Burritos, Bloggers and AA's BH

I have to say my first week as a married person ended on a high note, but it had nothing to do with being married...of course.

The first thing that was great about today was that I went to lunch with Ambivalent Academic's Better Half (AA's BH) and Ambivalent Academic herself (listed in order of appearance at lunch). It was really cool to meet both of them, see what they look like and find out their real names. I had been communicating with AA's BH over email a little bit (nothing torrid, just business) and decided that it was time to meet in person, and thankfully they agreed. So meet we did, over burritos. Both of them were great and I can't wait to meet up with them again. Lunch flew by so quickly that I feel like we barely got acquainted. I definitely see a happy hour in our near future. Yay!
You might be wondering, how could your day get any better than meeting two cool people and eating burritos? Well, a very productive meeting with your new boss where he loves your ideas and tells you that you can move forward is how it happened for me. (From this point on I bestow the pseudonym Magnum PI, on my post-doc advisor) For the last two months I have been researching (not at the bench) and reading, trying to find out everything possible about the organism I want to study and today I got the green light to request the strains and get started. I am also taking on two other projects that are already in progress in his lab. The two ongoing projects are basically going to provide me with all the experience I need to develop my own project with the other bacterium, which is what I am hoping to start my own lab with. In fact, one of the major reasons I took a position in this lab is because it would provide me with a great arsenal of tools and knowledge to study my new favorite bacterium.

Thanks to the meeting, I feel like I have good plan of attack that we both agree on. Now I can really start working like my normal self. These last two months of little bench work and lots of reading were starting to get to me. It just doesn't feel right if I am not running around the lab like a freak with multiple experiments going on at the same time. It was nice for the first couple of weeks, but I am so freaking ready to dive back in.