the once-lost drafts, in chronological order

7/18/2009

"Ninth Post"

"You cannot simply drive a car on a linear hydrocarbon. Well, you could try, but it would be a bumpy ride."
-- Caluwe

Hahahaha I still find that hilarious. I mean, literally, I laugh every time I read it. Or think about it. Or write it down. I love organic chemists. They crack me up… I think they have a special brand of humor that basically only relates to chemistry. Which is probably why I think it’s so funny.

Here’s a sample of a fairly common type of conversation I have with FX during his infrequent visits.

FX: “Okay, well, I guess we should try the vacuum pump.”

We walk over to the other lab and set up the vacuum pump. Well, sort of.

FX: “Can you go find me a small 24/40 flask?”

I go back to the other side of the lab and rummage around to try to find something smaller than 500ml with a 24/40 head. Finally, I find something that might work, and walk back to the other side of the lab.

FX: “This… isn’t 24/40. This is 24/something. I don’t know what it is.”
Me: “Oh.”

For some reason I find conversations like this hilarious. And re: the 24/40, how was I supposed to know it wasn't 24/40 if it fit on all of the 24/40 apparatuses?

Also, turns out we do have an unopened bottle of butyllithium (which, henceforth, if I am referring to it, I'll use the chemist's shorthand: BuLi), and it's not the one I just ordered down in the stockroom. Well, now we have two. FX seems remarkably unconcerned.

Thursday was a fairly good day. I ran into the janitor in the morning, because I get there sort of earlyish, because the professors basically come in whenever and the grad students do the same. Grad students, unlike me, generally do not get paid for their research. They are paying for their research because along with the slot it fills on the resume and CV, they get a little piece of paper saying they've earned another degree, which allows them to make more money later in life.

The janitor is a sweetheart, and for some reason she kind of likes me. I said hi to her and, as I was unlocking the door to my lab, I heard her say, "You should be a model." I turned to look at her (and smile, because I was hugely flattered and because I think that's the first time someone has said that to me since I was about 14/15, when I used to get it all the time), and she continued, "Because you're so tall, and skinny... and pretty." And I thanked her, because what else do you do in the face of a compliment?

Later she brought me popcorn.

8/11/2009

"Tenth Post"

I don't feel as much like I've done nothing today as I did on Wednesday of last week. I blew down some samples, I ran some GCs, and now I'm running some NMRs.

The fact is that I am pretty well stuck right now. I honestly just need him to answer one or two questions for me and then I can do something, but until I get a response from him, there's really not much I can do. It's pretty frustrating. I'm sure it's at least slightly frustrating for him, too, because although he's on vacation in France, he wanted me to email him every day and he was going to email back.

I guess I have to assume at this point that he just has no access to the internet, and be somewhat grateful that the work that he left me with plus the occasional instruction via email carried me very nearly halfway through the second week. I really hope he's back on Monday. If he is, maybe I can actually make some headway.

I also guess that I shouldn't be as terrified as I am of making mistakes. Mistakes happen. Everyone makes mistakes. And yet, I'm twisting myself into knots over this column. I just have to keep telling myself that it's a learning experience. I don't think any horrible harm was done. I think it's going to be okay.

I'm ready to go to sleep. I think the days that I stress hardest, I feel the most exhausted after.

Today, Christina, Justine and I went to the Little Thai House for lunch. It was pretty delicious, and it's nice to be able to take a break when things are getting frustrating... or going nowhere. Or possibly even both, because where the latter is, the former also tends to be. In any case, I have another hour and a half here, and I want to make sure that I pick up some of my NMR printouts before Dave leaves for the day and the room gets locked. Of course, if that happens, I can always just pick up my printouts tomorrow. Maybe I should just leave early today.

I mean honestly! I was here an hour extra on Friday, and if I don't actually really have anything to do, what's the point? Sitting around pretending to be busy for my own benefit (because no one else cares) isn't actually helpful. It just stresses me out, and I don't feel stressed at home.

10/18/2009

"Eleventh Post"

I need to write up four more microbiology labs. What's good about this? Well, nothing, but in comparison to the labs I've had to write up for my chemistry courses, these dinky little two or three-pagers are totally tame.

In any case, I am obviously not doing that, which doesn't help my situation.

It's funny that it can be almost the end of October - almost two months since my last post here - and yet somehow I have still made almost no progress on my project for FX. I've been trying an oxidation step. I tried it five or six times, with a bunch of different methods and reagents and concentrations and things.

Then FX brought me a new method on Friday which I don't entirely understand but hey, I trust the man. So I'm going to start it when I have some free time. Which will be never. This semester is driving me into the ground. I know I say that every semester but I really mean it this semester. Usually the fall semester is the one where I feel really great about everything and I feel like I get snowballed spring semester. I hope it doesn't get busier than this.

On the other hand, I am definitely not going to TA next semester. So that's a couple of chunks of time out of my schedule that I don't have to worry about.

2/10/2010

Had a bizarre day today... saw Caluwe, who informed ME that he would have my letter of recommendation done by the deadline, had Deb show me the kitten in the freezer (no lie).

2/11/2010

promise me that you'll leave the light on...

You know, I started thinking about Hemler again today. Partly because somehow, in my artless clicking-of-links (you know, the part of the day where I wind down... and down... and down some more), I came across Sara Bareilles.

The day she bought me that CD kind of stands out in my memory. Not in a particularly obtrusive way, if it's possible to stand out without being obtrusive, but in a sort of it's-there-when-I-go-looking-for-it way. It was one of those days that kind of seems like it goes on forever. It was a Friday. I was stressed.

I was stressed enough that I had actually told her beforehand that I was stressed. This was before I had a car on campus but after I earned my license; she drove down and picked me up where Irving meets East Raynor - the point where, if I had to pick, I'd say ESF begins. I was watching for her without really knowing what she drove and I still don't know, even though I can remember the color and the inside. I guess that's probably a girl thing.

So I hopped in and we pulled away to go to Carousel to see a movie, and I kind of curled into myself as she said, "So, what's all this about you being stressed out?"

It's not exactly that I don't feel comfortable being open with her. I mean, I'm pretty open with her in most respects. I think it's that she and I never really had these conversations when I was in high school, but we kind of skated around them. Or I did. I never know anymore when I look back. I don't remember what I said that day, or what she said to me in return, but I remember that question.

I struggle with feeling inadequate. I don't know why I feel inadequate. I just always feel like I need to do more, to be involved in more, to be constantly adding to my resume and yet, somehow, I manage to not be capable of fitting things in. This is probably the hot-button issue for me - I usually think of failing something (myself, other people, to meet some sort of expectations) as my biggest fear, but why would I fear failure if I didn't feel inadequate?

I'm just so scared of the future. I don't know what I want to do. I tell people that I think I want to do research, and I AM happy when I'm in the lab and I want to do a research program this summer but I'm terrified. I am so scared. I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of being away from home, I'm scared to try to build yet another support system for myself, I'm scared to try to learn to be myself again without people to define me.

I mean, sooner or later, they'll probably define me again anyway, right?

This isn't the point. The point is that I miss Hemler. I miss her a lot and yet I don't feel comfortable calling her Hem anymore. She wants me to call her Lisa and I'm going to have to get used to that but maybe that's the next step.

Maybe there is no next step. At least in that respect. The thought of letting go (no, I haven't done it yet) is still terrifying. Did I let her define me? Did I make her define me? Did she define me? In a way, I'm sure she did.

5/2/2010

It's May. And I'm terrified. The anticipation of the end of semester, the excitement for a long summer vacation - it's missing, somehow.

I feel like I'm wading reluctantly towards a finish line that I don't really want to cross.

I feel like I did four years ago, when my junior year of high school was ending and I was so excited to be a senior and I loved every minute of my senior year and then dissolved into a little puddle of tears when it was over.

And I think it's going to be worse when I leave ESF.

