Another day, another semester.  Wait, didn't I promise to write more regularly?  Wasn't that promise made in JANUARY?  Oops.  I give props to the people who write the blogs that I read every day - it's hard to be thought provoking on a daily basis.  Which is probably why some of the blogs I read photograph their bowl of oatmeal every single morning and call it a post.  And then I go back every day to see if they ate anything different for breakfast.  I digress.  I'm sure no one was logging on here on a daily basis to see if I'd posted anything new. :)

But if you did miss my ramblings, I am going to try to do better this fall.  I tell my students all the time that the only part of writing that I enjoy is seeing my name in the table of contents in a journal.  And that's true, but blogging is different.  It's a little bit of a release.  And I like to think that I'm entertaining, at least a little bit.  So what's on my mind tonight?  Well, I guess I'll tell you what I did this summer.

Half my lab graduated.  I got seriously sentimental over these guys - I had my first group pretty much ever where everyone got along, there was no drama, and I didn't have an ulcer worrying about them.  Seriously some of the most talented, wonderful young people I've ever had the pleasure of working with.  Two are at my alma mater, working toward their Ph.D.s in neurobiology and chemistry, one landed her dream job as a professor at a community college, one got into medical school, and two are staying on for their master's with me, which I'm so glad about.  Even more miraculous is that two theses were generated and both students are still speaking to me!  A first for me!

I taught summer A&P for the first time.  Loved having 10 people in class, especially since they were a fun bunch.  Co-taught cadaver lab (ok, really I didn't teach, I hung out and talked to the students).  Really, those guys caught on pretty quickly to the fact that I 1) stink at dissection and 2) hadn't studied a lick to teach the class.  "Should we cut that off, Dr. Bailey?" "Well, um, it looks important, we should probably ask Dr. Sievert."  I need to hone my dissecting skills, for reals, before next summer.  I "helped" my regular A&P students dissect their cats - it looked like someone went after them with a butter knife and a hatchet.  NOT pretty.  Oh well, I'm still the reigning histology queen at ESU, thank you very much.

I went to Baltimore for the annual TS meeting and had a really great time.  Loved seeing friends, loved the science, loved seeing my students shine, and loved seeing my mentors.  As a bonus, I got to go to NY for a couple of days and see my sister, brother-in-law, and impossibly cute nephew.  We bonded over playing Angry Birds until he realized that I wasn't Mommy.  He did love Crazy Aunt Lissa for running through the sprinklers at the pool though!

I also got back in the pool.  Swimming is the only form of exercise that I'm good at, which sucks for anyone who has to see me in a swimsuit at the pool, but oh well.  It's actually not pure, unending torture.  I swim with fins and pretend that I'm a perfect hybrid of Michael Phelps and Gisele Bundchen. And then I get out of the pool and look in the mirror...one day. :)  I've decided that swimming makes me a happier person and I'm going to take time to do it.  And I just found a swimsuit on splish.com that has a skeleton on it that I have to have.

And now it's fall.  I have some new undergrads, two returning/new grad students, and the gang that didn't graduate last year.  I think it's going to be a great group, but we'll definitely need Betty for entertainment purposes at the Christmas party.  A&P is going well so far - some fun people in there.  In case you think I forgot that I have a son, I haven't.  The Dictatortot is the subject of my next post!