An Oxford wedding

July brought us another celebration: our friends Dan and Rosie got married on a sunny summer day in the glorious New College chapel. We know the couple through music, which may help explain the absolutely fantastic trombone archway for Rosie's entrance...

The ceremony had beautiful music, with excellent organ and choir, and our bench of orchestra friends sang the hymns enthusiastically (and occasionally with harmony). We then trickled outdoors to greet Mr. and Mrs. McGowan in the grassy courtyard of the New College cloisters. Unfortunately, Dave and I did not manage much time with the bride and groom, but it was a wonderful reunion of Oxford music friends. A few of us occupied the afternoon with pizza and pints in a new gastropub before making our way to dance at the evening reception and ceilidh.

Please note my shiny new fascinator... Dave suggested I take the plunge and buy one, so we purchased this gem on the walk to the church. I was fascinated with it, to say the least.

Many congratulations to the happy couple; all our photos can be viewed in this album, enjoy!

Cailin Comes to Cardiff (or, Castles, Colleges and Cake)

Much to might delight, Cailin visited me in Cardiff this summer! Lots of friends talk about making the trek across the ocean, or even just across the UK, to see me my Welsh home. But this friend is special... this friend really did it :)

Cailin was with me when I first stepped foot on the British Isles... back in our college years, she was wrapping up a semester in Switzerland and I was in the middle of a challenging summer internship in Berlin that had me feeling immensely lonely. We met in London, and it saved that summer for me. Looking back, we stayed in a hostel in a dreadfully sketchy part of London, did touristy activities, and spent more time talking to eachother (in beautiful, rapid English) than absorbing the bustling world around us. But it was glorious.

This visit was amusingly similar. The best bits involved her, me, coffee, cake, and good conversation. Or replace coffee with cocktails and repeat. We did touristy things, like visit castles, the Austen-esque city of Bath, and the windy streets and colleges of Oxford. Poor Cailin dealt admirably with an air mattress on my living room floor. We are older, wiser, but not that old and not too wise. She remains a unique friend in my life: we seem to have conversations that I don't have with anyone else, and we can always pick up where we left off despite there being an ocean between us.  It was, as before, glorious.


For (silly) practical reasons, the photos are divided between two albums:

Cailin-In-Cardiff

Cailin-in-Cardiff2

Very proud of Dr. Dave

This weekend, Dave finally (officially) became Dr. David Patrick O'Neill, after a degree ceremony in the Sheldonian Theatre. The ceremony is mostly in Latin, and involves a costume change as you officially transfer to your new degree. The D.Phil. gown is bright red with big blue sleeves, and I think Dave (ahem, Dr. Dave) looks quite dashing in it. Just as in my own ceremony last year, the caretaker of the Sheldonian likes Dave and saved us the best seats in the house (also meaning we got slip in ahead of the sweating queue of people waiting outside). England is experiencing an epic sunny heatwave, and the audience was admittedly wilting by the end. Still, the bright sun was glorious for outdoor photography and the garden drinks reception at University College after the ceremony. Dave's parents came down for the weekend, and the four of us had a proper Oxonian visit complete with a (nearly) private dinner at Keble College and visit to the pub. I think Dave is quite pleased to acquire his new title, and Dr. O'Neill and Dr. Bright wish to thank everyone who helped get both of us to this point!

Dr. David O'Neill

Finally getting some winter!

I've been working remotely (the perks of academic life!) in Oxford over the last several days, in time for the first proper winter weather this season. I have an open-ended ticket back to Cardiff, so technically I could stay a while longer...  However, I will likely get a train sometime tomorrow and get my nose back to the science grindstone before my boss returns from his honeymoon. I did get a "reader's card" here in Oxford though, so I can work from the beautiful Bodleian library and Radcliffe Camera when the mood strikes.

These are two pictures from my daily wander around town with the new camera. The camera is an excellent pet: it encourages you to go for walks but can actually come with you when you travel. Both pics are very cropped down from the original image, but hopefully any change in image quality is undetectable. I've noticed that I have a weakness for Oxford's many walls and gates, which are featuring heavily in my miscellaneous albums. The more moss and rust the better! Pheasants on said walls are just icing on the cake.

