Musicophilia.

I've decided to share my opinion on my reading materials. Just for fun. I mean, hey, it's my blog!

Ok, so I just finished Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks.

Let me first preface my opinion with the fact that I am not a neuroscientist. I really don't know much about the brain other than what I learned in introductory biology.

Dr. Sacks has a very distinct writing style. I've read him before, and enjoyed it. I have always gotten the sense that he was always told by his editor, "Oliver, are you serious? Tone the snob down." However, that delightful hint of snob definitely is fun to read. And it certainly doesn't get in the way of his natural compassion and curiosity that are easy to see when he discusses his patients.

Musicophilia is fascinating. Sacks recounts many different types of cases where music was a blessing, a curse, or an innate gift to those with neurological problems. My favorite chapter was about patients that have Williams syndrome---a small deletion in a chromosome leads to many issues (the inability to identify geometric patterns, low IQ, distinct facial features, etc.) and amazing innate musical ability.

However, the book isn't the best showing for Sacks. I feel like half of the book he refers to his other books in which he details either similar or the same case. Yes, we get it, you wrote other books. But it feels like an informative documentary that keeps on getting interrupted by commercials. The overall storytelling nature that I enjoyed in the other book I read by Sacks (The Island of the Colorblind) is found only within the individual chapters. That's great when you just want to read one chapter at a time, but it feels somewhat jarring when you're reading larger chunks of the book.

Overall, I'd say read it. If you don't know anything about neuroscience, it's fine---he does a good job of explaining the basics. And the stories are unreal. I would judge it to be a 3.5/5---borrow it from the library, but don't buy it.

Enjoyable worrying.

While most of my "holy crap I'm going to grad school" worries have not been fun, the one thing I've actually enjoyed "worrying" about has been the decided lack of variety in my cheap & quick cooking category.

I know how to cook these cheap staples:
-pasta
-rice! (without a rice cooker, I might add)
-beans

I can do variations on these themes, though I'm a lot more limited on the bean recipes.
Anyone out there have tips for recipes? (I am a vegetarian.)

P.S. Here's an enjoyable cookbook written by grad students that is fun: Grad Student Cookbook.

An Elephant in the Room

Ok, two posts in one day.

I've been talking a lot about sexism lately. However, after chatting with an old friend today, I think there's another subject that I don't usually think about or deal with much.

When I come home and I talk with my best friend from high school, I remember this "elephant." She's an incredibly bright, lovely, large hearted human being. When things got tough in high school, we always had each other. When things got tough in college, she was the person that I called crying at 2 AM. She was the one who called me crying about her abusive boyfriend. We often have very long periods of time where we don't talk.

But then we meet up, and it's as if no time went by. We laugh, we gossip, and do our usual get together activity. However, there's always been a large elephant in the room about the differences in the levels of education.

Comparatively, I've had a *much* easier time in life. While I've worked many different jobs while in college, I never had any fear about not being able to eat the next day. She's worked two FT jobs, supported a husband who wasn't acting as a partner, had to go to soup kitchens, and had other various life events along that line. She's an incredibly strong woman. I'm lucky to have her.

Today, we were talking about kids. We both really want them. She really wants them now. She's been married almost a year. She's talking about having one within the next year. She's got a steady job, she and her 2nd husband are getting along splendidly, and she's mentally prepared for it. I'm so lost by this concept. I have no time for it. Unless someone decides to speed up the whole nine months into about a week, there's no way this will be happening within the next 5 years. Plus, I want to spend enough time with my kids. We both simultaneously understood and didn't understand each other on these viewpoints.

I'm getting a little lost with where I was going. I suppose I could sum this whole conversation up with the fact that I'm sometimes frustrated with the limitations of the career path I've chosen, but that I am grateful for the education that has allowed me to not experience the same hardships as my BFFH (best friend from home). She's a great person to talk to about this sort of stuff, since she's great at essentially slapping me awake about issues I don't usually think about. Everyone should have someone like my BFFH in their life.