It's funny, because I didn't ever think I would even go to ESF. I don't know why; I think I thought I'd go to some upper-echelon private school or something. Instead, I'm living at home, sitting in the middle of my bed in my own bedroom at my own house on a muggy Sunday afternoon, sort of fending off thoughts and worries about upcoming finals and the end of another year at ESF.

I know I'm worried. Besides the fact that I can feel it beginning to curl up in the pit of my stomach, I've been biting the skin around the fingernail of my left thumb... which is quite frustrating, actually, because the nail is too long for it to be effective. And that SHOULD be a good thing, because it means I can't massacre that finger before I need it at school tomorrow for whatever it is I use my left thumb: texting, probably.

Last night I was thinking about how tomorrow will be my last biochemistry class probably ever, and I was thinking about how that might be a positive thing. And then I felt this sort of crushing despair that said to me, "But that means that you've almost exhausted your courses at ESF. That means that soon, it's time for you to leave."

If you know anything about me, you know how much I hate change. Change makes my stomach do that knot thing in my stomach. Change makes me cry into my pillow or on long, night-time walks with Laura. And huge changes, like leaving the place that became my home so much more than Liverpool High School ever was - well, frankly, it's catastrophic.

It's tough for me to think of picking up and leaving for the summer, when I've finally established myself here. I've felt a sense of belonging so strongly that it's just exhilarating.

5/24/2010

Mom seems to be of the opinion that we all have ADD. To some extent. Apparently it doesn't interfere with me leading a productive life. It doesn't get in my way.

If it's the reason I have so much trouble focusing, though, maybe it does a little bit. I think the reason I have trouble focusing is because I need concrete deadlines and sometimes I just don't get concrete deadlines.

Bah, it's really hot today.

7/6/2010

My chemicals are not in. This is turning into a vicious cycle, without any real cycle. At least, I don't think it really qualifies as a cycle.

This Mika song makes me want to stand on top of a moving train and make superhero poses. I think that's the point. I can still listen to it all day; it has not lost its appeal yet.

I was just looking at my plan sheet; I was sort of thinking ahead to the freshman orientation seminar that I might try to piggyback my way to (although I think I - very unfortunately - actually have a class during it) because I love chemistry and because FX runs the seminar.

Anyway, turns out I am deficient 6 credits for graduation. For some reason, I think that's hilarious (probably because I am slacking and only taking 15 credits this next semester AND YET that's 9 more than I need).

This past weekend we spent in a whirlwind of trains and skyscrapers and crowds and sun (mmm, too much sun). I went up on the Skydeck of the Sears Tower, and it was worth the money because I'm never going to do it again in my entire life, probably, but it was sort of breathtaking in a way with which I don't usually associate the adjective "breathtaking".

I guess the whole urban setting is just really new for me. It surprises everyone, because the minute I mention that I live in New York they dive for the city and I have to explain that no, I really don't live very close to the city at all. In fact, I've never been there. I would go, though; I like the city.

I like the life of it all. There are people everywhere. The transit system is amazing. The food is neverending (but unfortunately not free). The shopping is hideously expensive and the views are unbelievable.

7/28/2010

Basically, I have nothing to do until 3:45, and right now it is 12:30. I'm considering going for lunch, but I don't want to spend the money, so I'll probably work more on my paper (the first draft of which is due tomorrow) and eat my granola bars. I'm going to have to buy one more box, I think, and that'll be it. I realized yesterday that there are about three weeks of the program left. Three weeks from today I'm going to be done with presenting (or maybe, if we're talking 12:24pm on August 18th, I'll still have to go) and I'll be wrapping things up in the lab and trying to hit all of the restaurants that we found we liked while we were here.

It's going to be weird to say goodbye to this place. This experience seems to be teaching me that either (1) I was too young when I went to summer camp or (2) summer camp in teepees is a terrible idea. I am leaning towards both, actually.

At 20 years old, I'm learning that I can fend for myself. And I realize that dorm life isn't real life. I think I realized this a long time ago; it was drilled into me every time someone's eager parent slammed me again and again, saying, "But don't you want to have the college experience?!" Because the "college experience" isn't real life.

8/20/2010

(no title)

I feel like I should write something tonight because this is my official last night in Evanston. I went to breakfast with my parents, to lunch with Paola and Dessi, and to dinner (and subsequent ice cream) with my parents.

I like the word susurrus. I think it's about the best example of onomatopoeia I've ever seen. It's too bad that it would sound so terribly pretentious to ever use it, because it's really a lovely word.

Back when I had my verizon.net email and had daily Word of the Day emails (I've signed back up for them, but somehow having them delivered to my gmail account daily is more annoying than anything else), I used to save the words I really liked. I've lost those, though, because we switched to Time Warner (DSL was NOT cutting it).

It doesn't really matter. I suppose I'm not going to be a writer anyway, although I always used to feel so terribly proud of myself when I wrote something decent. I can't write as well as I used to be able to write... I know this, because I look back and I've lost a good deal of what I used to be able to do.

The problem is that I never feel particularly inspired anymore. Most of the time I feel vaguely tired, or I just don't care enough to try to write. Besides, what do I write about?

I'm feeling terribly tired now. Mom and Dad helped me move most of my things out of my room, so that all I have left is my bedding, my bathroom stuff, my fridge, a change of clothes, and my drying rack. Oh, and my computer. Who can survive long without one of those?

I haven't heard anything about TAing for general chemistry. That's okay, I guess. I could take the semester off. I have, after all, heard about tutoring for organic chemistry. I feel so terribly tired! The thought of tutoring seems so daunting now, even though I've done it for two years. At least it starts slow, and first semester is a piece of cake.

Against dark blue, my hair looks lighter. I notice this every time I wear this particular tank.

An Innocent Man is a great song. I forgot how good a song it was. Good old iTunes genius feature comes through again!

you know you only hurt yourself out of spite
I guess you'd rather be a martyr tonight

You gotta hand it to Billy Joel. He writes great lyrics. You know what's a great song? All About Soul. Holy cow is that song good. What's my favorite part of that song... hmmmm. I think it's the chorus that goes

it's all about soul:
it's all about joy that comes out of sorrow
it's all about soul:
who's standing now and who's standing tomorrow

and following lines. But really, the whole song. Good stuff.

9/13/2010

It's funny, how a little dog can keep me company. I love this little dog like crazy.

Today as I was driving home from taking Jon to karate, I heard a commercial on the radio. I only heard a fragment of it, because I was skipping around stations looking for something that I honestly wanted to listen to, but it made me laugh.

"Well," said a woman's voice, "I have one half-sister, and two quarter-brothers!"

"And together," boomed an enthusiastic man's voice, "They make one whole person! So have them over for -" and then I switched the station. Still, it struck me as funny.

And that made me think of this commercial DJ saw on TV the other day while watching football. He actually paused the TV, called me downstairs, and played it for me. It was for Jimmy Dean sausages, I think, and I wish I could find it because it was THAT funny.

11/26/2010

If I die young, or something happens or whatnot, I don't want any groups made in my honor on facebook. There are terrible people out there who for some reason get their kicks from terrorizing people who are in indescribable pain.

I just wouldn't want anyone to step on my memory like that.

I guess my facebook could stay up. I don't really know.

12/13/2010

I want to learn to sing The Winner Takes it All, but I'm afraid it might be too high for me. I suppose I could pitch it a couple of steps lower.

8/29/2011

I think it's time.

The new leaf is nearly turned over!

I always wonder what that means, you know? Turning over a new leaf? What's the literal component to that statement? I always find myself somehow thinking of both a new green leaf - light, healthy, alive green like the tank top I'm wearing right now, a green that makes you smile and maybe even think of mint chocolate chip ice cream - and a fallen fall leaf, browned side up, waiting to be turned by the inquisitive toe of a distracted person waiting for a bus.

I think that my little green leaf, reluctantly unfurling as I cherished the last vestiges of high school, opened its veiny face to the sun when I started my undergraduate. As I finished my undergraduate, it slowly began to change from green to a sunset palette of colors. Now it has fallen to the ground and its crispy self is just waiting to be discovered.

