"All Good Things . . . "

"Out of left field . . . "
"Woah."
"Ironic, isn't it?"

My boss, Tim, has been at the University for 14 years. I left California and came to Minnesota because of Tim's vision for lupus.

Well, we had a mandatory lab meeting today. Tim announced that he will be leaving the university to go to Genentech, in South San Francisco, to do something even more visionary (but still involving lupus). It's unclear to me what will happen to the lab here or to all the wonderful labmates I have become friends with. A couple of people may end up going to Genentech with Tim: In fact, I may be able to do a postdoc in Tim's new, probably much smaller lab at Genentech.

Anyway, I just wanted everyone to know about this amazing, late-breaking situation. Genentech seems like a nice place to work. I can't imagine a more ironic--or incredibly fortunate--situation. Right now, I'm definitely leaning toward following Tim to Genentech. However, I want to take some time to consider what all of my options may be and to make sure that I decide for the right reasons. If I were to go, I think I'd start around July 1. So, I've got time to think, pray, and get feedback from all of you. Also, there's still lots of great work to do here! :-)

So, yeah, please e-mail me with any thoughts. If you have any questions, I will try to respond in a timely manner, but I imagine the next few weeks will be pretty busy no matter which path I choose.

One thing this situation reminded me of is the Bible passage about Naaman (2 Kings 5). Ironically, that passage was an encouragement for me to take a risk and leave California and come out to Minnesota in the first place. Yes, my vocabulary word for today is "irony."