You know that tingly feeling in your stomach...

Papa Massoudi once described the excitement he got from the release of Brawl, "You know that tingly feeling in your stomach, when you like a girl, and you just found out she likes you back?" I must admit, I judged him a little that day. But I couldn't relate more today, when I found myself beaming and practically skipping for joy at work.

What could possibly be analogous to a game that gives the guys so many voluntary sleepless nights? The beginning of a new project that will probably, also, give me many sleepless nights.

Today, I began writing a proposal for a new project, in an entirely new vein in research. Ah, I love these early stages of research- when you can have high aspirations and and wild fantasies of making ground-breaking discoveries. The butterflies in my stomach from placing a PO with Fisher are comparable to the flushed cheeks and Quyen-beam that comes from an amazing first date. The sense of validation I get from reviewing the literature and setting better, more advanced goals is equivalent to that feeling of just knowing there will be a second date. And getting your Post-Doc's approval, now thats like the first kiss, that seals the deal and lets you know amazing things are about to unfold.

This is all before the crippling realities of the project unfold, before you get sucked into the painful minutiae of the protocols that will keep you at work past sundown (you know, those little details about every guy that you don't find out until you're too invested to dump him over it). How difficult is basic fuchsin staining? Would it be better if I dehydrated my bone in 70% or 80% ethanol? For 3 or 4 hours? Is the 1-micron resolution on the confocal microscope worth the extra time in collecting projections?

Nevertheless, excited I am. After two weeks of doing mind-numbing cortical segmentation and feeling like the ultimate lab rat, I am finally doing some mentally stimulating work. I have always worked with bone on a macroscale, and for the first time now, I will be examining bone at a cellular level. Specifically, I will be quantifying the 3-D microstructure of lacunar canaliculi of osteocytes in cortical bone and seeing how fluid flow through these porosities translates into mechanosensory information. Yeah, its a mouthful. Don't worry, I just learned what lacunae and canaliculi were today, hopefully by August 18th I will know enough about it to submit to ORS 09, in Vegas, baby!

Thanks for bearing with me!