Playing with Photography: Baby Steps

Dave and I are still getting used to our new camera... it is definitely smarter than we are, for the moment. With every YouTube tutorial we watch, with every book we peruse, we get a little bit more comfortable with the gazillions of options provided by our little Nikon. But, ultimately, I sense that most of our education will be from taking pictures and then looking at them.

With that in mind, we're trying to take the camera on little walks around Oxford, to get some "exercise." Dave lives right on the Oxford canal, and it is a glorious walk up to Port Meadow, a large expanse of free land where anyone can let their horses and cows graze. Grass can't get any greener.

Even with our photography education in its infancy, pictures do just "look better" with the D5100. It could be a placebo effect, I suppose, wanting our expensive investment to bear fruit, but I think the colors are instantly more vivid and the focus much sharper than anything I could achieve with a little point-and-shoot. I'm enjoying the flexibility I have with choosing what is in focus, and obviously also what isn't in focus. Already we talk about wanting different lenses to play even more with this depth-of-field idea, but Dave and I have made a pact to not invest in any new lenses for at least six months while we really figure out what we're doing.

And, just in case it looks like only I am holding the camera and only Dave will be in any pictures, I promise that we do trade off from time to time! Here is me being silly in Dave's kitchen:

These aren't full size images, so please click on one for a more impressive view of all pics in this post. I'm going to probably dump all our photography play into one Picasa web album where people can check out the full photos if interested. Hopefully tomorrow I can head out in the snow (the UK was just gifted with a few fluffy white inches) and get a bit more practice in! Suggestions, advice, criticisms, encouragement all welcome as I try to make better pictures.

Savoury pies

Do we have savory pies in America?  Google has informed me that chicken pot pie is a common US recipe, but I don't think I've ever had it.  And then I moved to the UK, where I was introduced to the glory that is a homemade savoury pie.  It is a crisp golden and flaky crust surrounding a hearty stew of tender earthy goodness.  Amazing.  I had my first piece in Bracknell, served fresh from the oven of Dave's mum.  It was heaven.  And then this weekend, after having her culinary wisdom transmitted via mobile phone, Dave and I attempted our first pie.

Bacon and butter and onion and leek and shredded chicken and stock and shortcrust pastry.  And I was the happiest (most gluttonous) person on the planet for a few exquisite mouthfuls.  Eye candy follows.

Yum!  Already dreaming up little individual pies with obscure flavor combinations... moroccan? turkish?  Still, there is something particularly lovely about an English classic!

Introducing Dr. Molly Bright, D.Phil.

I've been a student since the age of 5. While many things have changed, as naptime gave way to quantum physics, I have dutifully--and often enjoyably--attended classes and studied for exams for 22 years. I'm pleased to report that I have successfully reached the end of my formal education, and have finally received the title of "Dr." ... let's say that again... "Dr." Molly Bright. Yes, there is a very big, fairly dorky, and still strangely confused smile on my face when I get to say that. Maybe it will sink in, or maybe I will still giggle to myself every time I see or hear people address me like that.

So, here is how it went down:

Two weeks prior to my defense, I called my Oxford supervisor and asked him what I should be doing to prepare. He gave me the general run-down of the Oxford "viva," which comes from the latin "viva voce" or "lively discussion." Unlike an American PhD defense, I don't have a committee or a public presentation. In Oxford, I have one examiner from the University and one examiner from outside the University, and we sit in a closed room and they grill me for approximately 3 hours on my thesis. This format makes for a mysterious black-box process that is different for every student, and the more I asked my friends and colleagues about their own experiences with the mythical viva-beast, the more confused and uncertain I became. Some people were told immediately that they passed and proceeded to have a nice conversation about their research. Some people were brought to the point of tears. And me being me, I definitely worried.

Peter, my supervisor, made things a little more clear. A little. The first question would be something like, "Describe the main contributions of your work presented in this thesis in five minutes." or "What are you most proud of in this thesis? Least proud of?" and so forth. Fine, okay, that is something I can prepare for. This softball opening would be followed by approximately one hour of testing the breadth of my knowledge of the field and beyond. Hmmmm, now I started to sense the stirrings of panic. What exactly did he mean? Peter gave me a few example questions, probing the very periphery of my understanding of the field. While I know that a good exam figures out not just what the student knows, but also what their limits are, I really do NOT enjoy being tossed into the intellectual deep end under scrutiny. Once this hour was over, though, the rest of the viva would be talking about what research I did and my reasoning behind it... that part sounded like Christmas by comparison.

