Not OK

Not sure if I should blame global warming or the amplification of commercial influence, but I saw my first Christmas tree of the season while wearing a t-shirt and flipflops. Has California invaded Bethesda? And what happened to Santa at the Macy's THANKSGIVING day parade being the official bringer of the season?

I'm obviously getting old. ... ... back in my day...

A backroads (metric) century

(Apologies for this post being months late at this point! Better late than never?)

One sunny Saturday morning, I groggily arose at dawn to drive out to Berryville, VA for the annual Backroads Century. Well, the process actually started the night before, when I bought lots of bungee cords and cables and twine at the local hardware store and proceeded to immobilize my bicycle on the back of my little civic.

I am happy to report, the bike and I made the trip uneventfully (although I was nervously glancing in my rearview mirror and driving like an old person on the beltway). I parked at the fairgrounds in Berryville, undid all my careful rigging, and suited up for a nice ride. It is an uneventful start: you say hi, get a cue sheet, and go. I was riding alone, as the ride sold out before I could convince my skeptical friends. The roads were indeed "back," with no need to shut down traffic. The hoards of neon lycra wielding, gel devouring, cleat snapping, exhausted cyclists were gracefully spread out across the course, so it was rare to see more than 5 riders in a given stretch.

The ride came with pit-stops, and the first was particularly memorable. There was a music group, comprised of a harp, lute, and weird hitty-stringy-thing that serenaded the mass of potato-munching roadies.

The roads were gorgeous. Such a pleasure to ride.

I do want to mention the hills.

There were hills.

I am NOT used to them.  While they make everything uber-picturesque, they also make my quads scream in rebellion while I slowly plod up them with very little grace (or dignity).  The ride was along the Shenandoah river, meaning that the course took us down to the riverbed and then back UP in the last miles.  There was also a stellar hill as part of the 65-mile route that no other routes covered, so I felt particularly bad-ass despite not doing the full century.

I made a few friends along the way.  A group of police officers rode with me during the special 65-mi route  segment, and it definitely made time go faster to hear about their other riding experiences: one guy does the massive police bike ride from New York to DC, where hundreds of officers are accompanied by police cars with sirens flashing as they pass through small towns and big cities to honor fallen officers.  In the last 5 miles I rode with someone riding expensive carbon fiber and wearing a "Team RadioShack" (aka Lance Armstrong-phile) jersey that probably cost more than my bicycle.  He was part of the zippy peloton I had been passed by earlier (at an alarming speed and distance), but his leg cramped up so in his injured state he was more my kind of rider.  We finished the ride together, with each little rise in the road making me grimace.  He somehow tricked me, using his stories of climbing Mt. Ventoux after le Tour went past, to get me to keep up with his pace.  I finished the ride fast than I started.

Then I collected my free shirt and waterbottle, ate some snacks, and slowly returned to my car where the re-rigging process could begin.

Fantastic experience, and I'm quite pleased I pulled off a good 100k ride without much prep.

Taste of Bethesda

Some pictures from a nice day wandering around food stalls in Bethesda with my friend Elizabeth. Bethesda is unofficially the (a) restaurant capital of the East Coast, and there are hundreds in town that were all out to cater to our changeable and discerning wandering palates. Good weather, good food for not too much money, and ultimately a very successful day. Aw, Bethesda, you've grown on me in the last year!

Dave in America!

In the midst of thesis panic and impending deadline doom, Dave planned a trip to come to Bethesda and talk me back to sanity.  Then I got an extension on my thesis (heh, who *didn't see that coming?) and his visit could be a giant sigh of relief and a much needed pause in my mad dash to the D.Phil. finish line.  Unlike his first visit to our great nation's capital city, we did NOT make lots of plans to do and to go and to visit (and to get strep throat).  We still ended up doing a lot of going and visiting, but it was relaxed and wonderful.

The first few days were spent doing absolutely nothing in particular.  Then we graduated to dinner with local friends (and family, yay Emily!).  The second weekend we advanced into a slightly impromptu road trip up to New York.  En route we picked up Dave's friend from Oxford, Tom, who's working on a very impressive doctor of philosophy in philosophy at Rutgers.  We left the turnpike--never a bad thing--and detoured into New Brunswick to collect Tom and get some tasty falafel before getting back on the road to Long Island.

Dave and I at new Citi Field, following a (gasp) Mets Victory.  The Mets are like the French of Baseball.

