Heather Martin Reporting News

So much time has passed and lots to report but as usual not sure where to begin. I'm going a little crazy this week because a collaborator on this project I've been working on is presenting a poster at a conference in Cali beginning of Feb, I think I've mentioned the conference I don't get to go to because my PI says we have no money, but anyway I'm doing all the work and sending it to collaborator so he can put together a poster. On Monday he told me he wanted everything by Tuesday which is not much notice and that was Jan 20th so really we had a couple weeks but he wanted at least a week to get the thing printed and some time to pass it back and forth between us for corrections, etc. So Monday was a holiday for me but when I got the email I showered up and went right in to work. The bear had to work anyway so I did some work until about 5pm and then went to the gym to run 8 miles on the treadmill. I would have done it on Sunday but the race we were supposed to do and risked our lives to drive to an hour south of Boston ended up being cancelled. It sucked! The bear even met us there w/ Cleo, though I told him not to come because the weather was so bad. Anyway since the race didn't work out and I didn't get the long run in then I did it on Monday. It was faster than I would have done it outside w/ all the snow and stuff. I tried to simulate a race but it wasn't so easy. I had a view of the pool and watched the same two divers dive over and over and over while their coach tried to give them pointers. It was only slightly entertaining. It didn't help that around mile 3 I puked in my mouth. I guess the pb m&ms I ate earlier were trying to escape. I had to keep stopping to go to the fountain and drink water but the puke and acid taste wouldn't go away but I also didn't want to stop the run once I got started. So I finished it up and thought I'd go to rr and jenn's for the SU Pitt game but they were in a fight so I went home and watched it on espn360. SU got killed so it sucked but at least i got to watch it. I basically missed the first half and it was still a close game at that point but things soon got ugly. I haven't written at all about SU this season. The Big East is stacked which is scary if you follow a team in the Big East since every other night it seems they're playing an awesome team. Some you win, some you don't but for the most part SU is great this year and hanging on in the top 10. We'll see how things shape up since conference play recently started. So after the game the bear came home and by bed was complaining of feeling yucky. the good doc that i am took his temp. (not even in the butt, though i wanted to) and he had normal temp. it was like 98. but all night long he felt sick and wasn't sleeping well which kept me up and by 5am he was violently puking in the toilet. it was awful! i felt really bad for him. he'd go back to bed and then have to puke again. by 8am he had a fever of 101 and i said he couldn't go to work after he said he could go. he stayed home sick and i went in to work to do a million things for this project thinking i would start puking soon enough. luckily it never happened. maybe it was the flu and my flu shot saved me. not sure. so all yesterday and all today i've been doing lovely qPCR and passing on results by email. it feels good to get rid of them. i'm a little scared to see what he came up w/ for a poster but i guess i'll know soon enough. my last assay is running now so we'll see. talk later