~Skammie~

I have now been at my new job for 2 months. Compared to my old job at the bank, it’s definitely more relaxing (no crazy long line-up of customers), flexible (no one monitors my start, end, and lunch time), and slack. Yes, slack! Partly because my supervisor was away on the other side of the Earth for a month and partly because the lab technician is so lazy. It’s quite hilarious, actually. I usually arrive at work around 9:30, but we usually don’t get around to starting anything until 10:00. What do we do to fill up time? Why, of course our best friend the internet can help! For me these few weeks that my supervisor was gone, my only immediate tasks were to 1) isolate DNA from blood, 2) “play around” with this new analysis program that we got, and 3) do background reading relevant to my research topic…so as you can see, there is really nothing in pressing urgency for me to do since I have already completed the DNA isolations.

As a side note, let me do a little bit of brief introduction on my research project(s). In a nutshell, it is looking at the genetics of asthmatics, or people with asthma. Basically, there are 2 types of asthmatics: ones who have only an immediate early reaction, and ones who also have another response a few hours later. These are called early and dual responders. The main thing that I will be looking at is to see if there are any correlations in the genes and proteins that may help explain these differences in response patterns. By doing so, we can show that the late response may be due to a differing pathway, to which therapies can target specifically. Another side project is to look at the minor variations in the genes of babies to see if any of these may lead to higher risks of developing asthma. That was why I performed the DNA isolations.

Anyway, back to non-scientific things (I hope I didn’t lose anyone :P). I have many funny stories to tell of the lab tech…too many to list out here in fact, but I’ll share a bit. You see, he is this happy slacker Chinese man who an accent and not great grammar. Not that I am being racially discriminate (I am Chinese too!) but he really adds to the fun(ny) environment of the lab…without realizing it! For instance, he says that starting actual work at 10:00 is “too early” and that when it gets to 4:30 he “gets nervous”…he just wants to go home. Also, he thinks that we shouldn’t do too much work in a day and we should “control our pace” instead. HAHA! Lastly, almost every other words that he says, he accompanies it with these absolutely hilarious hand gestures and sound effects that come naturally to him…I just crack up so often, but he never realizes that I am actually laughing at how funny his character is! 😛

Another highlight about my position as a research student so far is that within my first short month here, I have already had the chance to travel…FREE OF CHARGE!!! The location was Montreal. The purpose? To attend a research conference for trainees. Although it was short (3 days 2 nights), I really thoroughly enjoyed it! I got to meet people from all over the universities of Canada who are also doing allergy research. Of course, I also did a bit of sight-seeing in Montreal. It was a shame that during the day, we had to attend the talks…but I kinda managed to complete my speed sight-seeing of downtown afterwards in 5.5 hours (5:30 – 11:00). My roommate and I walked super fast and we hit up most of the highlights of downtown Montreal, including McGill University, Notre-Dame, and the Old Port. We also managed to take the subway successfully, on our own, to visit the BioDome, where the Olympics took place a while back. Pictures here~

If there was ever a chance to travel to a conference again (for free), I’d definitely want to go! In the meantime, maybe I should pick up some slack and do more background reading instead of going on the internet so much at work! 😛

Another update on my life. From the title of this entry, you can probably guess that it’s finally good news~! 🙂

Addressing each of the options from my last post…they are basically all out the window now.

• I did manage to find out more about the church in Japan. They are not some weird cult but they are also not a church that my parents would feel 100% comfortable with. It’s too bad, I will not be going there in the end.
• They are still processing my application for the technical diploma program, so I have no idea of the outcome yet. (Not that it matter anymore…read on)
  I have, however, already volunteered a few times on the bus trips. It’s been very fun and rewarding so far! I strongly encourage people to try it! 😀
• The pharmaceutical research company did not offer me the lab assistant position in the end. So end of that story.

Let’s move on to what is settled then!
Picking up where we left off…since I did not get hired at the pharmaceutical research company, I naturally continued on with my job hunt. My boyfriend suggested “Hey, why not try to find a summer student position at one of the research labs? Being close to the end of the school year, many labs accept students to work there for the summer.” I thought: Sure, why not. It’s not like I’m making any progress anyway. So I started sending out my CV and cover-letters to PIs (head of the labs). To my surprise, I got back quite a few replies, unlike my responding-to-job-postings technique. Most of them asked for my transcript, but only one agreed to meet up with me.

