at the finish line....

The past few weeks have been absolutely crazy. I had the privilege of giving a talk at Synthetic Biology 4.0 in Hong Kong last weekend. It was the first stamp on my passport and a pretty interesting conference in general. I only got to do a little sight-seeing the first and last days since the university where we were staying was a bus and a train ride away from anything. Everyone is curious so let me just say, we had a kitchen so think I only ate one meal out the whole trip. It's not a very bodybuilding-friendly place. Even my friends who are 'normal' didn't like the food so I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything. But there are very few obese people in China so maybe they are on to something.

I took my laptop to work on my thesis and got quite a bit done except on the return flight when the outlets in the seats didn't work---ugghh!! But I was able to finish a decent draft to print for my committee a few days ago. I am still on Hong Kong time so I found myself at Kinkos at 5am and I wasn't even tired. I was already a night owl so I was hoping the trip would get me back on a normal schedule but it made things worse! So even though that's done, I'm still finishing up quite a few experiments. I just have waaayy too many yeast strains. And most are about the same so I'm trying to pick out the 'best' ones for various products and still make new ones that could be 'better.' I will have to just shut down though at some point soon. The problem is that my protege is not working on this part of the pathway so I don't know what's going to happen with the work I've done there since I don't think it's enough for a paper---well, maybe a brief communication.

So this morning I was on my way to the Ironman studio to do the nationals preview show with Ruth Silverman when my car totally died on the 110. Fortunately, the metro freeway tow truck came pretty quickly to get me off safely. Then I waited over an hour for my friend to come tow me to a service station. It turned out to be my fuel pump and $750 later, I got my car back the same day and still had time to go to the gym. Speaking of which, they're doing some construction in my gym so most of the freeweights are going to be gone for a few days. Very upsetting but it needed to be done; some underground pipes kept flooding that area and you don't want to be sliding around with 100lb dumbbells. Oh well, this is why I have multiple gym memberships.

I also have a big move coming up--I will be in the bay area at the beginning of november. I still have to find a place and work out all the details plus clearing out my apartment and lab space. I'm not looking forward to the packing and cleaning part but I'm very excited to start my new job. This is good b/c I am not taking any time off. It'll be nice to start something new and be working with so many great scientists. It's really amazing the progress they made on the artemisinic acid project and that they're already successfully applying that knowledge to biofuels production (in yeast). OK, I still have work to do tonight. I've gotta get my FINAL presentation ready.