"awww... i hate the waiting game!"

i've lost it. i'm sick of graduate school; sick of boring classes and useless seminars. i'm sick trading my sanity in exchange for progress towards a career i don't even know if i want. burned out you ask? maybe so. or maybe i'm just questioning this whole ordeal. two years ago, graduate school was the full-proof plan. free education, real research experience, PLUS $18K a year; how could this not be a good idea? well if you have a serious plan, a direction, or ANY general idea for a career, it's a great idea. i had none of these.

i'm currently reading robert peters' getting what you came for and it only took 2 paragraphs for me to realize i went to grad school for the WRONG reasons; because i wasn't sure what else i could do. stupid book was supposed to help me get through, not make me regret joining.

but it's not that i'm just fed up with being a student. lately i've just felt a dissatisfation with my involvement. let me clarify. i have passed all my classes, found a decent thesis advisor, and even begun to make progress on my research. granted, i haven't put in 110% and could probably be a little farther along than i am, but no one would say that i'm doing poorly. rather, my dissatisfaction seems more personal. here i am, curious and investigating the phenomenon of living beings, which i firmly believe to be among the most nobel causes, but for what? i don't impact anyone's life, i don't help make a difference. i just investigate bacteria. this can get very frustrating when you know other people who have real jobs and make real contributions to the world, or people who give their lives in service to others. those are people who are doing things, those are the people of whom i'm jealous.

so i guess you could say i'm sick of waiting. sick of biding my time in the annals of academia working towards a greater, more abstract state of scholasticism, from which i'm supposed to be able to change the world. but from within the system, i can now understand the self proclaimed prestige that many individuals carry once they reach that goal towards which i'm heading. they've all worked hard, they deserve the respect no doubt. but what good are they if they can argue over the intricacies of gene regulation in mutant fruit flies? everyone of them would argue that it serves the greater understanding, the constant progression of scientific thought, and may someday contribute to a higher quality of life for all. surely we'd all agree this is as noble a cause as any other. but such romance in the real world is manifested many times as nothing more than a paper in a prestigious journal. ideas in print that will make some kiss your ass and others fiercly refute every word. this is the dream of many exceptional scientists.

but i said i'm sick of waiting. i want to start changing the world now. don't ask me how, that's why i'm in graduate school; because i lack a better idea. but these other people i speak of, the ones making a difference and impacting lives, they're not any smarter (well, not all of them) or better than i am. so what do they have that i don't? GUTS! guts to try something hard that puts them outside of their comfort zone. guts to live somewhere far from home without guaranteed financial stability. and they do it all in the name of service because they are happy helping other people, no matter the cost. so why don't i do it? why don't i make the step out of 'comfortable' and into 'significant,' into a life with purpose and full of people that benefit from my gifts and talents? part of me is ready to quit tomorrow and find a job hundreds of miles away where i know lives are benefiting from my service. but i don't. i stay here; unhappy and stuck in a rut, unable to take the risk. what am i so afraid of?

my next 24 years...

in light of my recent birthday i think it's appropriate for me to reflect on the first 24 years of my life. to me, 24 feels pretty damn old. let's be honest, if i were a mere mortal 25% of my life would have already passed me by. fortunately for me, i plan on living forever so it's not as big of a deal, but 24 is the oldest i've ever been so far, so it's still a significant milestone.

although most people would agree (myself included) that i've lived a somewhat sheltered and predictable life so far. i grew up in a smallish city down in west virginia. i have an average family with one sister and my parents are actually not divorced. i was even snotty enough to attend a catholic school from kindergarten up through college. nothing terribly exciting or traumatic has ever happened to me. (*knocking on wood*) but don't take this as a complain! i'm actually very thankful for my childhood and on the whole i'd say i'm satisfied with how it all turned out. i may not be normal, but c'mon i didn't turn out that bad!

that being said, i think there's still a lot of great things that i've experienced in my first 24 years that have made me into whatever the hell i am now, and i'm proud of (almost) all of them. i have a high school diploma and a college degree in biochemistry and environmental chemistry (which i even earned in four years!). i was a hardworking, successful student but still managed to play varsity tennis and soccer in high school and even two years of college tennis. my high school retreat team and college residence life days were all fun and interesting too. not only that but i've even convinced a handful of people that i could be a good candidate for a phd in genetics.