Nah, that analogy doesn't really work.

I heard Someone Like You on the radio right now. About time that got some attention. I do like knowing the song before it makes it onto the radio, though -- that never happens.

So my summer of research has been over for just over a week now. I've spent a week doing random things, being lazy, walking around during the sunny days, cooking, cleaning, reading, watching some television, meeting my incoming class, etc etc.

Just got distracted by a plethora of things, including but not limited to: Robyn, facebook, my class schedule, the dirty dishes in the sink, and a truck driving backwards on the path outside my window (it was making a terrible scraping noise that sounded a little like squawking).

So Irene hit New Haven. I didn't think it was that bad, but I did run into Kurt Karandy this morning and apparently he's been without power for over 24 hours now. His immunology roommate took their food to cool with the dry ice. Haha he was so pleased with the dry ice. The things I take for granted now, I'll tell ya...

I also saw the better part of a tree flipped over and threatening to snap the power lines that had tried to be accommodating by catching it. Now, I don't know whether or not that would have cut my power... but I figure I could have very well have lost power.

I am listening to Mahna, Mahna and it is making me bop which is, of course, making typing (or thinking) very difficult.

Oh. Right.

So I have finished my schedule. It took probably five minutes to iron out. I talked to Scott Miller for quite a bit longer than that because he is a nice guy and also because I figure you cannot have too many faculty friends in your department.

2012: as ever, an incomplete review

Interesting.

I downloaded the app for Blogger on my iPad, so I am now sitting here typing on my bluetooth keyboard case. Seriously, it is so cool. It's like a little laptop! And because of that, I have a really hard time remembering that I have to touch the screen to get stuff done. My fingers keep looking for a trackpad.

Anyway.

So I got the app, and I opened it up and signed in, and all of a sudden I found every single blog post I ever lost, stored in cyberspace as a draft. I wonder why I could never find these on my computer...? Anyway it was pretty fascinating to go through them, because there were a bunch that were quite complete and that's really exciting for me. Maybe I'll compile them into one big retro-post and get them out here for real.

Okay. 2012.

I'm making real progress here; I don't think I'm dreading the new year the way I usually do. Although I just now thought about the progress I have been making toward my PhD and ... well, my stomach crinkled itself up a little bit. Reset! Reset! Ugh. I think this is normal...?

Here are a few things that I have learned about myself during 2012.

I am pretty well done with classes now. I got to where I honestly felt a little bit insulted that I still had to take exams. Exams? Really? Exams have no real-life analog. Besides, after the first few classes, I rarely enjoyed cell biology. It was not enough about things that I need or want to learn.

I have trouble letting go sometimes, and I am not sure I am enthusiastic enough about my project. Although I think I am building enthusiasm, and I try to remind myself that my entire paradigm of research has been sort of forcefully shifted and if that's taking some time to adjust to, that's probably okay.

Piping frosting is really difficult. Also, if a buttercream recipe calls for four sticks of butter, don't use the entire pound of butter. Unless you legitimately want your buttercream to be butter flavored. The group seemed to be okay with it but I was definitely not a fan.

Snickerdoodles do actually need the shortening. It gives them some structural integrity. However, they taste amazing if you use butter instead. No one seemed to care that they weren't strictly snickerdoodles because I stuffed them with sticky, soft caramel and the flavor that resulted was sort of magnificent. If I do say so myself.

Getting up in the morning to exercise feels awesome. After I do it, of course, because getting out of bed isn't fun and neither is the running, really. But I guess it makes me feel sort of proud of myself, and that's something. I have some nice pictures of sun through bare, wintry tree branches on a foggy day that I took around 7:45 am after my run. They are on my phone though so I can't post them now.

Never, under any circumstances, ever, ever, ever go out for legitimate Mexican food when your stomach is already feeling a bit off. This is a bad decision and you will regret it. Also, avoid going to Buffalo Wild Wings. Always. Please remember this. It's not worth it. They always get your order wrong and the wings are absolutely not worth the indigestion that will inevitably result later.

Movies are pretty fun. Especially in that big IMAX theater at the mall. It has been a good year for movies.

I think I am having a hard time being retrospective. I think it's really hard to accurately judge how things are going in lab. I have this constant fear that I'm not working hard enough, and I'm sure sometimes that it's true, but it is often untrue as well.

Ugh this is making me feel a little bit sick hahahaha I don't know if I'm up to finishing it. I don't remember what happened in individual months, as it kind of blends together, more so than it did in previous years. I suppose I'm the depressed second year.

What was it Brad said? Optimistic first year, depressed second year, jaded third year, time-to-get-out fourth year? Well, it might take some tweaking at the end there, but the first three years are sufficiently described, I imagine.

I often wonder if I'm cut out for this and what my direction in future will be. I don't much like to think about it, but I try to, sometimes. I don't know what's going to happen five years on down the road, and maybe that's okay.

I hope 2013 has more movement to it than 2012, which stalled out several times and went a bit stagnant. I'll keep my chin up for now.

update

I have started week three of running.  So far, so good.  As usual, the hardest part is crawling out of bed.  Once I'm up and out, my stubbornness rules out and even if I feel like I'm just going to die, I keep at it.  I suppose it's a pride thing.  It also feels satisfying to be exhausted at the end.

I'm starting to understand what J told me about running when I asked him about runner's high a few months ago.  "Nah, I don't really get it when I'm running," he said, "I think I get it after I run."

I understand that.  I feel great when I haul myself back up the hill to my apartment, set the coffee a-brewin' and hop into the not-quite-warm-enough shower.  And it lasts for a good long time, that specific feeling.  Probably until 3 or 4 pm.  It's very good.

This week I am running 90 seconds, walking 90 seconds, running 3 minutes, walking 3 minutes, running 90 seconds, walking 90 seconds, running 3 minutes, walking 3 minutes.  At the end I felt like I still had too much left to give, even though I had wanted to give up during the 3 minute runs, so I ran another 90 seconds, walked for a while, sprinted for what I felt like I had left, and then dragged myself up the hill and into the shower.

So I ran a little more than 10.5 minutes.

I ran at least a mile today.  The route I follow is roughly a mile each way, there and back.

I ran at least a mile today.

I ran a mile today.

This is a milestone.

procrastination post

Mmmm.

It is a Sunday afternoon.  Almost a Sunday evening.  I've done my running around, purchased my groceries and a 10 pack of ankle socks at Walmart.

It's kind of funny, the way we change over time, isn't it?  I remember how excited I was for my first "bobby socks", and then I remember feeling like I desperately needed no-show socks.  Apparently visible socks were not in vogue.

I suppose there were some times in middle school when I just wanted to fit in; I remember telling Mom that I wanted to start shaving my legs in seventh or eighth grade, having seen some of the other girls' smooth legs.

"I look like Bigfoot," I lamented.

She tried not to laugh and even managed a horrified look.  "Did some of the girls call you Bigfoot?"

"Well, no," I admitted, "I just feel like Bigfoot."

I was convinced for a while that the world was out to get me.  I've become far less convinced of this lately, especially in this place where clothes and hair and makeup don't mean anything.  Anyway, the point is that I've come around, and ankle socks are now equally desirable (compared to no-shows).  Especially since I've been trying to start running, and running is really hard when you scrape all of the skin off of the backs of your heels.

Anyway, here I am in the warm glow of the bedside light, with my work computer on my lap - I have a paper to write that I am very much less than enthused about writing - and with a generous cup of hot coffee with cream balanced on the bed side (oh, coffee, you giver of life!), and $7 pajama pants from Ralph Lauren and the wonderfully cheery pink flannel sheets that Jon gave me last Christmas, with the mittens and the happy snowmen.

It's a nice place to be, and I thought it would be a nice exercise to think about how pleased it makes me feel right now before I dive into some science.

pain is weakness leaving the body

So I started running.

I know.  It’s weird for me too.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I wonder if I’m doing it even slightly to spite a former friend who asked me what I’d do here besides research, you know, to stay sane, and I jokingly replied “I’ll take up running.  It seems to be the thing that everyone in New Haven does.”