On the way, I managed to put a philosophical foot in my mouth (so, Tom, my one experience with philosophy was in this class at MIT where we repeatedly tortured a rather silly thought experiment about grains of sand and heaps and so forth and I thought it was the most ridiculous and irritating experience during my undergraduate education... oh, that is what your undergraduate thesis was on? right.  I'm sure it was me then.  ), get lost in Staten Island (I am not good at crossing umpteen lanes of traffic post toll-booth) and find absolutely stunning stop-and-go traffic from the Verrazano bridge to La Guardia Airport.  But we eventually made it to Citi Field, where I got to help the two Brits understand the finer, or at least more specific, points of our great national pastime from the nosebleed section.  And then the Mets won, which confused us all but made the crowd leaving the stadium a little more "enthusiastic beer-infused" rather than grumpy drunk.  We inched out of the parking lots and meandered into Jackson Heights for a rather incongruous dining experience at an affordable but swanky South American restaurant serving gargantuan portions and a one-man karaoke marathon.  Stuffed, sleepy, Dave and I said goodnight to Tom and made the drive out to Bayport where my parents were still awake to greet us.  

Tom looks quite content with his portion size.  I did have to remind him ahead of time that he should NOT order paella as Pie-Ella.  Aww, Brits.

Dave and Elizabeth at Guapo's mexican restaurant in Tenleytown.  The food was good, the margaritas were plentiful :)

 Being home is always wonderful, and I was really happy that my parents had another chance to get to know Dave a little better.  Dad drove us out to the vineyards on the North Fork, and I think both he and Dave could share an eye roll at my mother and I kvetching after a few tastings.  My mother convinced us all that the cloudy day just made the vineyards more dramatically beautiful, and we left the last vineyard feeling very happy, a little tipsy, and carrying multiple bottles for later.  

Monday we returned to DC via Annapolis, meeting up with Manus for a crab feast at Cantler's restaurant.  While the boys shook their heads and dived into it, I took the waitress's offer of a crab-dissection demo.  I will NEVER enjoy the green goop being anywhere near things that I eat, but I did manage to improve my crab eating skills by several orders of magnitude.  There was so much seafood (covered in so much Old Bay) that Manus spoke for us all when he finished his last shrimp and said "I feel like the bottom of the ocean."  It was great to see him before he and his family move down to Nashville for his next big job adventure at Vanderbilt University.  Dave and I had an espresso in the charming local coffee shops of Annapolis before finally making our way back to Bethesda.

A few days later, I had to drive him to the airport and say good bye, again.  In some ways, I'm getting better at all of this, but it really is quite hard to do.  It was a fabulous visit.   And now I feel quite refreshed and refocused for all the things I have in front of me this month.

Family time for birthdays

For my 26th birthday, conveniently falling on a weekend this year, I made a rather impromptu decision to trek up to Long Island for some quality family time.  Considering the majority of my blog audience IS said family, this is a rather unnecessary post.  Still, there are pictures at least!

I called Mom to make sure they would actually be home that weekend.  Then I called Andy to randomly ask if he felt like coming out too.  And, because he is the bestest sibling ever (or *really* wanted to spend oodles of frequent flier miles and enjoy the lovely Delta experience), he made a quick late night decision to book a ticket and come too.  Suddenly my birthday was, well, fantastic.

Arrived on a slow moving bus from Bethesda (a few blocks from my apartment) to Penn Station (importantly, adjacent to a Starbucks... I had a caffeine withdrawal headache after the extra hour of Lincoln Tunnel traffic), and was picked up in style by the parents in the Prius who had scooped up an Obama-Detroit-visit-delayed-Andy from JFK en route.  Mom has named the Prius "Slick" before dad can come up with another PT Cruiser Porkchop equivalent, although "the Beep-Mobile" may catch on.  We glided silently and fuel-efficiently down to Chelsea, parked, and walked over to the latest and greatest addition to the island of Manhattan: the Highline.

A decaying, grisly ghost of an elevated train line running along the eastern avenues of NYC has been looming over the meatpacking district for ages now. Someone had the good sense to turn it into a pedestrian only elevated park, with wild and natural plantlife and spectacular views through, around, over, into, and beyond the buildings it navigates.  I don't have too many experiences being able to see the Hudson river, which is suggested in the glow of the setting sun in the nice family photo taken by a Droid-savvy passerby.

Following a nice walk along the finished section, we traversed the trendy meat-packing district (which does actually still have a sausage making plant or two amid the ultra hip restaurants!) and found our Zagat recommended mexican restaurant.  Some Margaritas, guacamole, and AMAZING FOOD later, and we waddled back to the Prius, er, "Slick," and drove out the island to home.

Saturday we spent the whole day in relaxed food preparation mode, with fresh corn being shucked, marinated chicken bits being skewered, cornbread being "set," and lots of goodies facing the outdoor grill (BBQ maestro Andy in charge).  Barbara and Charlie came from next door, bringing even more food, and we ate an epic feast of birthday deliciousness.  And I blew out four candles (four years until I'm thirty!) set into glorious rhubarb cupcakes with burnt butter icing.  Utterly perfect.

