VWXYNot?

Ceremony photos

Posted on June 2, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Copied from my Nature Network blog. My apologies to any of you who read both, but dinner is almost ready…

The ceremony was great. The participants came from 22 different countries, with every (inhabited) continent represented. There was talk of rights, freedoms, responsibilities, tolerance, and the Canadian family.

But the best part?

The oath was administered by a scientist!

One I’d heard of!

Me with Robert Hancock

Dr. Hancock talked about his own experience of becoming Canadian after time spent living in England, Singapore, Australia, Germany, and the US. And he also delivered a very strong message about protecting the environment of this beautiful country.

Beautiful indeed… and hot enough for a swim in the Pacific, despite the snow on the mountains

The icing on the cake of a wonderful day.

And after the cake, the champagne…

…in plastic cups, because you’re not allowed to drink alcohol on the beach.

We didn’t get caught, but for the first time, I wasn’t worried.

They can’t deport me any more.

Posted in Canada, personal, photos | 15 Comments

Go Canada!

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

As many of you already know, I became a Canadian citizen yesterday.
The ceremony was great. The participants came from 22 different countries, with every (inhabited) continent represented. There was talk of rights, freedoms, responsibilities, tolerance, and the Canadian family.
But the best part?
The oath was administered by a scientist!
One I’d heard of!

_Me with Robert Hancock
Dr. Hancock talked about his own experience of becoming Canadian after time spent living in England, Singapore, Australia, Germany, and the US. And he also delivered a very strong message about protecting the environment of this beautiful country.

Beautiful indeed… and hot enough for a swim in the Pacific yesterday, despite the snow on the mountains
The icing on the cake of a wonderful day.
And after the cake, the champagne…

…in plastic cups, because you’re not allowed to drink alcohol on the beach.
We didn’t get caught, but for the first time, I wasn’t worried.
They can’t deport me any more.

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

With glowing heart

Posted on May 29, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Warning: embarrassing sentimentality follows. But it’s OK, the second part will return you unscathed to the usual level of silliness.

—————————–

Here’s a journal entry that I wrote on a Pacific-bound train twelve years ago, somewhere amid the lakes and forests of Western Ontario.

Rick was my seat-mate, a Toronto lad who was travelling to Jasper. When he woke up I didn’t so much “talk to him” as “propose to him”. Yup, not even one third of the way across and I was already in love with Canada, and had taken my first stumbling step towards citizenship.

At 8:15 am today, barring any unexpected obstacles, I will take the final step. Swear the oath of allegiance, sing the anthem, and complete the journey.

Regular readers will know how much I love my adopted home town of Vancouver, despite its flaws; my first day here was enough to erase any thoughts of moving to Toronto. That love extends to the rest of BC and beyond; Toronto is hip and happening, Montreal is vibrant and beautiful, Nova Scotia is scenic and friendly, and there’s so much more still to see. Canadians are great people (although many Vancouverites are way too reserved for their own good), and they’ve built a (mostly) decent, tolerant, multicultural society that I’m proud to be a part of, the current government notwithstanding.

I’ve always felt at home in this country, from the very first time I set foot in Toronto after a few weeks in the US and thought “cool! Red mail boxes”. As much as I love my home nation, Canada just feels more… open, I guess. There’s much less of a class structure, people don’t judge you based on your accent the same way they do in the UK, and everything’s just so new… it feels like the possibilities are endless. And there’s so much space.

Today is a doubly proud day because I’m here in my own right. I earned my status through my education and work experience, not through marriage to a random Canadian I met on a train when I was 20, or even in a friend’s house when I was 26.

I will remain a proud Brit. I’m lucky enough to be allowed to hold two citizenships; if I wasn’t, I honestly don’t know whether I’d have taken this final step. But since I am allowed, I applied for Canadian citizenship within three days of becoming eligible.

But I’ll save my immigration stories for another time; today is about true patriot love.

—————————–

“No it’s not! It’s aboot dignity! It’s aboot respect!”

