ON THE DOLE
I received my first unemployment check today. Thank you, John Q Public! I am horrified and so greviously ashamed. I feel like I let my grandparents down, even -- my grandparents who chipped cement off of used bricks so they could recycle them to build their own house! -- the ignominy is overwhelming. In all my preparations and planning for this eventuality, never did I ever once imagine I would collect unemployment. I feel sick.

CURSE OF TECHNOLOGY
In preparation for hanging with some high school homies tomorrow, I tried putting together a slide show of "Me: 1990 to 2009". Turns out, I only have photos in my computer from 2003 on. Well, no duh, right? But isn't it funny that these new fangled computers, which are supposed to make my life easier, still haven't sprouted the iArms to scan all my hardcopy photos? Hey, Steve, can you get on that?

SIGNS, SIGNS, EVERYWHERE SIGNS
1) The one lab-based resume I've handed out since looking (of the 40+ sent) is the only one -- thus far -- that converted to an interview.
2) I really liked the PI with whom I interviewed.
3) The entrance is directly across the street from The World's Best Food Cart
4) The PI qualified he doesn't really know when I could start b/c the guy who is leaving needs to stay long enough so he won't have to pay back any tuition benefit. Read: The PI is a cool, understanding boss.

A POUND OF FLESH
My favorite cooking show is America's Test Kitchen. This weekend, while avoiding the leaves choking the life out from my front lawn, I watched an episode while trying to pacify my hunger with a pathetic tuna sandwich. Well, not really pathetic - My Beloved makes the greatest tuna sandwiches ever. (The secret ingredient is love.) But a tuna sandwich really paled in comparison to the incredible yellow cake the host was making with unbelievable chocolate icing. So when I was invited to lunch with my MIL today, I decided to make the cake myself. Now, note: this is not economical. The recipe for cake + icing consumes SIX EGGS, almost FOUR STICKS OF BUTTER, and 8oz of CHOCOLATE. Two words: Yum. Mee. One more word: Fat. I had trouble fitting both 9" pans into the oven so I overcooked the cake a little and the frosting truly has all the consistency of the 2.5 sticks of butter that went into it. Not that any of this will keep me from eating it. All.

TRICK OR TREAT
This Friday I am headed up to Atown to meet up with an old high school friend who is in town for a wedding. We reconnected on FB. I can hardly wait to see her and compare her today with how I knew her when we played soccer together and traveled to Europe. She has three kids, moved to Alaska, and when I met her husband (at their wedding) he couldn't talk b/c he'd broken his jaw in a mosh pit a few weeks before and had it wired shut. Good times, good times...

MOCK ME
The mock interview went well. The acquaintance that I know at the company - she just landed there in HR - was present at the mock session as a courtesy to the outplacement agency so, basically, she "saw" my entire interview. A good get, I think. I just hope I get called for an interview!!

After the session, I found an article on line about a team at MIT that invented a "sociometer" which measures social interaction and can predict the outcome of the interaction, regardless of the content of the conversation. Cool, no? I think the outplacement agency should get a couple of those things to help provide feedback to their clients. Most of the other people there who are also "in transition" (oh! the euphemisms are endless!) had a pretty good interview, but there were others who clearly had not done this in a while, e.g. 1000s of ums, likes, you knows, no eye contact, talking too fast, etc.

WHEN THE MOON HITS YOUR EYE
I found a recipe at America's Test Kitchen for homemade pizza dough. I made some for My Beloved earlier this week and WOW! was it a success. Almost as successful as the homemade pasta. And easier to make, too! You do the whole thing in your mixer or food processor, a real no-brainer. No kneading! We're having in again, tonight, in honor of what used to be a Pizza Friday tradition.

INTERVIEW #1
I've an interview scheduled for Tuesday at the Wistar Institute. It is for a lab job and the benefits should be suhweet. Wish me luck!

Happiness Update

MR. SANDMAN, BRING ME A DREAM!
Bad things happen when I'm over tired. I can function fine on <8hrs, but more than one or two nights of that and it really starts to show. This was an exceptionally bad week because I've been having trouble putting myself to sleep at night. As an excuse, My Beloved has been burning the midnight oil for over a week now, so I'm missing my cues to indicate the time-of-day. But, also, I've started the panic-in-the-solar-plexus good times that come when I'm still.

PLAYS WITH MATCHES
Tomorrow I am driving into the city for a mock interview with the outplacement team. They refer to this as interview boot camp. We are expected to arrive in the attire we would typically wear, with an actual job description in hand from which to be questioned. It promises to be a stained-armpit affair. I'm planning to prepare my 60-second sell during the 60-minute drive. Normally, I would walk around the neighborhood talking out loud to myself to prepare my behavior-based answers (or PARs) for several days before the interview. This is unusual in that I just found the job description of interest on Monday night and still haven't finished submitting my application. However, I do actually know someone at the company so keep your fingers crossed that this interview will be a true test run!

