Hi all.  I’m back from Kauai.  It was really amazing - some nice shots are posted over at Flickr.  Right now I’m freaking out about the defense date that is next month.  SO much to do. Life is kind of punctuated by these high-stress moments where I sink into my head and fret about the future.  Getting everything ready for the defense, finishing my experiments and handing them off, trying to find a job, and hoping I don’t get evicted.  That pretty much sums up my headspace right now.  Send me some good mojo!

148 pages.  That is how much dissertation I’ve got right now.  I’m estimating the final product to be around 180, so that’s 82% finished.  Not too bad considering it is still two months away.  I’ve got plenty of more experiments to do, but things are lining up nicely.  I must confess that I still have a sinking feeling about all of it - that some kind of train (literal or metaphorical) will blindside me beforehand.  Everyone else says that’s just nerves and I want to believe that.

I’m off to Kuaui tomorrow for a week. Yay!  I’ll try to get some light and breezy Diss editing done - stuff for the plane ride and the like.  Check my flickr photos if you want to keep tabs on the amount of macadamia  encrusted goodies I’m chowing on.

One year ago today I started “writing” for raffyd.com. It didn’t take the direction I’d planned (good blogging is hard) but it’s fun and interesting and I’m going to keep doing it. I’ve posted 91 times in the last year, which averages out to a new post more frequent than every four days! It certainly didn’t feel that often though; and some posts are obviously more interesting and readable than others. But, this is my geeky, nerdy, outlet and I love that I have a few faithful readers who tune into it. You guys are the best - thanks!

[tags]happy birthday, raffyd[/tags]

“October is ambitious, November is realistic.”

but as much as we need to leave, making new friends has me thinking its okay to stay just a bit longer.

“UCI conferring record number of doctorates” - I am one of the 298. Yay.

[tags]uci, doctorate, commencement[/tags]

It was a solid Memorial Day weekend here; a real fun, wholesome time. Although I had little too much Bar-B-Que (read: beer) and not nearly enough thesis writing. Can you blame me? A certain family member made third place in a very competitive contest in Long Beach. (Ask me more for the deets.)

Also, did I mention that you guys totally exceeded my fund raising expectations for O.C. AIDS Walk? I ended up netting $480 which is about four times what I thought I would get. See? Thanks again to all of you who helped!

Lastly, this blog will be one year old come June July. It is my goal to make 100 rich and tantalizing posts by then, so you’ll be seeing my posting frequency increase. For the record, this is number 81. Unfortunately, my endeavour says nothing of of my posting quality. But hey, you try writing an update to friends and nonfriends every 3.6525 days. Hmmm?

[tags]bbq, AIDS Walk, blogging[/tags]

Gahhh. I just upgraded my blogging software and hit a bit of a snag with my theme….hence the “defaultish” look. Rest assured, I’ll be wearing some stylish new threads shortly though; I had been planning a visual overhaul recently. Update: Ok, I think I might stick with this three column theme called Mandigo. I’ve set the colors and banner to rotate each time you load the page. If there’s something you like or don’t like about the new look then just say so! Reader feedback from all your non-feed folks would be nice.

These days I’ve been prepping for “the hunt.”

No, I’m not donning camouflage and fluorescent orange caps like the mid-Michigander in me might. I’m referring to the job hunt I’ll be on in the next half of a year. I’ve been going to resumé workshops so I can look good on paper, and doing some popular literature searches so I can look good in pin stripes.

Also, this week I attended HIV / AIDS on the Frontline, a conference focused primarily on HIV+ patient issues for caregivers. I would not have consider myself part of that cohort just a few weeks ago, but my work with ACTION has certainly changed that lately. An added bonus for me was the number of pharma corps. there talking about their latest drugs. Even though I consider my thesis to be more cancer focused, I sometimes forget that our retroviral work extensively overlaps with HIV research. I was able to talk to a number of scientists about potential job opportunities working in the HIV focused areas of these companies.

I learned there a number of exciting, new anti-HIV drugs coming out in the next few months. These are getting a lot of press lately because they appear to work well and they target parts of the viral life-cycle that available anti-retroviral drugs do not. Who knows, maybe I will end up working with these medicines in just a few months?

[tags]AIDS, biotechnology, HIV, hunt, job, pharmaceutical, biotechnology [/tags]

Not long ago, a similarly malcontented graduate scientist here at UCI suggsted a “Delurking Week” on his blog. This involves a post which my many adoring fans will finally fess up and drop a note in the comment bucket. This means all of you (and I do mean you, <insert your first name here>) can feel free to type whatever, maybe even mention why you read or whether or not you care about the nerdy geeky things I post about.

Some trivia about my readers: My blog is not well read (and it’s content probably warrants that.) Nonetheless, I’m surprised I get over a dozen readers a day - most of whom are repeat offenders. I pay attention to statistics about each of you. (Is that creepy? I hope not. I just love data.) I get a lot of readers who find relevant posts via search engines like Google Image Search and MSN. Many of you are personal friends and I’m happy you still read the site six months after I launched it. One of you really isn’t a friend anymore, but you read my blog anyways and I think that’s cool. I know I should post more, and in the near future I’m sure you’ll see a lot more content about my job search / location search / what-to-do-now search. Also, I’ll probably post some experimental results soon - so you can see the kind of fun stuff I get to look at all day. Hopefully, I won’t get scooped off that! Now, comment!

[tags]delurking week[/tags]

Yet another post regretful about the lack of attention I’ve given my blog. Sigh…

But hey, its my blog and I’ll write when I feel like it right? (thanks for reading though!) Anyway, I’ve been really busy being a Grading Monkeyâ„¢ for the two classes I’m TA’ing this quarter. Its currently midterms season so there’s lots of scantrons to run and short answer questions to write zeros next to. I’ve also been trying to get a professional website going for Vladimir. Nothing is even remotely ready yet, but I think it will turn out to be a lot easier than I thought. Actually, the most difficult thing has been trying to find a photographer to take some good portrait and performance shots….for cheap. I mean, I’m decent enough with a camera but so much of compelling photography is in the lighting, and that stuff is just tricky. Ah well, that’s the update for now. Send me a shout-out if you’d like - they make me happier than anyone knows.