Anxiety + a Wee Bit of Fun

Got an email back from my future PI for confirming my start date. I'm really excited to start working for her. Even if I don't end up working for her (I have at least two, possibly three more rotations to do), I'm really hoping for a female role model.

I had so many amazing female scientist mentors at my PUI. Part of why I ended up picking GSU is that there were two established women who could help serve as mentors for possibly both my grad school research experience and my overall grad school experience.

*knocks on wood that this wish comes true*

And just for some fun, my family and I have loved the reality show (yes, yes I know) Cake Boss. Probably because it's similar to our Italian family. Except more New York, less New Jersey.

Cake Boss: Pizza Challenge

Curses! Foiled again.

To help pay for the repairs that I really need to make on my car, I've been trying to get a temporary job. Babysitting would be ideal, but everyone wants long term babysitters.

I've been looking for anything else that could potentially be a temporary position: cleaning, waitressing an event, pet sitting, store advertising, participating in the paid marketing groups, etc. It's just tough to find something that would happen within a month.

Hopefully something will come up? I mean, worse comes to worse, I'll dig a little more into my emergency savings and stretch my budget a little more.

In the meanwhile, I'll continue on my study quest.

Milestones.

A month from now, I will be starting my first day of researching at Grad School U. I just emailed my soon to be PI the other day to double confirm this fact.

Yikes.

But for now, I will control my flip out, put down the painful analytical textbook, and instead go out for dinner with the boy to celebrate 2 years of dating!*

I need to come up with a better nickname for him. Actually, I need to come up with better nicknames for everyone in this blog.

*Give or take. Neither of us can remember the day we started dating. We just know it was now-ish.

Bought car.

Bought car! Emotional state=relieved.

Bank account=sad. Thank goodness I'm a cheapskate who has no real life. And that I have a lot of the cooking supplies and whatnot. Though I still have a bunch of stuff to get/contribute for the purchase of things like a couch. And textbooks. And minor(ish) car repairs. And the full first month's rent. And car insurance.

Sigh. And I don't officially get paid until Sept. Perhaps I will find a loophole in this concept. (I'm sure there is somewhere.)

And maybe I'll start putting up babysitting flyers.

Probably both!

1/5 Subjects Complete

Complete: Ochem

Not even touched: Pchem, Analytical, Biochem, Inorg

Just finished my rereading of my ochem textbook in time for me to find a letter about the exams in my email inbox. Yikes.

Trying to not flip. Not working. Attempting to comfort myself with the fact that I still have 2.5 months to cover the rest of the material.

Tomorrow, I begin the covering of analytical. (Yuck. At least the book they recommended is the same one we used at SLAC?) I plan to bribe myself by going to a coffee/bagel place tomorrow. Hopefully analytical will be over quickly.

Attempting to get a car tonight! *crosses fingers* My first car. Man, will that purchase eat up most of my savings, which is hard for my bargain hunting self to accept. But I need the car for grad school, I'm (hopefully) getting a bargain car that will last me many years, and I've done a bunch of research to assure myself of these facts.

Balance? What balance?

Ever since we signed a lease, I've been thinking about what things I'd like to do once I move to GSU.

Obviously, I'll be balancing classes and research. And TAing after the first quarter.

And then there's the mental health aspects: my running (hopefully going to do my first half marathon in the next six months!), keeping in touch with friends, keeping up the LDR, keeping my family in the loop, and making new friends.

But I'd really like to start volunteering again. I miss doing it. I didn't get to do it much in college other than doing fund-raising for organizations---which is fun, and it's nice to know you're doing something, but it's not my style of volunteering. I graded a science fair at a local school this past spring, and I realized that it was something that I'd missed. Interacting with the kids was fun, and I loved using my scientific background to benefit someone else.

I'm going to wait several months and see how busy I am, but I'd really like to spend an hour or two a week tutoring. I found a few different organizations that I could do this through, so here's hoping that I can do it.

Book Ideas?

I've got one book left that I'm reading...anyone else have any suggestions for books? (Especially if it's one you'd like me to review.) Unless I discover a new stack of books I've never read, I'll go on an automatic repeat cycle for some of my favorites. My preference is the pop-science and history of science genre, but I'm open to all suggestions.

Happy Father's Day!

The Secret Life of Germs

I made the very poor choice of reading this mostly in the airport and on the train. Don't do that. You start to get paranoid about everything you touch, which is not an enjoyable way of taking a trip.