Her response was something along the lines of “Honestly I can’t see you running, ever.”

Well, so there.

Okay, mainly I’m doing it for a couple of reasons.  The first is that I have sort of always wanted to do it, because it seemed like a low-maintenance thing that has highly exhorted benefits.  More on that first half in a minute.  The second is that I (and my considerably heavier body) was halfway shamed into it by my eager little (but not littlest) brother when we went out to lunch at Chipotle.

Yes, I picked the venue.

I’ve only been running for two days, but so far it feels very reasonable (with a couple of exceptions) and is far less earth-shattering and agonizing than that one mile a year that they made us run all through grade school.

When I think about the mile, I have horrid memories of stitches, of that coppery blood taste in my mouth, and especially of shame when I walked for long stretches.  The best I ever managed was 8:47, in ninth grade, and from then on out I slowly slid away from it.  Recreational sports leagues didn’t take older kids – didn’t I know it was a feedstock for the JV and varsity teams? – and I wasn’t interested in the time investment that afterschool sports required.

My metabolism, frankly, is a champ.  Let’s face it.  I have absolutely zero excuse for looking as good as I do.  And I don’t even mean that in a particularly boastful way.

So I got here, to graduate school, and I was living on my own, cooking for myself, managing my own time (sometimes well, sometimes poorly).  Funny how things got worse when I had more time: the less time I had, the more I planned ahead.  I also never made it to an ATM so I didn’t eat lunch from the carts (I’m perennially guilty of this now.  I can’t help it.  The food is delicious).

Anyway this isn’t meant to be a treatise on my life and dietary habits.  Suffice to say that I spent my free time goofing around, reading, or baking.  I love baking.  I think it’s incredibly therapeutic – and it usually doesn’t give me the same I’m-going-to-die-push-through-the-pain feeling as running does – but it’s also hard on my waistline.  Or, more aptly stated, my love handles.  What?!  What’s the use in baking if you’re not going to taste as you go?  I’m not in the business of making PRETTY cookies.  They should just be addicting.

So when I was home and DJ talked me into running, I thought about it, and then I tagged along with Laura to TJ Maxx and spent $50 on running pants and other sundry items that I needed (for up top... shhh!).  Now that I’d made a moderate investment in the venture, I was pretty much set.  I’d been poking around on the internet and had seen a link that someone had posted on facebook.  It directed me to a regiment for beginning runners, called Couch-to-5K, and was supposed to work in 9 weeks.

Okay, I thought.  Maybe I could do 9 weeks.  After all, the first week is only a minute of jogging alternated with 90 seconds of walking, and I only have to do that for 20 minutes.  That’s 8 minutes of running AND I get to walk.  Seems fair.

So I got back to New Haven, I set some alarms and tucked myself into bed around 11:40 pm.  When they went off at 6:55 am, I hauled myself out of bed, half excited and half nervous.  I put on half of my ensemble and stretched (poorly) for 15 minutes, then slipped into my sweatshirt and sneakers, grabbed my cheap mp3 player and my keys, and headed out.

I didn’t have headphones (besides the Bose pair that my parents bought me one Christmas and believe me when I say that those are not ever going to be worn outside), so I just used the mp3 player as a timer.  I didn’t want to carry my phone around outside.  I was trying to be careful about muggings.  I decided I didn’t want to run on Prospect because I wanted to minimize my contact with human beings, so I walked down the hill in my backyard to St. Ronan and ran along there; 10 minutes in one direction, 10 minutes back.

It wasn’t long before I was very tired and very hurting, but as I’d told myself many times, this wasn’t going to be easy and it probably wasn’t going to be very fun in the moment.  I finished around 7:45-7:50, hauled myself back up the hill (hating myself more with every step of those little staircases) and into my apartment, poured my coffee from the coffeemaker into a mug to cool to drinking temperature, and stretched again for a few minutes before dragging myself into the shower.

Which was cold.  Apparently everyone showers at 8:00 am in my building.  This is why I like night showers.  I get some warm water.

Anyway, I sudsed up my poor hair (I’m also trying to get to a three-four day split with hair-washing: either Monday to Thursday and Friday to Sunday or Sunday to Wednesday and Thursday to Saturday, but sometimes hair isn’t interested in cooperating so it’s pretty fluid right now and I don’t worry about whether or not it’s a “hair-washing” night but instead I just examine it in the mirror and think about how tired I am and really, I could get away with it just this once; this is maybe not especially compatible with running MWF mornings...) and proceeded with my shower while my cell phone alarm went off and sang me Kaleidoscope Heart about eight times.  I figured if I somehow slept through Working for the Weekend’s obscenely loud opening bars, I may as well still be up in time for class, so I left the 8:00 am alarm activated.

I felt really nauseous.  It was interesting because mostly my muscles just felt fatigued, which was why I had so much trouble with the stairs on my way up the hill.  I hadn’t had stomach aches or a stitch, but for some reason the idea of eggs and water did not appeal to me.

I had eggs and I drank water.  I also had some strawberry flavored kefir and the aforementioned coffee.  Still felt sick, but dumped food into my stomach anyway.  The rest of the day I felt very awake, but the muscle aches set in quickly.

I have them almost everywhere, really, but for some reason it’s worst in my left ankle.  I don’t worry too much about it.  It isn’t prohibitive and I’m not limping, but it’s uncomfortable.  I took a bath last night to soak it, and that felt good.

Last night I went to DSW and picked up a pair of running shoes, grey and baby blue, for $60, and then I went to Walmart and grabbed a cheap pair of earbuds, one of those earband things to keep my ears warm when it gets cold, and (of course) eggs, because I didn’t have time to grocery shop when I got back from home after Thanksgiving break.  I also bought a Best of the 80s compilation album for $7 that came in a collector’s edition (read: completely impractical) metal box.  I can’t remember what it was on that CD that sold me, but there was a particular track that I wanted.

So I went running this morning with my earbuds and my earband and my new shoes and I didn’t have much muscle pain but about 5 minutes in I recognized that the new shoes with ankle socks was going to be a problem.  I pushed through the pain (which was worse when I walked, so running was easier, in a way, and it also dulled the other pains) and hauled myself back upstairs.

Slight miscalculation, maybe, as I'd painted the heels of my socks red.  Ah, life’s little lessons.  I showered (ouch), neosporin’d and bandaided my ankles, and put on bobby socks to wear with my usual sneakers.  It has done the trick reasonably well.  I’m not in any blinding pain and these bandaids ought to be sufficient for when I run again, which means another trip to Walmart. 

I feel very awake when I run, which is nice.  I’m typically a night owl, which means I’m losing some of my time at night but really not much productive time or time in general if I go to bed between 11:30 and midnight.  The soreness is painful but I’m kind of proud of it.  I’m nervous about next week which is 90 seconds of running with 2 minutes of walking.  Which divides out wrong, but I guess I’ll do six repeats and clock in a little bit above 20 minutes.

Besides, with the 8 minutes of running I might be approaching a mile, even if it isn’t all at once.  The best part is that it doesn’t hurt in any prohibitive ways, at least not yet.  And I feel good.  I like the thought that I can still eat the food I love (versus the no sugar diet that I tried in the beginning of the year, which was fantastic in some ways but never would have lasted long-term), but the interesting phenomenon, at least right now, is that I don’t really want to in the same way.  Making the investment in running makes me want to not undo it, so my intake of sugar has been kind of limited which I think is kind of cool.

I occasionally think that I’m not doing enough in terms of exercising, but I have to remind myself that I’m running to my own point of fatigue, that I have to build up endurance first, that I need to not be impatient with myself in this first (second, third, fourth) week.  Everything takes time to get results.

I’m sort of excited about my results.  This is a habit that I can cultivate, maybe, and it’s an easier long term commitment (for me) than giving up sweets. :-)

the rollercoaster week

So here I am.

