The Donald

One of the responsibilities of a graduate student, post-doc or PI is that of mentoring and training new students. It is a valuable and important part of a scientist's training that they not just be able to plan out and perform experiments, but that they should also be able to teach the art to others. If after all a scientist can't explain his work to anyone, what is the use of having done even a single experiment? I feel that knowledge is really only valuable if it is shared, if you found the cure for cancer but never bothered to tell anyone then who cares?

I have, to date, directly mentored nine students and have had a couple of great experiences, many good ones, and a couple of bad ones. But I have never had a horrible, heart-wrenching, pull-your-hair-out, drive-you-to drink one. Until now, that is. Just over two weeks ago a new student joined the lab and was I was tasked with giving her a project and supervising her while she was here, we will call her Abhira. When Abhira arrived in lab I immediately sat down with her and explained to her that I was not familiar with her educational background so if I was going either too fast or too slow in explaining her projects she should not be afraid to tell me and I would make adjustments accordingly. I have found that this disclaimer is important to give as most students are embarrassed to admit that they aren't following so I try to put them at ease right away and tell them that when I first joined a lab I didn't know a petrie plate from a Pasteur pipette so they have no reason to be afraid to ask me anything (though I do of course assume a basic knowledge of biology, like the difference between proteins, DNA, etc.). So after spending quite a bit of time with Abhira on her first day she assured me several times that she understood what I was explaining and that she was comfortable enough to get to work with the flies that I had got started for her and had been collecting for about 2 weeks. Her first task: take the flies from old vials, transfer them into new vials with fresh fly food and return the vials to the rack exactly as they were. I left her to this very simple task and when I checked in on her some time later I found that she was not putting the tubes back in the rack in the proper order and everything was all mixed up which meant that I had to discard around 40% of the flies that I had spent the last 2 weeks collecting and caring for. Aughhhhh! I was very cool and calm and explained to her that she clearly hadn't understood what I had told her so in the future if she has any doubts she should just ask me and I would be happy to clarify. I gave her several pertinent journal articles and a book on fly husbandry and genetics and asked that she do the reading to get up to speed and also continue practicing a technique that I had taught her that would be required for her experiments. A few days later I sat down with Abhira again to discuss her project only to discover that she either hadn't read or comprehended anything that I had given her. She insisted that she had in fact read and understood all of it, but after quizzing her briefly I found that this couldn't possibly be the case. When I asked her what type of experiments were done in one of the papers which she swore she read and understood she told me that they did blah, blah and blah in flies. I told her that couldn't be true as the researchers who published this article don't even use flies in their experiments. Lied to yet again. I asked her to describe to me each of her three projects that she was working on in lab and she couldn't even cover one. And when I asked her to tell me the genotypes of her flies she not only couldn't tell me what, for sure, they were, but she would actually make things up, I guess hoping that I also wouldn't know what I had given her! Additionally, when she was stumped, instead of saying she wasn't sure or didn't know she would just sit there silently and stare at the paper as if the answer would magically appear on it if only she could stare at it long or intently enough. I thought to myself that I would just sit there and see how long she could silently stare at the paper before simply saying, "I don't know" but I got bored after a couple of minutes and had to speak up. Aughhhhhh! So after this disastrous meeting I told her that she had the entire weekend to read up as I had already told her to do and on Monday or Tuesday we would meet with the head honcho Gaiti (I had privately met with Gaiti and told her of my difficulties with this student and asked that she provide a second opinion in case I was being overly critical or something). On Tuesday we met and let's just say that it didn't go well. Abhira continued to be absolutely clueless and make up answers if she wasn't sure, for instance, "What chromosome is blah blah, blah on?" "Ughhh (complete blank and desperate look), it is on chromosome 2." "No, it is on the X chromosome." Why not just say I don't know??? Complete and utter torture. I submit that the CIA should incorporate Abhira into any techniques that might be used on suspects in place of water-boarding and other unethical means of acquiring information. Speaking with her has to be worse. Anyway, Gaiti and I again met privately and she suggested that Abhira stay just until the end of the week and continue to practice the technique that I had taught her and perhaps by Friday she might be able to look at a couple of experimental flies instead of just practicing. She, however, misunderstood that she was being dismissed due to her dishonesty and incompetence and thought instead that Gaiti asked her to leave because there wasn't enough time to actually finish her experiments. I decided that she needed to be set straight on this so I met with her yesterday afternoon and explained to her that she had to leave because she had continually lied to me about her understanding and I wouldn't work with someone that I couldn't trust. I also told her that I believed that she didn't understand basic biological concepts because she was unable to grasp very simple things that I was trying to teach her. She was shocked by this and stated that she didn't feel she was lying and since she hadn't worked with a foreigner before maybe that was the reason for the problems that we were having. This is, of course, horse crap since none of the Indian students I know would accept someone lying to them either, and I told her so. But I assured her that it is okay, this was a learning experience for her and that I was sure that she wouldn't make the mistake again and to not get too upset by the situation. I then went on to give her some advice on how she might improve on the technique that she had been practicing and we went back to lab. She then proceeded to completely ignore the advice that I had given to her and do what she thought was best. Nice. I again scolded her and after following my advice things her technique improved a bit. Did I mention that I started having a drink every night when I arrived home to try to relax and get her dullness out of my head?