NOT QUALIFIED
Tonight, the Phillies won the last game that will send them to the World Series. The TV showed footage of revelers climbing the street poles along Broad Street. The broadcaster mentioned that city workers spent the day greasing the trees and posts to prevent such behavior. Please, dear jeebus, let "Pole greaser" be a skill I never need in my next job.

A Day In the Life of Scout: Time Lapse Photography

BEAT WELL

Since our own financial recession, My Beloved has taken over the grocery shopping. He shops the "ghetto" Giant around the corner, where you often find diapers in the freezer case and random loaves of Wonder bread along the cleaning aisle. I don't like it because it offends my sense of order (hello, OCD!) and safety: I think they just put stuff back without regard to how long that gallon of milk was sitting out amidst the dog biscuits. When I did the grocery shopping, it was a continual affair. Yes, I shopped with a list - and that helped. But invariably we needed more salad/milk/Cheerios three days later or I'd forgotten an essential element of a recipe, so I found myself at the store every few days. READ: we were never in want. In the spirit of belt-tightening, this responsibility has transitioned to My Beloved who has an iron will that can change the rotation of the earth and who scoffs at tempting jalapeno organic rice puffs or the artful display of exotic cheeses. However, he hates shopping, so it happens only once every 7-10 days and tough if we run out or forgot something on the list.

Thus, I find myself scouring the internet for cookie recipes that require one or less eggs and no chocolate chips. Having just celebrated my birthday, there are a few slices of chocolate bomb pie and ice cream remaining (although dwindling as I speak!). But entering into a weekend of cravings with no baked goods in the house is really 1) foolishly unsafe for members of the household who are not me and 2) an excuse to heat the house with the stove.

It's a craptacular rainy day, my chores are all done, and I promised myself a day off from job searching to let the lessons-learned incubate. In a scene reminiscent of City Slickers where those two ice cream guys pick out the perfect after-dinner flavor, my PMS-heightened senses have identified oatmeal raisin as The Thing for today. Oh, and look! Only one egg required! Thank you, androgenous Quaker person!

There's a Nor'easter in town

Attended a "networking event" downtown today. More on that later

A nor'easter is blowing through which meant traffic was exhausting to get there. (Pennsylvanian drivers are distracted by bright lights and their own windshield wipers.) I was "on" for two hours in a roomful of out-of-work professionals; a little stressful. Then, it took 1.5hrs (did I mention the nor'easter?) to ride out to BFFs for some *homemade* butternut squash soup. She's a mom of two young boys. Believe me when I say this soup is something they will tell their spouses about someday: "I remember when I was a kid, on rainy days my mom would make this soup..." It was THAT good :) However, I left her house late and ended up in rush hour traffic. Stuck in slow-moving traffic was not necessarily a bad thing (did I mention the nor'easter?), since I have TWILIGHT on audio (courtesy of my SIL - thank you!!). I couldn't get the heat right in my car, though, so I was shivering the whole 1.5hrs home. By the time I got home, My Beloved had cooked the best pasta fazoulle of all time and we cuddled on the couch through Thursday night must-see TV. Now, he's back at work and the dog and I are headed into bed with a hot water bottle, a cup of tea, and the latest issue of Real Simple.

I record this all here for posterity: I HAVE THE BEST LIFE EVER.

Winter of My Discontent

TURN YOUR HEAD
I went to the doctor's today to get a clean bill of health so I'll be eligible to get private health insurance at the end of the month. Maybe "eligible" isn't the right word? "Afford"? If I can evidence I am *currently* in good health, then, as I understand it, I should be able to afford private health insurance. I was seen by a 4th year medical student who spent 30 (!) minutes with me getting my history and conducting her exam. By the time my regular doctor conducted her exam, I'd been there a total of an hour. That's impressive. (I love my GP and Gyn; they're both no-sh*t women.) My blood pressure was normal (for me), weight unchanged. I felt a little foolish going without cause, especially since they spent so much time with me. But both the student and my GP took it very seriously and were sympathetic to my request.

PHONE INTERVIEW #1
This afternoon for a position with an academic protein expression & purification core facility. (Fruit from the Job Fair:)

It's Not What You Think

I mentioned before that I don't believe those Hollywood types have a clue about Real Marriage. Here's more on that: I've been faithfully devoted to the Twilight series, but when I read about the author, Stephanie Miller, and her habit of listening to -- what I call -- "teen angst" music for inspiration, I thought to myself "What world is she living in?" I didn't get the impression that this was a world she had created for her books, but rather she lives in this world and her characters do, too.

