I believe in soulmates...

...at least for now, and by soulmates I mean those of the research variety. Oh em gee! I think these are easier to find than the romantic ones...since those may or may not exist ;)

I went in to meet with a professor today (this guy, Firdaus Dhabhar) & the meeting went superrrrr well. He basically brought up everything that I love & that I think is important in terms of science & life. He works on lots of things that I find interesting & that hit very close to home (breast cancer, immune function, stress, sleeping, translational research, working with mice, access to patient samples, mental health issues, etc etc) & I'm hoping/kinda thinking that...this might be my thesis lab?




WHOA DUDE. WHOA. Of course I have to wait & see how the actual rotation goes & there are a few details to work out but I don't know how all of the things I thought were important & the techniques and types of science I really want to learn could be integrated more seamlessly in another lab. He has moved to Stanford recently from Ohio so there is the concern that he doesn't have graduate students right now. That's not actually a huge concern, I think, because he was recruited here & has had graduate students in his lab previously. It's just been a time of transition with getting his animal facilities set up out here in Cali. I'm hopefully going to meet with some of the lab members relatively soon but I'm mucho excited!

Aside from the science, one of the things that really struck me about our meeting was how much he valued honesty & wanting to know things outside of my research interests. I really feel like I could be open with him & in times of vulnerability (which will certainly come as a graduate student), I think that's really critical for success in a program. We talked about everything from family stuff to integrating Western & Eastern methodologies with regards to science and medicine. Basically it was the perfect mix of all things jazz & I could not be more stoked. SCORE!!! I can not freaking wait to get back into lab

Other than that, I just watched the latest episode of Glee & it was tres emotional! Geez man, they should have given you a warning at the beginning of the episode or something. Off to be productive for the rest of the night!

kiss kiss :)