The next night we had presents.  Pictured is Andy, with his belated birthday presents from the parents.  I headed back to the Penn Station bus with lots of kitchen goods: my family knows me well :)

Well, I am clearly rambling on here to avoid working on my latest thesis chapter.  Tsk tsk.  Did I mention?  Dave's present to me is a visit this September, so I need to have lots of thesis done by then!

Places to chip away at my thesis

While Starbucks is a tried and true place for caffeine-infused studying, it can be a little cacophonous at times.  I've just found this gem: the courtyard at the (free) national portrait gallery.  I will come back, with either a charged laptop battery or more primitive pen/paper tasks as there don't appear to be outlets in a space that used to be outside!  Natural light, a bigger space to buffer other people's conversations, and the ability to take a break and see art... good, random, hidden oasis in a rather obnoxious DC chinatown.

But, for now, no power on my laptop. Back to Bethesda I go!

Molly and Dave see even more ancient Rome

Dave had the marvelous idea that the two of us could take a day trip to the city of Bath: picnic in his backpack, train tickets at the station, in, out, doing exactly as we pleased for a day without needing plans (or maps?)

I have wanted to go to Bath for a while now.  Like any Austen acolyte, I felt like I knew the characters of the spa town (even though Persuasion and Northanger Abbey are the two books set there and the two books I haven't ever read).  While the city is not an Austen re-enactment theme park, and there aren't people walking around in empire-waisted gowns and long gloves and bonnets tut-tutting about the latest gossip of impropriety, the buildings are stately and the landscape is lush.  I really like English scenery, and it's just a teeny bit shocking how little I've seen of it during my life in Oxford.

Anyway, Dave and I trekked up the gentle hill, past the "circus" aka roundabout and up to the Royal Crescent.  I expected a huge arc of stately row houses and all the pomp and circumstance one would associate with the word "royal."  Instead there was a rather bleak facade without so much as a balcony, fancy doorway, or window box of flowers to add any interest or character, and what I could see of the street in front through the overgrown grass was a sea of delivery and maintenance vans.  Sigh.  Still, we had a lovely picnic in the adjoining park and watched silly tourists make repeated attempts at self-timer photographs of the two of them leaping in mid-air in front of the rather uninspiring crescent.  Click, run, count-down, jump, giggle, check, repeat.

Heading back into town, we paid our admission to the roman baths, which are actually quite remarkable.  They are supposedly the best preserved roman baths ever, and are literally in the middle of modern-day streets.  The audio guide and museum exhibits are exhaustive, and I think Dave and I both had flashbacks to the brutal tour of Herculaneum ruins during our trip to Italy last Easter... something about looking at columns, and pediments, and sculpted heads, and coins, and and and the will to be enthusiastic is slowly sapped out of us.  Add some warm sun, and Roman ruins might just be the most draining endeavor a tourist could take on!  Well, we have made a pact.  No more ancient Rome for us two tourists.  I don't care if they find new ruins in New York City, we are done!  Still, this head was pretty cool:

We were too late to go into the pump room after our tour through the exhibits, and thus we weren't given the option of trying (cleaned?) water from the baths.  Bill Bryson on the audio guide did not make it sound tasty, so I think we were fine with missing out.  After a long day, we teetered back to the train station, returning to Oxford around 9 or so at night.  Even though there wasn't a big splashy Emma or Elizabeth moment, I do think that a little bit of Austen fairy dust came into play as Dave and I reconnected and slipped back into our comfortable and blissful coexistence.  Just prior to arriving at Oxford station, we came to the remarkable conclusion that despite our fancy culinary aspirations, all we really craved for dinner was a big bag of chips.  We got a large bag to share, some with ketchup, some with vinegar, and couldn't even make it through half before giving up and going to bed :)

The Donahues in Annapolis

Stockholm in Pictures

Album with my photos, plus a few gratefully poached from friends with better cameras and better photography instincts!

Sweden_ISMRM

Life on a boat

For my last night in Stockholm I looked for cheaper accommodations, since my roommate at the very central Best Western Hotel Terminus (guess where it is...) flew back to the states a day before me. Seeing as hostels are annoying on weekends, and the attractively low prices usually get bumped up with extra fees for sheets, towels, and breakfast, I decided to go with my gut: I officially moved onto the Malardrottningen, a massive yacht semi-permanently anchored off of the old city island. (credit Dan Bulte for this pic)

My cabin was small but cozy, with two curtained portholes overlooking the broad Malar and the city's southwestern skyline. My two portholes were surprisingly close to the water level, and a small sign below them warned that leaving windows open may lead to flooding problems... I left them shut. The bathroom was quirky, with one wall on hinges to section off a shower area. The key to my cabin was attached to a (buoyant) piece of cork, and a bottle opener. Ahoy :)

When I first moved in, I admit to an overwhelming urge to giggle. (I live on a boat!) (This is a boat!) (Holy crap, I live on a boat!) I wish that I had moved in sooner, but at least I had the one night. The narrow staircases and decorative rope knots in glass displays, the figurehead perching out from a wall near the entrance, the steady buzz permeating the floors and walls from the engines... I live on a boat!