The Secret Life of Germs by Dr. Philip Tierno is a fast read. It's definitely written in an overly dramatic style. He has a bunch of hypothetical situations that could occur, but he writes them with the knowledge that he's doing it to illustrate his point. His sense of humor about these particular situations is definitely appreciated.

It's a fun/slightly horrifying book to read. Dr. Tierno makes a lot of good points throughout the book. Probably the scariest point that he emphasizes every chance he can get is that a public hand washing campaign would save a great deal of lives. However, it gets a little tiresome after the 50th time we've heard this particular fact. It's also written so that each chapter ends with about a page of his germ-fighting facts---good for reference, irritating for reading through.

If I were to give someone who knew absolutely nothing about biology a book about biology, this is probably one of my top five picks. I'll give it a 4/5 for an interesting and fun, if slightly preachy, read.

Thoughts on Public Transportation

I've been using public transportation (alone) since I was 13, which isn't particularly long compared to most hardcore public transportation users.

While I was on the bus yesterday to get to the DMV, my mind started to wander. You see, some of the big reasons that I have not gotten my license are:
1) The thought of driving used to flip me out when I was younger.
2) I don't mind walking around 2 miles to get places.
3) I don't mind public transportation to get me within those two miles.
4) Public transportation and walking are pretty cheap as compared to the cost of owning and driving a car (most of the time). I do admit that it takes a lot more time than driving.

But above all, my thoughts on public transportation are that it really exposes you to both the worst and best in human beings. (This post was inspired by a really nice bus driver that let a mom and her daughter on for free.)

I've spent three of my summers taking a bus for at least an hour (one-way) and a bunch of more infrequent uses, which gives me a good amount of time on public transportation.

I've been hit on (same with every other woman from the ages of 13-35?), argued with, mocked, groped, heard arguments, and been on buses with drunk/disorderly/obnoxious/violent people. However, I've also made friends with bus drivers that stopped when they saw me running for the bus, that let people on for free, had conversations with really lovely people, and people that paid for other people's fares. To be sure, most of the time I only have an average experience.

And while I really like trains more than buses due to the speed, you definitely see more of this on buses. I don't think my future possession of both car and license will stop me from taking PT---a bus is a great way to learn the area for a reasonable sum of money. Though a car will definitely be easier for groceries.

Anyways, I suppose it's a moot point since I need a car to get from our new apartment to GSU (especially for lab hours). Two things I've learned on PT: 1) if you have your nose in a book, you don't get hit on as much and 2) bus drivers really appreciate a quick "Thank you." (I've made friends with a lot of bus drivers that way.)

Am I Making Myself Clear?

From the title of this book, it looked more like a book for scientists to talk to their non-scientist cohorts.

Actually, Am I Making Myself Clear? is a guide written by Cornelia Dean, former science editor of the New York Times. In it, she details the best way for scientists to communicate with the press.

It's a great book. Even though it has very little relevance to my career at this stage, I really enjoyed hearing the nature of the interactions between the press and science.

A fair amount of the book showcases Ms. Dean's frustration with the fact that scientists and journalists view each other as "boring and overly concerned with details" and "completely not concerned with the process or important details. Ms. Dean seems to be frustrated by the fact that along with funding being slashed, these two groups cannot seem to find any common ground. This leads to very little of the important information that scientists can provide being passed on to the public by journalists.

I don't want to go through too much of the book---it's mostly tips for each different type of media interaction that scientists might encounter.

I would definitely recommend this book. It's not very useful for someone at this stage of my career, but it was definitely really interesting to see the media viewpoint on scientists. I'll give it a 4/5---here's to hoping this book will become really useful to me in the future!

Errands, phone calls, and appliance hunting!

Busy today!

Studying, thank you notes (that should have been done weeks ago...yikes), Goodwill run for appliances/clothes, more cleaning, organizing of boxes, and post office run.

Anyone have a good source for cheap and used appliances/furniture? We're planning to check out yard sales and Craigslist when we're there, but any other source ideas would be great. I know we're planning on getting cleaning supplies from a dollar store that's nearby.

Apartment!

Woooo!

We've signed a lease in a nice 2bd/2ba!!!!