in 24 years i've: seen gas for $0.87 and for $3.29; held jobs delivering newspapers, serving hot dogs, cleaning tables, and testing sewage samples; busted my own front teeth; brewed my own beer; test driven cars with no intent to buy; been arrested for underage consumption; won a state tennis title; found love only to lose it again; and split open my chin on the side of a bathtub.

my spiritual life has seen peaks and valleys. i felt at home in college and alien in graduate school. i've even known 'good drunk' and 'bad drunk' feelings. but some how i've survived, changed, grown, evolved into me... here... now. i look at the long trip and i can't fabricate any real complaints. i mean, sure i wish i had received a corvette for my 16th birthday and my parents would have taken me to chucky cheeze for my birthday; but i can't come up with any real complaints. that doesn't mean i would have done everything the same and i'm 100% satisfied with how my life is at 24.

i think years 1 through 23 went really well, but the past year has been a real battle. i've found myself forced into this strange university setting working towards a degree that i'm not positive i really want and a career path that is beyond foggy. in many ways i've been forced to start over from scratch. the family, social, and religious support that i had relied on so much before my arrival at msu pretty much dropped away. i spend so much of my day feeling lonely and questioning whether or not i made the right decision by coming here. furthermore, this has only added to my already basal level of cynicism and negative sarcasm. now i've only driven away those that i love the most and all because of my own uncertainty and unhappiness.

so in my next 24 years i'm looking to make a few changes but still hold on to all those sculpting experiences that have developed me. for starters, i need to get my relationship back with the big man. i can't believe home much i took that catholic school atmosphere for granted. it really does provide a support system that i miss now that that it's gone. this is really an underlying improvement that should provide clarity and a positive approach to just about everything else. next i just wish i could get some kind of clear idea of where the hell my education and my career are supposed to be taking me. there a plenty of days when i can't come up for one good reason why i should be a graduate student yet i don't know where else i could go. without this goal-oriented mind set i've found it very difficult to focus on both my course work and my research. together, these improvements should make for a much more satisfied and happy mike. once that happens i can concentrate on rebuilding the relationships that have fallen victim to the unhappy, cynical attitude that has grown out of my first year of graduate school. hopefully this will lead to forgiveness coupled to an exponential positive increase in my overall outlook. my next 24 years should offer me a huge turning point out of all this aimless wandering and into an interesting life with some professional direction... i hope.

in the my next 24 years i want to buy a motorcycle, start a family, drive across the country in an open top sports car, do more camping, build a library in my house, learn more about sailing, become an excellent cook, write a book, run a few marathons, spend time with my grandparents, keep in touch with college friends, and travel outside of north america. i want to have the balls to quit a job, eat a steak bigger than my head, drive all day to deliver flowers in person, volunteer for people who have real reasons to complain, and read one book every month.



oh yeah... and i'd also like to get more exercise and eat healthier. but don't expect me to stop drinking dark, expensive beers. and playing more golf would be nice too.

"somebody more like you"

i didn't hear you say you're sorry

the fault must be mine

i wish you all the best of luck

at finding somebody more like you

you said you'd love me always, truly

i must have changed

cause you don't need me like you used to

i hope you find somebody more like you

i hope you finally find someone

someone that you trust

and give him everything

i hope you meet someone your height

so you can see eye-to-eye

with someone as small as you

you came out of nowhere, made me smile

then tore me in two

saying, "we're very different people"

so dear, i hope you find somebody more like you

i hope you find somebody more like you

"somebody more like you"

nickel creek

what is it about relationships that just make you pay more attention to song lyrics? no matter what stage of a relationship you are in, there's probably a song about how you feel... or maybe i'm just a dork.

the average chemistry of life

note: the following train of thought is part of an ongoing scribble that is spread across that last page of a few of my notebooks. chances are i was supposed to be studying, but instead my mind started to wander in more 'philosophical' directions. proving once again that i've become such a science dork that i can't even daydream properly. please bear in mind that the following ideas are incomplete and certainly require more serious reflection.