I was a little intrigued by how much or how little I was affected by the rocking of my boat-hotel. Granted, the waters were reasonably calm during my stay there, but there was a definite (subtle) sway. When sleeping, I could barely notice any movement. But standing over the sink, eyes closed to wash my face, I felt as if I might fall over at any minute. Funny how the brain translates such a minute motion.

The boat was given to Barbara Hutton for her 18th birthday (Hutton is famous for her, um, prolific string of boyfriends and husbands, including Cary Grant, as well as her daddy's obscene amount of money). I believe that her 19th birthday involved discovering a one million dollar check under her pillow. Sometime after her ownership, I believe the British army used it as an anti-submarine vessel, and then it was passed around numerous times until settling into the hands of a hotel-savvy family. To anyone visiting Stockholm, I recommend the experience. There are other boat-hotels, but my boat is the one in All the pictures. I can even see my portholes on some of the guidebooks!

Physicists know how to party, aka ABBA!

The closing farewell reception of the annual ISMRM conference is a massive affair--there are, after all, over 6 thousand people in attendance. However, the "entertainment" is often comparable to background white noise, or worse, just plain bad. Last year we had a talent show, and not even the epic skills of a professional didgeridoo player cum scientist could balance the poor showing of the "stand up comedians" that emerged painfully from the MRI community. However, Stockholm's organizers broke the mold and produced perhaps the greatest farewell reception in the history of the conference.

After opening with drinks and a buffet, the organizers emerged to award the "Not-So-Nobel" Prize to one of the many entrants in the poster competition for the worst MRI ideas ever. For example, self-operated scanning, homeopathic MRI, cooking an egg using faulty coils at 7T, etc. Then, the local chief organizer fulfilled what must have been a childhood dream, shouting things like "Are you Ready to Rock" to the crowd of primed scientists. The show was two-part. Part I: The ice-breaker. Waterloo, the "most famous ABBA cover band," played every ABBA hit complete with several costume changes. From tiny skirts to lycra body suits to hideous long dresses, the front women lured in the normally uptight science nerds with their good looks and choreographed Dancing Queen. PIs from all over the world were "singing with their eyes closed" while dancing pressed up to the stage until the very last number. While several exhausted presenters and moderators (or party poopers) drifted back to their hotels at this stage, a crowd of a few thousand remained for an all female rock cover band, culminating in a sea of bespectacled nerds jumping up and down to "Highway to Hell." Who knew we geeks had it in us?

After this epic spectacle, fully photo-documented by all male audience members who were entranced by the lycra-wielding ABBA singers, most groups found their way to various pubs and bars along the tunnelbanna and pendeltag arteries of the city. And around 2am we turned into pumpkins and tottered back to our respective hotels. Friday morning sessions were surprisingly well attended, but most participants were bleary eyed and incoherent. The presenters were blessed with very few questions :)

Education, Her Majesty, and smoked raindeer

And so commences my fourth annual meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. Stockholm is quite different than last year's destination (yeah, well, not many places can compete with Hawaii on it's terms) but I am gently smitten with the city. It has a calm and friendly charm, and while I am spending a small fortune in kroner to simply eat and take the trains (and have a few pints, I admit) I think that this is one of my favorite European destinations so far. I see the city as an ideal place to try out my new verb: flaneur. My understanding is that this guy decided the best way to really see and feel a city is to organically wander through its streets, and an entire movement of flaneurs and flaneuring agreed with him in some earlier decade. Stockholm is utterly walkable, and the narrow cobbled streets of the old city, the numerous bridges with uniquely stunning views of the broad waters winding their way through the center of town, and the church spires and wide painted window shutters that add details to landscape all make being a flaneur an addictive endeavor.

But, I am not technically in Stockholm to see the sights. I am more or less resigned to keeping sight seeing to a reasonably low level until the conference winds down. This morning was an early start, as I made my way on the commuter train to the conference center in time to see the opening awards ceremony and plenary lectures. Her Majesty, the Queen of Sweden, graced us with her pleasingly queen-like presence and officially opened our proceedings. She was beautiful, and said a few prepared cliche words before being a very magnanimous medal presenter. Pretty cool.

In the main Lauterbur lecture, named after one of the scientists who was awarded a Nobel Prize (also in Sweden!) for initiating the field of MRI, the speaker ended his talk on the "Future of MRI" by covering the precise area of research that I am trying to break into. That was highly satisfying.

