Blogmas Day 3+4: The Last Classes

I thought that I was done with "last class" experiences after finishing my last real class last semester. But yesterday was the last class of the class I am teaching. Usually, I feel very bittersweet about the last times for things. For every last lecture of classes that I've taken, I get a pang of sadness, even when the class has been pretty boring. I've always been very sentimental and have disliked changes in my routine and the ends of things.

But this time, there is not really a bittersweet feeling. I don't really feel sad that the class is ending. It's not that I've disliked my students. In fact, I've found them to be wonderful and it's been great to watch them grow this semester. I've even learned quite a bit this semester. It's just that teaching takes so much time, and working across the river, I feel like I haven't had much time to really devote to research. Classes aren't really my priority anymore and that's ok.

Tonight, I'm giving my last section. I suppose that this should also be a bittersweet occasion, but I really just want to get it over with. Cell signalling is interesting, but ultimately, not my cup of tea. Here are pictures from today: the river and a group of people being festive. Random.

Blogmas Day 2: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I knew Christmas season was starting when coffee shops started putting out their holiday cups and serving holiday drinks (current favorite from Starbucks: Gingerbread Latte...yum) and storefronts started displaying snowflakes and mannequins in thick scarves and festive hats. Cambridge does this thing where they string up nets across the lampposts and make patterns of lights in them to make the whole street sparkle.

But today, as I stepped off the T in Harvard Square, I noticed my first nighttime lit Christmas tree. And though it was only a marginally chilly 37 degrees out, it suddenly felt a lot more like winter and Christmas here.

Blogmas Day 1: New York Adventure

Blogmas 2013: This year, I shall include at least one image with each blog post!

New York, in December

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It's December! The holiday spirit has hit me (it hit in mid-October, but who's counting) and after the awesome NYC adventure I went on with KKS, I decided that I would revisit Blogmas this year, particularly because I won't be spending Christmas with my family.

K has come to Boston for Thanksgiving, one thing I have to be very thankful for, and besides cooking a turkey and gravy and Brussels sprouts for our Friendsgiving potluck, we've been bumming around Boston doing some light Black Friday shopping and hiding from the rain by watching movies and playing music. But this weekend, we went to New York, for a bit of a nostalgic adventure as well as to see Twelfth Night, my favorite Shakespeare comedy, staring Stephen Fry, one of my favorites as well, as a wonderfully sympathy-inducing Malvolio. We got seats on the stage, and I was so close to Mr. Fry that I could have reached out and touched him as he was leaning against our booth. (Disclosure: I refrained, but the older lady sitting next to me did not.) I was so close that I could see the spit flying out of the actors' mouths. (They were all actors; an all male cast with men playing the women as originally done in Shakespeare's day, which made for some very funny hysterics.) I was so close, in fact, that when the Fool was dressing himself in a cloak and fake beard, I GOT TO HOLD THE BEARD.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience and even though I did not get pictures of the play itself, I did get this:

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Today, we wandered around the West Village with IS, got some coffee near NYU, which had all the stereotypical hipster students wandering about, and strolled along the river, marveling at the dog owners and their dogs and talking about generally non-important things. Our bus ride home was elongated greatly by the three accidents on the road and I learned that the toilet on the bus was nothing more than a hold over a huge vat of disinfectant. Joy.

But I'm back home in my room now, safe despite overturned trains and malfunctioning cars, and looking forward to the next couple of weeks before going home. I'm excited for LJ to return bearing Christmas decorations for our little apartment, as well as Christmas baking and gift giving.

There is not one photo that encompasses my New York trip, so I shall include some. Happy Dec. 1!

"You are halfway."

Halfway through my run, my training app will let me know that I have gone halfway. Usually, I can gauge how fast I should go depending on where I am in my run. However, in the last week, the ratio of run to walk has increased so that I am running twice as much as I am walking and suddenly, I am running much further than I have been. It's kinda awesome, since generally, I am not dying by the end of the run (yay!).

