Thoughts About the Boston Marathon

This shit is scary. I wasn't there, running or standing at the finish line, but my heart hasn't stopped pounding for over two hours. My fingers are tingling, my head is spinning, and my stomach, though happy with the delicious salad that I just ate, nevertheless has felt a little sick since I heard the news. As far as I know, no one I know has been directly affected by the blast (thank goodness), and every message I get that someone else is ok really should make me feel better, but in reality, I'm on edge like I've never been before. I want to laugh and hug someone and tell them that everything will be alright, but right now, I'm not alright.

I. am. not. alright.

Today was supposed to be a good day. I got my ID (finally) and a fancy new lab notebook, and have an experimental plan and don't have too much homework and everything was supposed to be fine. And relative to some people, I expect I have had a good day. But maybe this hit a little too close to home for me. Literally.

I don't know if I want to be alone tonight, or if I should be with people. My dinner with DL and NS was nice because it took my mind off things for a little bit at least, but later, will I be able to sleep? I take that route to school every day.

The streets were eerily quiet as I walked home today. Was it just me? I don't usually go home so early, so maybe that's what it's like at 5:00 pm....nope. The cars that are usually making it home around this time are gone. The bustling pedestrians, gone. Among the smattering of people I do see, there are only silent footsteps and rustling wind.

Just some thoughts. Now, just to breathe.

Updates: Bits and Bobs

It's been...a rough semester. Not so much rough, as in "I hate life and want to drop out of grad school" rough, but more like the "I'm so busy when will I have to breathe" rough. In fact, it's been really awesome, and I've had a ton of adventures, and I've worked really hard, and as a result, my body completely broke down this past weekend and I have been quite laid up in bed with what can only be described as a chest cold. My throat has decided it's going through puberty and I sound like an adolescent boy, my lungs are all phlegmy, and my body is just exhausted. But through a strict diet of soup, ice cream, and rom coms, I have pushed past this weekend and in a few days, I'm sure I'll be in tip top shape again. Let's take a breeze through the past couple of months and see what I've been up to.

January:
- CB Bootcamp. *snore* Some cool moments, like seeing E again, but mostly...>.>

-CB Bootcamp Happy Hour. Much better.

- Lab holiday party: Fish, gift exchange, and a new shark best friend.

- SF's housewarming party. That was a hoot and a half. Definitely some memories from that night, including the massive game of Cards Against Humanity and decorating the place with post-it notes.

- Brunching at Craigie on Main. DELICIOUS.

- Winter Luau. Shorts under snow pants is the way to go.

- Grafton Street Rum and Food pairing night. Also delicious.

During this month also existed the coldest week of winter. It was so cold! The river froze over!

Oh also, I got new glasses.


February:

- Dumpling Day! Success.

- Chinese New Year in NJ with family, friends, and Captain America. Success.

-Heard James Watson talk about Oxidants, Anti-Oxidants, and Incurable Cancers. Kinda a hot mess.

- Recruiting weekend. Major success.

- Milken Alumni Event in NY. Also, success.

Also, I learned to, you know, clone genes, grow bacteria, and get protein, and...stuff. Also, there was the giant blizzard that buried everything and almost made it so that I couldn't get back to Boston from NJ. Bad blizzard! Bad!

March:

- Ended my rotation.

- Started a new one.

- Celebrated my spring break/anniversary (3 years!!) in San Francisco, doing amazing things and having an amazing time. My favorite picture of the bunch was our post-Challenge Nation picture. We got 57th/215 and it was an amazing journey of running and leaping and exhaustion and afterwards, we sat in a food court and watched Downton Abbey until our phones ran out of batteries and then saw Foodies: the Musical. What a great day with my best friend.

There really are so many more memories from March and this trip but I'll keep them for another time

Also, EASTER!

April:

- Pulled pretty much my first working all-nighter ever. Napped for an hour from 7 AM - 8 AM and then went to class. ALL THE RAGE TO THE MATLAB.

- ChemBio retreat. Interesting...could be longer....

- Started the process for finding an apartment to settle down in! 

And that brings us to....now. There's been a lot of work involved and a lot of fun and I'm getting ready to recharge for the day. So....here's to the cool things that are happening in just a couple of weeks and....I'll leave you with this delicious specimen:

The Thing About Getting Things

I received notification earlier this morning that I got a fellowship I had pretty much given up hope on. I had applied last year, didn't get it (justifiably...my proposal was a little thin...), applied this year even though I had funding, mostly because of peer pressure and the fact that everyone applies for these things. I know the sequester doesn't really apply here because this fellowship budget is small compared to the overall budget of its parent institution, but it's definitely hard enough to get as it is, and with money problems, I was a little antsy that I might not get anything even if I did make the cut.