I am not quite in conference mode yet... I went to a few good talks, barely kept my eyes open through a few bad ones, and did come back up to my hotel for an afternoon nap at one point! The evening played out successfully, as my study section meeting of MR of Cancer provided a full Swedish buffet dinner of salmon, herring, fishy noodles, meatballs, potatoes, and (yes!) smoked raindeer with a lingonberry horseradish topping. The study group had a surprising program this year, focusing on how to navigate finding funding and moving up in a career in MR Cancer research, before ending with an almost heated debate over how to get oncologists to actually use MRI for routine cancer diagnosis and prognosis. (You can imagine that a room full of scientists, steeped in bitterness at not having the lifestyle generally associated with the medical profession, had a few choice words about our medical professional colleagues :-p )

After that I joined up with friends at the "Brit Party," a London lab-derived annual pub outing that I am indirectly "invited" to via my grapevine of UK friends. No matter where in the world we are, we can find an Irish pub to invade en masse (or en queue, perhaps?). I'd like to give a big shout-out to my good friend Manus, who is not only awesome, but patient and nice enough to let me tag along in the hopes that his awesomeness is contagious. After both of us left England only to spend months of living about an hour away in the US and never managing a visit, it was fantastic to catch up with him. He was excited at the prospect of being blogged about, so here you go. Hopefully I will visit him and his family back in Maryland and have future posts with adorable pictures of a toddling Megan and tales of Annapolis crab feasts.

After some quality Oxford-reminiscing, I'm now back in my hotel and acutely aware that my language skills really should not have been applied to a blog post! Thanks for bearing with me, more to come soon!

Hej, Sverige!

Today I arrived in Stockholm for my annual MRI conference, and I will try to be good at writing down my experiences this week so that my mom knows I'm doing fine and having fun :)

I know probably 20 words in Swedish now, but it's impressive how much I can guess based on general language deciphering skills and hefty help from context clues. I had a 7:15am flight from Heathrow, which required a 0400 bus, which required a 0315 wake up and a very supportive Dave to get me to the Oxford bus station in one groggy piece. I was surprised to see the bus more crowded than usual, despite the odd hour; 4am is a very happening time at Gloucester Green. A few other people from my Oxford lab were also on the same (brutally) early schedule, but had a slightly different flight booked, so we parted ways after the bus and met back up in Stockholm. One thing for early morning plane-commuting: I napped the entire bus ride and the entire plane trip and probably recouped about 3 hours of my beauty sleep. Not my prettiest day, perhaps, but I wasn't looking or feeling as bad as expected.

My first impression upon landing at Arlanda was that the terminal was exceedingly sexy. It was all vertical glass and muted dark brown wood flooring. The entire place operated with silent and smooth sliding glass doors (none of your rattling grocery store equivalent) and the waiting area chairs were vaguely reminiscent of the Poang (sans IKEA fabric choices). I met up with Rob (another post-grad student from Oxford) and we took the high-speed direct train to the center of Stockholm. Together we navigated the central station, combining my surprisingly successful word-guessing and the overlap of his fluent Dutch with actual Swedish, and successfully purchased 7-day passes for all local public transportation. We eventually swished down to the convention center to register and receive our super hip conference bags and nametags, before returning to hotels for pre-dinner naps (joy!).

We met up again, with Dan (also Ox) and some London friends, to head west for a unique Swedish experience: April 30th is the big Walpurgis festival night, where bonfires are set to fend off witches and demons while Swedish songs are sung by choirs and folksingers. Think Swedish version of a folksy springtime Halloween. The biggest celebration in Stockholm is held at Skansen, a MASSIVE outdoor "museum" that was initially created to give city dwellers a glimpse into traditional country life. We will definitely be returning to see more of the authentic houses and farms, along with the moose and bears and wolverines. There are also many docents dressed in traditional clothing to explain how things work etc. Anyway, for Walpurgis the center stage area is packed with people listening to folk choirs, talking amongst themselves, eating and drinking. At 9pm the bonfire was lit (during a slightly frustrating steady drizzle)-- I was amazed at the quantity and density of the billowing smoke pouring forth onto the crowd, reminiscent of a strange sideways volcano, probably grounding all planes from traveling at tourist eye-level. We were a safe distance away, and enjoyed our Swedish meatballs (just called meatballs here, by the way) and quinoa salads and uber-expensive alcohol from a lung-friendly distance. The evening was really nice and relaxed, letting us soak up a Swedish tradition without very much faff. Good food, good company, music that reminds me of a blend of german biergarten oompah bands, christmas carols, and Woody Guthrie, and a pretty special vision of a billowing bonfire framed by the spires of the Stockholm skyline... a very nice start to my visit.

Tomorrow, I get educated. I may also get the courage to say something in Swedish to another person. Will keep you updated!

