Less of me, more of God.

I was reading this morning in Galatians about living a life that’s totally in-tune with God. It says the following in one small section of what I was reading:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

Awesome. Great. But how can I really be this all the time?

I was reading this before work today because yesterday I was in the kind of mood where I could have painted “LEAVE ME ALONE” on my forehead. (I will admit that I’m sure that I didn’t need a sign on my forehead for people to pick up on this). And I didn’t want that to happen again today. Granted, yesterday I was tired and feeling the onset of a cold, but I wasn’t feeling love, joy, patience (uh especially this one) or gentleness. I figured, if I start my day totally focused on God, then how things can go wrong? But they do… and it is sometimes a battle for me to remember that I don’t live this life for me… I live it for the One who has sent me. But, if I’m overflowing with His love- that comes from a life of total submission to Him- then it’s easier. Today was a better day.

Work Hard, Play Hard

Now that the weather is nice (with the exception of this rainy week- which is much needed) I have been starting up again with my summer sports. This includes biking, running, tennis, golf and ultimate frisbee. Let’s just say, I’m getting re-acquainted with some muscles that haven’t been used in a while.

This weekend I ran on Friday. I wasn’t hurting much from that except the residual quadriceps soreness from biking last weekend. Saturday I played tennis for a few hours with my friend Lynn. My “twisting muscles” (latisimus dorsi), triceps, biceps and forearms are a tad sore from that. Sunday I played ultimate frisbee for 2 hours. Let’s just say, I’m not used to sprinting. So, it was 2 hours of almost constant running with bursts of sprinting and jumping. My quads are feelin’ it today… but soon, it will go away and I’ll be able to enjoy it all with little to no soreness. I’m looking forward to that! Nonetheless, it was worth it… I enjoyed playing outside and am looking forward to more beautiful days!

Weekend

Today is Saturday and it is going to be a good day. I just came from my women’s Bible study where we talked about keeping all of our “hula-hoops” of life going but with a peace and focus that comes from being centered in Christ. It was awesome to get to know these ladies even more and to talk about things that really matter. The truth is, we all struggle with the juggling act of life and if we’re not careful, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and overburdened with the small stuff. But when our gaze is set on God and we only glance at the things around us, our vision (think big picture here) is more clear.

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:18

Aside from that- today I’m going to my friend Lynn’s house. We’re gonna play a little tennis and maybe sit out in the sunshine (if it comes out) and read for a bit. I’m really looking forward to it. And tomorrow after church, weather permitting, I’m going to go play ultimate frisbee with some UMass’ians (now that it’s nice out there’s an organized pick-up game every Sunday). So take care and let me know how things are going with you.

My Turn

There are times that I look at other people’s lives and think ‘why not me’? It’s not that I’m unhappy with where I am, but sometimes I think about when it will be my turn for certain things in life. This includes- but is not limited to- a job that pays more than a graduate student stipend, someone to spend the rest of my life with, kids and living somewhere more “permanently” (as opposed to the constant moving from apartment to apartment).

I’ve got an amazing friend who is only about a year older than me… she snagged a great guy almost 5 years ago and just had her second beautiful baby girl. She has a heart for God and people. She spends time investing in others and will be a great role-model for her daughters. She is fun to be around, super down-to-earth and in a couple of months she probably won’t even look like she’s had 2 children. Have I mentioned that she’s amazing? Sometimes I find myself envying what she’s got. Most of the time, I’m really glad that I don’t have two kids yet. And many times I think- I’m not in a hurry but when will it be my turn?

I rest assured that God knows me better than I know me and that there’s a reason that I’m not there yet. I refuse to believe that I’m not married etc. because there is something wrong with me or that I’m defective in any way. On a bad day, it’s really not hard to think that of oneself. But on most days I’m really happy with where I am and am not thinking about all the when’s why’s and how’s. Gotta live for today, tomorrow has enough worries of its own…

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God…” Romans 8:28

A Fresh Perspective

At Fellowship Church, I am privileged to be a part of a small group that is reading I Became a Christian and All I Got Was a Lousy T-shirt (very entertaining and insightful on authentic Christianity and a life abiding in Christ) and a ladies group studying Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World (take away the “to-do’s” and focusing on what is really important).

