At this point I would expect that most everyone knows, but for the record, I was finally awarded my Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences! Things moved pretty quickly thereafter and I have transitioned into a postdoctoral fellowship also at Mount Sinai. I’m in a different department now, Endocrinology, but the work I will do still has relevance to skeletal fragility. In addition, I get to incorporate studies of diabetes and obesity. I will be moving (one block) away in a month or so to my very own 1-bedroom which I am ecstatic about, mostly because I will have more closet space. Seriously folks, I am barely surviving with my tiny closet here in the Sinai residence hall. So, it’s a new phase in life for me and I’ve very excited. In honor of this new phase I have upgraded to this brand new blog on WordPress. As much as I love Google, WordPress is much better than Blogger and let’s face it…nowadays I’m all about better.

The countdown has begun. For a variety of reasons it’s time to wrap up 30 years of schooling with a doctorate in April…Monday April 14th to be exact. That’s the day I will be defending my Ph.D. thesis. My talk, which will be open to the public, will be 9-10am and then there will be the closed “exam” from 10am-Noon. Afterwards there will be food and rejoicing. For those planning to attend, you now have the date.

It’s been a few months, but once again I’m off to another conference to showcase my work. This time I head to San Francisco, a city I’ve never been to before. I’m leaving early to spend some time with my friend Blake and see the sights. When I get back next week that will mark the last trip for me as a grad student. From then on I finish writing my thesis and defend!

After some prodding from a medical student in my lab I decided to get a physical to start off 2008 on the right foot. As it turns out I hadn’t been to my doctor in about 5 years, which was when I had pneumonia. I’m a very active guy, so I didn’t expect any real problems. I got my bloodwork back today and the results were good. Everything was in order including my cholesterol. However, I was informed that I had higher than normal levels of bilirubin (seen right). The diagnosis? I have a disorder known as Gilbert’s Syndrome. Eeeeeek!

It’s actually a lot less exciting than I initially thought. To begin, it’s not pronounced “gill-bert.” It’s pronounced with a French accent after the doctor who discovered it (I knew I shouldn’t have taken French class in high school). Basically the condition is a deficiency in glucuronyltransferase, the enzyme that helps break down bilirubin so that it can be excreted from your body. Individuals who have severe deficiencies will become jaundiced (yellow) because of the bilirubin buildup. For most people with Gilbert’s (up to 5% of the population) there are no symptoms beyond the bloodwork and there are no health risks. So, the good news is I will be fine. Oh, and before I forget, it is hereditary which means that my parents are gonna have to answer for their bad genes. Unacceptable!

Now that we’re coming up to a new year I figured I would update everyone on my career status. There is actually some great news on this front. My supervisory committee met a few weeks ago and we went over the work I have done thus far. They were very pleased and said I can finish analysis on my current project, write, and defend my Ph.D. in March/April.

With this approval in hand, the next step of my career fell into place. I had my eye on a postdoctoral position in the department of Endocrinology here at Mount Sinai and since I can graduate in the spring I was able to commit to the position and the investigator was able to commit it to me as well. I formally accepted the position yesterday and will be filling out paperwork in the next few weeks. The position enables me to continue studies in bone and to use many of the skills that I have developed during college, my masters and Ph.D. training. In addition, I will be able to brush up on some old techniques and learn new ones. This should set me up nicely for the next step in my career (whatever that may be). So, the end is near! Or, if you like, the beginning is near. Regardless, I will be in NYC for at least another 2-3 years and there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that!

CLICK TO PLAY MOVIE

This past weekend my local community was lucky to have the Magic World Championships in our very own NYC. Congrats to Uri from Israel (left) for winning. I volunteered to judge the event which spanned four days, each of which were very long. This was the longest consecutive multi-day event I’ve ever judged and it was fairly debilitating; we completed 5 days of tournaments in only 4 days.

As detailed in my prior post, things have been very rough for me personally and professionally these past few weeks and I guess it showed when I was at Worlds. Judges who haven’t seen me since Honolulu were happy to get reacquainted, but apparently I was noticeably different. I wasn’t the same Hayden. I was mellow, distant, and worn out. On the last day Andy came over to me for a chat. Andy is the worldwide head of the judges. He asked me what was up. I told him about the difficulties I’ve had on all fronts and that I think I need to retire from judging because I’m not able to handle everything. I will be graduating in several months and there is a lot of work to be done. Plus, family and friends haven’t been seeing me enough and I’m just not having enough fun in my life.

Andy was very honest with me and said that if WotC lost me as a judge it would be a great loss, but that judging is just a hobby and I need to get my Ph.D. He also said that if I’m not enjoying it as much as I used to, then I’m clearly burnt out and need to take a break and have some fun. He suggested that I take a sabbatical and once I graduate and settle into a job, I can then re-evaluate where I am and transition back into the community. It was great advice, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I will miss my judging community, but I really do need this time to take the next step in my life. Then, once I have, I will be able to rejoin my community re-energized, with a new perspective, and most of all, with terms that better accomodate my needs.

Fresh off of my high from Austin, TX was two of the most emotionally straining weeks in my life. Aside from a stressful (and beyond anyone’s control) Thanksgiving where I waited at a train station for nearly 2 hours thinking my dad was in a car wreck and then suffered through a loss of power shortly after dinner, two people I was “very close” to wound up hurting me tremendously. I think the quotes are very appropriate here because up until now I think I was throwing the term, as well as the term “friend,” around like they grew on trees (are we all really friends with all the people on our MySpace pages?…this one’s for you Mike).

Now I’m not going to pretend that you can go through life not hurting other people. I love my parents dearly and I know I’ve hurt both of them over the years and they’ve given their share of hurt back at me. However, beyond all of that lurked something tremendous to which I was totally unaware, or maybe I just took it for granted. If you genuinely care for someone, consider and accept who they are and what they need, and are honest with them (and by necessity yourself) you have laid the foundation for a true relationship.

I think perhaps that over the years I have been naive. I’ve always had a select group of close friends, but I don’t think I ever gave them the credit they were due; I never realized what they had or, more importantly, what they gave of themselves. So during these past two weeks when I was destroyed by what ultimately were false images I had of others, the silver lining was that among the shattered glass stood my true friends, as if I was seeing them for the first time. They were there all the time offering me advice (though I didn’t always see to take it), supporting me as I went down the road (though they knew it would mean suffering), and standing up for me when the time was right. Thanks guys and gals. I hope I can be such a positive force in someone’s life if I haven’t been already.

I’m back from the ICCBMT which was held in Austin, TX. This was hands down the best conference I have attended in my research career. The science was great, the topics were relevant, and the attendance was small – which was intentional. It promoted interaction among attendees (breakfast, lunch, and dinner were included) and I made some great contacts. I was also lucky enough to win a New Investigator Award, which meant I gave a talk and got a nice check to offset the cost of the trip. The one downside was that the conference was at a resort about 30 minutes outside of Austin proper, so I didn’t get to see the city’s nightlife, but well, the resort had a hot tub outside overlooking the lake. Good times.