ever since smart people started to investigate the world around them (probably the greeks), people were certain that there had to be a fundamental difference between those things that are alive and those that are not. rocks, hills, and trees (to them at least) just had to be missing something that humans, and animals to a lesser extent, possess. i'm sure they concocted some interesting explanations based upon their observations. but today, our molecular understanding of life indicates that all functions of biology are purely at the mercy of 'blind' chemistry. (more fundamentally we could say physics because that is what drives chemistry, but i'm a biochemist/molecular biologist, not a physicist.)

everything that has been learned about cellular life in the last hundred years; enzymes catalyzing reactions, gene regulation, environmental perception, everything is carried out by simple, favorable chemical reactions. as microbiologists we often speak of a bacterial cell 'sensing' the most readily metabolizable energy source and producing the corresponding enzyme pathways. after all 'response to external stimuli is one of the basic criteria for defining life.' in our abstract language we imply that a single bacterium is controlled by a conscious decision maker in a small membrane-bound cockpit manipulating the controls. but a living cell is fundamentally nothing more than an enclosed aggregate of molecules, very complex and specialized molecules by any measure, but molecules no the less.

this bears with it great complications. what makes these interacting molecules so special to set them apart from acid/base chemistry in a bubbling stream, ozone formation in the upper atmosphere, and dissolution of salt ions in water? nothing! it's all the same simple chemistry. there is basically nothing fancy about biological chemistry; charges interact, hydrophobic regions associate together by van der waals forces, electrons are passed around, and covalent bonds are formed and broken. what then bridged the great gap between chemistry of the non-living and chemistry of the living? how did unavoidable, spontaneous, and random chemical reactions become so concerted and organized to point of autonomy capable of precise self-replication? likewise, how could the continuation of these reactions result in undirected improvement and selection through evolution?

to be honest, the molecules responsible for life are far more complex than those which you associate with the non-living. you'll be hard pressed to look in your backyard and find a interesting molecule that is not the result of 'living' chemical reactions. interestingly, the element at the heart of many such molecules is carbon. everything in a cell; it's lipid membrane envelope, the protein machines, the dna blueprints, and even the 'food' it consumes are all based around carbon chemistry. (organic chemistry is inescapable) but lest we forget, other carbon containing compounds, thou less complex and far less exciting, exist in nature with the help of life. popular examples of these molecules include methane, carbon dioxide, and bicarbonate; so we can't really rely on carbon as 'the stuff of life' even though it plays a critical role.

now the wandering mind (well, my wandering mind) takes things a step further and on to bigger questions; scarier questions. how do we make the next jump, from single-celled life up to a rational, reflective organism like a human? right now we may not be able to explain consciousness, thought, language, and emotion in terms of chemistry. so we are back with the greeks, and appeal to an understanding not rooted in chemistry. such a view can certainly change, as scary as it sounds. and what about God? does our idea of a creator or supreme being fall under attack if we now adopt a 'chemical' perception of the world and it's organization into life? maybe God would have to exist outside of this world of interacting molecules if our understanding of Him is to hold true. there are some obvious implications that this possess to creationism and evolution camps alike. none of which i am prepared to consider just yet.

what about life on other plants? how does this all effect our definition of 'life?' it seems that if our complex and diverse mixture of life here on earth functions successfully by spontaneous, favorable chemical interactions (and may have arisen from such interactions) there must, unequivocally be life (at some level) elsewhere in the vastness of the universe.

it doesn't take long to see the danger inherent in some of these ideas. i'll admit, it's scary stuff that can shake your foundation. but it begs a lot of questions that thinkers great (or at least more educated) that i aren't always willing to touch. like i said, more development is required. fortunately i'm never at a loss for homework i'd rather not be doing.

on the run...

so i think it's safe to say that in the last four months i've done more running than i probably have in the previous 23.5 years! which is kinda funny considering that i played varsity soccer and tennis in high school and even two years of college tennis. everyone just assumes that i was cross country runner, but no. this year, all of a sudden, i just starting running just for the sake of running.

a few weeks ago someone asked me why i run. she could not understand why anyone would just go out on and just run two, three, or five miles just for the hell of it. the best part is, i don't understand it either. i couldn't give her an answer, i just said "i don't know," like some idiot. but then i thought about it more. i thought about it when i was rushing home from work to get stretched out and on the road, when i was burning down the sidewalk in 90 degree sunshine, when i was cursing my pain-striken legs through the last mile, and when i was bent over my knees wondering if this would be the run that finally made me puke! i thought about it a lot, and here's a few ideas i came up with.