Some of these things have been weighing heavily on my heart for some time now. I’ve been really wrestling with what my life should look like (both now and in the future). This has taken me on a few adventures that weren’t wrong, but they weren’t right either. I’ve been paying attention to this and learning from these adventures about where I should be and what I should focus on. This 3-day weekend, I had the privilege of hanging out with God and really thinking about the things that He has been teaching me these past couple of months. So here it goes…

The problem: I have the sick and twisted view that I can control why/when/how things will unfold in my life. Like many ladies, I have a deep desire to be married and have a family. Frankly, I’d really rather not be super old when this happens. So, when my last boyfriend and I broke up, after grieving, I panicked because here I am, in central Mass, with very few young, Christian men that meet my standards. (Yes dad, I’m aware that my standards are too high) : ) And, since I’m going to be here until I’m at least 28 (another 2 years) I thought, I need to take control of the situation and get out there and have a crazy-busy social life to increase the probability that I will meet someone great. Long story short, I did have a fun social life, and was volunteering my time in too many ways, but it came at a cost and I was beginning to get tired.

The painful pruning: During lent (the 40 days before Easter), I cut out a bunch of stuff. This includes almost everything that wasn’t necessary (which is God, work and exercise). I was being pulled in too many directions and I was going to snap if I didn’t change things urgently. This was by no means an easy task. I had to train myself to be content with where I am now, who I am, and what I’m doing out here in MA.

One of the major things that I cut out was going to a young-adults group with some super fun people down at a church just outside of Boston. I have one very good friend, Lynn that I have kept closely in contact with because she is a great sister!! But other than that, it was a bunch of acquaintances and a lot of driving that was totally unnecessary. It got cut. Other than Lynn and Whitney, most of my friends here in Worcester/Holden are engaged/married/married+kids with the inability to randomly hang out on a Friday or Saturday night. Lynn was busy; Whitney was out of town; so it was just me (or should I say me and God). Initially, I was unhappy with my lack of weekend plans, but reluctantly decided it was good since I had been sick all week. So, on Saturday I slept in, spent some time reading my Bible, went on a 17.4 mile bike ride, went to the driving range and putting green then did some more reading- all by myself. I had a great day.

The result: At the end of Saturday, I was sitting on my couch in a very quiet apartment and it was at this moment I realized that I was getting to the place that I had been praying for. A purposeful life that isn’t too busy which allows me to live in His presence as I pursue the things put in front of me. This is a life that doesn’t crowd out God’s leading (assuming, of course, that I am listening and following).

To be totally honest with you, I am so energized by this. I am so completely satisfied with where I am, what I’m doing, being single and pursuing God. In fact, for at least the next year or two, I really hope some boy doesn’t come along, messing all that up. I am stoked with life. I want to live life in the present, not always looking for the next thing/event/life stage. I want to enjoy this time of my life because really, I’m only gonna be here once... so my focus is on the present, trusting God with the rest. I am ready to truly abide. Man, that’s liberating!

Spring Fever

This weekend is going to be beautiful! Today the high is 77. Woo hoo! I am so excited! Monday is a holiday- Patriots Day. We’re the only state in the country that celebrates this. But if we didn’t celebrate it, we wouldn’t have a 3-day weekend in April. Seriously, Massachusetts celebrates all the lowly holidays such as MLK Day, President’s Day, Columbus Day, Patriots Day, Memorial Day and Veterans Day. And of course, the obvious 4th of July, New Years, Christmas and Thanksgiving. At San Diego State the only holiday we got off was Caesar Chavez Day (and they usually stuck it on the end of Spring Break so we didn’t really get the day off of classes)… people out here don’t even know who he was! But, I’m not complaining. I like the fact that I can count on a 3-day weekend almost once every month. Although, as a graduate student, the unspoken rule is that I am expected to be in the lab anyways… but things are much more lax on holidays and weekends. Good times. I think it’s time for me to put away the thick winter sweaters and bust out the tank tops and shorts!

A True Story

Yesterday I was staining TB inside macrophages with a fluorescent dye called Auramine. The counter-stain (this un-stains everything BUT the TB) for Auramine contains 10% Hydrochloric Acid (HCl). I was reminded of a funny story from back in the day… I hope you’ll enjoy it.