1000 miles

Today I reached a rather satisfying milestone... 1k on the trusty Jamis Satellite.  I've been rather neglectful of my faithful steed, and with the combination of the great damage inflicted on it by careless shipping companies with the look of disapproval by the repair guys when they saw the state of the (uninjured) chain I have recently pledged to treat it with more respect and coddling.  The chain is, and will forevermore appear, silver.

The magical 1k appeared only a few miles out from home on the Capital Crescent trail, as I dodged powerwalking grannies and little kids weaving about on their Christmas presents for the first time.  The *perfect* weather we've been having seems to funnel everyone into the public park-y places, but slowing down for joggers also meant slowing down to enjoy the day.  I ended up on a 30+ mile jaunt to Alexandria, where a nice fellow cyclist named Johnny (big burly guy in baby blue lycra) watched my bike while I purchased some much needed Starbucks refreshments.  I almost called us "bikers."  Can I call us that?  So badass in our matching spandex outfits with diaper padding in the shorts and shoes that make us waddle like penguins.

The trail I rode passes by National Airport, and I joined a bunch of really excitable kids and their parents in watching the planes come in to land directly over our heads.  Planes are really cool.  The ride mostly followed the Potomac all the way from Bethesda, so I had some other splendid vistas of the mall monuments, the Pentagon, the cathedral, and other classics.  The last 8 miles are a gentle uphill incline, so I managed to arrive at home feeling nice and tired... and since my body clock insists that I am in a time-zone in the middle of the Atlantic, I really felt that I could go to bed around 7pm.  I baked muffins and resisted the urge to pass out, but now it is a very reasonable 10:15pm and I think I shall call it a day.  A thousand miles.  And I only *almost fell off my bike in the SPD shoes once!  I think I can say I'm a cyclist now?

Last thoughts from visit to Ox

It's been a few days since my return to America, and despite my jetlag telling me that 10:20pm is a perfectly good time to go to bed, I did promise a few more comments about my Oxford visit:

The most random and wonderful addition to the trip was a semi-spontaneous house dinner fueled by a central theme of "red."  When all three females realized we were in posession of red dresses, and the men admitted to owning red bowties and cummerbunds, someone offhandendly suggested we hold a formal "red tie" dinner at the flat where all the food was red.  With normal people, in normal places, this would just be a comment, soon to be forgotten.  But with my friends, in very eveningwear-friendly Oxford, we proceeded to do exactly what was proposed.  Four courses, with several red cocktails and copious amounts of red wine, and very impractical couture, provided the most memorable night of my trip :)  [Note: Dave did *not* actually find his red bowtie and was forced to wear a blinking red bike light in its place]

Following a charming tea and cake session with the ladies (Clive, Laura, Lara, YoursTruly) and a brief eyeglasses modeling show at the neighboring Boots, Lara and I attacked the covered market with a shopping list in hand... Lara to the butchers, Molly to the fishmongers.  I was busy batting my eyelashes at the fishy mongerer, insisting that I would much prefer to have enough bits removed from the red mullet to have it impossible to determine if the animal ever had fins or scales or eyes or was ever alive, when I receive a desperate message from Lara... oh dear, what part of the leg is a haunch exactly?  Rush over to the butchers, decide that the hunk labeled "haunch" would do nicely, and after a few more seconds of eyelash batting we purchase the kilo of meat and even get some suggestions on cooking.  A quick stop at the veggie-monger (is that a term?) and we're bound for home.  The soup is the first order of business, roasting red peppers.  The tiniest of Nick's chili tree chilis went in, and it was plenty!  The risotto was still made with white wine, but some red pesto (and red food coloring) made the final presentation ridiculous enough for our menu theme.  Red mullet, preivously red venison, a beetroot puree and some braised red cabbage left the diners slightly woozy with overstuffing.  A short pause and we were back for the red velvet cake!

Also, an important victory, we did not spill anything from the feast onto the very beige carpet!

I met with my lab supervisor briefly, and actually had two hours of his time devoted to me.  It's amazing, I think I can sum up my secret hopes for meetings like that as "I really just want us to stand in front of a white board together"  and my wishes were finally realized!  He had some very good suggestions for what to try with my unruly, temperamental data, and I am feeling a bit more calm about the thesis writing after what we talked about.

Dave and I had an amazing Slovakian dinner in St. Clements... for being a quasi vegetarian for most of my life, I have certainly taken to a meat-dumpling-sauerkraut cuisine.  Dave was very happy with his giant knuckle of pork, and I nibbled my pheasant between gulps of very elegant cocktails, before we bolted at the end of the meal to make it in time for our evening engagement at the nearby pub: a few colleagues from lab came out to have a few pints since I wasn't able to really chat with them at work, and the banter was very satisfactory (no shop talk!  amazing!).

I took the weekend slowly, mainly staying tucked up on the couch with Dave reading the newspaper or watching episodes of Lewis on tv.  It feels slightly odd to admit it, but domesticity can be bliss when done right.