This morning she arrived and spoke to me again and said she was feeling very bad about all that had happened and I told her it was okay, don't dwell on it, just learn from it and don't repeat the mistake in the future. About an hour later she approached me and told me that she had just used the technique that she had been practicing on MY experimental flies and she was ready to look at them under the microscope. WHAT!!! I asked who had given her permission to take my flies, I had certainly not given her the green light to proceed as I felt she wasn't ready to do the experiment yet. She stammered that she just thought that it would be alright, blah, blah, blah. I asked her to show me which flies she had used and found that she had again screwed things up royally since she didn't bother to think about what it was that she was doing. That was the last straw. Stealing my flies and then screwing it up on top of it all. I told her that she had to leave, there was a bus departing the campus in 45 minutes and she needed to be on it, I was done dealing with her. In the words of The Donald, "You're fired." She stood there looking at me like a stupid cow, with vacant thoughtless eyes and I was so disgusted that I just walked away. She followed me and asked that if she did exactly as I said could she stay and I told her no way, get out, it's done. I have never been so frustrated and troubled by a student and though I am relieved that she is gone, I also feel confused and unsure. Could I have done anything more? Is this my fault in some way? I don't think so but it is still hard to not feel bad about the entire situation. How can The Donald do this so regularly and not feel badly about it? Maybe if I had a couple of billion bucks and really bad hair I would feel better...

The roller-coaster that is our lives...

Hello all. Yeah, I know what you are thinking, "Three posts in one day? Why doesn't this girl get off of her butt and do some work?" Well, the truth is I don't feel like it, I am in too good a mood to spoil it with experiments and bench work that just haven't been cooperating recently. So why I am in such a good mood today? Well, to explain that I need to go back about three weeks. That was when Eric and I made the difficult decision that when we returned to the US in July, for Eric it was not going to be a visit, but rather a permanent move back to to the US while I would return to India at the end of July in order to complete the last year of my fellowship. This was a decision that was a long time in the making but the situation in Eric's group at Motorola was such that his return to the US seemed necessary in order for him to position himself in the company so that he had more flexibility than he has while he is in India. It is complicated and I don't even understand all of the intricacies but regardless of all of that, we decided that he would leave India permanently. This was a tremendously difficult decision for obvious reasons, who wants to spend a year away from their spouse, especially when your spouse is situated 5,000 miles and eleven and a half time zones away? But it was difficult for logistical reasons also, where would Eric live, would it be safe for me to continue to live in our apartment without Eric's presence, what would we do with the cats if I had to move, how would I manage to do everything that needs to be done without Eric's help, would Eric manage find something other than fast food or cereal for his meals, who would I bore to death with my endless chatter, would we see each other just once in the entire year, how do you file taxes in our situation, what about our finances, etc? But mostly, after more than 12 years together, how could we be apart? Most of you didn't know either Eric or me before we were a couple. We as a couple pre-date nearly all of our closest friends (except Eric's St. Mark's chums), Eric and I met just maybe a month after I met my closest friends from college. My oldest nieces and nephews are unaware that there was ever a time B.E. (before Eric). Our lives are so intertwined, it is difficult to imagine how they could ever be separated. I am sure any of you who have been in such a long relationship (and I am sure many of you have even longer marriages) would have difficulty imagining how you would be able to maintain two households in two different countries literally on opposite sides of the globe while retaining your sanity and any quality of life. The last three weeks have been both heart-breaking and scary as both of us started to get used to the idea of this separation and began to make arrangements to deal with the situation.

So why the good mood then? Well, yesterday Eric received word from his supervisor that it was fine for him to remain in India, at least for a while longer and he needn't plan on remaining in the States in July. When he shared this news with me last night I was just in a state of shock. Though it had only been 3 weeks since we made the decision for him to stay in the US, I had spent a lot of time imagining life without him here. We had made a number of arrangements to prepare for his departure, I had applied for alternate housing, had booked a single ticket for my return to India at the end of July, we had closed our joint savings account here in India, we had spoken to our landlord about Eric's departure, etc. And now everything has changed again, for the better of course, but I feel as if I am on a run-away roller-coaster, and I am blindfolded. The news is naturally great for me, there is no downside. But for Eric, who has sometimes struggled to find happiness in India, it is more of a mixed bag. On one hand he is happy that we won't have to be apart for the year and we don't have to make plans for his and my living arrangements but on the other he had already begun to imagine life back in the US. While I was fretting about how I could manage without him in India he was dreaming of Whoppers, fried chicken, orderly roads, quiet streets and at least reasonable infrastructure. Any one of those things would be a decent substitute for a measly old wife, so you can probably understand his quandary. Regardless, he is coming back to India with me and I booked his ticket right away before he could change his mind!

