Insight into The Atoms Within Us

I would like to take some time to talk about some books that have inspired me and are continuing to inspire me as I'm cutting my path in this life. For my first installment, I'll be writing about Ernest Borek's The Atoms Within Us.

I first encountered this book on a whim in a used bookstore at a sparsely-occupied new shopping center in Espoo, Finland. The shopping center itself was fresh and new, full of promise and potential - besetting nostalgic feelings of a burgeoning economy and above all, hope. The tiny bookshop boasted an assortment of Finnish and Swedish books and also had a meager section of about three half-meter shelves of books written in English. I had four books in my possession to read for the almost two month stay we had planned, but I still yearned for more, rationalizing that I could fit one more book among my belongings and figuring if I found something in my taste (usually non-fiction science) among these staggering odds, it must be fate (I like to entertain the idea of fate every so often, as the thought of it is so grandiose and synchronicities sometimes just line up so well. I don't live my life like it is pre-destined, but still so, there may be some pattern to life and time beyond the depths of human understanding that I am still hesitant to dismiss entirely). I ended up pulling from the shelves a rather dated popular-science book on biochemistry priced at 2€. The back cover boasted "...a careful and correct picture within the limits it sets for itself, of the state of modern biochemistry and how it came to be what it is." I am a sucker for attempts to wrap subjects into neat little boxes, explaining them clearly and precisely. So, although this particular version was published in 1963, I knew I had to dig in.

My favorite kind of book is a beat-up, well-loved, good chunk of non-fiction ... the kind where you can't help but annotate the pages with scribbles of diagrams and questions and notes, where you dog-ear the pages AND underline the text in a wild frenzy of understanding and inspiration. I read the majority of this book, sunbathing, pen-in-hand on a grass beach on the western neighborhood island of Helsinki, Lauttasaari. And while this book touched on many subjects - the staggering role of cooperating enzymes in our existence, vitamin's role in the functioning of cell biology, cosmic radiation and "heavy isotopes", amino acids, genes, the circulatory system - what made it special was it's anecdotal nature, weaving the history of science and scientific discovery so seamlessly into textbook data about the nature of the chemical interactions in the microbiological world. Borek's style was almost an outright invitation to try science first hand, but still with a warning about how to "rise to the top," with the age-old comparison of the genius of science and art:

"This does not imply that there is no genius among experimental scientists. It merely means a different manifestation of genius; in the field of science, genius accomplishes what lesser minds would accomplish later. Creation in the arts is quite different. It is inconceivable that anyone but Shakespeare or Beethoever might have brought forth those very same plays and symphonies. But Newton and Leibnitz independently and almost simultaneously integrated the same mathematical abstractions into differential calculus. The artist extracts his creation almost solely from the riches of his own mind; the scientist evolves in his mind a pattern from phenomena which he and others have pried out from observations of our physical universe. Genius among scientists can be measured in years - the number of years that he is ahead of his contemporaries."

Borek is essentially saying that the scientist is at the mercy of time, in terms of his/her genius. Scientific genius is a race against your colleagues, where being a leader in your field is just as important as being an expert. This is something I haven't really fully understood until now even, going back and reading passages I'd underlined. And rather than discourage me against staggering odds, it's ignited within me a confidence of how I've always lived on the borderline between introvert and leader.

Things Lost in the Fire - A New Life List

This seems as good a place as any to start a new life list. My old one was lost in the great macbook explosion of 2004 and I've always just thought that I might haphazardly stumble across it on a random blog or email. Well, I've searched high and low and it is time to start a new one. Although, it really would have been satisfying to cross "pet a wild squirrel," "swim in a hot spring," "get a bachelor's" and "run a 10k" off of the list :S

So, without further adieu, I present: LIFE LIST #2
(bear with me folks, I'm aiming quite high here and I expect to be updating this quite frequently)

• Write a popular-science book
• See the aurora borealis
• Explore the deep sea in a submarine
• Create a scholarship
• Swim across the Chesapeake Bay
• Run a half marathon
• Run a marathon
• Hike Angel's Landing in Zion National Park
• Learn to field-dress wild animals
• Take a tour of CERN
• Make someone's life easier than mine by teaching them something I had to learn the hard way (this is more of a tally than a cross off)
• Win a Nobel Prize
• Go somewhere cold enough that my eyelashes freeze
• Visit Antarctica

And Now We Wait...

"Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act." - Paulo Coelho

Okay, I'm just going to admit it - I'm terrified. This waiting is so very difficult. I want to prepare and plan and start my academic life. But, the bottom line is, it still may not happen. I know the best I can do is stay positive and hope that my personal statement and references make me stand out. I feel like I'm kind of "faking it til I make it" as far as confidence that I will be the one they possibly select out of four. There is this crazy balancing act I seem to be attempting with how often I can bug people who I've tried to get advice from. I just seem to have no idea what I am doing. I'm applying to an internship at a marine biochemical institute to try to get some lab experience should I get in. I'm not sure how this is going to work, given I work close to an hour away and a 8-4:30pm schedule. I may be willing to work several nights of the week and on weekends in addition to my schedule, but I doubt those who work there will. I want to email people again and ask them what they did in the months before graduate school to prepare them - what books did they read? internships? seminars?

I'm also attending the Mid-Atlantic Malacologists meeting at the Delaware Museum of Natural History on March 31st. I feel like this is a networking opportunity for my potential advisors, but I feel awkward emailing them to ask them if there is anything they'd want me to inquire about. Is this tacky? Is it brown nosing? I feel like I don't have anyone to ask these questions... there isn't a single person in my family who went to graduate school, no one among my friends in the sciences (save one I am continually bugging), and my professors from undergrad seem constantly busy. Should I just bite the bullet and shoot out a few emails or will I be shooting myself in the foot? Am I meant to struggle through all of this alone as some sort of test of my judgment or do most people have a mentor/support/guidance through the process?

I also plan to contact some professors at TU to see if I could be of assistance in their labs at all. I'll be working on my resume/cover letter today and tomorrow for the internship as well as to send some professors. Sometimes I just hope for someone to take pity on me and take me under their wing. I know I can do it alone, but I'd love to be on top of the curve for once instead of scrambling to figure everything out. I have the motivation! Let's do this!

It's Still Fantasy!

More waiting now. I received word from my advisor:

Great news…but one more step. You have not been offered a Taship yet, this will be decided by our GA committee sometime in the next month or so. So, the university has accepted you, but Biology has not made an offer yet. This does not mean that you cannot come; it just means that you do not yet have secured funding.

I do know there are quite a few applicants (I have 4 for my lab alone), that are pending, but I will try and keep you posted. Peter Houde is the chair of that committee, and he usually lets the faculty know about the ranking of the students after the committee meets (it also depends on how many slots we have open in the fall).

So this means I have some more waiting to do. I definitely jumped the gun with telling people, I think. Something felt amiss. Oh well. Now, I just have to stay positive and hope for the money. It's going to all come down to funding, so let's hope I have lots and lots of good karma from bad money luck in the past :) :)

Is This The Real Life?

I've been (somewhat unofficially) accepted into my top PhD program! I received an email "congratulating me again" for my acceptance when that was the first I'd heard of any final decision. I waited a day or so to send an email asking what was the deal and got a response on Sunday that I had indeed been accepted and should be receiving mail within the next couple days. I still don't have any mail and I feel like my correspondence with my possibly-soon-to-be advisor is being put on hold until I get solid confirmation and hopefully word also from the other school to which I applied. All of my former professors told me that I need to visit the campuses before I make a final decision, but all I seem to want to do is just give a big resounding YES so that it is a done deal and I can start some serious planning. I am still not sure how to approach this with the program - what do I say next? I'm sure I will figure it out, as I've felt in the dark this entire process about communicating anyhow.

