Looking back: summer

During the spring semester I used to daydream about the upcoming summer.

It was going to be my Shangri-La where everything was going to magically be perfect. Gone would be the endless lab grading, gone the stress over homework and exams, and my days would be spent "researching". How romantic! 

Blissfully, I ignored the reality of starting a new job, even though I've started enough new jobs to know how tricky that can be. I ignored all the messy complications we shove under the carpet of "research" and I naively assumed my summer would be perfect and stress-free. 

Well. 

My summer was not perfect but it was pretty great. Sometimes you get so caught up in the day-to-day, so concerned with everything you have yet to learn, yet to understand, that you forget just how far you've come. I wanted to take a second to reflect on how my summer was; how I went from day one, knowing literally nothing about the AFM, to now, being pretty comfortable with the sometimes infuriating machine.

I started my summer off with a brief vacation home after my super stressful spring finals.

Have I mentioned lately how beautiful my garden is? To call it mine is misleading, as I do 0% of the work but still reap the benefits.

I traveled north to visit family, stopping along the way at this small town. There was a thrift store facing this courthouse where I snagged a beautiful blouse that I wear all the time for the low low price of like two bucks.

I dove headfirst into research, learning what it was like to go entire days without seeing the sun. The machine that I work with is super sensitive, which means it needs to be housed in basements where there are no windows. Melodrama aside, I made it part of my lunch break to take a walk around the deserted campus and soak in the vitamin D.

I learned what to do and what not to do with the AFM, I read a ton of papers, I drank a lot of coffee, and somehow, the summer managed to slip away when I wasn't looking.

The first week of July I traveled to Florida to visit my college roommates. I swam in a river, went canoeing, saw an alligator (all three happened on the same day), went to Diagon Alley, drank butterbeer, sweated more than I thought possible, pretended I was in London, saw cute animals, went to the beach, got hit in the head by waves (whoever said the beach was relaxing clearly did not go swimming), got sunburned (we all saw that one coming), ate delicious food, and was sorely sad to say goodbye.

Then, at the end of July I went to the University of Illinois for a week long biophysics workshop where I learned all about DNA while performing experiments and running theoretical simulations to model the flexibility of DNA. I met some awesome people, got spoiled by the utterly amazing food, went to more bars than I've ever been to, nearly fell asleep during the post-lunch lectures (we all saw that one coming), was exhausted but sad to see it end.

And then, in between my two trips I became an aunt. Charlie Pittman was born and he is, of course, the most perfect baby ever (though I just might change my tune whenever I end up having a kid). Even though I'm very far away, being an aunt is the best thing ever.

And then, the last few weeks of summer were spent cramming for qualifying exams which are an archaic, highly inaccurate way to determine if I can continue pursuing a PhD.

Somehow, my laid-back, chill summer turned into a jam-packed experience that flew by without me noticing. We are a couple weeks into the semester and I'm already missing it. It's difficult to juggle research with teaching two labs, three recitation sessions, and a class of my own with associated homeworks. Either way, change is what keeps things interesting, right?

Right? 

Year One in Review

The semester, and thus my first year at grad school, has been done and finished with for about three weeks...which makes this blog post about two weeks late.

In fact, it was going to be infinitely late because I wasn't going to write it. Summer has started to invaded my life, changing my routine and giving me a taste of what the rest of my graduate career will look like. You see, I'm spending this summer working in a biophysics lab-- something I'll hopefully be doing until I earn my doctorate.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. This post was meant to be a reflective one, one that paused for just a second in my busy summer life to look back and relish in the astonishing fact that I have survived my first year in grad school.

Grad school is unusual in the fact that, unlike undergrad, I don't know how many years I have left. Am I one fourth the way to my degree? One fifth? Hopefully it's one of those two; even if it looks like it, I have no plans of becoming a professional student.

Regardless of how long I have left, I wanted to take a second to appreciate the fact that I did what at sometimes during the semester I considered to be the impossible: I not only passed all my classes (I'm looking at you Math Methods and Quantum Mech II), but ended up with a GPA that I am proud of. I highly suspect that some form of dark magic is to be blamed.