Uh, ok. What now?

Ok. I've gotten home. My shit all got shoved into the car with my family. There are many boxes in the living room, and much crap in the room that will be vacated by the end of July.

Between a two week family vacation and leaving by the end of July (that's when I've arranged to start early on advice from grad students there), there's absolutely no way I can get a job other than perhaps a few babysitting gigs. So as far as I can tell, I'm here in HomeCity with little to do.

I'm going to try and make the most of it. Here's some plans:
1. Spend time with my sister before she goes abroad in the fall
2. Spend time with my parental units
3. Plan train trip with good friend to OurFriendsCity
4. Hangout with the BFF when she moves to my neck of the woods for grad school :)
5. Get driver's license (I've always lived in a decent area for public transportation, but no more!)
6. Give away craptons of my stuff
7. Read some books that I've always wanted to read
8. Arrange housing/confirm starting early
9. Go to some baseball games
10. Bake with the ex-roomie
11. Get up to 10 mi in my runs
12. Hang with the boy more before I leave
13. Start studying for entrance exams
14. Read papers for first lab
15. Go on a few "by myself" adventures

It's going to be a crazy summer!

Graduated.

I graduated yesterday. I now have my bachelor's in biochemistry.

Sad/happy/emotional/content.


Now to finish packing...

Sexism at a SLAC

I had a conversation today with one of my favorite chem profs of all time. He's really a great guy, and what the conversation was about was not particularly pleasant.

Throughout my four years here at the small liberal arts college I go to, there have been some incidents of sexism. Not lots, not anything to complain about in comparison to other places, but some. This used to be surprising to me, given the overwhelming majority women have in our science department.

Lately, I am no longer surprised by the crap given to me by male chem profs. I am not surprised, only saddened by the occurrences. This past semester has been an overwhelming amount of fail.

Both of the profs for the classes I TAed this semester gave me lots of shit about being a biochemist (you know, the "you aren't a real chemist" crap, despite the fact that I have taken ALL of the same courses plus some more chem courses plus some more upper div bio courses). One of them, after my "I've had it with your crap" moment which involved my don't fuck with me tone, conceded and has never done it to my face again. The other, well, he's just a special, special snowflake.

His harassment has not only involved demeaning me and my field of choice in front of our students, it has involved comments that are *far* too inappropriate to say to a student, let alone in front of a class of students. I can't get too detailed for fear of being recognized, but these comments stop just short of blatantly sexual.

I informed my favorite chem prof ever of these terrible comments today and he was incredibly horrified. He has now promised to talk to this prof (who is moving on to a new position that is TT)and is so incredibly upset that he didn't see this coming and that it occurred. My friend, who has had to deal with far worse from this tool, is also in the middle of registering a complaint.

The one thing that I have no idea how to handle is the fact that even though I gave this jerkwad as good as he gave me, he just didn't stop. I tried ignoring him, I tried giving him crap back, I gave up on being respectful to this man, I tried...everything I could think of. How am I supposed to deal with asshats like this when in the end, I had to go get a man to give him the slap across the face that he so desperately needs? How are students supposed to deal with the combination of a sexist man and position of authority?

Leaving so soon...

I'm done. Undergrad is over. I took my last final yesterday.

And today, the champagne!

I graduate in a week. I'm planning on spending that last week in lab and reading...for fun!

Dear Buttheads

Dear Peers of Mine:

I can freaking tell when you're cheating on your biochem hw. (Somehow, changing the words "due to" to "because" doesn't really disguise this fact.) Yes, the profs really need to stop using the same exact questions for the billionth year in a row. But this is ridiculous. The questions are not hard, and these profs bend over backwards to help you. And while clearly you don't have self-respect, cheating off of old answer keys and your peers is pushing it to a new low. However, this semester has set a new low for biochem classes. The fact that I have caught someone cheating almost every single week---ridiculous. Just disgusting.

Also, this is a tiny ass dept. And I know who 75% of you are, and I'm judging you.

Love,
Biochemist on the Run