Honestly, this acceptance doesn't feel like a big deal, even though I KNOW it is, even though it was not something I could have imagined happening to me despite all of my hard work. I got into a PhD program!! It doesn't feel real and at the same time I am waiting for it all to blow up in my face. Driving home the other night, I had this overwhelming thought that something will have to go wrong for this to go right and at the time I thought I knew what that would be. I feel very burdened worrying for and assuring two minds that this move will be fabulous. A piece of my heart still lies in the desert and I know I will have no trouble finding it again - no matter what. I have pieces of myself spread out in many nooks of this world and I hope to keep finding places where my heart explodes in the abstraction that defines any given place. I've also surrendered a piece of myself to another soul and feel quite vulnerable in the stochasticity and comfort of such a fleshy depository. Maybe the solution is to move those feelings into reserves, to the same place where the desert and where Finland now reside and where the Eastern Shore will reside soon.

An adventure awaits me, a bonafied independent existence. Who am I kidding? I am absolutely thrilled. I guess my biggest fear is that I will lose that thrill or get my hopes too high and never make it out of here or to the life of discovery I've always dreamed of. Lord knows, I've tried to cut my path so many times, in so many ways, through so many places. It's all gotten me to here though and you better believe I'm going to run!

Hooray!!! & A Visit to the Delaware Museum of Natural History

All applications are IN! I turned in my choice school's application well ahead of time, but was still waiting on some materials to arrive with my application. So, when I received the email that my application was complete, I was more than relieved.

A floor display at the DMNH

I had some holiday leave from work that I had to take before January 12^th, so I took that as a perfect opportunity to visit the Delaware Natural History Museum (DMNH). I certainly wish google maps told exact toll amounts because for the round-trip I spent $20 in tolls and probably around $30 in gas – I’m very thankful that I brought a larger sum of cash.

It was certainly an expensive, but worthwhile trip – especially with snowflakes greeting me at the rest station where I stopped briefly both ways.I was delighted to find bronze statues of an assortment of animals speckled around the museum and parking lot. Had I gone with a companion, I’m sure a photo-op would have been in order! Instead, I parked and walked through the doors into a lobby where a model giant squid (Architeuthis dux) hung overhead and a sign boasted one of the top ten largest mollusk collections in the United States. Walking to the reception desk, I had some fond nostalgia for my days working at the National Museum of Dentistry and some slight pain at the fact that it doesn’t look like it’s going to come through for a weekend job. I really miss working there sometimes – being behind the scenes of a museum. I didn’t know what to expect when I met the Curator of Mollusks, Dr. Liz Shea, but she promptly whisked me upstairs for a chat and behind-the-scenes tour of the DMNH. We chatted about committees, meetings, museums, DNA extractions, digitizing databases, and she showed me the tissue specimens. I really don't know where I'd be without people who take me under their wing in ways like this. I always feel so lost in this process. I am really looking forward to mentoring future students someday who are in my spot and giving them the guidance that's been so hard for me to find.

Now That It's Over...

Now that it is over and some time has passed, I have the energy to discuss the application process for the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP). This is the kind of funding that is up for grabs:

$198,000,000 - Each Fellowship consists of three years of support usable over a five- year period. For each year of support, NSF provides a stipend of $30,000 to the Fellow and a cost-of-education allowance of $10,500 to the degree-granting institution. For 2012, it is anticipated that the cost-of-education allowance will increase to $12,000, as indicated in the FY2012 Budget Request.

I can honestly say that writing that research proposal was one of the most mentally challenging and time-consuming essays (for the length) I've ever written. This was just too much money not to try for and the good news is that I can try again next year if I do not get it this year!

Also, I turned in a graduate school application yesterday (the day it was due because I was waiting on a single letter of recommendation). My transcripts arrived and everything is in order. One more to go that is due January 15th!

Neil deGrasse Tyson and I Weigh in on Mainstream Science and The Big Bang Theory

I am in the midst of writing my personal statement for graduate school and an NSP Fellowship, culminating all of the events and experiences that have brought me to this point in my life and to my desire to be a scientist, trying to convince these bodies that I am "worthy." And I would like to take a small break from writing to ... write some more (gosh what is wrong with me?)... to address the point above Dr. Tyson has brought up via his twitter account. I've witnessed a deal of animosity about this show in particular from some in the science community.