That's a relief. Today's catching up with apartment related phone calls, recovering from very little sleep (early departures, all day apartment viewings, lots of discussion with the roomies, more studying, and sleeping on people's floors), studying and a baseball game tonight! :)

Oh, and just as a tip, looking for an apartment in a limited time span went much faster when we used this process:
1) Collect tons of places within your price range
2) Divide into geographic locations that you'll visit within a set amount of hours
3) CALL. Don't email. While a few places got back to us really quickly over email, most were delayed by 36 hours instead of 12 (what I thought they'd do). When making the appointments, tell them your price range and when you want to move in---that'll eliminate more.
4) Leave an hour for each appointment and 15 minutes for getting to and from places.
5) Ask lots of questions when you get there. That eliminated places really quickly for us---average utilities? How are utilities divided up (by building or unit or complex)? How's the internet done? Do you need renter's insurance? Pet rent/deposit? Laundry? Parking? Test things like water pressure, stoves, how easily closets and windows open---don't be shy! If the renter doesn't know the answers, you might not want to live there.
6) Drive by the complex at night and see what parking and the atmosphere is like. (That immediately eliminated a place we loved.)
7) Consider the surroundings: bus stops, shopping centers, groceries, parks, and banks.

Anyways, the process was painful. But now it's mostly over! Hooray!

Apartment hunting sucks!

Yesterday was all about the apartment hunting. SO MUCH EMAILING AND CALLING. I'll be going for two days to see the apartments.

I'm looking for a 2bd apartment with two of my friends from PUI. I'm a little nervous about living with a couple, but I think it's going to be ok. I know Roommate 1 as a former roommate of one of my former roommates, and she's really relaxed and mature. Roommate 2 is a friend of a friend that I've gotten to know better over the past year. He's a fun guy who is also going to GSU (but for math).

What makes me think that this should work is the fact that they're very good at being independent while being a couple. I really like both of them, and I think all three of us are blunt enough to voice any problems.

Also, hold music sucks.

Supersense.

No one's stopping me! Book review time. This will be short since I have to get back to apt hunting online (weeee).

Supersense, a book by cognitive psychologist Bruce Hood, covers the development of human belief in the supernatural world.

I liked it, with a few exceptions.

First of all, he got stellar reviews from all of the people who he quotes in the book. Which is fine. But when you're surrounding these other scientists quotes with "so and so's fantastic study" and "Dr. Fantastic has this interesting study" it's a little sketch.

He also writes his book in a very different way. Dr. Hood talks directly to his audience, posing tons of rhetorical questions. It's a little odd.

Dr. Hood writes a very appealing book. However, I never really got into it. I don't know why. I thought I'd enjoy the subject. To be honest, it's probably related to the fact that I never really warmed to psychology. Especially studies that involve babies. They just seem rather odd to me. For example, to show that babies will imbue human characteristics into non-human things, they set a baby on the floor and moved a hat that was attached to a little robotic component that the scientists were controlling. When the hat beeped, the baby made noise. When the hat moved, the babies moved.

Yes, this gives more evidence for some point. But whose idea was it? This book has a tons of studies that are similar in the "baby studies" nature.

I'd give it a 3/5. Not too bad, not too good. Read it if you have some time to kill.

Vacation over!

And that concludes the last two week vacation with my family for quite some amount of time.

I'll update more tomorrow....I'm too tired.

P.S. Are the book reviews boring people out of their minds? I have a few more books that I finished over vacation...

Baseball and Science

As much as I ranted about James Watson's book in my last post, there was one passage that brought up what I've been thinking about for a few months.

I love the game of baseball. I love my home team. Part of the inital draw of my boyfriend was that I'd found someone who loved the game just as much but was definitely just as nerdy.

Science and baseball have a great deal in common, in my opinon. Watson makes a few comparisons about running a lab like a baseball team, which I don't have a way to connect, as I've "run" a lab, but never actually run a lab.

Both have incredible amounts of people who are simultaneously rational and superstitious. If you work really hard, you might not get anywhere on a national level, but there will be a smaller group of people that appreciate you for your effort (hopefully).

There will be your superstars that everyone loves, and the ones that everyone hates. There will be cheating scandals.

Baseball is a sport where in order for a team to be well functioning, there can't be just one superstar. There will be different levels of skill. But the team working together produces far more runs and more wins than individuals.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that science and baseball both create a community among the players. As a baseball fan and a scientist, when I hear, "Did you see the game?" it brings up the same sort of emotions as "How'd that experiment go?" Everyone hopes to hear about results, and most people complain and offer up criticism to make the results better.

