ACS Relay For Life

Dear Family and Friends, April and I have decided to take action against cancer by participating in the American Cancer Society Relay For Life event right here in my community. Relay For Life is about celebration, remembrance, and hope. By participating, we are honoring cancer survivors, paying tribute to the lives we've lost to the disease, and raising money to help fight it. As many of you may know, we have both lost many family members- I lost both of my grandfathers to liver cancer, and my mother is currently undergoing treatment- the second time in fifteen years- for lymphoma. April lost her grandfather to lymphoma, and her grandmother to cervical cancer, and her grandmother's twin sister is currently undergoing treatment for a tumor in her leg. Cancer has taken the lives, or threatened the lives, of loved ones of all of us. Please help support us in this important cause by making a donation. It is faster and easier than ever to support us by making a secure, tax-deductible donation online using the link below. To donate online now, click here to visit my personal page. Whatever you can give will help - it all adds up! We greatly appreciate your support and will keep you posted on our progress. Sincerely, Jason & April PS If you would like to mail a donation, please make your check payable to: American Cancer Society Fighting cancer can be easier than you think Especially when you participate in the American Cancer Society Relay For Life. Visit http://www.relayforlife.org/relay/findevent to locate an event in your community today. Double Your Money Many employers offer matching funds programs. Most of these programs match contributions dollar for dollar, and some will even double or triple the amount of your gift. Please inquire with your personnel/HR department to complete the paperwork required to get your gift matched. Visit our Matching Gifts page for more information. Fight Back How does the money you raise help fight cancer? In so many ways! The donations you collect enable the American Cancer Society to fund cutting-edge research, provide up-to-date cancer information and education, advocate for all people to have access to critical cancer screenings and follow-up care, and offer free programs to improve the quality of life for patients and their families. Questions? Contact Angela Baca, Online Chair, at: relaylongbeach@gmail.com

Renaissance Faire, revisited

As I sat down to write this post with Jay, an earthquake happened. It is the first one Jay has been able to feel. As usual, I got dizzy. Meow was perfectly calm the entire time, and in fact sat with me, purring and licking until she decided a nap was more interesting. According to the quake data, it was a 5.0 and lasted around 30 seconds. Not fun. The epicenter was about 2 miles south, 3-4 miles east.

On Saturday, Jay and I went to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. Jay had attended last weekend, and bought me a beautiful costume. This costume, while lovely, involved a corset and that really took some getting used to. Jay's costume was extremely creative, and he pieced it together with things he had on hand and a couple of items from Target.

We had a wonderful time wandering through the faire, bowing and curtsying to the nobility. We even spied Queen Elizabeth I several times, including sitting with her court.




We ate at the vendors (the required turkey leg and beef ribs) and spent quite a bit of time watching performers. There were singers, dancers, comedians, and many talented musicians. We watched part of the jousts and toured the tourney camp. We also bought some new pottery pieces for our collection. We spent 6 hours at the faire, and left exhausted, dirty and very satisfied. We will be back for more next year!

AWIS Cal Tech Science Writer's Panel

Last night Jenny and I attended a Science Writer's Panel held at Cal Tech in Pasadena, CA. It was co-sponsered by AWIS and the Cal Tech Post-Doc Association. The speakers were fantastic. We had Greg Critser, Dave Zobel, and Jorge Cham. For those of you who do not recognize the name, Jorge Cham writes the Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD) comic strip.
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php
Everyone I know of in graduate school and post-doc positions loves these comics. He really manages to capture life in academia, and all the ensuing chaos. It was really a lot of fun to meet Dr. Cham, who is a very nice and funny guy in person. I immediately managed to wrangle the position of assistant for the night, helping him out with selling his books before and after the panel talk. I ran the credit card machine and took money, while he signed books and chatted with his fans. Afterwards, he posed for a picture with me and gave me two autographed books. In one he drew a sketch of Jay, and dedicated it to my "sugardaddy" and in the second he gave me a reference for future job searches: Swipes really well. He has a really good sense of humor, and I had so much fun!The above photograph was taken by Sophia Tsai, another AWIS member, of Jorge Cham and me with his latest volume of PhD comics. Thanks so much, Sophia! The entire panel at CalTech was a lot of fun. I have to say, the AWIS events just seem to get better and better.

Adventures as of late

Well, I haven't got any pictures to put up with this post, but I thought you might like to know what we have been up to recently. Following our visit to Joshua Tree National Park, we had a wonderful dinner with our friend Justin Widener. Justin was a labmate of mine in the Duk lab, and we both worked on TLF. He is now a program manager for Merial, and was here on the West Coast for training. J-dawg, it was awesome to see you again! I really miss that guy.

We also attended a play here in Hollywood. Plays are very numerous and popular here, as sometimes you can catch famous actors or actresses getting in some stage time. The play we went to see was called "Photograph 51" after the piece of data taken from Rosalind Franklin's lab and used to develop the structural model of DNA published by Watson and Crick (they did not acknowledge that they had taken her data until after they were awarded the Nobel prize). It was at the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood, and Jay and I really enjoyed it. Jay was very involved in drama while in high school, and also during the one year of college he bothered with. I think that we will be attending many more plays, and the Fountain theatre was one of the most intimate settings I have ever been in.

Last weekend I attended a conference in San Diego, Women in Science and Technology. It was awesome, especially because I got a lot of ideas about what I want to do next in my career. I am usually a big planner, with the next 5-10 years of my life detailed out. That has fallen by the wayside since I finished my PhD and started my post-doc. There are a lot of options out there, and I have had a difficult time deciding where I want to go next. Jay is such an open and supportive spouse that no doors have been eliminated based on where he wants to live or what he wants to do (although he is very keen on me going overseas for a while). At any rate, if any of my friends are not current members of AWIS, I encourage you to join and take full advantage of their networks and education offerings. It has been a real boost for me.

Since Jay was left on his own for a couple of days with no one but the cat for company, he made lots of plans with friends. He started Saturday off with a trip to the Renaissance Faire here in LA, and I really wish I had pictures to show you! Don't fear, we are supposed to return there this weekend so I can explore as well. After the faire, he went to see Star Trek with a friend, and then out to dinner. We both crashed pretty hard on Sunday!