I can't believe it has been nearly a month since my last post. November has been crazy busy this year.

Cali finally recovered from her declaw surgery :) For three weeks she wore a cone, stayed in the computer room during the day while I was at school, had special pellet like litter, and we both slept downstairs on the futon. I'm glad her paws have finally healed up...the futon was fine for a week but I really started to miss our pillow top queen bed upstairs, lol.

At the beginning of the month, I had the opportunity to travel up to GA and visit with everybody...which I love! I was so homesick. I got to help out with Jane's garage sale, go to lunch with a bunch of people (my brother, Christie, Neena, Christian, Amelia, Tyler, and Kit) at Bangkok Cabin...the food was sooooo good, dinner with the girls (Amy, Debra, and Amanda)with a bonfire to follow, church with the Elliotts, and lunch with the Elliotts, Mom and Dad Smith, and Vickie and Jeff. It was so great seeing everyone...and we got to webchat with Allen too!!

Video of Kit and Christian eating at Bangkok Cabin...


Video of Neena opening her Halloween bag from Uncle Allen and Aunt Laila...


Veteran's Day (November 11th), Stephen and Jen and I (and their dogs) went to Lake Ella to see the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall. Of course, it was just a replica. The real wall is in Washington, DC. It was truly something. I've included a few pictures.




My research really took off in November too. Yesterday, I had my second committee meeting and defended my prospectus. I passed!! Yay Laila! I'm so glad that's over with...the last 2 weeks I had been working 10 hour days in the lab...and more outside of lab at home. The CMB grad program requires students to present their prospectus one year before graduating. My prospectus stated the specific aims for my project, experimental design, and preliminary data. I'm studying a highly conserved signaling pathway called the Notch pathway and how different components of the pathway interact to control timing of activation. The picture included here is a fluorescent image of a stage 6 Drosophila melanogaster egg chamber. The absence of the green stain (GFP, green fluorescent protein), represents mutant clones, and the red stain (CD2) represents early activation of the Notch pathway.

Even though I had so much work to do I continued to go to social gatherings. Myself and a bunch of grad students have been having weekly potlucks for a few months now. I love it! It gives us a chance to cook, chat, play games, and watch movies...giving us a break from school at least one day a week. I'm thinking about having another potluck at th house Dec 13th...which is the weekend after finals and before Allen gets to town.


Here's a picture of Cali sleeping on my lap while I was working on my Prospectus.