I can’t remember if it was my 2nd or 3rd semester of Chemistry at SDSU but I remember the day with perfect clarity. We were doing a “Bomb Calorimetry” lab experiment. Basically, a bomb calorimeter measures the heat given off in combustion of hydrocarbons in any particular sample. Well, we were measuring the heat given off by the combustion of 10M HCl and zinc. (For those of you who don’t know, 10M HCl is STRONG!!! In lab, I normally use 1M or 0.5M HCl). I was in charge measuring the volume of the acid. Melanie, my lab partner (and model med-school-bound student) was in charge of measuring out the zinc. I did my job perfectly but unfortunately Melanie had made a mistake. She missed a decimal point and had added ten times more zinc than she was supposed to. Unbeknownst to us, we mixed the HCl and the zinc together and watched the temperature rise on the thermometer (combustion is measured by the amount of heat given off). I was impressed. This experiment was really working… the temperature was getting very hot, very quickly. We were sitting watching the thermometer and the stopwatch very closely when all of a sudden, HCl started spewing out of the bomb calorimeter. Oh crap. This is when we realized that something must be wrong. Fortunately, we were all wearing goggles and lab coats… and- I still got an A in the class. Those were good times…

Lunch Outside

It is approximately 59 outside right now and absolutely beautiful!!! I had to take lunch outside today and soak up some of that sunshine-exclusive vitamin D. I felt like I was in San Diego. I think we got into the low 60's last week, but by Friday of this week we're supposed to be at 70 (for the first time since last summer). I am really looking forward to that! I will be done with work at about 4:30 so I think I'll hit the road and go for a run before dinner... in my t-shirt. It's gonna be great! I have even higher hopes for the weekend :)

My Tick Story

On Saturday afternoon/early evening, I went to hang out with my friend Angela, her family, and her brother that she wanted me to meet. We went to the rail trail and went for a walk along the river- a bit off the beaten path. It was a little drizzly, but we didn’t get too wet. When we got back to the house, Angela found a tick on her shirt. I had never seen a tick before and was intrigued. I checked my jacket and jeans to make sure that I didn’t have anything on me… those things are creepy. We didn’t do any serious exertion and since I had biked 15 miles before I met up with them I decided to wait to shower until the following morning. In the shower I saw what I thought was a mole but not in a place that I am used to seeing one. So, I thought it was dirt… I got my washcloth and scrubbed my hip only to realize that it wasn’t dirt or a mole. I had a tick burrowing into my skin. I freaked. I had no idea what to do, I was totally grossed out and I’ll admit, at this point, I was a little scared. I called everyone I knew. But since it was a Sunday morning, everyone was getting ready for church and not answering their cell phones. Finally, I got a hold of someone. They said to smother it with Vaseline and that would “suffocate” it and it would start to back out. It creeped me out too much to pull it out myself so I smothered the thing, put a band aid over it and went to church with some tweezers so someone could pull it out for me. (By the way- it’s better for someone else to pull these out so that you don’t get any broken off body parts of the tick left under your skin.) By the time I got to church, the Vaseline had kicked in and the tick had started backing out and Angela was able to pull the thing out. You’re supposed to save the tick when you pull it out of your skin so you can send it for testing for Lyme disease if need be. But, I know a guy at work who studies Borrelia burgdorferi (the bacterium that is carried by ticks that causes Lyme’s disease) so I had him take a look at the tick. Sure enough, it’s the kind of tick that carries this bacterium- a deer tick. So I’ll have to watch the wound site to make sure that a rash doesn’t develop (a symptom of infection). I have finally stopped checking the site of any itch that may come along during the day for fear of ticks… but seriously, this was one of the grossest things I’ve experienced. (As for the brother, he was nice, but not for me).

A random collection of Friday's thoughts

Today is a good day… mostly because it’s Friday and I get to leave around 4pm and am going to a friend’s house for dinner. Last night was also good. I had life group (like a Bible study) and we talked about being hungry for God. It was good… we ate, we talked, and shared life. One of the ladies in our Bible study told me that she has a brother that she wants me to meet. I think this is funny because as soon as I’ve sworn off boys (at least for as long as I am in MA) someone wants to introduce me to someone else. This lady is very nice, as are her husband and children… so I’m sure that she wouldn’t want to introduce me to some deadbeat brother. I didn’t have the heart to say no, so I told her I’d meet him. All I know about him is that he’s in law school and comes home on weekends… and that he’s 6’0” and Angela thinks that we’d mesh. The law school thing is a bit scary to me because you hear about all the sleaze that is associated with lawyers, but I only have one real life example of a lawyer (well… she’s almost there) and that is my soon-to-be sister in law, Ana, and I absolutely adore her. Since she is the opposite of sleaze… I’ll give this guy the benefit of the doubt. He’s lucky I don’t know any sleazy lawyers. I’ll keep you posted…

My New Commuting Style (weather permitting)