Lying on my bed on a Saturday afternoon, I find myself leaning toward describing the time of day as evening instead, because, after all, it is nearing that time in December when the length of daylight reaches its extreme.  As the clock ambles toward tomorrow, the light coming in through the window is feebler and feebler, oblique and grey – not that it ever did quite reach the brilliant light of sunbeams today.  It’s been a cloudy, quiet Sunday, with more of a sort of dozing, lazy, fat feel than anything else.

It’s weather like this that makes me glad for my auxiliary lamps; you know, the ones that are more orange than white.  The pale, sad light from outdoors reminds me what living in the northeast is like in the winter, and makes me retroactively glad for cold, crisp days when the sun cast short, solid shadows on the ground in front of me.  The really pretty autumn days are gone now and it feels like the weather is just waiting for the temperature to finally turn cold enough to blanket the browning, graying ground in white.

The leaves are all the same shade of brown now instead of brilliant variations from red to yellow, and they are sort of halfheartedly crunchy underfoot when I walk to school, down a hill and along a rather scenic sidewalk and then up another hill, so that I feel a little burn in my calves and every day I swear that maybe today – maybe TODAY – will be the day that I start running.  Unfortunately the idea of running is still so repulsive to me that I have never taken myself up on my proposal.

And it’s this kind of weather that makes me glad not only for that warm glow of the lamps, but for the dominant color in my apartment.  The bold pink warms it up in here, and I wrap myself cozily in rose-patterned blankets and a set of pink sheets that have a flower pattern unfurling on them.  I’ve finally stopped opening the windows at night to sleep, because the temperature outside is finally outwitting the smothering heat that has been constantly emanating from the little vents since mid-October.  Indian summer, indeed.  Not hot enough, but long enough.

So I sit here and I think about grading, but when I was considering it a minute ago – I can’t hold anything in my head today – all I could find was absolute revulsion at the thought of starting to read papers and mark them up in red pen.  And then I thought I should clean the bathtub – I still should.  I have half of a television show watched, and I remembered that I wanted to do some writing.

I think it is fairly clear which of my options won out.  After I’m done here – and it’s been such a long time since I’ve felt the pull to write and pour some of this stuff out so that I can remember it later, and such a long time since I felt my friends, the words, come help me out with it, that the combination of disuse and sheer amount of memory that aches to be committed to something other than my poor bloated mind makes it impossible to gauge how long I’ll be here, like this – I will almost surely clean my bathtub.  Then I will probably not be able to resist, and I’ll take a bath, and then and only then will I really start to reconsider grading.

In any case, it feels very alien to me right now.  If I felt like I was drifting, floating, aimless and unaware before, I only feel more like that now.  There is an entire reading week here, and that’s a little bit frustrating if we’re honest, because I have a week during which I have nothing to do but sit around and study, so maybe I’ll start my Christmas shopping and rack up that frighteningly high bill at the bookstore.  I have joined a group in name, but “nothing is official yet” – how many times have I heard THAT these days?  too many, certainly – and I have been told to concentrate on my classes.

Well.  I’m going to do my best, but the fact is, I cannot entertain myself for that long.  Maybe I’ll go back to writing.  I used to write an awful lot more than I do now, back when I was in high school and I thought that I was a poet and a mathematician and a wordsmith.  Well, lately I haven’t felt much like any of those things, although I do still have a very soft spot for numbers in my head.  In fact, I’ve been weeding out my friends-list lately (on facebook), and... you know what?  New paragraph.

So anyway.  I promise this ties into what I was just talking about.  So a few days ago and again today, I felt fed-up with the sheer amount of junk in my facebook newsfeed, and I started to wonder to myself why I kept these people around.  Would they notice if I cut them loose from my digital life?  Did it matter if they did?  Let’s be honest, here: if I’ve never had a meaningful conversation *in my entire life*, why should I care if someone is offended that I cut him or her from my friends-list?  So I purged a bunch of people, and I almost got a rush from it.  It was addicting, to drop fake digital friends like babyweight.  Okay I just did that because I thought it was a hilarious analogy.  Moving on.

I guess that was only tangentially related, because the point was going to be that each time I scoured that list, parting myself from the dull ache of guilt at clicking that button, I came across Tony Perkins’s page and it made me wonder how he is doing and if he does anything cool with math these days and – you know what?  This is a real stretch so I guess I’ll try to rope myself back around so that I can deal with the meat of this entry.  I hope you’re not already full on hors-d’oeuvres.

The semester is over.  Well, not officially, you know, I’m still waiting a week to be administered a set of three exams, and I have 23 lab reports to grade, and there are a couple of “oh-no-we’re-so-behind” classes being held next week that everyone is going to grumble about, but for the most part, classes officially ended last week and now I’m in this strange limbo.

Not starting to work yet, just amusing myself; sitting around and studying.  It almost makes me wish for the days when I didn’t have any time to do things, because at least then I felt productive.  This feels all stilted and uncomfortable and wrong, and because of that I can just feel that I’m not going to do the studying that I really need to do.  I suppose I should write myself a schedule, but I’ll probably end up ignoring it anyway.

I used to think I’d really miss classes.  I still think I probably will, to some extent.  I’m not sure how it’s going to feel to just do lab work all the time... good when it’s going well, bad when it’s not, you know... but I am just so tired of the same lecture --> exam redux.  Especially since the exams have really been something else lately.

All right.  So, maybe a quick list of things that I have learned again, because that went so well the last time I did it.

Buying food and eating it before it goes bad is the hardest thing I have ever had to do.  It is actually really depressing.  I’m thinking about just eating everything out of the freezer or a can.  I actually sometimes just ignore food in the fridge because I’m too scared to look at it.  Eventually I do look at it and deal with it and it’s usually not the end of the world.

My first year class really is kind of nice, and I feel sort of close to my peers.  This is almost a shame, because soon we will disperse to our own little labs in our own little corners of the building and rarely see each other again, but the camaraderie that we have developed has helped us complain about many an unfair (perception? perhaps) exam.

Nica’s has good sandwiches.  Yum.

Now that we all know each other, we don’t do that experimental alpha thing where everyone tries to indicate to everyone else that “I am the smartest”.  Hush.  No you’re not.  Sit down and learn from people around you.  This is a skill that is going to benefit you in the long run.  Even if you are the smartest person in the room, you don’t know everything that everyone else knows.  There is always something to learn.

The iPhone is nice.  I like it a lot.  Occasionally – because it has, in many ways, supplanted my computer use – I have to adjust to actually typing a period when I end my sentences.  It’s okay.  I haven’t forgotten where it is – yet.  Sometimes I leave the sound on because I find the simulated tapping of keys so satisfying!  (clickclickclickclickclickclickclick)

Keeping an open mind is the best thing that you can possibly do.  Nothing is final.  Nothing is set in stone.

And with that in mind, I could survey the semester for you, but I don’t think I will, because we don’t have that kind of time.  It’s been a kind of whirlwind without being a whirlwind, a game of figuring out how to fit your pauses in with the action, how to deal with big gaping holes in your days.  It’s been a real game for me of playing my cards.

I always like to think of my life in terms of “playing cards”.  I put the expression in quotes because I don’t actually know how to play cards, so I think I have some kind of bastardized game of poker in my head where my thoughts or attributes or decisions are in some set of cards that I pick at every now and again.  I like to think of it in terms of the consequences if I play this card, or I’m holding back this card because I know when I play it, it will be spectacular!  And some of my cards I keep plastered so close to my chest that I don’t plan to let anyone see them, and when I think of it all as part of this big game that doesn’t really have rules, it makes everything a little more fun.

I guess you might say that my semester has been an exercise in changing perspectives.  The same mind-over-matter (or in my case, conscious-over-subconscious) mentality that served me well at ESF managed to punch me through initial less-than-positive first impressions of people, and by the time we’d all settled into our respective places, I was very comfortable.  After a summer of working for Seth, I was set to sign myself off to him.  I had had a good time this summer, getting to know people, keeping busy in the lab, working nice long hours and occasionally going out with the group, if the group went out.  It was a net-positive experience.