Cue ridiculous amounts of reading. Instead of downloading the most recent scientific manuscripts like many of my friends had suggested, I blitzed through the NIH library and scooped up textbooks, trying to reacquaint myself with a world of vocabulary and concepts that had faded into vague memories after months or years of disuse. MRI pulse sequence terminology, respiratory physiology, clinical stroke treatment, non-MRI imaging techniques, it was all added to the mix of busy neuron firing in my brain.

I arrived in Oxford about four days before my defense, hoping to use that time to calm my nerves and absorb the jetlag. I brought two suitcases and two carry-ons for a ten-day trip, using the free flight to transport my cast iron cookware to the UK in preparation for my move later in the year. My backpack contained two laptops (one with my thesis and figures, one with my scientific research) in anticipation of post-viva corrections, as well as a copy of my thesis and some of those textbooks I mentioned earlier.  Ooof.

Everything was okay at first. I was back with Dave and other friends, life was good. But the stress was there, mulling inside me. It wasn't fear or worry that threatened to overwhelm me, but just the sheer focus of years of stress, channeled into one week of my life, one day of my life, one afternoon... so I had the obligatory cry on Dave's shoulder over the weekend. He was all sorts of supportive, letting me practice the opening "arguments" of my viva as many times as I could muster the focus for, and made sure I ate and slept properly beforehand.

Then, on Monday the 21st of February, 2011, I donned the traditional Oxford dress for examinations called "sub fusc." Of course, I hadn't been able to find my nice black trousers or button up white shirt in the pre-flight packing, and spent Sunday afternoon shopping at Marks and Spencer for the appropriate clothes. I borrowed a mortar board hat, black ribbon tie, and a postgraduate gown from friends in Dave's flat, covered everything with a winter coat and an air of confidence, and took the bus up the hill to the hospital lab.

I bumped into my friend at the hospital, who saw me through the window and burst out of the emergency door to wish me good luck with a brilliant boost of energy, and then had lunch with my friend Dan before hiding in his office and talking about the teensy scientific ERROR I had just thought of in the last chapter of my thesis. At 2pm sharp I went into the seminar room, and there my two examiners sat in suits and/or gowns peering at copies of my thesis... "Can you give us a bit more time?"

After that false start, I was soon in the midst of my viva. The opening question was as expected, and Dave had me well prepared. The general knowledge section was almost entirely overlapping with what reading I had done over the last two weeks, which was, well, exceptionally fortuitous! We had a pile of scrap paper between the three of us, and when I would get a little stuck on an answer, one would draw out a suggestion or something to help me get on the right track. Then we proceeded to go systematically through the thesis.

When did I know it was going well? About halfway through chapter 2, the external examiner said he wanted me to add a reference to this original method something-or-another, which "could just be added to my minor corrections." WOOOOHOOOOO! (Although I kept a straight face, I think!) Once we got talking about my work it was comfortable, and even enjoyable. The external examiner had yellow post-it note comments sticking out of every edge of the thesis, and we covered them all. At one point, he said something like...

"Erm, about 3 lines up from the bottom, on page 136, yes, I'm not sure what this is about, but I wrote the word 'Excellent,' so, uh, well done."

To which I replied with a sheepish smile, "Can I have that one?"

So began a habit of passing me the good, random post-its.

The viva lasted four hours, with one break for the restroom and more water. It wasn't long in a bad way, but rather it just took that long. I found it really respectful for them to give me that much attention and to really take the time to go through four years of my work, it felt like a very thorough ending to my D.Phil. experience.

At the end, I left the room exhausted, to sit quietly in Dan's office until called back in for their decision. There was a very big smile, some hand shaking, and a trip to the pub. And that was that, it was over. Dr. Molly Bright, D.Phil. (I have absolutely no idea when it will all fully sink in!)

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!