Today I began my new commute to work. I'll be riding my sweet sweet bike. I bought this bike when I moved to MA as sort of a substitute to my surf board. (They don't compare- AT ALL- but I take what I can get). The ride to work was pretty good. The map says its 4.99 miles, but my bike computer that measures the actual distance says 5.4 miles and it took me 27 minutes to get to work. (I hit basically every red light). This is the short ride to work. My friend Katie directed me to a website called http://www.mapmyride.com/ its pretty helpful for planning a good bike route. Here's the route I took this morning:

Coming home, I think I'll take the longer route. It will be about 7.2 miles and much more scenic (the opposite of the shorter route). I'm hoping that I won't get lost since I'll be taking some back roads... but that's one of the things that I think give New England its charm. We'll see. Here's my evening route:

Rockin' in the Lab

I have exactly 7 minutes and 23 seconds to write this blog today… we’ll see how it goes. I came into the lab at my leisure yesterday to plan for the week. Honestly, I thought that this would take maybe 45 minutes. 3 hours later, I left the lab, but satisfied with all that I plan to do. I’m going to rock in lab this week. Wednesday is going to be my long day. I’ll start at about 7:30 am and leave around 11pm. But, if I get more pretty pictures, it will be worth it. If I don’t get good results, I’ll be frustrated. Let’s hope for the best. The rest of the week consists of some miscellaneous experiments (mostly repeats of things that I’ve already done). In science, you need to repeat something at least 3 times before anyone will consider it a possibility… so this week, I repeat. Only one thing scares me… my boss would like to come in the lab and help me out. He’s excited about my project and wants to help me publish this ASAP. I’m really not so sure about this. This means that he’ll be IN the lab. YIKES! This may not be good. I’ll probably spend more time helping him than getting things done. We’ll have to talk about it on Thursday when he gets back from his Immunology conference in San Diego. In a nut shell, I’m excited about what the week will bring me at work. Rock on! PS- 1 minute and 2 seconds to spare.

The Kornfeld Lab

Today I will be giving you a tour of my lab. It is a nice lab… I work in the Lazar Research Building (LRB) which is the newest building on campus… for now. Since Craig Mello won the Nobel Prize, we've got a lot of funding for new research buildings. There will be a twin building to the one that I work in for a gene therapy center (it will host most of the RNAi and cancer research).







I like the building but I don’t like the way that it is set up. In most institutions each individual lab group has their own laboratory. We do not have that. Instead, there are many many lab benches and each individual lab group is assigned a certain number of benches (the area in between benches is called the “bay”). It is a good way to facilitate collaboration, but it is very noisy with this type of design. You can see the rows and rows of lab benches below.






Now I’ll walk you through areas that I occupy the most. This is bay 370R. Behind me is my desk and the desk of the lab manager Laura and the lab technician Antonella.







I have shown my desk in the state that it is in when I’m doing a lot of experiments throughout the week (and therefore never at my desk). I usually have my planner open (because I have to know at what day/time certain things must be done) and also my lab notebook (this is where I record all of my procedures, raw/ analyzed data, interpretations of my results from all experiments and the things I plan to do next to follow up on each experiment). My desk is messy, but my lab notebook is extremely organized… it has to be. But when I am working on my desk, things are organized neatly into stacks and I’ve got my swifter dusting cloths in one of my drawers because I detest dust on my working area.











Right next to my desk is my lab bench working space. This is where I work with most things that don’t need to be totally sterile or when I’m working with E. coli or Mycobacterium smegmatis. Both are totally non-pathogenic (uh, unless you drink it) and can be used in “open” areas. Other strains that I use must be used in the laminar flow hood (aka: "hood"). I spend quite a bit of time counting colonies grown on agar plates. You see me doing that below. Fortunately, I've got a pen that counts every colony that I touch so that I don't have to keep track in my head. This is a benefit since I am easily distracted.







I do a considerable amount of work in the “hood”. Mostly with the white blood cells that I use for my experiments and a strain of TB that can’t hurt me, but could change my skin tuberculin test outcome. The idea behind the hood is that because of the way that air circulates through this, and because of sterilizing with ethanol, it is considered a sterile environment. To keep it this way, anything that comes in/out is thoroughly sprayed down with 70% ethanol and/or vesphene- which effectively kills the TB that I work with. (Dad- did you notice we don’t use bleach to decontaminate?? Side note- Bleach causes stainless steel to rust over time so we don’t use it on the stainless steel hoods.) Here is a picture of 2 post-docs in the lab, Greg and Therese, using the hoods.






Ok, moving on now. This is the other bay that our lab uses- 370S. This is where Greg, Therese, YunSeung and Jinhee have their desks/benches.







