"like being pushed down a waterslide.."

Wow, two months had already passed since my last post! Actually I've attempted several times to post something but was pretty uninspired, which is not a good sign since a lot of significant events have happened these last two months. Perhaps more stuff happened this last two months than the 8 months before that. I guess I should list them, for prosperity's sake:
1. Tim's car got stolen and then found
2. Exchanged biotech job to pursue academic research
3. Became a quasi-graduate student
4. Grilled for the first time in our lab meeting
5. Julie got into medical school
6. Diana had her baby Mayumi, ie I'm a new aunt!
7. about to become a bona fide grad student (cross fingers) Update: I became.

The list above is only a snapshot of seemingly discreet events, forming a great mass of stimulation, that is kind of similar to my experience exploring e. coli genetics. See, I'm starting to investigate the genetics of lesion bypass in E. coli, the abscence of which leads to mutation accumulation and cancer. Just like it seems pretty fundamental to be worrying about cancer mechanisms, so is answering (teen-)age old question who am I? I see a parallel in the magnitude of these two questions, within which, individual, seemingly trivial mini questions (should it be incubated in ice or 37 degrees?) must be asked before advancing and eventually reaching an understanding. One can only hope that one can be able to ask the right questions, not get lost in the tide of trivialities and forget the bigger picture.