If I had to sum up what it is to write a personal statement is in one word (other than exhausting) it would most certainly be - awkward. With a less than traditionally competitive application, my personal statement really has to be inspiring and interesting while remaining honest and open. Those who know me well, know that there are certain topics involving certain emotions I avoid at all costs when it comes to certain experiences (and people) I've endured. These various events, while having shaped me tremendously as a person, are not at all easy things for me to share with others. Comfort with vulnerability is something I've been working at for some time now. That said, I'd like to take this opportunity to discuss one such instance and how it has shaped me. I've included a small portion thus far in my personal statement (which is also currently highlighted in green - which means "I am not very confident in this section, edit/delete/keep?") so I've had some time to examine and reflect.

Substance abuse has had a prevalence in my family which has certainly shaped me into the responsible, independent, empathetic, enthusiastic, capricious, and also self-critical, slightly (:P) obsessive person I have become today. However, that is not even really what I want to talk about here. Because home life after a certain age was less than desirable, I always found immense solace at school and developed a keen zest for learning. I lived a very isolated existence in my elementary school, branded "weird" and a "nerd" with little to no friends as a result. The fact that I wore nothing but hand-me-down and thrift store clothes probably didn't help much either. I can remember it not really affecting me at the time, really just focusing on what I did have - a handful of friends outside of school who were just as odd as me, animals and the woods that surrounded our house, where I would retreat daily, and school - I loved learning! School excited me like nothing else - a place where I could ask questions and make mistakes, where my mind was busy and I was happy. I was invited to maybe one sleepover and one birthday party total from the kids in my school until 5th grade- I suspect my mother had some sort of influence in this, as one of the kids was a neighbor and the other's mother was an acquaintance of hers.

I remember in 4th grade, our teacher made the announcement that a little girl had moved to our area from China and that she did not yet speak English and was likely going to quite nervous at her new school - our school! I couldn't believe it! I girl was coming to our school from the other side of the world? I wondered what kinds of things she could teach us and how different her life would be now as an American. I decided then that I would make it my mission to become this girl's friend - to show her the ropes and to help teach her English. Much to my surprise, her and I did become friends and I no longer felt like an outcast. She showed me how to make geometric paper shapes with the leftover computer paper and even gave me a pineapple eraser from her tiny, adorable, and stocked pencil case. All was well until the 5th grade picnic. Every year in August, my elementary school would hold a picnic where parents and kids would come to share food and to see "the list" posted, allocating each student to a teacher. There were only two 5th grade teachers, so I knew I had a pretty good chance of landing the same class as my new friend. Not surprisingly (in the scheme of things), we were not in the same class and I was absolutely crushed. She ended up finding a niche (and more than just one friend) in her class,which is something that really hurt me at the time, but that I understood a few years later. The poor girl! What had I done as the most un-popular girl in school (save the girl who ate pads of butter in the cafeteria and who even had at least ONE friend) by be-friending this poor girl and dooming her to a pretty lonely elementary existence?

My story (and hers I hope) works out well in the end because I ended up gaining a few friends of my own in 5th grade (and also some hand-me-down "name brand" clothing and nike shoes) and got accepted to a magnet middle school far from there, where I was surrounded by like-minded individuals in a stimulating, enriching environment (where we wore uniforms!). I originally fought my parents tooth and nail to go to the local middle school. How cruel of them to force me to go to "the nerd school" where I knew no one and had finally made a group of friends! I am so thankful that they refused to budge, unwilling to let me attend such a "trashy" local school, when a magnet school was available.

My point here is that maybe if there were more characters in media who were geeky, or dorky, or weird, or strange maybe I would have had more of a chance in elementary school. No child should be discouraged to follow their interests - no matter how nerdy or offbeat. I am thankful that I generally cared more about learning and my own "weirdo" interests than I did about having friends, but not all kids are that lucky. I certainly have gone through phases where I questioned (and regrettably a few times acted on) trying to have more mainstream interests or just budging a little bit to gain some social standing. I've witnessed many of my peers being critical of "nerdiness" becoming trendy or popular or mainstream. But, if shows like The Big Bang Theory exist, which show likable, relatable characters who are also over-the-top geeks, even it means they are making cracks at themselves (and "geekdom" in general) every once in a while, I am all for it.