This is the fluorescent microscope that the lab uses. (It is not the one that I used to take those pretty pictures that I sent you mom… I’ll show you that another time). I do use this to do microscopy that doesn’t require the features of the confocal microscope that I use the majority of the time. But, this is very good scope. We can make movies on it etc. Jinhee and I are the major uses of this fine machine.








You might be surprised of the common things in the lab that we have that you have at home. We have a microwave for melting gel’s. We also use common refrigerators to keep things at 4°C and freezers to keep things at -20°C. We also have a special freezer called the “minus 80”. This keeps things at -80°C and as you can imagine, that is very cold.








This is my advisor’s office. Hardy Kornfeld, MD. The hallway outside of the lab area is lined with offices for people who are more important than me. These people take all the credit for the things that grad-students and post-docs do. If most of them were to try to do anything in the lab, it would be catastrophic… they are better left to think-alone in their offices- and let us do the technical stuff.





But I better watch what I say because that could be me someday. J My advisor is largely responsible for when I graduate. We are nice to him. But actually, he is possibly one of the best advisors I could have chosen. He has a very good heart and although he wants us to produce data, equally important to him is our general happiness and well-being. For example, he knows that I love being outside and this winter he was worried that I wasn’t spending enough time outdoors so he asked if he and his wife needed to teach me how to cross country ski so that my soul would be satisfied. He also wants to make sure that I get to go home enough… all good things.







Well, that is the general tour of my workplace. Above is the 3rd floor common area where I eat most of my lunches and dinners. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. When new things arise, I may add on. But I thought I would show you all to the place I spend most of my time out here in Worcester. By the way, I hope the pictures turn out… this is the first set of pictures for me to post.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Today is very disappointing. We have been having marvelous weather. It has been in the high 40's and even low 50's recently... until today. Today it will barely hit 40 and it is yucky non-stop rain. Frankly, I'll take snow over rain any day... at least that is pretty to look at. However, the next couple of days are lookin' good with a bit of rain tomorrow morning and perhaps Tuesday. We should be hitting mid to high 50's next week! yay! I went on a 12 mile bike ride on Sunday... it was great until I hit some snow on the 3 miles that is a bit off the beaten path. I'm looking forward to that melting so I can do some longer rides.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's blog... I will be giving a virtual tour of my lab here at UMass.

Name that Blog

Ok, well, it’s official… I am totally naïve when it comes to certain things in life. I chose the title “Sunny Hunny” for two reasons. First, I am from sunny San Diego and in general am a very positive person- thus the “sunny”. Second, I am a girl and I thought using “Hunny” instead of “girl” was cuter. Plain and simple. I remembered that word “Hunny” because when we were growing up, my brother Scott used to joke around about trying to impress the “hunnies” (as in girls). Microsoft Word doesn’t recognize “Hunny” or “Hunnies” as real words. Wikipedia also doesn’t recognize “hunnies” but when you search for” hunny”, immediately re-directs you to the page that explains the history of Winnie the Pooh. Apparently Pooh Bear couldn’t spell and thought that “honey” was spelled “hunny”. When you google hunny, you get the same result. But if you google “hunnies” you get some links to some adult websites and other groups of girls who play softball etc. who also thought it was cute. The urban dictionary describes the term “hunnie” as a term of endearment that a boy might use to address (or refer to) his girl. This is what I was going for, except, like Pooh Bear I couldn’t spell it right and therefore have gotten it wrong. To be honest, I still think it’s cute… but tell me what you think.

Should I change it? I’m going to put it up for vote… I’m trying to decide on a more permanent name for my blog anyhow… the website will be the same, but the title can change. I’m putting some alternatives up on a poll… please vote on what you think would be best. I’ll leave the poll up for about a week.

You Can Subscribe to My Blog

Hi all, for those of you who are new to following blogs, you can actually subscribe to them. This is advantageous because it tells you when I've posted something new. That way, you don't have to check it all the time but only when I've added something new. This is called an RSS feed. You can do this by clicking "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)" and then filling in your information.

Hmmm... lets see how this goes

My goal in starting up this "blog" is mostly as a way for family and friends afar to be more familiar with my life out here in Worcester, MA... or wherever I end up next. The term "blog" should therefore be used loosely because I doubt that I shall ever rant or rave about any particular topic. I just want to be able to put up some pictures and talk about my life. I'm not sure how regularly I'll be updating this... hopefully more often than not :) I do hope that people will feel free to comment and smile as they read this. smile.