When all of the first-years came together, I was eyeing everyone who wanted to do synthesis.  After all, Seth only wanted to take a couple of people, knowing that he was space-limited and that the group was nearly optimal size for his advising technique.  I didn’t know who else did what I wanted to do, so I kept my eyes open – but I kept my claws in that group.

When there were faculty presentations, I listened very closely to Andy’s presentation, looking for the same points that we’d talked about a number of months previously.  That first night of recruiting weekend when he’d sat down next to me at dinner, and I caught a glimpse of his nametag; I realized with a little jolt of pleased shock that this was the man that one of the students at Notre Dame had whispered to me about – “Listen, I know we’re not supposed to be advocating other schools, but when you visit Yale you should talk to Andy Phillips.  He’s really good.  We watch what he does.”

At some point I mentioned this exchange, toning down the under-the-table aspects of it, and Andy looked very flattered – just really pleased – by it, and told me that he was very impressed by Richard Taylor and would have returned the favor.  I remember that dinner the most vividly of anything that weekend, the quiet roar of conversation in the background, the white wine glistening in wineglasses across the room, the carefully folded linen napkins and the nearly constant attention of this lovely, engaging man in the square-rimmed glasses, with the quiet voice that rose and fell in cadences that were just this side of familiar, because New Zealand sounds a bit like Australia while still somehow sounded completely different; the only other thing I remember with great lucidity is recalling that I’d left my scarf in Spiegel’s office, but when I went back for it, it was gone.

Anyway, I digress.  I was listening to Andy’s presentation, and I felt a little bit sad after it was done, because he hadn’t really mentioned synthesis at all.  Occasionally I wondered if he remembered who I was; if he had remembered the girl who had sat next to him at dinner at the Quinnipiac Club and talked about the philosophy of total synthesis, if he could match my face to hers, if he knew my name at all.  Nevertheless, I was still going to rotate with him when the time came.

My first rotation was with Seth, and with that rotation came the familiar feeling of belonging and familiarity and I stopped in a couple of times, but for the most part I didn’t rotate at all, having had a very good idea of what was going on in the group and wanting to spend my afternoons in the books for the first exams that were starting to rain down on me.

My second rotation was with Andy.  It was sort of funny, the way this worked out.  I had a meeting with Seth before I met with Andy, because Seth wanted to touch base once more before he was off to Japan for about a month and wouldn’t be back to talk before Thanksgiving break.  So I went and sat down with Seth and talked with him frankly about what I, in the smattering of understanding that I’ve managed to gain, want out of my PhD.  And we discussed potential projects and I was very careful to always say ‘if’ instead of ‘when’.  But I was still so sure that I was going to join that group, was going to amass my own collection of little solvent reservoirs and TLC chambers and cut TLC plates and (well honestly I’m probably still going to do all of that) everything.

Then Seth went out of town, and I finally caught up with Andy, having had conflicts with the better part of the first week of the rotation.  He was pinch-hitting a lecture for Spiegel, in synthetic methods, and afterward I approached him.  He looked at me and said, “Oh, we need to meet.  Today isn’t good... how about tomorrow at one?”  I agreed.

The next day, I turned up in his office and he talked to me for an hour and a half or two hours, revisiting his philosophy on synthesis, talking about what he wants to do and how he wants the group to run.  I sat and listened, and felt a little breeze start to tug at my internal weathervane, murmuring that maybe my mind wasn’t quite made up yet – maybe my direction wasn’t chosen.  We had a very good talk.

Later that day, I received an email from one of the girls in Andy’s group, inviting me along to dinner the next week so that I’d have a chance to meet the group.  I said I’d love to come along, and the time was set.  I arranged another meeting with Andy that day, to talk about how my interests lock in with the group, to make sure (to make sure?  am I really thinking in these terms?  I kept asking myself what I was thinking, but got no answers) that I wouldn’t be relegated to chemical biology when I wanted to do organic synthesis, to find out about target selection.

I sat down with him, and he came over to sit at the little table with me, toting a number of papers.  He flipped through them, pointing out targets and how they fit with the group philosophy; precedent and developed chemistry in the group, etc.  I felt kind of starry-eyed at this point, and I gave the targets my full attention.  Eventually the conversation lapsed into how classes were going and how I was feeling about the selection process.

Andy told me how highly he thinks of Seth, and how I would be studying under a really good person for synthesis if I joined Seth’s group.  “I would be a little bit disappointed not to have you,” he said, “but I wouldn’t be upset at all if you went with Seth.”  I wrote this off – as I cautiously write everything off – as routine advertising banter.  Later, though, he shot me this look, hesitated briefly (an oddity for him), and finally said “All right.  To be perfectly frank, I would really like it if we could kind of twist your arm and get you to join the group.”  I was, at this point, immensely flattered and also incredibly conflicted.

Dinner was a bit awkward, as these things often are when you don’t know people very well.  It wasn’t bad, though.  I sat next to Candice, who was really nice, and I caught wind of a synthesis “course” Andy was teaching to his group twice a week, which was presumably because he had realized, when he pinch-hit for Spiegel, just how far behind we were.

The weekend after my meetings was the Halloween party, which Herman and I left early because we wanted to go to an improv show that one of the undergrads from Seth’s group was performing in.  We walked down to old campus together; the night was dark and cool but not cold, and besides, I was wearing my green peacoat.  On the way, we started discussing the selection process, because the selection itself was a month away, and I told him that I was actually starting to waver between Seth and Andy.

“Oh really?” he asked, looking surprised.  “I thought Andy didn’t do total synthesis – that’s what he told me.  He told me he didn’t want to take more people in total synthesis.”

“Oh,” I said, a bit stunned and also feeling a bit like I’d really stepped in it this time, but it wasn’t MY fault Andy had told Herman something that he hadn’t mentioned to me.  “That’s funny.  I don’t know at all why that would be.”

“Well,” said Herman, very sincerely, “Maybe he just knows that you’re... special.”

I tried awkwardly to turn this away, because I’d worked so hard to keep my grades under wraps and didn’t want to take the alpha position by storm, and murmured something about how maybe I just had a chip on my shoulder about the whole thing because I expected to be underestimated because I came from a state school.  We lapsed into silence for a few steps, and then...

“You’re really considering it, aren’t you?” asked Herman.  He is very insightful sometimes and it is a bit nonplussing.  “You’re really flattered by it, and you’re really considering it.”

“Yes, Herman,” I admitted, for the first time, even to myself, “I guess I am.”

It turned out that the auditorium was full, so Herman and I bought ourselves ice cream and walked back to Science Hill.

A few days later I got around to emailing Andy about this course.  It was a carefully-worded email, to let him know that I would like to come if it was all right with him, worded to let him know that I was aware that my current situation was inadequate but that I had zero intention of stirring up waves, that I would keep it quiet and perhaps just the tiniest bit to let him know that I had this burning desire to learn.  Also I threw a pun in there to be funny.

Luckily, he either likes puns or likes me enough to put up with them, because he replied the very next morning with “That's AOK with me, and your e-mail provided a smile after ~30h straight
with work and travel back from the UK.”  It was bookended, naturally, by salutations and whatever it’s called at the end of the letter/email.  It made me smile, and that very day I picked myself up and headed off to a synthesis class that lasted two hours and was jam-packed with material.

Over the next few weeks, I dealt with some serious angst, because I did not know where to ultimately go for the next four years (although I’m writing this with such a strong slant now that even if you didn’t know the end, you know it now).  I went to the class twice a week, along with my other responsibilities, but the life of a first semester graduate student is filled with so many pauses that making it fit was no stretch at all.  And I really started to look forward to going to this class that wasn’t any pressure at all, just a chance to pick up more knowledge.

Then Thanksgiving break hit, and I hightailed it home with the very best intentions of making a decision while I was home.  I waited for the inevitable email with directions about this next big step, I went out and bought a new phone whose screen was visible (I think the LCD conked out on my old phone), and I did some walking, some reading, some napping and a whole lot of hanging out with DJ’s new friend – is it weird to call her that? sounds weird – Keirsten.  I had my picture taken, I talked things out once or twice with my parents, and I went to ESF to visit, just for one day.