1. grad school is a bitch! just when i had figured out how to play the college game, everything changed and now i'm thrown into a HUGE university taking impossible classes and attempting to complete productive, original research. needless to say it was pretty easy to get lazy after all that other stuff and outside of 2 hours of frisbee a week (when it's actually warm out) i was getting next to no regular exercise. my sister had done lots of running and i'd done some myself in the past, but only sporadically. but it seemed like an easy thing to do on my own, which was good since all my friends are crazy busy grad students too who don't take to running very well. so i made a big jump and bought a pair of good running shoes in may, and just forced myself to get started!

b. i don't know why and i don't know how; but for some reason i enjoy my daily run. i'll be perfectly honest and admit this defies all reason. every day after work i struggle to get my shoes on, get stretched out, and hit the asphalt. i'm exhausted and all i want to do is watch tv and eat. i hate the last mile; when i'm sucking air, my legs are crying, i'm soaked in sweat, and my mouth is dry. i hate the stiff feeling i get all over my body when i finally get back to the apartment. yet all the time in between; when i'm settled into my pace and my mp3 player is pumping in my ears, i'm just in the groove, effortlessly cruzing along and some days i swear i could just run forever. it's the most unsuspecting peaceful feeling. all the stress associated with classes, failing research experiments, department administrative bullshit, relationship woes, everything just disappears in my wake. my head is finally sorted and cleared. i work out plans, reflect on the days experiences, and contemplate possible entries for this block. all as i chug along at a steady 6:45 minute mile pace. unfortunately, it doesn't take long for all those things to catch up with me when i stop.

III. turns out running can be a great benefit for you and for others too! i really enjoy running charity 5K races and, lucky for me, the greater lansing area has TONS of them throughout the summer. most of these races are held to raise money for different charities of sorts. so for about $15-25 i can run a sunday morning 5K (earning a t-shirt and race snacks) and some of that money actually goes to charity. so in the seven races i've participated in this summer i made some contributions to angel house, the listening ear, ele's house, lansing community college, and the potter park zoo. all of this is on top of the great exercise and friendly competition.

i don't want to paint a completely pretty, happy picture of my new running hobby. running still hurts and a good race really kicks my ass. i have to keep reminding myself that this is therapy for me; it's my release from grad school insanity. when i find pace slipping and my side really cramping i just take my run eight feet at a time. i concentrate on the next eight feet and forget about the remaining four miles. it's suppressing how far i can run when i don't think about it.

well with a few weeks left before the onset of the great michigan winter there is still much running to be had. i'm currently gearing up for my longest races yet; an and a !!! To make it worse they're only a week apart. After that, there's a few more 5K runs to finish out the season. i'll keep at it and start brainstorming ways to keep up my miles through the winter.

a problem of pain...

while at work i was skimming over some google news articles, as i often do, and i came across an interesting story. apparently an article was recently published in the journal of the american medical association (jama) that reviewed the current understanding of fetal pain perception. in essence, the reviews concluded that it's quite possible that a fetus is incapable of feeling pain until after 20 weeks of gestation. naturally this caused quite a stink and i guess a lot of conservatives out there are on the attack, trying to take up issue with the authors. clearly this is a bit of an over-reaction, something ultra-conservatives are good at, given that the article is simply just a review of previously published data.

but this isn't really what caught my attention. the most startling part for me was the fact the there actually exists legislation in some states that abortions performed after 20 weeks are required to administer fetal anesthesia. the paper's argument was simply that fetal anesthesia, in abortions as well fetal surgeries, is not necessary. but lets back this train up here! before an abortion post 20 weeks a doctor must administer anesthesia?! yeah, this makes sense.

lets think about this. why do we use anesthesia? to ease pain during surgery so that patients don't suffer unnecessarily during the process. so then why would someone performing an abortion care about lessening the suffering on an unborn fetus? this implies that a fetus can/may perceive pain and the use of anesthesia makes the process more 'humane.' what?! don't pro-choicers argue that a fetus isn't really alive? or a person? or however they justify it? how can an unborn, non-living thing (a bundle of cells!) experience pain? it doesn't seem reasonable to me that someone can both support the need for fetal anesthesia during an abortion and hold the view that a fetus is not alive and deserving of basic rights.

