Interview Meme

Mrs. Comet Hunter recently posted a fun meme where she was asked 5 questions by another blogger and answered them interview style. I thought it sounded fun, so I signed up for an interview with her.

Here are the rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me" AND leave your email address (or blog link) in the comment! I will interview the first three commenters to ask for it.
2. I will respond by emailing you (or commenting on your blog with) five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. (If you don't have a blog, I can post your answers here).
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Here goes!

Mrs CH: If you could no longer do "science", what would you do as a career and why?

Me: Husband and I have this crazy dream to open a small inn and restaurant. It would be near the ocean, or in the mountains in an old house... we'd grow fresh herbs and veggies in the garden and cook everything fresh from scratch. *sigh* maybe someday

Mrs CH: How did you meet Mr. Jenn, PhD?

Me: Well, as science geeky as it sounds, we met in the lab.... I was a summer student during my undergrad and he was a new PhD student. I was dating someone else at the time though, so we were "just friends" for the summer. I went back to school in the fall (1500km away) and sent him my phone number for the heck of it, figuring I'd never hear from him... he called the same night and the rest is history :)

Mrs CH: How are you doing on your general positive thinking resolution?

Me: Well, to be honest, not so great. But I do catch myself smiling more often, and being generally more enthusiastic about (some) things. I feel pretty stressed out by the total loss of control over my future (I'm a bit of a control freak, and a major planner, so it drives me kind of crazy to have so much up in the air). At least if I knew what Continent I'll be living on it would help... I'll keep trying though!

Mrs CH: Where has been your favorite place you have traveled and why?

Me: Ooooooh. That's a tough one. I love to travel and am not often disappointed by a place, because each is nice for its own reasons. I think I'd have to say hiking in the Alps. I first visited (another set of) mountains when I was 17, and I've been hooked ever sense. I love the openess of the sky, how you feel like you can see forever, and the fresh, clean air. And the colours of the mountains, lakes, wild flowers, sky! And the snow in summer! And the cows. I love the bells :)

Mrs CH: If you could give one piece of advice to a new graduate student, what would it be?

Me: Get yourself a hobby! Seriously. Build a life outside of the lab, because if lab is the only thing in your life, it's so much harder to face those inevitable days when nothing is working and you feel like a failure. Sometimes just having something else to look forward to, a reason to leave the lab by a certain time or get away for the weekend is what held me together. Husband played a big role in that, but it was also nice to have non-scientists/colleagues to talk to about different things as well. I'm sure there are lots of other scienc-ey suggestions that I could give, but that was one key to surviving grad school for me.