ChocoGrok

I was once a synthetic organic chemist who designed drugs for killing cancer cells. The inspiration came from gentle plants: a petite purple flower called the Madagascar periwinkle, for example, is unassumingly packed with 70 potent alkaloids!

I am currently a student in neuroscience, studying under the tutelage of a "sensei" who continues the lineage of unconventional thinkers, and occasionally reminds me that my academic great-grandfather is Sir John Eccles. I am therefore a researcher of nerve regeneration by vocation and a boundary-hunter by avocation. The difficulty of attaining the latter reminds me that the fun is found in the journey not destination.

On one particular journey, a forgotten egg led to hatching of an animated yellow fuzzy which I named Euphrates (named after the river but before the war). He had free-range dorm life, and ate oatmeal laced with vitamin-fortified raisins and high-protein spaghetti. He grew to be a beautiful Leghorn with snow white plumes, a bright red comb, and a resounding crow which would wake half the building up in the middle of the night. Having imprinted on my shoe, he approaches other shoes, the white sneaker in particular, with much enthusiasm and affection. He loves going to the beach as much as taking hour-long bubble baths in the laundry room.