the funny thing about the ability to perceive pain is that it takes me back to my environmental ethics class and our discussion of animal rights. arguments are put forth that it's the ability to experience pain and suffering that bestows animals with basic rights that must be honored. thus, if a fetus can feel pain, then it too must possess some rights as well; even above an beyond those of animals that many activists fight so hard for.

but what if the reviews from jama are right and a fetus really does lack the ability to perceive pain? (assuming that such a conclusion can be accurately made) if the perception of pain bestows rights and responsibilities… does the absence of this sensory ability take it away? what about people in vegetative or degenerative states? can they sense pain… sometimes not. just look at all the fuss that surrounds them as their families and doctors make the decision to continue or end their lives.

so ultimately; to support fetal anesthesia… supports fetal perception of pain… which bestows a fetus with intrinsic moral rights/value that must be recognized… and therefore abortion is a breach of those intrinsic rights and must be MURDER.

One year down and only ____ more to go!

it's now late august, days are getting shorter and east lansing traffic is getting more hectic as all the damn undergrads return to town. this can only mean that class will be starting again soon only adding to my insanity. i'm now officially a second year graduate student, but what the hell does that mean? yeah, i've taken some courses and i've worked on four different research projects, but have i really made any progress?

in a 'glass is half full' manner, lets consider the positive first. i think i've really become accustomed to life out there on my own. with a few minor exceptions, i'd like to think i've done rather well at managing my finances, keeping my apartment clean, getting along with my roommate, making friends, drinking beer, eating/cooking healthy, and even getting my butt to church on a weekly basis. i enjoy 'visiting' my parents in wv and 'returning home' to lansing. this was my first chance to really be faced with some of this stuff, and so far i've lived to talk about it and i'd consider that a good thing.

that's all well and good but i'm here for school right, so shouldn't that be a bit more important? i'm always over critical and even pessimistic at times, so i find it hard to label this past year as a true "success." i came here a year ago, overwhelmed by the switch from a small catholic college of 1,400 students to a monstrous state university of 45,000+. my area of research fell within the vague realm of "environmental biochemistry" as i liked to call it, whatever the hell that is! at the time, to be honest, i had no freaking clue either! all i knew was i had a BS degree in biochemistry AND environmental chemistry and i wanted the two to work together. my graduate program advisor was a bit skeptical, but figured he'd let me give it a shot. so after two semesters of course work and three laboratory rotations, i hadn't found anyone that i could do "environmental biochemistry" with at MSU. i was left with the summer to reevaluate my research interests and find an advisor willing to support a confused student such as myself. fortunately for me, and my bank account, i was able to come up with another area of research that had interested me; evolutionary biology. because this whole process really deserves it's own entry to do it justice, i'll refrain from further elaboration now and come back to this some time later.

but now back to the present, staring at an opaque cup trying to decide how much chocolate milk is in there. the independent lifestyle that i've developed seems to be working, mostly, but this school-thing still needs more time for me to figure out. twelve months have elapsed and i still don't understand what my scientific interests are or even if a PhD is what i need to really explore them. i still don't know for certain i'm even in the right place doing the right thing.

but it's only been a year, a rather fast one i might add. so maybe i'm just reaching for an unreasonable level of understanding and direction about my educational track. maybe. maybe not. all these ideas certainly require further attention though. we'll see what happens.

Introduction

For the first post on my new blog it seems necissary to take an opportunity to provide some sort of introduction to explain who I am and why I'm writing my thoughts down here. I can't really say that I'm anything extraordinary, but rather just a regular dorky graduate student. My chosen field of study of biochemistry and molecular biology, though some days I'm not sure why. But I don't like to think of my current position as the only defining characteristic of who I am.

Hopefully as I sort through my daily thoughts and ideas in the form of rambling postings on this blog site, a more clear picture will surface of who I am and where I'm coming from. I promise that my future postings will offer a unique mix of insightfulness and humor that can only be described as the twisted way in which I view and think about the world.