In Real Marriage, here are no games. No "I wonder what he's thinking?". No "he did X, so I'll do Y." Sure teenagers, maybe, play through all the drama to try it on for size. But as an adult in a loving, monogamous relationship I want to be as honest as I possibly can. When My Beloved looks at me with his crooked grin and dark eyes, I want to believe it's Me he is loving and not some other person I've tricked him into thinking I am. The invincible feeling of true love comes when your heart's desire has seen your jiggly fanny, your ugly TSA/Black-n-Decker rant, your clumsy attempts at consolation and still looks at you like s/he's scored the jackpot in marriage. All that other stuff is commentary.

SEED SOWING

NICE ELEVATOR SPEECH
I spent almost all day yesterday through the wee night and this morning preparing my resume and myself for my first ever Job Fair. [I don't think my school had these when I was in undergrad? I moved to Providence my senior year for my internship and pretty much never looked back at main campus. I didn't even go back for convocation, so the place could have burned down for all I would have known. (It didn't.)]

So, I went to a Job Fair. Yeah. (Pride? What pride? There really isn't any room for pride when you've been laid off and were the primary source of income for your family. I have Responsibilities, now.) I was not the only job-seeker over 20yo there, btw, so stick that in yer pipe, Mr Bernanke. The good thing about being older is that it's really easy to set yourself apart: my resume looks better, my 60-second sell is better, my research on the company is better, etc. The recruiter at one booth even complemented my "elevator speech" as she called it. She said she'd been talking to inexperienced undergrads all day and found it refreshing to speak to an experienced professional. It was a very nice thing for her to say! I think I snowed the young guy from JnJ, though. I asked him if they were recruiting for JnJ subsidiaries as well, b/c JnJ just entered into a partnership with Crucell to develop an antibody for influenza and my extensive experience with mAbs and my passion for infectious diseases sounded like a fit too-good-to-be-true. He just stood there blinking and asked me to come back later to talk to someone else. Crucell has positions available in the EU. Think I could telecommute??

BEST FAMILY EVER
I was in and out of the Job Fair in less than an hour. I hit the 8 companies that had jobs on-line I was interested in and came back home. Well, I stopped in to see my advisor and caught his Admin, instead, who is the spitting image of Amber from "Parks and Recreation". Nuff said?

When I came home there was a big smelly package for me from THE GREENES who rock the house made me feel like the most loved sister ever! They sent all wonderful, smelly glittery bath salves from LUSH that I promise to myself to use up during this layoff, rather than save for Molly's wedding or for New Years Eve - even though we almost always opt to stay home and, um...play Scrabble. (No that isn't a euphemism, I'm a gamer!)

Why I'm in School

Yesterday, I saw this advertised in the daily auto-email I get from my school:

Ethics of Communicating Scientific Findings of Autism Risk

The School of Public Health is hosting a major conference on the communication of scientific findings of autism research that will feature leading researchers, scientists, journalists, families and health care providers today and Wednesday, October 6 and 7, 2009 at the National Constitution Center (525 Arch Street, Philadelphia).

The conference, "Ethics of Communicating Scientific Findings of Autism Risk," is being organized by Dr. Craig J. Newschaffer, a leading autism researcher and department chair at the School of Public Health, and Dr. Michael Yudell, a professor and expert in public health history and ethics at the School of Public Health. The focus of the conference is to work toward the development of strategies and guidelines for appropriate, ethical and effective communication of emerging autism risk factor research findings to the full range of interested audiences.

According to the conference’s organizers, findings from major new initiatives now underway have the potential to enrich understanding of the etiology of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Given the intensity of public debate about causes for ASD, the communication of scientific findings presents significant difficulties and demands sensitivity.

For a complete list of invited speakers and more about the conference, visit http://publichealth.drexel.edu.

I, as you may know, am a graduate student in the Communications department. This was an announcement issued from the School of Public Health. About communicating risk. Um, hello! So... I crashed it this morning.

Here's the thing: communications is one of those disciplines where many of the times - for me at least - the research seems obvious. For example, an adolescent who has a TV in his/her room is more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior and at a younger age than a non-TV owning age-matched peer. Duh, right? But what is significant about this research is that the finding was stronger in higher income families than in lower income families. Now *that* is surprising. Examples like this have led me to buy-in to the school of thought that communications research as an essential part of any PR/health risk communication program.

The conference included KOLs from the autism community (patient/family advocates, science reporters, researchers, academics, genetic counselors, etc.). The organizers did a great job of assembling an incredibly diverse audience. BUT DID NOT INCLUDE ONE PERSON WHO STUDIES COMMUNICATION. I think that's a major failure. Here's why: the first speaker (first!) referred to autism as a "disease." A patient advocate in the audience immediately argued the use of the term and self-identified with the term "disorder" instead. Now, distinctions between "disease" vs. "disorder" and the downstream social implications of each term aside, this is a CLASSIC communications problem. In communications, the first step is to operationalize the subject, agree to definitions, and set some ground rules for talking about the subject. In particular, I thought it was a shortcoming not to include a communications rep as a referee BECAUSE the audience was so diverse. There is so much passion around autism research b/c it affects kids, and kids are a hot-button. Plus, so many of the audience members have autism or have family members with autism; it made it a very emotionally charged discussion. I think communications has a way to...not diffuse that charge, but get you talking about it in a different way so you never cross into the emotional realm.