I had my hands semi-full with people who I just didn’t really want to see, but I managed to avoid them, and I talked to FX for a few minutes, briefly bumped into Adam, had an absolutely lovely lunch with Justine, and went upstairs to sit in Caluwe’s office and talk just like I used to do every now and again, sporadically, while I was an undergrad there.

I felt so entirely split – that internal compass that had been so clearly indicating Seth had been decalibrated by some colossal magnetic force and the arrow was splitting the difference between Seth and Andy.  I felt incredibly torn, and I didn’t know where to turn to make my decision.  I don’t think I ever actually cried about it, but I spent a lot of time feeling tremendously nervous, my stomach threaded through itself in knots.

So I drove back to school on Sunday night, finally leaving around 7:30 and arriving back at my apartment at 12:30am.  I slipped into bed, dropping all of my bags on the floor around the door.  I woke up to the most welcome email I could have imagined – the paper with the project that I’d done with FX was accepted for publication!  I’m going to be a PNAS author!

So, drunk on the success of the moment and the potential of the future, I slipped into my sneakers and skipped down the little asphalt path down the hill behind my apartment, gliding through the gate and thinking-thinking-thinking about who to choose and how very wonderful life was at that moment.  Upon entering the classroom, I dropped my bag in the front, next to Herman, and sat down.  We exchanged hellos, and moved on to talking about breaks, and I even mentioned the paper, and then he dropped the bomb on me.

“So did you hand your decision sheet in?”

“Um,” I said, and I’m sure I went white as all of the blood rushed right down to my feet.  “The decision sheet.  Am I supposed to have that?”

“Oh,” he said, “You didn’t get the email either?”

“Um, no,” I said, feeling very upset, trying to quash the rising panic in my torso.  I didn’t want the answer to the next question, but I knew I had to ask it.  Miserably, I looked at him and asked, “When are they due?”

“By the end of the day today,” he said, starting to look away but then swinging his gaze right back to me.  “Do you still not know whose group you’re joining?”

“No,” I said, dejectedly, and I felt the panic and the despair start to suffuse my face with that embarrassing red glow.  “No, I really don’t, and now I have to TA and I need to talk about it with people and there’s just no time... I have to...”

“Go talk to Susan,” he said, “She can give you another sheet.”

So I sat in advanced organic on Monday, feeling miserable and taking absolutely nothing in as my mind went “Seth or Andy? Seth or Andy? Seth or Andy? Andy or Seth?”  Eventually I moved on to saying “I’m going to join Seth’s group” or “I’m going to join Andy’s group” to myself, and as I said it, I really tried to believe it.  As I tried to believe it, I plumbed right down to the depths of myself, as if to ask “anything?  are you feeling anything?”

Nothing.

After class, which blessedly ended about 10 minutes early, I ran to the office.  I hadn’t quite prepared a speech, so I just slipped in, my hands sweating (and probably my face, too), feeling out of breath because of the nervous racing of my heart, adrenaline needlessly pumping itself throughout my poor trembling body.  Susan saw me and asked if she could help, and I said, “Um, yes, I think... do you have any extra decision forms?  Because I guess mine is due today and, um, I didn’t get the email so, um, I don’t have...”

She gave me a very appraising look and said, “You did three three-week rotations?  That’s what you signed up for?”

My blood turned to ice as I remembered the form.  I remembered it well.  I remembered the four blanks that they left us to list our choices and I remembered wondering why there were four when I was sure we only did three but I put four names down because DARN IT THERE WERE FOUR LINES AND WHY WOULD YOU GIVE US FOUR LINES and I said "Um, well, yes?  I mean I was a little confused, because there were four lines, but I thought... I mean I just figured that since I was organic / synthetic / prep chemistry that I was supposed to just do the three when I thought about it later," and all of the wind went out of my sails because I realized that it was, in fact, my fault that I didn't get the email and that there was nothing I could do now.  I had no high ground, no pedestal... I was going to have to make the knee-jerk decision by the end of the day, worrying about it while I watched my students take their final exam.

Then Susan absolutely leveled me with this no-nonsense, how-dare-you-disturb-the-system look and said "Well, the next time you're confused, you should just send me a little email.  That will keep things from getting all tangled up."  She stalked over to the copier to get me a copy of the form, and as she handed it to me, I thanked her.

“Does... should I bring this back... by... the end of the day?” I asked, crossing my fingers.

“Yes, that should be fine,” she said, and my heart sank further.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, “I didn’t realize and I feel just terrible about it,” because I really do like Susan and because no one wants a secretary to be angry with her.  And I was flustered and my eyes were bright because I was about ready to cry, I was so scared, and my emotional state suddenly sent a blip across her radar because her whole demeanor softened and she smiled at me and said, “Oh, no, don’t feel bad, that’s the last thing I want, is to make you feel bad about this.  Would you rather bring it back tomorrow?  I don’t think I’ll do anything with them today, anyway.”

“Yes,” I gasped, “Yes, that would be just wonderful.  I can have it back to you first thing tomorrow morning.  I can have it to you before nine.  Thank you so, so much.”  She waved off my effusive, loquacious thanks and I ran off to TA.

I walked home, having finished proctoring the exam, and I gave my mother a call, and my father a call, and later I called them both.  And I talked about it, letting everything finally spill out, not holding any of my pros or cons back, no matter how inconsequential or irrelevant they seemed, because this was my last chance and I was desperately throwing everything I had against this wall because I wanted to make the choice, not have it made for me.

Somewhere along my verbal diarrhea about this and that, time and support groups and compatibilities and personality types, that weathervane of mine flipped completely around and I found myself leaning so thoroughly toward Andy that I took the decision and I ran with it.  At around 10:00pm that night, I finally finished filling out my sheet, looking Andy up online quickly to make sure I didn’t insult him by using the wrong number of Ls in his last name, and I signed my name, and I went to bed, feeling emotionally wrung out, but vowing to get up early enough to try to catch Andy the next morning.

You see, the awkward thing about the decisions is that you rank your top choices.  They tell you that basically everyone gets his or her top choice, but the fact of the matter is that that isn’t true.  Now I was never scared, exactly, of not getting my top choice.  I was fairly certain that it was a sure thing, but the miniscule chance of something not going according to plan would land me with my number 2.  Now, there isn’t anything wrong with my number 2.  I would have been happy there.  It is just the awkwardness of him knowing that he was my second choice.  So I wanted to touch base, to hedge my bets.  I wanted to know that I was safe from that kind of crippling embarrassment.

So I arrived at school at 8:30 on Tuesday morning and sat myself down in the little second-floor lounge.  I waited 20 minutes, but he was not there.  I stood up and said to myself, “Well, Shannon, you’re flying blind.  Go get ‘em.”  And I handed in my sheet.  Tuesday was the day that I remembered I’d left my grading at home, and that sends a nasty panic-shock to your system.  I called Mom, and she saved the day.

I’d worn new flip flops that day, and they tore my feet up so that I was in agonizing pain.  Claire and Herman and I holed up in room 102 to work on the problem set for Spiegel, and we stayed there for 10 long hours, studying and working.  At 11:30, I packed up my books, hobbled out on my now-frozen feet (it poured and the weather turned cold), hopped into my car, and eventually made it to bed.

On Wednesday I tried my best to go have a talk with Andy.  I hovered around his door for a few minutes following the end of my TAing semester, but he had someone else in there and I didn’t want to interrupt.  I sat in that lounge for a few minutes again and sent him a very clever little email from my phone; I told him I’d missed a couple of classes over Thanksgiving and was wondering if he could let me know what I’d missed and if I could stop by and pick up the notes.  If he’d responded, I could have dropped right into his office like the awkward stalker I was and picked up my notes, and then off-handedly said something equally awkward, like “hey so I made you number one, heh-heh, will ya take me?”

