May: Absentminded Crocuses, a Ferris Wheel, and Summer Plans

Things are quieting down now, which is a welcome change after the maniac traveling I've been doing for the last couple months. It feels good to have an uninterrupted block of time back in Gothenburg, especially since the program's end is encroaching so quickly. I have decided to go back to the States for the summer before Dublin---to see and celebrate the sun with those I care about, and also to make some quick summer cash as a Lead Teacher for Pacific Science Center's summer camps. So now my days in Sweden are literally quite numbered, and it feels good to be home with only plans to enjoy.

And April has happily obliged. This week finally brought sun to Scandinavia; today, it is nearly 60 degrees. For a couple days now, the skies have been clear, and so finally the edges of all the trees are finally glowing that newborn-pale green, and all the crocuses have simultaneously popped out of the ground, like startled, absentminded heralds. I noticed yesterday, as I was running, that the dead-leafy underbrush in the woods of Slottskogen is now overrun with large, white wildflowers---yes, I'll give it a day or two now, and Sweden will be in full-fledged spring.

May plans to bring a number of things to my life in addition to flowers. There are three major things that are happening in the next seven weeks that will be fighting for my attention:

Gothenburg's International Science Fair and the European Association for Science Events Annual Conference. Every year, Gothenburg has thrown a massive science festival that takes over the town with informal science events, lectures, workshops, performances, experiments, you name it. It's a trend several European cities have been doing (Edinburgh being one of the oldest, having recently celebrated it's 20th festival just last week). Naturally, I am very excited to see science celebrate publicly on such a scale, and so I plan to participate in two ways...

1) ...by putting on a small exhibit of my own as a "real-life" cellular biologist in one of the cars of Gothenburg's giant revolving ferris wheel for 1 hour. That's right: a science lesson in a ferris wheel. Who knew you could learn about stress granules 8-9 stories up...

2) ...and by participating as an intern at the EUSCEA Annual Conference, a two-day closed event that is host to international organizers of science festivals and plans to address a whole spectrum of science education issues. I met with one of the founders of the Gothenburg festival, Jan Riise, last week to confirm my volunteer status on this. Not only was he an extremely approachable man, he promptly and kindly followed up our conversation by providing me with some very cool Swedish doctoral theses on science centers and teens. He also is interested in my old systems biology project I did for the Pacific Science Center (who knew?). Needless to say, I think I will learn a lot from him...

I will most likely report back on both of these things (most definitely on what I do in the ferris wheel, ha!) back here in about two-three weeks...

The second thing is a real exhibition, put on by the students in this International Museum Studies program as a final project. The whole massive group has been split into separate teams, which in turn are responsible for the content, design, marketing, educational programming and production of a catalogue for an exhibit we will put on for the public May 31 through June 6 at three museums. We have been given little warning or guidance for this task (surprisesurprise), and the sheer size and diversity of enthusiasm of our group makes this a formidable task. I am head of the events and programming team, so in addition to the general work, my schedule's also crowded with managing meetings as part of a steering group that is the communication bridge between the actual museum curators and, well, us.

Let's hope it'll be worth our time. I hope so.

The last thing is more of a combination of good old-fashioned labwork and wrap-up. Lundberg Labs has had me working on constructing strains and testing preliminary conditions for a large-scale genetic screen they plan to do with S. cerevisiae. The work has been very pleasant (very different from the pacing of American research; lots of fika and limited money), and before I go, I will have to get as much done as I can and present a final report on what has been accomplished before both I and my supervisor take off for the summer. I'll also have to wrap up things here in Annika's flat; boxing up what I'll need in Ireland, separating what Gabby can take home early, and selling the rest. I am terribly sad to leave Annika; she has been one of the best roommates I've had, so it seems too premature.

So, as you can see, the infrastructure to my spring is turning out to be quite a netted mesh. Many people have similar plans; a lot of my friends are headed away form Sweden by the end of May. I expect a lot of dinner parties and picnics---which is wonderful. Warms me up for swan-diving back into the Seattle social scene. But I do hope we all stay in touch; I'd hate to think many of the friendships forged here were more situational than substantial. But hey, I don't want to play the pessimist. :)

But did you hear that, Seattle friends? I'm coming home!