Last August I came to Columbia, Missouri, without knowing a single soul in the city. I didn't know what grad school was going to be like; I didn't know if I would get along with my classmates; I didn't know what teaching was going to be like; I didn't know what my new church would be like; I didn't know where Walmart was-- there wasn't even a Chick-Fil-A in my new city((luckily that changed quickly!)).

As a person who has publicly denounced change, I wasn't happy with the fact that everything that could change (new school, new city, new state, new friends, new job, new apartment...you get the point) was changing. So, I threw myself headfirst into the newness, hoping that soon enough it wouldn't feel so horribly new. I went to picnics and choir practice, found study partners and alto friends. A month or so into the semester I was invited to a Mizzou football game ((it's super embarrassing to admit how much this meant to me, as the person who invited me along might be reading this!)). Even if the rocks (yes. we were sitting on rocks. no, we were not alone. yes, Mizzou needs to rethink their lives stadium designs) were uncomfortable, it was great to feel like I was making a new home here.

I found out that teaching labs was actually tons easier than I had feared. My biggest challenge-- besides time management because holy cow 25 students who all have long questions at the same time is difficult-- was not the students asking really hard question as I had feared, but finding different ways to say the same thing. I would try different analogies, looking for something that would click with them. It was frustrating if, after fifteen minutes, I hadn't hit upon the magic words that would make the student light up with understanding, but when I did, well that was pretty cool.

I found out that while not as great as physical proximity, weekly Skype chats were a lovely way to feel like I was still with my college friends. I found out that my new classmates were pretty cool; that having my own desk felt pretty professional, and that having a window in my office was a blessing and a rarity.

Eventually, and mostly without me realizing it, I started to slide into my new life until it felt like the newness had been worn away. I created new routines with new friends. I learned more about physics and how I could use it to probe some fundamental questions about the ways our bodies work.

Now, with almost a full year of living in Columbia behind me, I know where all the Walmarts are at (seriously, there are like five). I know some of the endless trails which thread around and through the city. I adopted a furry roommate. I got used to cooking all my meals (somewhat). And, as I am about to set up a dentist appointment, I'm feeling like I'm doing all the adult-ing y'all.

I went on a spring break trip which allowed me to connect with other graduate students not in my department-- which was great. I went on a volunteer/retreat bonanza with my church group-- I discovered that 80 lbs concrete bags were hitting the limit between what I could and could not physically carry.

This was where our retreat was; it was pretty magically beautiful. 

And I just saw the first firefly of the season out my window! My basement-ish apartment has been pretty awesome-- even if my upstairs neighbor just bought a drum set (yup. yup. and he likes to practice).

I guess I just wanted to stop for a minute before my summer whisked away. Somehow, my summer schedule has been packed full-- not exactly the laid back dream I had, but that's fine; I'm learning a lot. During the school year I had this optimistic goal: that I should read one published paper a week on a topic that interested me. While this goal experienced a stunning failure, as a part of my summer job I read multiple papers a day luckily on topics that I find fascinating. If you're ever curious about how one can use the AFM to investigate the health of a red blood cell-- or how type II diabetes effects your red blood cells-- or how one can reverse the aging of a red blood cell then hit me up! ((spoiler alert: my research job isn't actually about red blood cells, I just got on a medical research paper kick this past week...))

Do people still say 'hit me up'? Am I old? Or just positioned slightly outside the stream of pop culture?

Probably that last one.





As always, thanks for reading :)

A Tale of Two Graduates : What You Need to Know About Me

Check out Dave's first post here!

And the award for the longest title goes to me!

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Dave eagerly approached me with this idea of a joint blog series where we depict two paths which diverge after college graduation. Him, entering the workforce. Me, entering graduate school.

The hopes are to provide dubious advice by telling our story, our attempt to enter the real world-- or perhaps just to entertain you. But before that can happen, you need a little backstory! And since Dave seems intent of drudging up bad photos from freshman year, that's where I'll start.

((I actually have a whole treasure trove of worse photos but I'll be nice and just leave you with this Dr. Who watching party :))

Dave and I met pretty early on freshman year. From day one, we were confident in what we wanted to do. I wanted to get a bachelors in physics, minoring in French, and then go on to graduate school (for astrophysics at the time), and Dave wanted to get a bachelors in history.

Why physics?