I took a midday flight back to DC, watching some quality Oscar-winning cinema between snippets of naps, and even managed to swing a ride home to my apartment after bumping into another guy from my program on the same flight.  I feel very chic, my jetsetting lifestyle making it commonplace to know other travelers on transatlantic flights :-p

One month until I return, and next visit will be a whole two weeks and involve orchestras and more trips up to lab.  Only a month?  It is* getting easier to be far away the more I practice, and it definitely helps to have an exact date that I am counting down to.... 29 days and counting?!

Photo Album: Almost spring in Oxford

Molly's visit to Oxford, March 2010, initial photos

I always wanted to be Queen...

Tuesday I ventured to a part of England I have never been before... google "croyden face-lift" for some lovely derogatory remarks about the surrounding environs.  The Royal Marsden Hospital has a site in Sutton, about 40 minutes out of Victoria station, which is far enough away from metropolitan London to have unmanned train stations where nothing checks that you have a ticket.  (I obviously had proper tickets, my time in Berlin has me very paranoid about traveling "schwartz.")  The hospital looks like a miserable construction of greenish corrugated metal, but is apparently immensely respected for its cancer research and treatments.  Inside is chaotic, and as someone told me "they try to keep the atmosphere very upbeat seeing as it is a cancer hospital."  It succeeds at the bubbly optimism, but it still feels structurally like an old elementary school.

I was making the journey to meet with a highly established researcher that I spoke with just prior to leaving Oxford in December.  She is referred to as the "Queen of HIFU."  Awesome.  My college tutor had arranged a coffee meeting for us all, thinking that we might get along and I might do well to move into this area of research.  Yes, despite not being the typical "old boy" in the Oxford world, the old boys club has been taking care of me of late.

At that meeting, we talked in very vague generalities... "I think I might want to do X" and "Y is very interesting to me" and "I like how P and Q would utilize good parts of the research I do now."  I liked her, and the way she was very straightforward and open to my opinions and interests.  It was a no-brainer to ask to meet her again on this visit, and after sending a very over-thought three-paragraph email I had a nearly instant two sentence reply: "OK, great!  The 9th or 10th would be best for me."  Life lesson: don't fret too much about subtle wording in letters to busy academics.

This meeting was different, as I came in with slightly more knowledge and soul-searching under my belt.  I had read several review papers from the last few years describing the broad field of research as it currently stands as well as the promising directions for the future.  The area I am very strongly leaning towards throwing myself at would incorporate focused ultrasound (her domain) and neuro-MRI (apparently where my skills come into play).  A big problem of delivering drugs is that the blood vessels are kept very well encased, preventing most molecules you pump into the bloodstream from ever being absorbed by the tissue cells that you want to be treated.  Focused ultrasound is normally used with enough power to heat up cells in the focal point, usually bad cells in tumors etc, until they die.  BUT, if you use slightly lower power, you don't cause any damage to the cells but instead can disrupt the "blood brain barrier" for a little while.  So, a little bit of ultrasound can reversibly open up little pockets in the blood vessel walls in a very localized and controlled bit of tissue... if you inject some drugs at this point, the drugs will be kept nice and tidy in the blood vessels everywhere but the disrupted area.  You can deliver toxic drugs in much lower doses than currently being used, and actually get MORE drugs at the place you want them.  Yay!

So where does MRI come in?  Well, MRI is exceptionally good at making pretty anatomical pictures, which would be immensely helpful in figuring out where we want to direct the focused ultrasound.  Plus, if you mix in some MRI contrast agent with the drug you want to deliver, you can observe where the mixture is "leaking" into the cells successfully.  Of course, I really want to do all this in the brain, and there is a small problem... the skull causes massive distortions in the ultrasound waves, and requires really clever arrays of many ultrasound transducers all working together in an intelligent way to overcome this itty bitty gigantic problem.

This stuff has all been done by a few groups around the world.  It appears to work AND be safe in small animals.  I love the idea that with this method I could have a career working on hundreds of different medical conditions and problems.  And I would be doing a bit more physics, while still dragging in the work I already have done.  I would probably have to do animal research now, which I *think I am okay with but will need to think about.

So, I very carefully told the HIFU (high intensity focused ultrasound) guru that I "know she isn't working in this area but this is where my interest is."  And she replied that she has been wanting to get into this kind of work for a long time now.  Let's apply for a four year project grant, with me as one of the named post-docs (whoa), in a joint venture with Oxford and the Royal Marsden.  I wouldn't reinvent the wheel, but rather go to Paris, or Zurich, to learn about the magical arrays of ultrasound transducers needed to get around the skull problem, and then I would come back to the UK and implement it.

