Hectic

The past week has been pleasantly hectic. I had already been working for some weeks on a PD model for propofol with one of the anesthesiologists (If you don’t understand that sentence, substitute ‘a PD model for propofol’ with ‘something’). Then this week the results of the blood sample analysis of morphine and metabolites for one of the other studies came in. I started making the dataset, and lucky me the samples were send to the lab in 4 batches, they were probably analyzed by 3 different technicians, so I received the data in 3 different formats. That of course means 3 different R-scripts which requires 3 times as much time. When this was done, they wanted some nice graphs of the preliminary results for a grant application they are working on and when I finished those, I was asked to add some captions and a couple of paragraphs to go in the application (currently I’m writing my NIH biosketch, since I am going to be on the application too, which is pretty cool). Since the deadline for the application is approaching rapidly, everything needed to be done yesterday.
In addition to that, I am regarded the PKPD specialist here. Somehow this always embarrasses me and makes me feel like an imposer. I wonder whether I should burst their bubble and give away that I am not really an expert. However, I do like that my expert opinion is requested occasionally, since I always have an opinion on everything it is not only good to be explicitly asked for my opinion but to get paid for it as well :). As the expert I was also asked to teach the clinicians some basic pharmacometrics while I am here as well, those sessions will start next week.
This week our Japanese faculty member also had guests over from Japanl. One of them was a PhD student as well. He stayed for one week to learn about modeling and he presented his work at the end of the week. Afterwards we decided with some colleagues to all go out for Japanese dinner that night. Logistics were worked out in such a way that I was in the restaurant a bit before the rest. When my other colleagues walked in, they proudly and very publicly presented two six packs of beer, but that was not all. To my surprise, the waiters there offered to put it in the fridge for us as well. It took me a while to figure out what was going on, but if I understand correctly the restaurant does not have a license to sell alcohol (as I learned later, there is only a limited number of those license per region, based on the size of the population in that region), so when making reservations they inform you that you have to bring your own booze. The Japanese guest was flying back to Japan on Sunday and according to good Japanese protocol he was required to work on Saturday as well. However, in order to improve his English communication skills, our Japanese faculty member kept pouring him more and more beer. Poor guy, I wonder how bad his headache has been the next day, but is English skills did improve :p.
After arriving back at home that evening and turning on the tv, I saw the absolute devastation that the earthquake and tsunami had cause in Japan. None of the Japanese I know here had any friends or family in the affected area (although my Thai colleague does and so far she has not heard back from all of them). I had heard that it had been bad, but seeing it on tv was startling. After all that footage and the nuclear power plant that is about to blow, they also had some local news. Yes people out there, Cincinnati is not being spared. The water level in the Ohio River has been quite high for a while already (some areas are flooded). Most of the ramps to the dinner boats are submerged now, but there was one boat that solved this and was still in business, until it came loose and got stuck against a pillar of a bridge. Not only was it difficult to get the people off and was there an increasing risk of the boat getting loose again or getting crushed, due to the high water speed and debris piling up against it, there was also a local celebrity onboard! (please note my sarcasm here.)
Since I did not have to work on Saturday (and since I did not drink beer the day before, because my English is good enough and because I still had to drive home), I had plenty of time to get a haircut, go to the gym and run some errands. Since we are expecting one more tenant in the house that I live in now, my housemate and her parents went shopping for some more furniture, for the empty room. Afterwards they went for dinner and I was invited as well. I forgot the name of the restaurant that we went to, but when I asked what kind of restaurant it was they said something about steak and peanuts. Arriving there, we had to wait for about an hour, but since the weather was quite nice we sat outside in the sun. At one point this couple with two kids showed up, the kids were eating peanuts and were throwing the shells on the floor. I remember thinking ‘f*cking brads’ (yes even my thoughts are censured here), however when we went inside I saw that that was “The Thing” about that place. All the tables had buckets with peanuts on them, and the shells were scattered all over the floor, so that was the second restaurant surprise for me this week.
Sunday, I went to the gym again, first thing in the morning. I swam for about 1 hour and when I wanted to go home I backed my car up into somebody else’s. Long stupid story, but the damage to the guy’s car was not that bad, and he would accept $50 compensation without any insurance hassle. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to spend that money on the car, but anyway. The damage to my car looked a bit worse, but after ‘cleaning the wound’, it did not look that bad either, not even a dent, just scratches. The rental company was closed though, so I still have to find out what the consequences will be. To be honest, I’m surprised it even took me 38 days to the first incident.