Double-headed Microscope-- Fun, Fun, Fun!

Yesterday I asked my boss if we could play with two microscopes at once instead of having to share one (my labmate and I share, that is). She told me she needed hers for awhile then we could have it. She emerged from her office not that long after and announced, "You can have the microscope. Double-head it!"

I looked at her quizically (well that might be kind to myself, I am pretty certain I gave her a blank stare). Double-head it??? That's not part of my terminology.

Well, it turns out she was talking about her double-headed teaching microscope. I'd never seen one before. Way cool. Of course it makes sense if one is training residents and constantly reviewing slides with another person-- this way you don't have to keep passing the microscope in and back-- you both see the same view and one person has the controls, the other is along for the ride. Very fancy too. It has a handy red pointer that you can move around on the field. Back in San Jose the emergency clinic had a super fancy new microscope that was all the rage because you could take pictures with it and there was a viewfinder that popped up so that someone could see what you were looking at it. The ophthalmologist next door tested her resident using this scope because it enabled her to kind of see what the resident was looking at. But the double-headed one at Cornell is so much better even than that!

So, I got to spend the day looking at slides, with my very enthusiastic, knowledgeable labmate training me, pointing out areas of interest and quizzing me. It was fun! And beautiful! Histology is very aesthetically pleasing-- I wrote in a post on my old blog this fall:

Not since I first came across fractals in my high school math class have I been so astonished and pleased by the aesthetics of a subject in a scientific field. Just like fractals, there was a psychedelic quality to the images. I was just plain blown away by the beauty of the slides I saw. Who knew a cross-section of the trachea would be so stunning? All that detail-- the hot pink of the epithelial cells lining the trachea, the brilliant blue of the basement membrane (that's the stain binding to the carbohydrates FYI). A cross-section of the eye was a close second as my favorite. The lens a hot pink orb, the cornea even thinner than L and I had imagined (you can see why cats get such nasty corneal ulcers, there isn't much there to start with).

Conceptualizing Familiarity And Other Odd Tidbits

My mom sent me the link to an article in the New York Times today-- "The Familiar Place." It contains the following insight:

It’s disorienting to grasp that the world itself is neutral and that all the familiarity and unfamiliarity I feel is being carried around in my head.

My mom also sent me this useful information in response to yesterday's post:

I just looked up the number of sunny days per year [in Ithaca]. It is an average of 154. So you will see the sun a little less than half the time. The light box will be very useful.
FYI Philadelphia has 93 sunny days, Sacramento has 188, San Francisco has 160 and Raleigh has 111. So Ithaca is not much different from all these other places.

And best of all, Ithaca is already beginning to feel more familiar. It's not really home yet, and won't be for quite awhile, but it has echoes of my college years in New England that are not unwelcome-- for example, today, hearing the bells of the clock tower, the particular tilt of the afternoon sun, the Eastern trees and the hint of humidity all gave me a moment of rather pleasant deja vu transporting me back to my college days. I felt like I'd stepped into the movie Dead Poets Society (whose plot I can't remember at all, just that the film had a big impact on me at the time and embodied the preparatory school feel of the Northeast).

Impervious To The Grey

I keep hearing about how Ithaca is really grey in the winter. I checked my calendar, it IS June 2nd today. And it is still grey. In fact it has been rather grey since I arrived, at least in the mornings-- the sun tends to come out later on in the day. After work, I stopped by the pet store on the way home to pick up some stuff for the cats and the woman at the checkout chirped cheerily, "Did you enjoy the beautiful day?" Um, no. If this is what qualifies as a beautiful day then I am really in trouble-- it was completely gloomy until about two pm!

I am going to get a lamp for my room sometime this week (after I finish running around to look at houses for next year). And then I am going to start using my light box/go light when it arrives (it is unfortunately currently in transit from California to New York) if the sun still hasn't come out.

If only I were actually impervious to the grey...

No More Driving In Circles!

So I finally caved. I bought a GPS for my car (if it were a newer car it would have just come with one and would have saved me the protracted internal debate). I don't like gadgets. I believe a lot of technology actually complicates life rather than simplifying it, as claimed. However, I have overcome my substantial resistance to both acquiring more possessions and technology and now own a GPS.

Moving across the country by myself (well with a little cat wrangling help from my friend Coyote) was HARD. Really HARD. And scary. I moved halfway around the world at eighteen and don't remember it being half this hard (I guess it gets harder the more settled you become...)

But a part of it is the driving. I didn't drive when I moved to a new country at eighteen. I barely drove in DC last summer and when I did, at least to start, I was never alone.

Driving alone in a new place means getting lost. It means getting lost A LOT for me. And that is scary and unpleasant, and there isn't necessarily someone to ask directions from in a rural area.

Hence the GPS. It is part of my attempt to make my life easier, to prevent those moments when I come unglued (though I am beginning to realize that mostly that has to do with how tired I am rather than the seriousness of the particular catastrophe at hand).