(Sorry, couldn’t resist)

On with the celebrations! There will be champagne! Possibly on the beach!

\O/

(or should that be \Ø/ ?)

Posted in Canada, embarrassing fan girl, personal, silliness, travel, Vancouver | 25 Comments

If it sounds too good to be true…

Posted on May 27, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

A colleague just alerted me to a new initiative from Bayer Healthcare. From Targets to Novel Drugs offers up to €250,000 in exchange for a brief abstract.
The stated objective:
With this initiative, Bayer Schering Pharma aims to encourage research on novel targets in areas of mutual interest. By combining expertise from industry and academia we intend to accelerate the transition from basic research to new promising treatment options.
The stated benefits to the researchers:
Bayer Schering Pharma wishes to dedicate grants to further develop promising targets. In addition, we will bring in our expertise and technologies to help develop your ideas. […] In addition to the financial support, successful applicants may benefit from the pooling of expertise. This may include specific know-how in drug discovery and development. Bayer Schering Pharma has long-standing experience in drug discovery and development as well as a proven track record of collaborations with academic institutes, start-ups, and biotech companies.
The competition is open to academic and industry researchers from anywhere in the world.
We’ve already had a brief debate about “innovative and courageous funding mechanism” versus “fishing for new targets”.
The FAQ brought up a potential red flag:
No, the information provided will not be considered confidential. Information provided has to be sufficient to allow a first evaluation of the proposal. If you have further data that you are only willing to disclose subject to the execution of a Confidential Disclosure Agreement (CDA), please indicate this in the abstract. In case your application is considered for further evaluation, we may contact you to discuss a CDA.
So, wise and mighty internets: any thoughts?

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Busy bees and short CVs

Posted on May 26, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I’ve been very busy recently, but apparently not in the most constructive way.
*I’ve been busy figuring out Twitter.*
So far the only advantage I can see over Facebook is that I can access it at work without having to disable the WiFi on my phone (this may actually be a disadvantage). The drawbacks are that photos, videos, and link previews aren’t visible from the home page, and hovering over those compressed URLs doesn’t give you any indication of where you’re being directed to before you click through.
I’ve been busy in the garden.
I’m finally learning my lesson from the past two summers and am keeping on top of the weeding. A few minutes each day, after work, is better than spending whole weekends slashing and burning. I’ve also planted veggies, herbs, shrubs, and ground cover plants that will hopefully help keep the weeds at bay.
I’ve been busy planning parties.
Two baby showers (not mine) and a citizenship party (mine, jointly with a friend who’s two weeks behind me in the long, long process).
I’ve been very busy at work.
Why do deadlines always cluster? I’ve been especially busy trying to compress three PIs’ CVs into the strict page limits imposed by one funding agency.
I’ve not been busy building my own academic CV.
The funding agency allows the PI to add a grant wrangler to the application. While the guidelines don’t say that I need to upload my own CV, it was still showing up as a big ugly red “missing” in the document interface. And I couldn’t let that stand. So I transferred all my personal details, qualifications, employment history, and publications into the required format.
It came to one page.
One page!
ONE!!!
Luckily, my future career prospects won’t be harmed if I don’t add more publications to my sad little list. And a little humble pie is a good thing every once in a while, right?
I shall serve it at one of the parties, with home-grown tomatoes. And then tweet about it.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Peerless

Posted on May 26, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I ran into my old boss last week. She was in a rush to get to an appointment, but stopped for a hug and a brief catch up. And then she asked the dreaded question:

“So, do you miss us?”

Well, yes and no.

While my previous job taught me a lot, I don’t miss it. I don’t miss the nightmarish combination of boredom and stress, and I don’t miss the friends I made there, because I still get to see them. What I do miss is the sense of being part of a team of my peers.

I have some fantastic colleagues in my new job, from the PIs to their postdocs, residents, nurses, students, lab managers, and administrators. And they’re doing some amazing research, the kind that makes a geek like me go “cooooooooool!” in seminars. I’m so much happier in an academic environment, around people doing work that has the potential to make a real difference.

