HUGE Praise!

Well my presentation went extremely well yesterday. I didn't win any awards, but I did get some great feedback on my research and some very much needed encouraging words. My work was well received, which was a great relief.

On to my great news. I found out this morning that I will be published soon! As some of you may know, scientists are measured by their publications in peer-reviewed journals. We put in hours of research, followed by hours of data analysis and interpretation, followed by hours of writing up the results. The ulimate outcome is a 5+ page article that then gets shopped around to various scientific journals. After being reviewed by 2-3 experts in the field, the article is either rejected by a journal or deemed as novel, well-designed and interpreted work worthy of publication. We have been through submission of 4 articles in the past 6 months, all of which were rejected by 1 or more journals. I was beginning to get discouraged, but when I least expected it one made it through. I know in my heart that was God reaching down and encouraging me. Isn't He awesome!!!

I have to have at least 3 articles published in order to graduate, so this process is extremely important. All of the hard work has paid off and I will soon be published in the European Journal of Pharmacology. It's not the most prestigious journal, and I am only second author, but I am so grateful to have a publication and definitely rejuvenated to keep working on the others.

As soon as it gets published I'll add a link to the abstract (I can't pass out copies of the article due to copyright laws or I would). YAY!!!!