is way out in left field in comparison with everyone else in my program. Almost all the Ph.D. students are studying cell signaling, mainly in breast or prostate cancer. As you can see from my above comments on crystallization or enzymology, my project has nothing in common with signaling or cell/molecular biology in general -- I may as well transfer to the biochemistry department at this point. Additionally, my project is really trying something new and unique that applies to the entire field of studying disordered proteins, much more so than just studying the particular forms of pediatric cancer studied by my lab. That said, I am super excited about the project, because it has the potential to wind up being something completely novel within biochemistry and widely applicable to the field of disordered proteins as a whole. I want to express this interest and excitement to the potential thesis committee members as a way to encourage them to agree to serve on my committee; while it may be more work on their behalf since this isn't a topic they see everyday, scientists should be excited by the new and unexpected, right? Especially when the new and unexpected is coming from a graduate student!
I asked a few older students how they formed a thesis committee, and most said they just sent an email basically saying "Will you serve on my committee?" My plan at the moment is to send a brief but well-written email stating why I think they would be a good fit for my committee (i.e., their involvement with biochemistry, their tie to the small molecular inhibitor side of my project, etc,), how much I value their opinions (particularly from those from whom I have already seeked advise), and attach a brief summary of my thesis proposal -- three paragraphs on background, my hypotheses, and the general aims and sub-aims, but without the proposed experiments. It totals 2 pages, and a significant chunk is in outline format. I don't want to send too much to read, but I want to show that I have put a lot of thought into the project thus far, and I am not blindly asking them to serve on a committee without a strong idea of the direction in which I want to take my research.
For those who read this blog who are faculty members, I'm hoping you can provide me with some suggestions as to the best way to ask these committee members. What impresses or disappoints you in regards to being asked to serve on a committee? I know it is a LOT of work for faculty members, and I really want to assemble the best possible thesis committee that I can.

IT'S HERE!!

Two giant crates were delivered to the lab today containing the new purification system.
YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!
Happy Holidays to me!

(Frankly, at this point, I don't even care if I get to use the new system, even though I should kind of get priority over most people in the lab since I do the most purification with the most difficult proteins. I'll be thrilled just to get the old AKTAprime all to myself... no more having to sign up for purification 2 weeks in advance, or coming in at 3am to run columns... no more having my experiments pushed back because people forgot to watch the system and it leaked and they needed to start over from the beginning... no more having to track down people who left their columns on the machine overnight or forgot to flush out the system and clogged part of the tubing... it will be mine, ALL MINE!!!)

I'm a Two-Bit Tramp!

My fiance's mother found this and passed it along as her "suggestion" for the wording on our wedding invitation as a joke (or so she claims). My fiance finds this absolutely hysterical, and has taken to calling me two-bit. I'm continuing to remind him that it is not too late for me to call off the wedding, sell the ring on ebay, and use the money to take a nice long vacation someplace tropical with my best friend (any location preference, Mark?).


Also, we recently received word that a private donor will be giving our lab $75,000 for the purchase of a new protein purification system. I think I may have shed a tear of joy upon hearing the news. What does it say about my life that just the mere news that we will be getting a new purification system sometime in the upcoming months ranks among the top three events of my year, immediately behind passing comprehensive exams and getting engaged?

Julie vs. Laboratory Equipment, Battle #19

As you may recall, I have had really bad luck with centrifuges in the past. You would think that by third year, I would have figured out this simple piece of laboratory equipment. But alas.... no.
At some point over the summer, the really large old centrifuge in the freezer room across the hall turned into a really large, really expensive, new centrifuge across the hall that happens to play music at the end of each round (My Bonnie, to be precise).
I happen to be mass-producing bacteria at the moment since I am on purification attempt #21,943 (at least) and am going through my bacterial pellets at an alarmingly high rate. I was spinning down bacteria all evening yesterday with no problems whatsoever, and had the last batch to spin down this morning. Samples in, set centrifuge, push start, come back 15 minutes later and... rotor lid is stuck on tight. Three wrenches and a jar of motor oil later... rotor lid is still stuck on tight, and there is no way my samples are coming out, short of sawing through the gazillion dollar rotor.

Would now be an appropriate time to give the centrifuge one good, swift kick and just altogether quit?

Halloween Hangover

3,000 miles away, my PI is still ruining controlling my life. This week happens to be one of the rare times when both PIs (we’re one of those dual-investigator laboratories) are out of town at a conference in Seattle. And you know what that means – when Mom and Dad are away, the kids will play! (Although both PIs are male, so while we use the previous phrase frequently, we have yet to establish which is Mom and which is Dad). This event most fortuitously occurred during the end of October simultaneously with the traditional Medical Center Graduate Student Organization open-bar happy hour event. Hmm… no boss, and hours upon hours of free booze. A graduate student’s dream, yes?

With all the stars in perfect alignment, we took this as a giant green light to drink our little hearts out. The night was going really quite well up until the bartender gave us a round of random shots which happened to contain (unbeknownst to me) a new grape vodka. For starters, grape and booze is a bad, bad mix indeed (seriously, it tasted like cough syrup, which is not what I want when I'm out at a bar), but I also happen to have a most unfortunate allergy to artificial grape flavoring, which rapidly ended my night of free drinks.

I made it home a bit before 2am and climbed into bed with the smug satisfaction that there would be no alarm going off in the morning. We took bets on who would be the first to make it to lab the next day, but were quite positive that nobody would be strolling in before noon.

Most unfortunately for me, my PI is either capable of extraordinary telekinesis, or has implanted some kind of guilt-ridden microchip into my brain, because I was in lab by 9:30am. 3,000 miles away, and my PI still has the ability to physically drag me into the lab, even with a hangover. I believe this would be the exact definition of the term whipped, as he now seems to exert complete control over my life, even when not around.

In other news, I also went trick-or-treating yesterday for the first time in 10+ years. Sadly, rather than costumes and candy, I was forced to go lab to lab in my laboratory coat begging for DI water (perhaps a sign that my life has reached a new low?), as the building DI water system went down and I needed to make fresh buffers for a purification run. The confused stares I received while knocking on doors and calling out “trick or treat” were mildly entertaining, however.