At that meeting, he introduced and explained to me his research project, which is basically looking at the genetics of people with different types of asthma. It sounded quite interesting to me! He then told me that he originally was not planning on taking a summer student this year, but he wanted to take a graduate student instead. Ideally, he would like a person who plans on doing graduate studies, and they can use the summer months as a “trial period” before starting graduate school in September. At this point, I was not aiming towards graduate school. Although I had considered it previously, I settled on the technical diploma program (as mentioned before) as my direction for further studies. After this conversation with the PI, it really got me thinking.

Within a week of prayer and asking people for advice, I replied back to him with the decision to “take the step towards a Master of Science degree.” (You gotta reply fast, or else take the risk of someone else taking your spot!) He contacted my references and offered me a 4 month summer student position, with an alright salary, starting in mid April! WOW!! Of course, I accepted it without hesitation~ 😀

Looking back, I start to realize God’s hand in all of this. There are so many “if”s that lead to so many “then”s…but none of them point to the direction in which I am headed now. Evidently, God has his plans for me all along.

• If I had gone to Japan, through any of my previous methods, then it’s hard to say how the timing would work out with my return to Canada and application for further studies.
• If I had gotten a lab job from sending out my resumes to job postings, then I would have worked until I start the diploma program in January.
• If I had been offered a “lab assistant” position with the drug research company, then I would not be doing anything relevant to my studies, and would also have worked until I start the diploma program in January.

The list goes on.

But now I am really excited for what God has in store for me. The lab that I will be going to is a pretty new and nice one compared to many other labs. The techniques used are cutting-edge ones, and I feel quite comfortable in the area that is studied: genetics.  Most importantly, my future supervisor is a really friendly kind of guy, even asking me to just call him “Scott”. I think he will make a great supervisor for me, especially when his lab is very small. This means that he does not have many students, so he should be more free to help me out! 😀

Praise God!! He gave me the chance for a higher education!
Now if only I can keep up with it…

Life has been…not exactly grand. Everything is jumbled up and I STILL don’t know what my life is going to look like this year.

So from my last personal blog entry, I have decided to take a step back from Japan and concentrated on looking for lab work over the past few months. Interview rates have been slim: ~1 interview opportunity for every 10 resumes that I’ve sent out. And to add to that, those interviews have not successfully led to a job.

While that’s going on, I get news from a previous contact church in Japan inviting me to go and help out at their church for 3 months. No pay, but they will provide housing. Sounds like an ok deal right? I get my time in Japan and I don’t have to pay for housing. The only reason why I’m not there right now is because my parents need to confirm and reconfirm the trustworthiness of this church…and the Japanese side is not helping much so far with their delayed correspondence. 😦 It’s been almost a month since I last heard from them. I had been so sure that this opportunity was “the open door” from God, but now I am starting to think otherwise.

Over the last couple of weeks, I worked on my application for a technical diploma program starting in January 2010. This program is highly related to what I studied for my Bachelor’s degree, so I am pretty sure that I will get in. BUT!!! Having also been SO sure that I would get into JET last year, I did not have a solid back-up plan…and I am still sadly reaping the consequences now. 😦 Not wanting to repeat history and be left stranded for another year, I added in a back-up choice program. The only concern for this was that the 2nd choice program required 40 hours of volunteer work, which I lacked. So naturally, the next step was to inquire into helping out at the hospital as a volunteer. Good news! They have a position available! It should be a pretty fun one too because it’s going on bus trips with patients every week. I basically get to check out many places which I have never seen before!

But it gets even more complicated than that. On Friday, this pharmaceutical research company (which I sent my resume to back in October!) contacted me for an interview. Companies don’t get more efficient than this, because…On Sunday, I went for the first interview. On Tuesday, I got asked to go for a 2nd interview, which will happen on Thursday. Phew! Talk about speed hiring! Everything happened in only one week! You are probably thinking: “Great! It seems like Sarah is finally getting hired for a lab job!” But this is where you are wrong. Although I applied for a lab job, they decided during the 1st interview that I am not that suitable. They had another position opening: termed a “lab assistant”, but it’s really a lower position job that takes care of a lot of paperwork (inventory, shipping/receiving, and then glassware cleaning -.-“). It’s definitely not my top choice of “lab-related” work, so I am not sure if I should go for it or wait and hope with fingers-crossed that something else better comes up. *sigh*

Choices, choices, choices…and they are all overlapping time-wise. With the bank cutting back my part-time hours, I really need to find something new. I can’t stand to waste this year by working only 2 days a week until December! Oh, what to do?! ><