“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

- Barack Obama's Speech on Race

impressive. simply impressive how Obama could, not only neutralize a potentially negative race-related incident, but to turn it into a emotionally uplifting moment brimming with utter honesty and vision. perhaps this is why so many people turned into Obama supporters after going for his rallies.

perhaps this is what america needs?

read his full speech as prepared here at NYT.

on graduate education

i've had such a tremendous experience over the past month that it'll be a great disservice to myself not to write (most of) my transient tots down...

i have always admired the jet-setting lifestyle of successful businessmen, spending more time on planes and cabs than buses and trains, more nights in many-starred hotels than home, secretaries to take care of various aspects of travel and accommodation, meeting intelligent people working around the world in endless one-to-one meetings and intimate heart-to-heart discussions. amazingly, and unexpectedly, i've got to experience all of that and more over the past one month as i jet-set through the top american graduate schools in biomedical sciences/molecular and biochemical studies.

i've admittedly been relatively successful academically and most pple will see me in a favorable light. but its nonetheless nerve wrecking to be repeatedly placed alongside 40 equally if not more successful and competitive peers and be scrutinized by smart AND experienced faculty who obviously sees through my feeble attempts to construct a barely palatable excuse to attend graduate school. and imagine suffering through all these while struggling to focus on the science and not be seduced and distracted by endless buffets and beers and wines and classy restaurants and glorious sceneries and exciting (ok, i lie here) field trips to wineries and choc factories and kayaking destinations and i cant remember where else....

...phew...ineedtocatchmybreath.

not only was i showered by excessive care and attention by faculty and current students during the trip, many (canned?) emails of concern and positive exhilaration and admiration soon followed the trip beholding me to enroll in each of the "strongest program in the US/world". i never felt so WANTED by so many pple before that i almost converted to the nearest religion i could find (just kidding).

now that all that is over, im left as an insignificant self and have to deliberate between each sch's pros and cons, only to realize that without knowing what i want with my education/science/career/life/fill-in-ur-own-word-here i cant make an accurate decision.

and seriously. i have no freaking idea what i want for my education.

the typical american graduate student career track goes like this. undergraduate grounds you with a broad liberal arts education so u can set ur Montaigne and Margarita and Marx right while learning ur ABCs like ampicillin, beta sheets and C4 cycle. graduate sch will inculcate a broad range of practical skill sets from the mundane of notebook keeping to standard western/northern blot techniques to the thrill of sacrificing mice, as well as the independent scientific thinking that leads us to great experiments and discoveries. a short post-doctoral career will allow us to work on a project of interest, on which we will spend much of the rest of our lives investigating. from there, those of us who are keen on an academic career will obtain a junior faculty position, passing on our passion to undergrads and expanding our lab and research interests, and tenureship will come a few years later without much fanfare, giving us free rein to conduct exciting research and achieve major breakthroughs. (yeh right)

and along the way, the old axiom applies: publish or perish. everyone wishes for a couple of first author cell/nature/science to distinguish themselves from the crowd, making that post-doc/grant/faculty/tenureship application that much easier. now, in an ideal world we're, for the most part, smart pple, and can generate groundbreaking insights on our own without breaking a sweat. in reality, of course, we depend on that 1% inspiration as much as the exacting guidance of our thesis advisor.

which is where i confront my first dilemma. generally speaking, should i be banking my career with an established mentor who'll see to it that i have a structured progression to education and publications in a mature field or a young faculty who'll bring youthful passion to a new, hot and developing field. this first dilemma is broadly understood by all in this career, but unfortunately for me it ties into a fundamental problem of my choice for a field of interest.

ive worked variously on the pluripotency of embryonic stem cells, plant cell wall dynamics in cytokinesis, cell cycle regulation via septin dynamics, hormonal influences on lung tumor growth, microRNA regulation on worm gonad development and currently on molecular interactions in actin cytoskeleton network regulation. not a bad mix, regardless of who u ask. i wrote in my applications that im keen to tackle epigenetic regulation on gene expression, a hot field that i was introduced to via my microRNA work. i was also keen to dabble again in the maintenance of pluripotency in embryonic stem cells and lineage specification, since this white hot field shows no sign of slowing down and was in fact thrown back into focus with many recent high-profile papers. combining my two interests leaves me in a hot pot situation where funding is plenty and competition is intense.

the way my interests developed sounded perfectly logical when writing up for my graduate sch applications. but they truly seem feeble when scrutinized by experienced faculty who obviously thinks im just mindlessly jumping onto the bandwagon without any pre-existing insights in mind. i cant put forth any explanations to the question of why i'm interested in this field other than my personal research history plus the plain fact that this unexplored field deserves our attention. did i think i could solve the world's ills with this field? probably not. but i really couldnt think of any other "important" field that stands out when everything is simply equally (un)interesting.

how do u determine what topics interest you? i have as much interest in finding the cure for AIDS/cancer/diabetes/diseaseX as much as John Doe but not more. as a highly visual person, im intrigued by the molecular machinery functioning in that tightly regulated function to keep us all alive, but how long will these interests last if most of my work in these fields will be highly unvisual? (imagine blots/gels vs mouse model work, its a hands-down victory for higher-order work) to bring matters back to the starting point, many faculty in hot fields are new blood, unreliable a mentor to confidently declare a safe graduate journey. will i be asked to conduct "fishing expeditions"? will i get exposure to a wide range of techniques or receive stimulating challenges to my thinking style? or will i be lounging in agony 4 years down the road when i realize my project is next to impossible to complete?

it doesnt help that i dont see many potential faculty during the interviews whom i clearly click with. i really REALLY enjoyed talking science with one established faculty in yale, was intellectually stimulated by one HHMI faculty in berkeley, sat first in pitiful shame and gradual confidence with another berkeley HHMI faculty, but generally had tame interactions with the rest of the 30odd faculty i met over the two weeks. and of cuz, to add complexity to the decision making process, add a significant other and the widely varying campus environments to truly confuse and mess up my live for now.

sigh. i guess life is good to have choices, but life sucks when you realize that no choice is perfect and ull always have to give up something for another.

on another note, it was great fun meeting up with old friends in SD and SF. sincere thanks to all the birthday wishes on fb and via sms, and unbelievable gratitude to kk and wy for an unexpected birthday gift (BBC's Planet Earth DVD collection, which will be freaking fantastic to watch once i find the time to). but for now, its to planning for our upcoming japan trip (all we have are return plane tix), lab for the next 2 weeks, and endless tots on everything related to our wedding.

so, i guess, ciao for now.