I realized that being lost can result in profound social impairment after reading this post-- "GPS Directed Socially Engaged States." Just the title made me laugh. It is from the blog of a therapist in Seattle who generally blogs about things related to trauma therapy and whose husband is an avid birder and professional photographer. She wrote this post in the context of a car trip she and her husband took to Big Sur (condor territory) after the UCLA trauma conference in early March. It's highly recommended reading, hey, it helped convince me to get a GPS:)

(And for those of you looking for interesting blogs-- check out her blog 'Trauma & Attachment Therapy'-- it's a favorite of mine along with The Homeless Parrot and in a way not so different, both blogs are written about work in a particular profession, and both deal with trauma just in different contexts).

Ithaca: Sights and Sounds

Maybe not sounds, but captions will follow once I figure out how to get rid of the underlining!



Look! A non-native, a coyote from Morgan Hill at the center for biodiversity!--





Since I flew into Ithaca/Tompkins airport for my winter visit, I had no idea how rural Ithaca really is until I drove in and back from Syracuse this weekend. It is rural. Even more rural than where I went to school in Western Massachusetts, which is fine because I like rural. And who needs to go to Boston or a city when one has a veterinary library waiting?




Apparently California cows are not the only happy cows (stupid commercial...)

Have Air Bed, Will Travel

I'm in Ithaca. This is my room for the summer. My traveling companion, Coyote, is taking the bed for the night so I'm on my handy air mattress, which usually lives in my car's trunk in case of emergencies, but packed neatly into my hiking backpack that got checked.

To my right is a large stack of books that I purchased courtesy of the awesome Cornell list serve and graduating seniors-- they are mainly anatomy books, a histology book, immunology, cell biology, microbiology, a veterinary dictionary and one whopping vegetarian cookbook (one has to eat, right?)

Simon doesn't approve of his new digs as much as the screen porch he inhabited this morning, but he is happy to get some attention and love and is now curled up next to me while I write this.

Lest you get the vastly mistaken impression that all has been smooth sailing, I will admit I had a near meltdown earlier this evening. This event was precipitated by my lack of sleep (all week leading up to the move and then getting about three hours sleep on the five hour flight from San Jose to JFK), my lack of food (I had two square meals in the previous thirty plus hours), my inability to navigate Ithaca (I drove for almost forty-five minutes to find downtown, let alone a parking space, since so many streets were blocked off for the Ithaca Festival), my sense of being overwhelmed by the number of veterinary books in my room (most are textbooks and binders belonging to the student from whom I am subletting) and a general feeling that I am completely inadequate to be going to vet school at Cornell. There, I said it.

This situation was ameliorated by a meal at the world famous Moosewood restaurant. On the way from the parking lot to the restaurant, I asked Coyote if we should note the cross streets in order to find the car again. She said it wouldn't be a problem so I didn't look.

Coyote then proceeded to drink a Screwy Moose (don't ask me, I don't drink).

We checked out the Ithaca festival, but when we were ready to leave we couldn't find the car.

The parking garage had mysteriously disappeared. It wasn't where we left it.

Coyote hypothesized that someone changed the map posted at the entrance to the Ithaca Commons and moved the garage all while we were busy eating dinner.

I laughed.

She then said, "We're screwed."

I laughed again.

She then said, "In reality, we don't know where the car is."

I soberly let this fact sink in.

I think it was only her presence and humor that prevented sheer panic from setting in.

We wandered around some more, lamenting the missing parking garage.

And then, somehow, we stumbled upon it. (Coyote would like to take full credit for this fortuitous event, but I think it was somewhat luck).

Of course, once we had located the parking garage, we still had to locate the car, which being a rental, was only vaguely recognizable to either of us.

On the stairs up to the parking deck, I said gleefully, my stressed mind racing ahead, "So tomorrow our plan is to find a blue jay and I'm going to look at two houses."

Coyote replied, "Wait, first let's find the car. Keep it simple!"

Right, when will I learn to live in the moment and not borrow trouble?

I've Arrived In New York

I'm here. I've made it to the other side. My new life begins today.

Right now I'm relaxing in Syracuse at EB's parents' house while en route to Ithaca.

Her parents are amazing-- they have a passion for nature, wildlife, native plants, bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, sustainable living, regenerative living, entymology and all things wonderful in my world. Here's a photo of the backyard-- there are many ponds, a recirculating stream, frogs, toads and they have a plot where they grow a significant amount of their own food. It's recognized both by the National Wildlife Federation as a certified backyard habitat and by Monarch Watch as a Monarch way station.




Simon is relieved to be out of his carrier after ten hours, mostly on planes. Thankfully, he and Lindy traveled remarkably well. I am pleased to discover that my cats are so portable. That certainly makes contemplating future summer jobs much easier.

After being cooped up inside all year, Simon just loved the screen porch-- all the smells, sounds and new sights.
The red-eye flight was not too bad. One nice thing about being petite is that I can curl up and sleep just about anywhere. Even though the flight was almost completely full, I was lucky enough to have the seat next to me empty and I slept well on the two seats in a semi-fetal position. After my years of emergency work, I honestly don't think there is anywhere I couldn't fall asleep, from the floor of the surgery suite to cement floors to wooden floors. So in the grand scheme of things this was quite comfortable by my standards.

And here I am in San Jose at the airport, waiting to take off. Me, my two cats, and my weighty tome on bat ecology:)