today we presented our poster to the people who give us money. for the first time since, oh, that time i got into brown, i felt like i did something right. and granted, i can't take even a quarter of the credit (jamie, john, and laura deserve it all, truth be told), but to be a part of something like i was today felt so self-validating. and, yeah, there were some frustrating points this summer in the lab, but i am definitely able to say - even with our small accomplishments as we start out on the road to successfully completing the Big Picture - it's all worth it. in spite of myself, maybe an m.d./ph.d program is for me. (probably not, but father nick did give an incredible convincing talk today about why i should consider academia as a career...)
in other news, this weekend i'm off to hanover, nh to visit fro at dartmouth. i can't wait to see him - it has been over 2.5 months, far too long to go without seeing one of my most favouritest people on the planet. sangria and blue margaritas and day hikes and kayaking and science and fros and tie dye and oh! i can hardly contain myself. he left a frantic voicemail tonight and i panicked that he was so going to last minute cancel on me, but it turned out he was just making sure i was still visiting, since, you know, this past week i have literally lived inside the walls of albertus magnus and not spoken to anyone about anything other than the wonders of netrin and ahr-1 in rat hippocampi neurons. awesome.
seriously. i am loving my life right now.