The Official Interview Game Rules
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below asking to be interviewed.
2. I will resond by asking you 5 questions--each person's will be different.
3. You will update your journal / blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them 5 questions.
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Aaron's questions for me:
Can you describe in more than 10 words why you like cheese and/or pickles so much?
You must be referring to my spontaneous propensity to utter the phrase “I love cheese!” at any given moment, regardless of appropriateness or not, and for stealing pickles off your plate at meals… Well, seeing as taste is both a product of nature and nurture, I would say that genetically I have taste papillae very attuned to the taste of glutamate, an essential amino acid found in cheese, and a need for H+ protons found in sour foods needed to maintain cell membrane potential. On the nurture side, I dunno, my mom really liked pickles when she was pregnant. As for the cheese thing, that’s another mystery of science…
Is there a book/song/artistic work that inspires you in life and why?
Wow, this could be a very lengthy discussion in itself. I have a different song for every aspect of my life—heartbreak, hope, loneliness, inspiration, gratitude, love, and a mix of the rainbow of emotions above. I know not only exactly what song I want to be played at my wedding, but also at my funeral (When You Say Nothing at All, and Say Goodnight, Not Goodbye). So that’s an extremely difficult question. As for books, my favorite is also my inspiration—Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It is a story of romantic but realistic hope in a time of oppression. It’s a love story that defies all odds, but with a twist of humor and irony and a twinge of self-deprecation. It’s a story I loved as a child but understand its depths more as I grow older, and will continue to love forever.
So what is the deal with you and eyebrows?
I could make up an incident that severely traumatized me in childhood, but honestly I have no idea why I have such a fascination with people’s eyebrows. They are the first attribute that I notice on a person’s face, although sometimes subconsciously. I am also quite critical about the size, shape, length, arch and general appearance of them in proportion to other facial features. You’ve got me on this one…
I know that you are someone who aspires to change the world in a positive way. What would be the one specific thing you would do to change the world if you knew it would be the only thing you'd be able to accomplish?
I’m basing my entire career around this goal, actually. One of the many underlying reasons for doing clinical research is to improve health outcomes. I’m not expecting to cure AIDS or cancer; there are much more intelligent people out there who will eventually do that. Health outcomes and equal access to health care is something I’ve always been passionate about, even before I knew exactly how to pursue this. But now that I’ve got a partial foot in the door, I realize that it is entirely possible in our lifetime to provide the best standard of care for all people, and to alleviate many of the current accompanying morbidities of both chronic and infectious diseases, if not eliminate the pre-determined mortalities altogether.
What is one thing about your chosen field of study/job that you can't stand and is a black mark on the job?
While I love most everything about my “chosen field” as you put it, there’s a small logistical aspect that I can’t seem to get past. That is, research is where the money is. Hence, no money, no research. So when you’re running a clinical study, about half the time is devoted to writing a grant in order to get funding, re-writing it according to the reviewers’ preferences, and submitting multiple other grants in order to get further funding. It’s all a lot of wasted time and effort, I think (although the relief of finally getting that nod to funding is as close to a feeling of euphoria as you can get). We all spend so much of our time multi-tasking as business managers and accountants that sometimes it’s very easy to lose track of what is imminent and important.
posted by Sheila @ 8/19/2005 11:40:00 AM
1 Comments:
OK shoot
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