Danielle Blog

Good Friday

I’m off work for Easter Break; we get Thurs, Fri, and Mon off! Consequently, I feel that I have a bit more time to blog right now.

One key thing that has happened since my last post is that we finally submitted my first-author manuscript from the work I did as a post-doc to the Journal of Neuroscience! Finally! The lab was trying to do some additional experiments after I left to add to it, and it took until now to decide that some of them were just not going to work, and others were able to work. Of course, this is not the end of that, because the manuscript will have to be reviewed and the reviewers always want something changed. We just hope it is minor and not additional experiments!

A second key activity is that as part of Lent, my church has a day where they try to get everyone involved in service. We ended up having about 230 people participate in a variety of projects. I was one of the organizers to have a small musical concert at an assisted living facility. It was a lot of fun to sing some of my favorite songs. And the residents were soooooooooooo appreciative. This idea is something that I hope to take with me for a future church. It requires so little time from us, but it is so meaningful.

Last night, I sang and was one of the readers of the scripture in John that talks about the events leading up to and including the crucifixion. Good Friday and Easter are always more meaningful for me than Christmas. I love the festivities of Christmas, don’t get me wrong. But Christianity is really all about the events that occur during Lent. And the songs are heart-wrenching on Good Friday.
The readings were moving, but it was really uncomfortable to be one of the people in the crowd yelling “Crucify him!” But I think that is part of the point; we are supposed to be uncomfortable.

For Easter, I bought a very small bouquet of flowers on Wed night to enjoy while I’m here at home on break. I hope to take some photos of them later. Right now, I’m committed to getting the grading of exams done today. And I’m trying to get them done in time to see a 1:00ish showing of How to Train a Dragon in 3-D. I think I’ll be able to do that.

So, more later.