Sometimes it takes the powers that be to lift you out of a funk. I've been in a major funk, between contamination, our paper being rejected and being too busy teaching to truly deal with any of these problems. This week was our local meeting, Science 2008. This is a great meeting, very diverse and local, but we invite some great speakers- the last two years running we invited guys who won the Nobel prize within days of our meeting. I'll mention by name (in case you hear it again Monday when the Prize is announced) Randy Shekman and Peter Walter.
But, the thrill of the week was being invited to lunch with Peter Walter (since he wanted to meet more people, and I was in the right place). Peter Walter is like a German Santa Claus with a brain like Stephen Hawking, but such humility you would never know. And he, like Santa, has a warm temperament and a great sense of humor. He has some great things to say about 'digging deep' and serendipity, which were just what I needed to hear.
This put me in a very receptive mood to hear that two of our cell lines are NOT contaminated with mycoplasma- if the third comes up positive no big deal. That is less like an epidemic. Hopefully you can hear the swish of the bullet we missed wherever you are reading this from.
We are celebrating by buying Matt a PS3 (which means I can sit on the couch in my PJs and he thinks I spoil him- Thanks Noel!). Hope to get in a little more fun this weekend before scaling up for a science heavy week next week.
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