In Shanghai I met up with two former colleagues from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Biaoyang Lin of Zhejiang University and Wei Yan of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, both of whom have gone on to Professorships in China and are pictured here with me in front of the Parliament building:https://www.instagram.com/p/B2ZKXzcA3Mu/ Unlike me when they left Seattle, they left their families behind. Neither seemed happy about this, but you gotta go where the work is and their now Americanized families were not interested in moving back. For the record I tried this scam on Donna when we moved to Baltimore, but she would not go for it 🙄 Notably, as dual Chinese - American nationals they are no longer as Chinese as they use to be and can't work on certain classified projects there. BTW: the Chinese are killing it in Shanghai with architecture as witnessed in the beer bottle opener building next to Shanghai's famous tower https://www.instagram.com/p/B2ZKuNggEmQ/
I finally made it to Africa this year where in Accra, Ghana I spoke at the University of Ghana about our work in microbial diagnostics, sepsis and biomarkers. While I'm comfortable being a minority, Baltimore is 65% African (American Africans and African Africans - loads of which are Nigerian), in Ghana an Anglo really stands out 👀 Notably, at Ningbo University near Shanghai there were quite a few Africans on campus but in Accra, while there were many Chinese in the city, due to the Chinese push to gain influence, I didn't see any pale skin on campus. That was odd because campuses are usually hot zones of cultural mixing. Maybe this is just a sign that the University of Ghana is on the rise rather than having made it. In Accra the thing that stood out most was the style of dress for men and women. Lots of eye popping colors as seen in this photo at a textile outlet https://www.instagram.com/p/B4XYU2_A8dv/
The other thing that stood out was the amazing hospitality of Ghanaians. It made me wonder if this is a relic of the British system Ghana and other British colonies experienced: an organized society with instilled manners of social behavior. Possibly, as most ex-British colonies seem to have no shortage of manners. Regardless, it is still a fairly poor country where the main hospital was built by the British over 100 years ago https://www.instagram.com/p/B4RrUbFg62x/ and the street vendors perform amazing feats from their heads https://www.instagram.com/p/B4RlwdXA7sO/ Speaking of lovely architecture the Presidential residence - office known as Jubilee House is one of the most architecturally beautiful designs I have seen https://www.instagram.com/p/B4XYB5Eg0yO/ Ghana is a shining example of democracy in Africa with lots of room for growth in tourism and natural resources.
Meanwhile back in Baltimore David (Minter) Goodlett (aka the VII as in the 7th David Goodlett in a row but the first D. M. Goodlett) got through another year at the University of Maryland in their kinesiology program. He found some honest work this year for Jennifer Watson who runs several science conferences like www.asms.org, an annual event with 6-7k attendees. Jen's Mom, who started the company decades ago, fell in love with Mint and wanted to adopt him because of his manners and work ethic. Wait? What? Who knew? Looks like he'll get some more work with them in 2020. That's good as it's not clear he really knows what he wants to do when he graduates. Well, make a lot of money but he is not alone there. Judging from his choice of attire here https://www.instagram.com/p/B2ufB8eAlM3/ without loads of money to make it rain he may be pretty lonely 😜
Graham continued his convalescence away from school. Still no resolution to his chronic muscle pain that saw him drop out of University of Maryland's engineering program January 2018. As of this year only one of the four of us has not been hospitalized since moving to Baltimore, i.e. Donna. Graham had his stint back in September a result of medication and diet that saw him in for a week rebalancing his blood chemistry 🥺 Earlier in the year we tried to get him into the NIH's undiagnosed disease network but their reply was "we don't think we can help you". Ah right, so they are running a network for recognizable diseases that have not been diagnosed. Probably just trying to take in patients they know they can help which helps their success rate and and funding from Congress. Pathetic. Change the name of your damn program, NIH! ... We are now close to getting him into Cedar Sinai's undiagnosed disease network. Stay tuned. Hopefully, by next year there will be some resolution. Regardless, he turned 22 this year https://www.instagram.com/p/B4H0DSHAOSv/
It's been mostly a great year with lots to be thankful for like this Bolton Hill mansion from which we can walk to work, grocery store, pharmacy, doctor, dentist, hardware store, movie theater, opera house, symphony, dinner-drinks, and train station. For Donna, proximity to the train station means she is only 45 minutes away from all the best protests in WA DC. Notably, the best (45th) President ever and everyone knows it (his words not mine 🙄) does not disappoint there https://www.instagram.com/p/B1ZyNAdgYPp/. Alas, it doesn't seem possible that we could ever live such a pragmatic urban lifestyle for the money a Professor makes any where else. Certainly the same row house in Boston or NYC would cost 4x more than this 4k sq ft mansion in the heart of the city. Donna, seen here https://www.instagram.com/p/BwhcyCQhyQm/ at our favorite local eatery, Noona's by the Mt Royal light rail station and a ten minute walk from our place, continued her part-time work at Sunlight Natural Health http://sunlightnaturalhealth.com/ for a naturopathic doctor who is among the many Doctors treating Graham.
We hope to have exciting news to share in the new year. 🎉No. Donna is not pregnant again and no we didn't win the lottery 😜 For now we wish you all a happy holiday season and blessed new year.
💕🥰 🙏🏼Dave, Donna, Mint, Ham and Trixie
P.S. For those interested in my work see the following link https://proteomics-now.com/speakers/35-dave-goodlett/index.html which I found while searching for a tweet from the lab. Seems the web never forgets 👀 I recall making the video in Finland but don't think I ever saw this webpage with a link to an interview of me that was made for an online proteomics forum.