I was tempted to cut and paste my personal letter from my graduate school applications where I addressed that same question but I think I'll just sum it up in two words: Star Trek. I was introduced to Star Trek when I was in middle school and quickly became enamored with their romantic portrayal of space and science. I decided I wanted to go into astrophysics-- a title I stumbled across on Wikipedia. I wasn't entire sure what 'physics' was, but I knew that I needed to get a degree in it first, before I could move on to astrophysics.

And that's pretty much how I found myself at my first physics class on the first day of classes at Hendrix. I wasn't entirely sure what I had signed up for, but I knew I wanted to major in physics.

Luckily for me, I loved physics! Literally I was sitting in a general physics lab (background: aka known as some of the most boring labs) timing a ball dropping from a height and I was so taken with the determinism of it all. Give me enough parameters and I could tell you exactly when the ball was going to hit the ground, without actually dropping the ball-- and that, oddly enough, was what made me believe that maybe this whole physics major thing would work out.

A year later I was in yet another lab (background: these were the really cool labs) measuring the charge of an electron, a fundamental property of the universe. I was definitely hooked. :)

My Plan

So, four years and one degree down, I find myself studying at the University of Missouri on a five-year track to get both a master's and a PhD in physics. Now, if we look briefly at the financial side of my plan, I'll tell you straight up that I've been incredibly lucky.

Since I'm from Arkansas, I received some really awesome scholarships if I went to college instate (which I did). Paired with some generous donors at Hendrix meant that I got out of undergraduate debt free (I know! I'm very lucky).

In most physics graduate programs you work for the university while studying, and they pay you. This means that I'll be teaching three intro physics labs this semester and in return will be paid enough to cover my expenses (and hopefully put a little into savings!). Not all graduate programs have such a generous stipend. Some graduate programs have you teaching actual classes (like English 101) while a grad student which to me just sounds crazy. I'm not at all ready to teach general physics to undergraduates!

That's it!

That's me! The major challenges I have up a head are mainly in the realm of time managment; with three courses to keep up with (which is a challenge!), and three labs to teach, making time to keep sane/do laundry will be interesting!

Thanks so much for checking this out! Dave and I will (hopefully) put out a new post every Monday so check his blog next Monday and then come back here the following Monday to hear more!

Change Is Exciting and other lies we tell ourselves

In four short weeks I'll be in Columbia, Missouri starting a PhD program in physics.

I'll be trading the comfortable -- the green, leafy, haven of Hendrix, where all of my friends lived within walking distance -- for the unknown. My friends will be scattered around the US which makes for great road trip opportunities, but not great Friday night Catan/movie/over ambitious baking projects parties I had grown to expect. 

I'll be trading two(four) roommates and spontaneous Batman singing for a lovely one bedroom (with a fireplace! #winning #sorryforthehashing). And hopefully I'll be trading wild party animal neighbors for quiet, friendly neighbors. The will-there-be-vomit-on-the-stairs-today? game got old fast. 

I said goodbye to the physics professors who introduced me to the wonders of the universe -- my graduate application essay referenced that one lab sophomore year where we measured the charge of an electron, a fundamental property of the universe. I'll go from tutoring maybe one student a month in physics to teaching an entire general physics lab (by myself!). 

We tell ourselves change is exciting -- but it's not. 

I'm a creature of habit; I like my routines, as dreadfully boring as that sounds. Change is scary and annoying and wouldn't life just be better if it didn't exist?

But of course if there was no change, then I would have never gone to Hendrix and had the amazing time that I did. And I have a feeling that the University of Missouri will be much the same -- a nerve-wracking start that leads to a great time. 

Change sucks, but it can lead to some awesome things, awesome things that become clear once the chaos of moving settles down and new routines are established ((okay okay I think we can all agree that I'm basically 80)). 

I just wanted a brief moment to rant and rave before the adventure starts and I forget why I was ever stressed. ((Sounds ridiculous but that is what happened when I went off to college)) 

This summer has been spent scouring flea markets and antique malls and everything in between to furnish my new apartment. I found some great deals that I can't wait to share with you once everything's moved in and organized. 

Another thing you can look forward to are cooking blogs, as I'll be entirely in charge of my food. No cafeteria cooking and cleaning for me, no fresh fruit already cut for me in the morning. Man the real world is hard; I already miss the sandwich line at Hendrix...

As always, thanks for reading :)