Life: Colors of Juneteenth, the new federal holiday

 You cannot go wrong if you dress in red/white/blue for July 4th in America. Likewise, you dress in red/green and you are fine for Christmas party. Knowing specific colors for a holiday makes it easier to choose party clothes.

Personally, "wearing flag" is overdoing it (or possibly illegal). But using the color scheme should be fine.

Then, here it is. Juneteenth 6/19, the new American holiday, cerebrating freeing of slaves. On the day 6/19 of 1865, enslaved black people in Galveston, TX, became Americans under the law.

I checked out the colors for the Juneteenth.

They say it would be "blue/red/white" (as American holiday. The Juneteenth flag uses the color scheme) and "Red/green/black" (colors of pan-African flag adopted by black communities).

Apparently I can use my July 4th ties and shirts just fine for Juneteenth in coming years. Lucky enough.

[The Juneteenth flag]

The new holiday could be a triumph of civil rights movement, or could be a political bargaining piece that Republicans thought can be used in another deal making or publicity spin. Well, I have no need to be political or sarcastic here, and can just cerebrate. Either way, the holiday is now implemented. 

Our institute will observe the holiday on 6/21 Monday (tomorrow). We are told that "non essential employees will receive holiday pay and are not expected to work".  I'd be working to take care of something that were already planned, though (may show up later than usual).

Science/Life: Looking back to update biosketch is a good thing, because it can guide the future

 NIH has introduced a new format for Biosketch that we will need to attach to grant applications after May 25th, 2021.

 Instead of just copy and paste old one, I am taking my time to look back my projects from the past, ongoing, and planned. 

  Looking back is fun. There were projects that led us to interesting new direction. There were projects with modest success. Also there were ones that did not pan out. For each project, there were decisions. For each decision, there were reasons. It is easy to forget all these reasonings, but they were there.

  In general, I want to do only a few, select, the most interesting projects at a time. And that is how I am doing research. I am fortunate to be able to work in this way. Here I acknowledge collaborators who have enabled us to work in this way. Many thanks.

Apparently new format wants us to emphasize resource aspect (for example, what we generated, what we have and available, and so on). It is easy for us to take something for granted and overlook. Time to make a list.