The blog is not dead!

Hi everyone,

I want to quickly let you know that I’ve found out a really good blogging solution that works for me and will make it easier for me to write more. It involves me paying for internet hosting, but it isn’t that much money, and it’ll help me be better about writing!

Anyway, I’m busy putting the legitimate site together, and when it’s done (soon!) I’ll let you know.

Much love,
David

Why I write (and when I don’t)

This is a quick update, nothing fancy. Mainly I want to tell you about why I haven’t been posting entries here recently, which makes me sad. In spite of everything in this post, though, I do have an article planned that should come out some time this week. I’ll be crossing my fingers.

You may have noticed that I don’t write much.

Part of the reason is that I’m busy living my life and working here, and if I do have free time, I usually want to spend it with friends or doing crucial things like, well, eating.

Another reason I haven’t written is that I like to take time to write entries, so if I don’t have a lot of time on my hands, I just don’t write. I would rather not write than put out something that was unclear or uninteresting.

Obviously, I want to keep in touch with you all, and not just through this blog. One solution to the two problems I’ve listed above is that I’m going to post randomly to Twitter, and I’m going to stream my tweets to the sidebar in this blog.

As you can see from my past tweets, I don’t write about inane personal activities (a la ‘Just took a shower. Off to work.’). Instead, I like to write about ridiculous things that happen to me, or share something I found while browsing the web.

You may or may not like the feed, but I think it might help me stay connected with you guys more.

A third reason I haven’t written much is I don’t know what you want to hear about. I’ve given you a broad overview of what’s going on here, but I’m not sure what details you want. Right now, I have patterns and habits that I’m following—and a big part of those patterns involves work. I’m trying to build up some cash reserves and (before I forget) buy a mattress. Afterwards, maybe I can start taking a trip or two and going out more to find restaurants I like. I’m doing some of that now, but with more money will come more freedom to explore. (That’s just how life is, I guess.)

I’ve spent a lot of my free time so far hanging out with friends, going to potlucks, dancing, and exploring Cambridge/Boston while the weather is still nice. There’s only so much of that I can describe, though, so I want your ideas: what do you want to hear about?

I hope to hear from all of you, and I always love getting phone calls from everyone back home!

Much love,
David

My niche

It’s finally Friday, and I can tell you how things are going here.

I guess the next logical thing for me to tell you about is what a work day looks like for me. Not a schedule or a nitty-gritty description. I’d rather just give you a sense of what work is like for me here, how I get along with my colleagues, and what I’ve been up to for the last month in lab.

My job description / where I fit in / the conceptual side
I am a research assistant.

What does that mean? Well, first I’ll tell you what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean I make media or clean the lab or go from person-to-person asking how I can help them. I am used to doing all of the above as part of my job (and in my undergrad lab, for example, everyone pitched in to keep up the lab). But MGH is a corporate environment, and there is a definite structure to how we work.

Instead of every person making agar plates and antibiotic stocks and sterilizing equipment for him/herself, there are people who do those jobs exclusively. They are usually in high school and looking to major in biology in college. The lab assistants I work with are great people and will definitely have a leg up when applying to undergrad. What’s more, they make life easier for everyone. So it’s a win-win(-win?) situation.

Because I don’t need to worry about keeping my plate stocks full, I can concentrate on research. I have my own project, which is coordinated by an MD I work with. My boss figures out higher-level stuff (like general project directions, general lab strategies, funding) and I perform experiments and analyze the results. I order supplies for our project and keep our part of the lab running.

This is my niche, and I’m comfortable in it.

The MGH

Okay, okay, okay. I’ll tell you about my job.

No, but really, I have been wanting to write here over the past couple weeks about the job. But said job has kept me from doing so. I want to use this entry to tell you some things about Mass General Hospital, or MGH, and about what I’m doing here.

First, though, I’d like to take a detour and say: apparently Mass General employees are kind of schizophrenic about the hospital’s name. Some people (normal people) call the hospital “MGH”, as you would expect. That’s fine and good. The problem is that about twenty percent of the people I’ve met here, and they all work in HR, have decided to call our workplace “the MGH”. Now, I find this obnoxious, not just because saying “the MGH” is a little pretentious… but also because only one in five people adds on “the”. I’ve decided this name change is a plot hatched by HR that will—somehow—end in global domination. No details yet on why I think that; just go with me on this. For now, I’m refusing to put “the” in front of “MGH”. If we’re talking one day, though, and I do put the “the” in there, you will know their plan has worked, and all is lost.

Mass General Hospital's logo... see, no 'the'!

1. Getting oriented
Back to business, though. I’m two-and-a-half weeks into my work at Mass General, and I’m finally getting the hang of things. It all started with orientation at the end of last month. During orientation, HR regaled us with facts and figures about MGH that really are kind of impressive—for example, did you know the hospital employs over 21,000 people and spends $550 million each year, just for research? And if you think that $550 million is a lot to spend on research, you should know that more than $2 billion passes through the hospital’s hands every year. So research is important, but patient care is top priority.

My fun-sized take on how it’s going

Should I have started writing about Cambridge before now, my first week of work? Yes. Should I have kept notes about all the wonderful and not-so-wonderful things that have happened to me so far, the better to remember them and then write them down? Yes. Did I? Of course not!

So, while I don’t have much time to write things down tonight, I wanted to at least post once before I start my job tomorrow and give you a little taste into what Cambridge has been like for me so far. Nothing big. Consider this a “fun-size” blog entry.

1. I’m meeting people
Safe and sound in Cambridge, I’ve been starting to meet people for about a week and a half now. And I’d say I’ve already have five or six friends here, plus loads more acquaintances from dances. People here are (contrary to popular southern belief) extremely friendly and accepting, and I haven’t met a person yet who wasn’t interested in talking. The neighbors working in their yards appreciate a smile when I walk by, and really, that part doesn’t feel so different from the South.

I’ve met most of my newfound friends at the two contras I’ve danced. Since contra is community-oriented, making friends is not hard. I’m sure I’ll talk a lot more about my friends as we get to know each other better—and I have more time to think and write. For now, know they are great dancers and fun people.