Indian Shower

No, not rain shower, not the kind that involves shampoo and soap, but the kind that we in the US give to celebrate big events like marriages and births. As far as I can tell, what has been come to be known as the modern baby shower is a purely American invention. When I mentioned to my French friend that we were throwing a shower for my friend and colleague Debleena he looked at me like I was crazy. Even after I explained the concept of a shower he still didn't think that there was an equivalent, at least in France. Then again though, this is the same fellow who, when I mentioned that we were having this party for Debleena looked at me and said, "Oh, she's pregnant?". By that time she was at least in her 7th month and it was pretty obvious that something was brewing beneath her kurta. He explained his ignorance by pointing out to me that he had to change the way in which he looked at Indian women, ONLY in the face. But that's a post for another day... Not surprisingly the baby shower is also unheard of in India (at least in most of India). There are some ceremonies that are held prior to the birth of the baby, mostly for the purpose of ensuring the health of the mother and the fetus. One of the most common is the valaikappu, also known as the bangle ceremony, a Hindu ritual for a mother-to-be. It is usually held in the 7th or 9th month of pregnancy and is a time when family and friends gather to convey their best wishes to the soon-to-be mom and dad. Usually the big difference between the American baby shower and almost all Indian pre-birth rituals is that it is considered unlucky to give gifts to the baby before its birth so any gifts presented in Indian rituals are for the mother-to-be.

When I presented the idea of a baby shower to Debleena and explained what it is she was happy to be the guest of honor and didn't mind receiving gifts for the baby before its birth. So last Saturday a small group of us gathered and had our own littler version of a baby shower here in Bangalore. We had gone shopping for gifts for the baby and after a nice lunch watched as Debleena opened up her first gifts for her new addition. Since it is considered bad luck to get things for the baby before the baby is born, she and her husband didn't have a single thing for their new charge. No clothes, no diapers, no car seat, no bottles, NOTHING! This is something that I find so strange, but it is the way of life here. In fact, when we went to pick out things for the baby at the shop the salespeople were slightly confused when we couldn't tell them that we didn't know the sex of the baby that we were shopping for. As far as they were concerned, if we were shopping for a baby, then the baby must already be born! The shower was good fun and Debleena received a few gifts that will hopefully come in handy in June when the baby is due. Congratulations Debleena!

Isn't Debleena too cute?

Oooooohhh, tiny fingernail clippers are so sweet!

GH lab ladies gathered to wish Debleena all the best (from left to right: Neha, Shantala, Debleena, Nisha, me, Gayatri and Mamta)!

What a cute little shirt for the new baby!

What could they all be??

Summer Colors

After long last I am posting some pics of the jubilant colors that can be seen in and around Bangalore in the summer. I have no idea as to the names of most of these, but enjoy nonetheless!

The road leading into the NCBS campus is flanked by mango orchards and some really beautiful flowering trees.

There is bougainvillea everywhere, here is some inside of the NCBS campus.

A lovely clump of red flowers on a flowering tree.

More bougainvillea.

Mango trees!

No leaves on this one, but some lovely orange blooms.

So many jackfruits!

More beautiful blooms, this time in purple.

Finally, April is Over!!!

Well, two summer months are over, leaving only one to go. We were lucky that March was very mild but April turned out to be a real scorcher. We had temperatures above 90 degrees F for over half of the days of the month and so far it looks like May is going to bring more of the same. The forecast for this week is highs around 96 though I would guess that we should be hovering near the low 90s instead, the forecast always seems to be on the pessimistic side. I, on the other hand, am an optimist. In my search for upsides to the blistering Indian summer I have a couple of other things to add to the list: watermelon, jack-fruit and the beautiful flowering trees that somehow manage to look fresh and lovely while the rest of us look wilted and worn out. I took a walk with two of my colleagues about a week ago to take some pics of these gorgeous trees, I will post them when I get some time. Jack-fruits, on the other hand, are the world's largest tree-borne fruits and they are delicious! They look like overgrown hedge-apples but when cut open reveal wonderful and fragrant yellow pods that are very fleshy in texture but are so yummy! I have been told that one has to be careful when cutting into a jack-fruit as it is VERY sticky and it is usually best left to professionals. You can buy pre-cut jack-fruit pods from street vendors for Rs5 a piece. Come to think of it, I should stop this weekend and pick up a few to munch on!