Ahasae Tharu . net

It's been awhile since the pooch has had a tub bath... considering how warm it is outside - we might do it outside.  She doesn't know what's coming yet!  But I think overall she enjoys getting a bath and the clean feeling afterwards. 

Last night made up some vegetables with garden grown herbs.... it was 'ok'.  Think I need to come up with a few more recipes!

Happy May 1st!

I need to include pictures at some point - but my garden seems to be doing well.  The only death so far has been the Sweet Basil and I think its probably because there's been frost in the mornings (which kills it).  Everything else is hardy and thriving.  Maya spends her time on the balcony sniffing all of the different scents.  We've got lavender, rosemary, cilantro, sage, parsly, dill, chives, some strawberry plants and a tomato plant. 

I also picked up a small maple tree and another variety (I think) from the yard - one of those rogue saplings.  Going to see how they fare in pots.  Beats paying mega bucks to buy a tree!  And we're not going to be here so long as to worry about it getting oversized.  If anything, I'll plant it in the yard before we leave - whenever that is!

Have taken in one of my cousins as she waits for her flight back to London.  Can't believe the mess caused by a giant quantity of dust in the atmosphere!  That said, am thrilled to be able to finally host our first guest and am enjoying her company. 

Steph's at Drupalcon SF and due back at the end of the week.  I missed out on account of the new job situation.  I guess web design will now be taking second seat to science (as it perhaps should do).  Working with the people at the Galway Spirit Centre to get their site back up and running - it's only taken a year.

In other news, the weather is beautiful during the week - and predicted to be clouds and rain on the weekend.  What's up with that?  So taking loads of outdoor fresh air breaks while at work to take advantage of the good weather.  Not looking forward to mud-puppy in the rain.

Started off the Sinhala Avurudha with boiling milk, milk rice / kiribath, and some pirith chanting.  The color to wear is green and we did all of this starting at dawn (roughly 6am). 

Wishing everyone who reads my blog a very prosperous, successful, happy, health-full year!!!

As the title says, survived the first week - not that it was at all hard.  I think I'm going to like my new role at the Crystal Lab (a.k.a. The Laboratory of Structural Cell Biology) located at the Harvard Medical School (BCMP - Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, CMCD - Center for Molecular and Cellular Dynamics) and the Boston Children's Hospital.  Though, technically I work for HHMI - Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  Hereafter, all of this will be referred to as "The Crystal Lab".  Part of the first week was just to get a grasp of where I was and am and will be. 

Suffice it to say, it's a impressive group of various post-docs who run around like worker bees.  My role in all of this is to maintain the group's several insect cell cultures (Hi5 and SF21) and other more general laboratory support.  What happens in the lab - in a nutshell from what I understand so far - is that they take these cells as well as those from bacterial and/or yeast cultures to produce various complex protein structures which are crystalized and studied further.  This is done via viral infection, transfection, and all a matter of other means - the scope of which I have yet to learn.  In addition, a few of the postdocs are working on structures imitating various diseases sans viral component (Dengue, Malaria).  All of this super charged research work needs some form of support, which I'm happy to be the one to provide.

Also, at the moment getting trained.  The training wheels come off at the end of the month - hopefully I'll be able to integrate myself smoothly so that nothing gets disrupted!

Other perks to working in an academic environment are the various talks (though somewhat over my head) on related research topics as well as the free pizza and drinks.  It seems an appropriate bribe on a Friday at noon. 

The atmosphere is generally relaxed and because some of the work is of a repetitious nature (an onslaught of not so random pipetting, see picture) or a scheduled nature as in cell culture work - this means that although I may be a bit physically tired at the end of the day, my mind is by no means appeased.  As a result, I'm happy and hoping to pursue all the rest of my favourite pursuits.  So the novel writing will continue as well as the on-going Drupal work.  I'm giving myself two weeks to get used to the change in routine before setting any major goals.  In the meantime, working my way through Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, & Steel.