The biggest reason that I had given up on it, however, is because I genuinely felt like I wasn't good enough. I've had some pretty powerful people on my side vouching for me, but time and time again, when I look around me and see and hear people with more extensive backgrounds saying words I don't even know how to spell, I feel lost. And dumb. And incredibly lucky to have gotten where I am today. A lot of people have told me that it wasn't luck that brought me to where I am, that my hard work and perseverance have gotten me through, but I've always had a hard time believing it. I know, I know. What are the chances that a person consistently gets into good universities and gets scholarships and stuff like that without hard work? I don't deny that I have worked hard. There have been long hours and long days and long nights. And I have been really proud of some of the work I have put out. But sometimes, when it seems that people can knock out two or three proposals in a day and I have to spend two or three days reading papers just to try to write the background of one proposal, it feels like I've somehow tricked everyone else into thinking that I'm a more awesome person than I am.

 When I woke up this morning, however, and saw the email, my first thought was: YES I AM A HAPPY PERSON TODAY! My second thought was: I finally am sure that I belong here. For me, it's less about the money (though it's wonderful and I'm grateful for it) than about the satisfaction that some stranger, who had never seen or talked to me, can understand my science and be excited about it. I know I have had great support from my family and friends and all those others who have been biased in my favor by my winning smile, and that I really shouldn't seek external validation from a panel whose job it is to sort through some 13,000 applications, but it's nice to know that the idea for a proposal I drafted when I was still a noob scrambling to get my thesis together wasn't just hogwash. And that my ideas in general, while sometimes simple, straightforward  and relatively uncreative compared to some of the amazing science going on today, is still....better than ok.

More than that, as I read over my proposal again this morning, I realized how far I had come since November. It's really only been a few months, but I have many more ideas now, for many more possibilities  and I'm excited to pitch them, reformulate, and pitch again. And I'm excited! And want to hug someone! And want to go dancing!

But...alas. I have another proposal to write. >.> So it never ends.

Too Hot

It was 55 degrees today. In late January. In Massachusetts. Basically, it was glorious. There's definitely something to be said for not having to put a coat on just to go outside.

However, temperature controls in the lab were screwed up. I think it hit a high of 84 degrees. Too hot. Also, running back and forth between the warm room (37 deg C) and the lab with residual sweat running into my eyes was not a pleasant experience. Too hot.

But for some reason, I'm still smiling. Maybe because I had an unintentional sauna detox. Maybe because the cold room actually felt good today.

Ultimate Goal: learn to layer more efficiently, for all rooms in the lab. Also, never underestimate the power of the warm room.

Happy Last First Day of Classes!

Good things that happened today:

-Made it to Millis and class on time.

-Classes were awesome. [waiting for tomorrow's class to be super awesome so I won't have such a hard time choosing]

-Randomly saw both BKu and RoTh today.

-The pear I've been ripening for the last week was perfectly ripe and delicious.

-Got back just in time to get a free flu shot.

-The protein prep I ran last week worked beautifully. And the gel is nice and stained and blue where I want it to be.

-I learned how to design primers and no longer feel stupid.

-Made it to dinner with 5 minutes to spare and got the last mushu pork wrap.

Today has been a good day.

Balletone

I went to my first Balletone class today. It's like a mixture of ballet-inspired pilates, yoga, and stretching, and wow. I am so sore my legs have turned into jelly. It wasn't cardio intensive at all but dude. Tired. Sleepy.

Peace out.

Someone I Thought I Knew

Because our class is a two-week intensive bootcamp of science-techniques-that-you-should-probably-know-and-would-probably-be-useful-but-no-one-just-sits-you-down-and-tells-you-these-things, we have a different instructor every day and sometimes, their grad students or post docs come and sit in on the class. Thus, there are occasionally new faces. And then, sometimes, there are old faces. Today, I spent much of my free time wondering who this one girl in the class was and how I knew her. I didn't actually ponder this for a long stretch of time because the lecture was pretty interesting and I was mostly engrossed in that, but every time we had a break, I would look over and wonder, "Where have I met this person before?" I correctly assumed that she was a post-doc in the lecturer's lab and that she had been a grad student in my undergrad chem department. I also knew her name started with an E and that she had probably been my TA at some point, but as I wracked my brains trying to figure it out, I realized, that, I just couldn't. I enlisted Kelsey's help, and although he had nothing to offer (and rightly called me a creeper), I couldn't shake the feeling that I knew this person somehow.

It wasn't that she had especially striking features or remembered me or anything. But I continued to have this nagging feeling that whatever context I had seen her in before was not the context here, so thus, something didn't belong.

So I went through all my classes, dismissed the classes that Kelsey and I had together (which was a surprising lot, considering that our interests are pretty far apart), and listed the TAs of every class I had and at last, AT LAST(!), figured out that she had been my junior year Chemical Biology TA. How ironic that I should see her again during my Chemical Biology bootcamp when it was that class that inspired me to take up research and go to grad school. So, though I didn't go to any of the "TA help sessions" and you gave me one of the worst science grades I received during undergrad, thank you, E, for being a part of my class that changed the trajectory of my life and led me here, where I know I belong.