Introduction

O.S.C.
1977-1999

Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland
January 2000

After a fair amount of soul-searching, I've decided to relocate the earlier part of the story back to its original setting--it was truer to the original story than simply sticking the story in some other university rather than Hopkins. There is a program between NIH and Johns Hopkins, and the Dean of Johns Hopkins does still maintain a working lab in the Biology Department--I've done a fair amount of research to get the details right. However, be careful not to take the comparisons too far.

Several readers have commented on the proliferation of names in the story, as well as the existence of multiple names for certain people. The former is intentional--hey, it's part of life--but I'll try to clarify the latter.

Olivia/Livvie --> same person. Most of Olivia's friends used Livvie; I was the only one who used Olivia on a regular basis.

Callista/Callie/Lissie --> same person. I called Callista Lissie; just about everyone else used Callie.

Annika/Anya/Nicki --> same person. I called Annika Anya; just about everyone else used Nicki.

Madeleine/Maddie --> same person. Thought I'd throw an easy one in.

Also, institution names:

University of California at Berkeley --> Cal or Berkeley.