Remember in debate team, you'd state your argument at the beginning and ask your opponent if they agree or disagree? Communications posits that question upfront. If we all agree to [operational terms, definitions, ground rules] than there is an exciting discourse. Today, without that agreement, however, I found the discussion was stilted and - at times- ran aground b/c there was umbrage and disagreement about language.

And it's important to get these questions answered, to lay some ground rules, because all these disciplines need to be in agreement on how we'll talk about autism. (Laying ground rules, btw, was stated as the intended objective of the conference by the meeting organizers. They intend to publish the definitions and ground rules decided at this conference so everyone else knows, too. I think that is a noble an exciting ambition!) One observer questioned if there was reluctance on the part of scientists to publish data that indicated environmental factor X is *not* associated with autism. All I could think was: you have no control over the message when there is a positive association! How will you manage the message when there is no association?! With new media (blogs, viral video, twitter, etc.) it is almost impossible to control/manage your message...yet ANOTHER reason why they needed to include a communications specialist in the audience. Do you know how much of communications research deals with how to control your message in new media? Geez! Wasted opportunity!

Regardless, I'm changing my major and moving to the School of Public Health in the fall. Boy-oh-boy did my compass just peg north!

The Happiness Project

Analyzing why I'm not freaking out over getting laid off has led me to one conclusion: Being prepared feels good.

Now, I have to decide what to do next. This is not a simple matter of just getting a new job. I'm trying to effect a significant change in my career path from where I was [so unhappy and frustrated] to a new, as yet undefined, destination. This is something I've been working on for the past two years and am not as nearly close to a resolution as I would hope. Here's what I've concluded from that: Being undecided does not feel good.

After wasting several hours reading The Happiness Project, I've observed that one avenue to happiness is to itemize some broad maxims about yourself, your needs, and your motivations. This is in keeping with another project I've been toying with this year: creating a vision board for my life. And another: crafting a family mission statement. Writing down some stream-of-consciousness musings helps to identify the theme, so that's what I'll be using this space for in the next few weeks/months.

Having a schedule for the next few weeks, at least, will help me manage some of the downs that I'm sure are headed my way. Some people recommend putting on shoes every day as a way to mentally get engaged in getting-stuff-done-mode. I'm definitely of that ilk but think I can accomplish the same with just getting dressed rather than rolling around the house in my pajamas/fleece. Wearing shoes in the house is just going to get the house dirtier quicker!

I've also already started to covet things: movies, cosmetics, clothes, take-out. No matter how long this period of fiscal conservation lasts, it won't be forever. I've mentally started a list of Things I'm Going to Miss/Forgo as a way to acknowledge to myself The Want and then put it aside for another time by writing it on the list.

I'll post other tools and coping strategies as I come across them or realize them.

Know When to Hold, When to Fold

I was laid off from my job this week. I am now a statistic in the US economic recovery and health care debate. It's a bit ignominious but, hey, I'm in pretty good company (highest unemployment since 1986!) so there is some solace in that.

Frankly, I feel pretty good. Actually excited, to be honest. I'm not sure if this is some sort of shock reaction and the true fear will set in on Monday when I've no 9-to-5 to report to? Today, at least, I like to think that this feeling is my true setting. I was very frustrated in my job. It was meant to be a "bridge" position to my next dream job so, consequently, I didn't have the same expectations from it that I would otherwise. And I think the fact that it failed to meet even my lowered expectations only compounded the frustration. I was so empty and spent after a workday that it was hard to concentrate, in the evenings, on finding that next step. My pendulum swings between abject panic and laissez-faire attitude that my next step will make itself apparent to me. There is no soul-searching technique that I won't entertain. I've been test, counseled, aptitude-profiled, and mentored. I have a solid definition of the optimal environment, but am still narrowing down the field of work.

What I am most confident in, however, is that this is a good thing. My family was well-prepared for this turn of events - hey, with highest unemployment rate and worst recession in my lifetime, you're just foolish if you haven't laid in provisions. Of the people I worked with, I am most well-equipped (both financially and emotionally) to rebound from this new challenge. Of my extended family, I have the fewest obligations and greatest flexibility. From that perspective, I'm glad it was me who was chosen.

This is going to be a roller-coaster ride and I'll try to chronicle some of the experience here. By itemizing the ups and downs, I can recalibrate on the mean when I need to.