Being smart shouldn't be taboo. Being interested in science should not be uncool. I, for one, am thrilled it's becoming something I've never been and no longer have any interest in becoming (save for the very purposes of spreading my love of science) - popular.

Small Update

This has been my life as of late: Lots of emails, meetings, reading and LOTS of scholarly articles. I've met with four of the professors from my department about getting letters of recommendation. So far, I've gotten such good feedback - tons of great advice and pretty much all of them have said that I am on the right track and that they are impressed with where I am at and where I have been since graduating. I have mostly considered my time since graduating a waste up until this month. Mainly because I am now 25 and don't really have anything to "show" for myself. But, like Dr. Miller said, I've done a variety of things that do not look like a direct path, but whose cumulative impact has brought me to this definitive point in my life. It feels really good to know now that my decisions so far have been sound.

Money Woes

Why is it so hard to break out the lower middle class?? Unforeseen circumstances since last summer have dwindled my savings by over $6000. First, I ended up spending something like 3x more in Finland than I expected to because we were out of a place to stay. Then there were car issues and living off my savings while trying to find a job. Then there were the medical bills with no insurance and deposits on apartments and everyday household items. And finally college (including a new laptop) and books. It makes me sick to think about. It makes me sick to log into my bank account or my credit card account. I don't know how I am ever going to recover my savings to what it was.

I've been working and saving since I was 15. I deeply resent the fact that I've had to do this to essentially pay for my own transportation because my grades were much more mediocre than they could have been. Maybe I would never have stopped with Physics and would be on the right track now. I went to college thinking things would get better, thinking I would be making a comfortable living after graduating. I now make less than $30k a year so that I can have health benefits. I now counted on having a Saturday job, where I can now no longer work. I'm already stretched so thin. I barely spend money on myself that isn't food. In the past month, I've spent $40 on an oil change, $70 on a new serpentine belt for my car, $100 for new front brakes and rotors, $105 for a new battery and now $140 for a new alternator and $168 in towing - $623 in repairs and maintenance. THANKFULLY, Chris has helped me out a ton and probably saved me more than $20 on the brakes, $10 on the battery, and $20 for the alternator. I feel like I should be looking into getting another car, but my savings in so uncomfortably low that I don't want to touch it.

These decisions are so tough to make and I always feel like I make the wrong decision and have to YET AGAIN learn from my mistakes. I always wish I had some sort of mentor to give me advice and guide me in the right direction. Now, I also have to figure out how to pay for the rest of college. I feel like my options are so limited and I refuse to go into debt, so I don't know how I am going to make it. What kills me is $623 like this will make or break me and throw EVERYTHING off, but is like pennies to other people.

I think I'll end on focusing on what I DO have and what I am thankful for because every good rant needs this kind of balance.

1. Chris who has been a godsend in this whole process. He has work and then an exam right after and is coming right to my house after to install an alternator at 9 p.m. His selflessness seriously brings tears to my eyes. I have no idea how I am going to ever repay him for all of the amazing things he's done for me.
2. My Aunt Kathleen for riding me to PepBoys today and her and my Uncle John for giving me this truck to begin with. I honestly don't feel like I deserve the kindness they've afforded over the years.
3. Luke, who rode me to PepBoys a few days ago and didn't complain once that my terrible day was hindering his and in the way of getting his stuff done.
4. Being employed and not having to worry about my health or a steady paycheck coming in. Also, having a wonderful understanding boss and co-workers who are ready and willing to help me out, drive me to work, cover the phones, and just generally be sympathetic.
5. The AAA service person and gentleman who stopped to make sure I was alright and who offered to tow me at least from the dangerous spot where I had broken down and who also saved me money by having me purchase a AAA membership and also the peace of mind that I won't have to worry about breaking down and being stranded again.
6. Finally feeling like I have a home.
7. No longer feeling ill every single day.
8. Knowing what I want to do with my life... no matter how hard sometimes it seems like to get there.