Corporate America - week 1

Well I have made a thankfully uneventful move to Columbus and am 90% settled in. I still have a few wall hanging items I am not sure what to do with and a few boxes to donate to Goodwill.

To get right to the point, my first week was quite good, and not just because of the two free lunches, one which was a holiday lunch with carved prime rib. From the get go, I just had such a feeling of belonging and a reassurance that I had made the correct choice for my life and career. There were a few minor glitches with technology, badges and mailboxes the first day, but nothing of any real concern, and all of which were remedied by Wednesday. I was very grateful that my manager was on top of all of the necessary items to have my desk etc. ready to go.

Everyone I met with the first week was very welcoming and most everyone mentioned how wonderful my manager is and how lucky I am to be working with her. Despite her very busy schedule, which included a quick meeting in DC, she has spent a lot of time with me ensuring I was getting acclimated. I am also very excited about the work I will be doing and feel already that my contributions have fallen on open and welcoming ears. Of course, I know that this "first week feeling" won't last forever, but that's when I'll go shopping with my new inflated paycheck :)

A few other things:

PROS
Free parking
Tasty cafeteria downstairs
Cubical
Dressing up
Pretty decent FREE gym facility with FREE personal training
Living less than 2 miles from work

Cons
Flat parking lot with rain and snow
French fries and ice cream within walking distance
Cubical with lots of people talking around me
No casual Friday (guess I need to shop more)
Sitting at a desk all the time (I may miss loading qPCR plates and cell culture one day soon)

Apple Cider Doughnuts

I MADE DOUGHNUTS!!! Ever since the start of this fall season with all of the tastes and smells of the fall, I have been wanting to make doughnuts. I found a recipe for Apple Cider Doughnuts. All in all, it was super fun experience and even though most of them did not turn out very round, they tasted fantastic all the same.

A2 bucket list

With only about 5 weeks left as a resident of A2, I have been trying to do a few things on my A2 bucket list, pretty much all involving food. About two weeks ago during Beth's visit from Chicago we had lunch at Zingerman's Deli. I have been to visit this place several times, but never partook in the deli-lunch experience. The Zingerman's franchise is a staple and must-do in A2 for foodies. The deli was voted one of the top 25 food markets in the world by Food and Wine Magazine in 2004.

We shared:
#97 (Lisa C.’s Boisterous Brisket, Featured in Esquire magazine and on Oprah! Hand-pulled beef brisket simmered in Zingerman’s own BBQ sauce on a soft bun, served with a side of applewood-smoked baked beans. ), which was voted Oprah's favorite.
#51 (Bob & Roz’s Fiesta, Grilled Amish chicken breast, Wisconsin muenster cheese, spicy fire-roasted New Mexico green chiles, roasted red pepper sauce, lettuce & tomato on grilled rye bread. Served with sour cream on the side.)

Also, this weekend I hit up another A2 foodie delight, Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger. This spot has been featured on Man vs. Food several times. I kept is clean and only ordered a double (a quint is standard on the menu) with cheddar, lettuce, tomato, onions, mayo, mustard and catsup. I also had a side of onion rings and a very refreshing orange, cream soda.

On the list this week for lunch is Le Dog and their famous lobster bisque and Weber's Inn for prime rib.

Big News

So there will be more (mis)adventures ahead, because as most of you know, I have accepted a position at Abbott Nutrition as a Senior Scientists in Pediatrics R&D!! I am EXTREMELY excited about this opportunity for my career, while all at the same time a bit sad to be moving further away from my family and friends I have made in Ann Arbor. I will be much closer to my collage roommate and her family, as they live only an hour away!!

This has been quite a whirlwind over the last two weeks. I received a call from Abbott to set up an interview on Wednesday 9/22 for the following Monday (9/27). I was going on a mini-vacation to visit friends and family in Boston and NY and ended up cutting the trip short to fly home on the 26th and then drove to Columbus for my interview on the 27th. I was offered the position on Wednesday the 29th...a week and 2 hours from when I received the phone call to schedule, and I officially accepted on Friday the 1st. Both my boss of UMich and at the Art Institute of Michigan (where I teach as an adjunct) were sad and disappointed to see me leave, but happy for the opportunity I had received.