But I don’t get to work with my peers. I usually work in very small teams, consisting of me and maybe two or three PIs. There are other grant wranglers around in other departments (and I have my online peeps too, of course – hi, Bean-Mom!), and I do interact with them, but not on a daily or even a weekly basis. That’s just the way it has to be; it’s a different dynamic because it’s different work.

I didn’t realise how much I miss the mutual support and learning opportunities that come with frequent peer interactions until very recently, when I took a writing course organised by a different department. Most of my fellow students were from that department, and they get to work with each other on a regular basis. They’re visibly, tangibly, a team, who share experiences and help each other solve problems, and I envy them that.

A friend (who may or may not wish to out him/herself here) gave me some excellent advice; now that the course is over, I should contact the organiser, say how much I enjoyed interacting with my peers, and ask if there’s any way for me to be included in the occasional team meeting or other activity. As soon as this crazy week is over, I plan to do just that.

But what did I tell my former boss?

Well, I told her the truth.

“I miss the team. But my new job is a much better fit for me”.

And with a smile, a wave, and a promise of a coffee date, we went our separate ways.

No regrets.

Posted in career, grant wrangling, personal | 17 Comments

On the pool

Posted on May 22, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Our local swimming pool seems to have a rule that it must contain at least one creepy old man at any given time.

There’s a guy who hangs out in the shallow end, goggles on, but who only ever gets wet above the chest when a female swimmer approaches in his lane, at which point he ducks under water and stares. There’s another man who never even gets in the water, but just wanders around or sits in a chair, staring at people. A new guy last night was obsessing over how the instructors teach the kids to swim, and started to berate one of them in the middle of a lesson for doing it wrong. (Buddy, you don’t get to talk about streamlining until you’ve lost at least 50 pounds and waxed your back).

This situation means that the pool’s female users are very proficient in the art of the disgusted look, specifically of the “you filthy pervert!” variety.

And last night, one of those looks was directed at me!

I would like to state for the record that I do not have a pregnant woman fetish. It’s just that two of my friends were in the dive pool with all the other expectant mothers, floats secured above and below their bumps, and doing some gentle exercises with the rest of the class. I’d chatted to one friend before the class started – she tries to arrive early so we can do a few lengths together – but we hadn’t had a chance to arrange the weekend’s social events. And I completely missed the other friend arriving, because she was running late and went straight to the class. So as I walked past the dive pool on my way to the showers, I mouthed “call me!” and did the thumb-pinkie finger telephone sign with my hand.

Twice.

I did this because my two friends were at opposite ends of the pool, but the effect was that I seemed to be trolling the entire class for a date. At least that’s what I guessed when the woman next to my second friend gave me the familiar “you filthy pervert!” look.

I would also like to state that I am not an exhibitionist, and did not exactly plan to stage a mobile one-woman wet t-shirt competition. It’s just that I forgot to bring a towel, and had to put my cycling gear back on and ride home before I’d dried off.

Honest!

Posted in exercise, freakishness, silliness | 21 Comments

Iz a hard life

Posted on May 19, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

O hai!

We iz takin control of MacTavish. Iz better dan walkin onnit and bein yelled at by dat hoomin wiv funny axent. (MacTavish iz nice n warm on da feetsies though)

We haz noticed dat u hoomins iz runnin around and worryin all the tiem. U shud be like da kitties n lern 2 relax after hard day of bein in gardin and botherin the crowsies.

Here iz how:

See? Iz eazy.

Gotta go, hoomin iz comin in.

Kthxbai

Posted in furry friends, photos, silliness | 13 Comments

They’re not weeds

Posted on May 16, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

they’re carbon offsets

destined for the municipal composting programme (Vancouver rocks)

and (hopefully) soon to be replaced by something more useful

Next job: pull an even bigger pile of weeds from the front garden…

Posted in environment, food glorious food, gardening, photos, Vancouver | 5 Comments

Moving from retrospective to prospective studies

Posted on May 15, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I feel awesome today!
…………………..
Will Cath get sick this weekend? Stay tuned and find out…