Anyone else out there see any comparisons/faults with a comparison of baseball and science? Other than the large differences in salary, of course!

Avoid Boring People

Still on the vacation, so I'm scrambling to put up all of the books I've read.

Alrighty, so I have avoided Nobel prize winner James Watson's Avoid Boring People. I have been incredibly biased towards him ever since I learned about his treatment of Rosalind Franklin, and have refused to give him a second chance. I thought that he was a sexist jackass.

I stumbled upon this book for about the 4th time in the last two years and decided that I should finally give him a chance.

Frankly, it wasn't worth it. Watson portrays almost everyone---including himself---as the stereotypical Harvard tool that I've run into many a time. Every single description of a woman starts with her physical appearance ("the blond" is a common theme). He describes many of his lab techs as women who unfortunately had boyfriends. About 25% of this book is his description of his failure to "get" the woman who he has his eye on. Intelligence in women is portrayed as an afterthought.

His particularly infuriating last chapter revolves around his defense of the marks made by the Harvard president on women in science. (It's essentially "There are differences in men and women's brains! Why is everyone so mad? Also, my former student [Nancy Hopkins, prof at MIT] shouldn't outrage herself like that. It's not to her credit as a scientist.)

The book is written in an odd format: first Watson describes a particular period of his scientific career, and then a list of his advice is found at the end of each chapter. This particular way of presenting his advice is more of a textbook style format, which isn't fun to read. He does have a chatty, enjoyable style of writing. However, it's not enough to save this book.

I'll give it a 1/5. Flip to the back (where he has all of his hints in a list) in the bookstore, read and take what you like from it, put it down, and don't even bother reading it.

Pandora's Keepers

As I said in my last post, I've had a lot of time for reading.

How I choose my books to purchase is based on approximately three different questions:
1) Does it sound like it'll be interesting? (I've been on a science history/pop-science kick for the past few years.)
2) Is it used or on sale? (An important question for my limited budget.)
3) Will I cry due to the terrible writing or will I spasm due to over-simplifications?

Pandora's Keepers was a book that I thought sounded interesting, was on sale, and the writing seemed pleasant. For whatever reason, I left it on my shelf for about a year. When packing for the vacation, I threw it into my backpack.

When opening up this book on the plane, I was drawn in immediately and regretted leaving this book on a shelf for a full year. Brian VanDeMark has mostly written books on Vietnam, but this book centers on the drama involving the nine primary scientists who worked on the atomic bomb in the US. He paints intimate portraits of each scientist, giving the reader a chance to see the strengths and weaknesses of each personality. As I passed through the book, I felt emotionally involved in each step of the project.

It's hard to give a review that does justice to this particular book. While VanDeMark definitely has his own bias throughout the book, which is very apparent in his treatment of the Oppenheimer affair, it's difficult to fault him for this bias. He gives a fair picture of almost all of the scientists, and does a good job of weaving together a dramatic, interesting story.

The major flaw that I found with this book was at the end. VanDeMark has a chapter that is essentially his views on nuclear weapons. For whatever reason, it left a bad taste in my mouth. While his opinion on this subject is pretty clear throughout the book, I didn't enjoy his argument.

Despite this last chapter, I'd definitely recommend this book. If you're looking for an informative, interesting account of the scientists of the atomic bomb, read this book. I'll give it a 4.5/5---it would have been a 5 without the last chapter!

And the Freaking Out Begins!

Great parts about being on vacation: seeing family that I never see, sleeping in, being able to read more, feeling less guilty about doing "nothing," and running in new places.

Not-so-good events: family drama, being shut in a car for many hours, less freedom, limited access to internet, but especially way too much time to flip out about my upcoming apt hunt with my roommates and my move to grad school.

Since GSU has entrance exams, my panic has been mostly focused on that. It's the usual deal: ACS written exams in Biochem, Ochem, Inorg, Analytical, and Physical. However, I have now got it stuck in my head that I will flunk all 5 exams and have to take all of the classes over. For the classes that I loved, I really don't want to do that---I want to take more advanced classes in the subject (biochem, inorg, and physical). For the class I hated (analytical), I never ever want to take that again. And for ochem, I would love to TA it instead of gen chem, since I've really enjoyed TAing that class.

Therefore, on the family vacation, my ochem textbook has come with me. Let the freakout begin!