All throughout this process I have had nothing but good and positive feelings about this change. There was never a doubt in my mind or a moment of angst about making this decision. As I went along and heard more about the actual job and the offer I was given, my thought was "this just keeps getting better!"

In this position I will be providing product support for any nutrition-related issues/concerns, managing scientific studies needed to introduce new products or change existing ones and interfacing with foreign regulatory bodies among many things. There is estimated to be 10-15% travel, some of which will be international. I will be moving to Columbus the week after Thanksgiving and starting my new position December 6th.

I can not express enough how grateful I am for this opportunity and I will certainly have a whole lot to give thanks for this holiday season!

Healthier-iest burgers

To me this provides even more evidence as to why nutrition information should be mandatory on menus, because give such a wide variety of options it is almost impossible to even begin to guess which of these would be healthy. I think some know to leave off the bacon, creamy sauces, extra cheese, eggs, and fried onions, but given the staggering amount of calories and sodium (almost 5grams!!), I think the over-abundance is more than anyone would expect. Additionally, even though some of these are low in calories, the sodium can be through the roof, providing over half a days worth and for someone with CVD this is VERY important.

40 Healthiest Burgers

40 Killer Burgers

Misery loves company

As the old saying goes, it is better to commiserate together than alone. Although these “sessions” usually do not amount to much change for most parties involved, there is some comfort in knowing one is not alone in a given situation.

As some know and I’m sure others have suspected the transition to and establishment of my life in the ambiguous land of a post-doc has been a bit harder than I anticipated. The proximity to my family and their support has been my saving grace. However, knowing that this is temporary, not having any sort of “freshman” post-doc class, teetering between students and professionals, and struggling with mentorship at work, are a part of my daily life.

I am partly to blame, because although I have been outgoing and social, at times it becomes daunting to always be meeting new people without a strong, core support of friends; therefore, I have not always taken every opportunity. I did finally make it to one of the (few) post-doc happy hours put on by the campus-wide post-doc association. It was a great time and I met some really fun and interesting people who are in a similar boat – looking for friends just to hang out with. Needless to say, the 4 or 5 of us have been out a few times over the last couple weeks and I went to dinner with one women, S, on Saturday.

S and I come from very different places. She is in A2 via, LA, via MN, via India and I grew-up just over 50 miles away. Her background is in engineering and she works in a totally different area of campus. This was the first time we had a chance to hang out one-on-one and even though we have very different lives, the issues we have with our current situations are very similar. There were numerous times in which we both commented, “I know how you feel, although I don’t really know what to do about it.”

At the end of the evening, my feelings were mixed a bit. Although it is nice to know these issues are not “just me,” it was a tad disheartening that they permeate so many different people’s lives.

A review and a cheat

I had my "formal" in-class review this week. My director had emailed me a few weeks back that Chef Jim would be coming to observe my class sometimes soon. I replied to both of them welcoming to visit and informing them that the last two weeks before the final (this week and next) the students would be giving their presentations on their final papers. Given that he came last night I am not sure how much of a review of my teaching skills he could have done. Of course it also had to be on the night that I did not prepare a lesson plan since we just had presentations and review for the final in the remaining time. Moreover, three of the students who signed up to present this week asked to move to next week. So, all in all, we'll see how it turns out.

I suspect one of my students just about cheated on his final paper. After reading over them this week, I was pleasantly surprised by the paper on diabetes LB wrote. As I was reading all 3.5 pages I was intrigued by sophisticated language and well written, cohesive sentence structure. Until I got to the last sentences, which read as follows, "PLEASE FINISH UP WITH YOUR THOUGHTS HERE...BLAH BLAH BLAH." This is pretty obvious that he did not write this and did not even take the time to read the 3.5 pages that whomever else wrote. I brought it to the attention of my director and we met with LB last night before class. LB was defensive, of course and told the director that a sister proof-read the paper for him and he forgot to look at it. LB also said this was paper was turned in for a biology class last quarter - I don't know if that makes me feel better or not. The director said LB was caught cheating before and fessed up to it and he felt LB would be honest about it and left it up to me to decide what to do. Grr...with that, and given that fact that even if I gave LB 110% on the paper, I don't think they would get better than a C. So with that, no other hard evidence and the fact that there are misspelling and grammatical errors, I am not going to give LB a zero. I do not think it was blatantly plagiarized, but I do think LB wrote a small portion that was extensively beefed up by said sister.