I've also, at this point, made it halfway through the training regiment. 4 weeks down and I'm feeling...like maybe I can see this through? I have found that I'm not so good at running by myself. I tend to overexert myself in the beginning which leads me to get tired around 3/4 of the way through. Hopefully, I'll be able to work on this in the coming weeks.

Other adventures of the week:

Monday: Labor Day. Our lab website goes live! I've been working on this for about 2 months and finally setting it live was a great feeling.

Tuesday: Classes started. For the first time, I've sat in the class as a member of the staff and it's definitely interesting seeing it from this side. I feel like I appreciate the information so much more even though I know it already and I know that a lot of it is gross oversimplification. Also, I've found out that I need coffee. And a way not to spend all my money on coffee.

Wednesday: GOT A BIKE! I love her, but she still needs a name.

Thursday: Halfway through Couch to 5K! Electric run in 4 weeks!

Friday: Mustaches and Bow Ties Party. This was a thing that happened.

Week 2 Day 1

For anyone who knows me, running is not on my list of high, or even moderate, priorities. I suppose I might think differently if I were late for a meeting or being chased by slow moving zombies, but my semesterly run is somewhat of a running joke (ha. ha.) between myself and my college friends.

However, late at night about a week ago, LM and I were alone in the apartment, abandoned by our roommates for the weekend, and somehow convinced ourselves that now was the right time to run a 5K. Because there was this one, the Electric Run, that was coming to a place near Boston and was going to be an explosion of light, color, and amazingness. Now, to anyone who has any endurance, 5K (or 3.1 miles) is not very long. In high school, my friends would regularly run 3 miles during our weekly runs in P.E. But I'm not like that. I don't run. It's never something I've really found pleasure in, or something that appeals to me.

But now, I'm training for a 5K. We're doing this "Couch to 5K" training program and yesterday was Week 2 Day 1. I've made it a week and in general, I just feel...really hungry. Hungry all the time. And headaches. Need to drink more water. Other than that, I actually feel pretty good. I have short term goals and somehow, I'm meeting them. LM, LJ, and I are motivating each other and it's been really good for me.

I will try to keep weekly updates about our progress, because this has actually become pretty important to me.

7 weeks to Electric Run.

Today

As I was walking down the street, it started raining. I opened my umbrella, crossed the street, and a minute later, the top of my umbrella flew off into the road, almost hit a biker, skit across a car's windshield, and got crushed beneath the wheels of a Honda. I stood for a minute, clutching the remains of my umbrella (read: pole) and then walked to work. Because I was getting wet.

July 1

Just a little musing as I wait for my media to warm up.

July 1: The beginning of the fiscal year; the start of the second month of living in my new apartment; the official beginning of my second year of graduate school (even though I've only been here for 10 months). It's amazing to me how quickly time has passed. I suppose that's because I haven't felt settled since moving here, moving from class to class, rotation to rotation, which means that things are always new, always different. I don't think it hurts that I've been having all sorts of adventures -- wandering around Sowa, the open air market near Broadway in Boston wishing I had put more ice in my water bottle, exploring the different eateries in Somerville and downtown, going to cookouts at friends of friends, eating lobster and shellfish courtesy of my program and exploring an island rehabilitated from its past as a glue factory/landfill, cramming into a sweltering hot apartment trying really hard not to roll my eyes at drunken philosophical conversations about matter and the universe. (I don't think I succeeded.)

I thought I had grown up in undergrad, and to some extent, I did. I learned so much about myself and shed a lot of the naivete that I had held onto in high school. I opened myself to new experiences, struck out on my own, and tried to become less scared by change. But here, this last year, I think I really blossomed. I began to realize what was important to me, focus on things that I felt would help me become a better scientist and a more well rounded person, and let go of a lot of the judgement and bitterness that I carried with me throughout college. I began to accumulate life experiences and life stories, and I hope I continue to do so.

And now, to feed my cells. Yum.