Right, so we talked a lot more, and all the details will likely bore those of you who have actually read this far down (sorry!  Is it obvious that I'm thinking about this all the time?!).  Ultimately, it is an amazing offer.  I would be in something from the baby stages, which is hard work but would make me a total expert in a field that I expect to be getting huge in the next 10 years.  It's a little overwhelming, knowing I have to write a big giant grant whilst writing a thesis, even if she says she'll helps lots.  And what if the money isn't there, just due to the way money is these days...

So I need backup plans.  But, in general, I really like this area of research.  For the first time in a long time I am very enthusiastic about science.  We shall see how this plays out...

(!)

The return to Oxford (aka growing pains)

Right, so after three months I've gone back to England.  It has been a bizarre mix of not remembering what side of the road cars are coming from but having the timing of traffic lights taken into account when I plan efficient routes into town.  I planned to get to Oxford just in time for the Philharmonia concert, with Dave conducting and friends performing, and me sitting (unusually) in the audience.  It was definitely odd, being peripheral to an orchestra I used to be a part of.  That feeling stayed with me a few days in various guises, but by the weekend I was settling in a bit better.  The trick, I think, is to pick one of two options: 1) pretend you haven't left and just slip back into everyone's normal life or 2) collapse into a slightly soggy emotional confusion until people around you are coerced into spending more time and being more patient than they expected needing to.  I obviously ended up in the second category, and people have been lovely at mopping me up.  Maybe I'll learn to go the first route in future visits.  The middle ground is far too healthy and progressive to be in the cards, I expect.

I've actually had a very busy schedule.  Day two was a general jetlag/hangover recovery day, that finished with a splendid night out with all four flatmates in pretty dresses and tuxedos.  The weekend got Dave and I down to the Thames/Isis river to see lots of proper-Oxford-types out rowing in the Hilary term bumps race.  Oxford and Cambridge are really the only places in the world where rowing becomes a contact sport.  Our flatmate Nick was coaching a girls boat, and we watched in a mixture of pain and awe and eye-rolling head-shaking deep-sighing chagrin as Nick completely stacked it trying to douse the crew with champagne following the girls' final race: the nosedive into concrete lead to a minor finger dislocation and not permanent brain damage (or is the jury still out?) so a happy ending.  It is a bit chaotic by the river, with long boats being hoisted and spun and equipped with blades, over and through crowds of tipsy camera-wielding spectators, and being dodged by cyclists with far too much faith in their ability to predict pedestrian spontaneity.  That night, while Nick and countless hoards of Oxford people donned black tie and slurred incoherently over awful cocktails in public places, Dave and I stayed home and made jamaican jerk vegetable and chicken goop on rice (which was fantastic, and was hot enough to make Dave's face sweat) and watched episodes of Spooks.  Our night was better :)

Sunday brought University College evensong, formal hall, and after-dinner drinks... Monday I went to my own (Green Templeton) college to collect mail and meet with my tutor for coffee.  I will sheepishly admit that I got lost in my own college--I clearly haven't spent a lot of time there lately.

The big events came Tuesday, as I braved 7 hours of England's finest transportation services to go to Sutton Royal Marsden Hospital to meet with the "Queen of HIFU" to talk about maybe working for her after my DPhil... but that shall be another post :)

Lots of love from England!

DC wine festival

Over 600 wines to try, and try we did. Happy valentine's day!

Oatmeal chocolate chip orange cookies

Baked during the blizzard of 2010 in Washington DC, otherwise known as "Snowmeggedon", with the last eggs in the store.  (Recipe poached graciously from CariCooks.com)

2 1/4 c flour

2 t baking soda

1 t salt

1 c unsalted butter (soft)

1 c light brown sugar

1/2 c sugar sugar

2 eggs

1 T vanilla

zest from 1 orange

1/2 t cinnamon

2 c oats

chocolate chips or cut up chocolate bar

The methods are standard: cream the butter and sugars, add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla, zest, and cinnamon.  Stir in the flour/bakingsoda/salt, then eventually the oats and chocolate bits.  Bake at 350F, for approx 12 min (less than the 15-18 minutes that the original recipe said, as I like them chewy!)  Also, to keep the cookies chewy, allow them to cool for several minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them elsewhere.

I like these cookies.  They are not my favorite, but they make a nice change.  I think that I either had too much orange flavor due to the best-cheese-grating-micro-planer-in-the-world being slightly too good at the zesting action or my amazingly large Whole Foods orange!  Dark chocolate was a definite plus, although the dark chocolate and orange combination always makes me want to add some hot chili element to it... maybe next time!

For the brits: 1 c butter = 16 Tbsp = 227 g and our oranges are probably bigger (albeit I'd like a tad less orange!)

The Orchid

Apparently this orchid likes it when I pay no attention to it! And mom says plants are like children... regardless, I am very pleased with my IKEA purchase!