Well, he didn’t respond until the next morning, so I went home and studied, came back for an entirely unhelpful problem session that actually kept me from studying, and went back home and studied until I went to bed.  While in bed that night I remembered that I had a bill due the next day so I got up out of bed and ambled over to my computer to pay it.  Sitting in the dark, with the computer casting an eerie bluish glow over everything, I pulled up the bill...

...and it was $19,187.  So naturally I totally lost it.  I sent an email and made some phone calls in the morning, because my fellowship covers both tuition and hospitalization insurance, which made up $18K of the bill.  I decided to just pay my balance (rent and prescription coverage).  Turns out my fellowship was covering it.  Too bad they didn’t put that in my statement.

The exam was terrible.  That’s really all I have to say about that, is that those 75 minutes were not exactly exciting.  After the exam, I talked to some people and I considered going home, but I took my numb self upstairs to collect the notes from Andy.  Upon entering his office, I noticed that he had rearranged the entire thing to mount a 60” flatscreen television on his wall, and we wound up talking about that for quite a while.  He printed me the notes and demo’d his new television for me by pulling up a presentation – I have to admit it is pretty darn cool – and after I left I realized that I’d forgotten to have the talk that I’d set the meeting up for in the first place.  Darn.

There was a seminar that afternoon, so I went to Sandra’s coffee talk, where she presented her research to the visiting speaker (from Cambridge), and then to the seminar itself, and afterward I went out for pizza with most of my first year class, which was actually fun.

Phew.  I’m going to give myself carpal tunnel just from writing this one blog.

On Friday I got out of bed to go to Andy’s synthesis course, with full intentions of FINALLY talking to him about the whole thing.  I slipped into the little tiny room where he has to hold it on Fridays, and ended up sitting next to Lauren, another first year (in chemical biology, so she’s just starting her second eight-week rotation now).  After it was over, I hung around but so did she, and we had a brief exchange.

“So did you have to join a group?” she asked me.

“Yes, actually,” I said slowly.

Predictably, she followed up with “So who did you choose?”

“This one, actually,” I said quietly, not really wanting this particular conversation to be commented on before I had a chance to talk to Andy by myself.

“Oh!” she said, “That’s great!  Congratulations!  Where’s your desk?”

“Well,” I said, “It’s not official yet... I mean we chose on Monday so I haven’t heard anything yet and I don’t have a desk.”

“Are you going to dinner?  I think the group is going for dinner.  Let’s find out!”

And so, for the second time, I found myself leaving without having talked to Andy, slipping into the bay furthest down and talking to Diane and Katelyn.  They invited me along readily, smiling brightly at me, and we had some conversation about grades and teaching and classes and first year.  At some point Ben entered the mix, because apparently Katelyn keeps candy in one of her desk drawers, and he raided it and then joined the conversation.

Because we were going to go to Red Lobster, I really needed to get cash and to change my clothes, so I began to excuse myself and in the commotion that sort of followed Ben gave me one of those friendly, open smiles of his and said “Well, welcome to the group, Shannon!”

That halted me in my tracks a bit, and I turned and smiled back and said, “Oh, thanks!  Is that official?  Do people know now?”

Suddenly everyone was sort of half-smiling, spitting out halting, stilted half-sentences that mostly consisted of “well, we’re not supposed to say anything” and “but it’s not official yet”.

I sort of dug my heels in, standing half in the doorway there, and said, “Oh, is it not set in stone?  Are things still changing?  I might not end up here?”

The half-conversation continued to swirl in the room before dying slowly down, settling to the floor like feathers, and Ben looked at me, a half-laugh in his voice, and said, “I’ll just say that if you don’t end up in the group, it’s because there was a swordfight.  And Andy lost.”

This made me laugh and feel all pleased so after a few more perfunctory conversational exchanges, I slipped out to change clothes and pick up cash, but more importantly to slip into Andy’s office for what seemed like the thousandth time.  I knocked quietly on the half-open door and then entered, standing while he tried to figure something out.

“Oh,” I said, when he looked up at me, “I’ll be quick.”

“No, no, no,” he said, laughing, “I’d much rather talk to you than work on this.”

“So,” I said, twisting my notes and notebook in my hands, suddenly very nervous because I didn’t actually know how to approach the subject.  “So, you have the list now, right?”

He somehow knew exactly what I was talking about, which seems miraculous to me, looking back on it now.  “Yes,” he said, his face easing into a little smile, “I have the list.  And I was very, very pleased to see your name on my list.”

The knots in my stomach that had been loosening all day suddenly untangled and I felt my mood suddenly soar.  “Oh!” I said, “Oh, good!  I’m so glad to hear that – well, you know, because – well, I had a hard time with the decision, you understand, and I ended up making it later than I should have.  I meant to talk to you about it first – you know, touch base, hedge my bets – but I didn’t time it very well so I didn’t get the chance to.  And you know, I just thought it would be really awkward if you couldn’t take me and I ended up going to Seth anyway because he was my number two, right?”

After this veritable waterfall of words (I have a feeling I just sort of vomited them out too quickly), I looked back at him to see his expression change to a little bit shocked, a little bit disappointed... kind of horrified, actually.  And he said, “Wait... wait a minute.  Have I misunderstood something?  Did you... was Seth your... was I not... ?”

“No!  Oh, no no no!”  I said suddenly, laughing, “Sorry!! No, it’s all you, you were my number one, I made you number one, I want to work for you!”

He relaxed, grinned, leaned back in his chair again and said, “Phew.  That would have been a really terrible end to my week.  I was just so pleased to see that list.”

“Oh, good,” I said again.  “Yeah, I just wanted to touch base with you, for my peace of mind, you know?  I was just... nervous.  I wanted to make sure you’d take me.”

“Shannon,” he said, leaning forward on his desk, “I would never turn great students away.  They will always have a place in my lab.  And I was really impressed with you when I met you over recruiting weekend – what, that must have been eight or nine months ago now, but it feels like forever.”

I think it was at this moment that I remembered the full magnitude of the raging academic crush I’d had on him upon meeting him on that very same night.  He continued to say, “You should concentrate on Dave’s course for now, but when that’s over we should have a talk.  You should think a little bit about what you want to do – not pick a target, but just think about what you want out of your PhD and that will help me figure out how best to guide you.”

I just about died, I thought this was so cute, and I agreed to study (“but I don’t think you’ll be in any trouble,” he said).  “All right,” I said, and, getting ready to leave, I shot him a naughty little grin.  “Well, good.  Just... just don’t trade me away, okay?”

“I will not trade you away,” he said.

“Good talk!” I said (he may find out that he doesn’t quite know what to do with me), and he thanked me, and I skipped off to call my parents and gush about how excited I was about everything and to get cash and change my clothes.

I had scallops, shrimp, and stuffed flounder at Red Lobster.  It was good, and it was fun, and it was less awkward and I started to try to adopt this new group and just felt like I loved everything.

And I remembered so many things, and started to think that those emails were not just an impersonal recruiting technique, but that Andy had actually really been invested in having me come to Yale.  That the time that he called me from his house and I sat in that recliner in Christina’s house with a notepad that she handed me and a pen, and I took notes as I listened to him talk and asked him questions, and I just felt so special in that moment because a professor at YALE was calling ME.

I remembered how much I loved him, and it all flooded back to me.  It’s not that I don’t like Seth or that I don’t appreciate what he did for me last summer or that I wouldn’t have been happy working for him or that I didn’t have a good time.  It is just that I am absolutely fanatic about Andy and I love everything he does and the heart he has for teaching and his advising style.  I just love everything about him, every philosophy of his and I am so excited to start working for him and to find out how much I can learn from him.

Him and his cute square-rimmed glasses and his quiet voice and his so-adorable-it’s-stupid accent and his crooked smile.  Augh.  Okay.  I’m going to go get his number from that email and put it into my phone.  I lost it when I got the new phone.  ANYWAY.

I’ve been on a Toto kick.  Been listening to Africa a lot.  Been prone to random fits of paralyzing giddiness where I just feel so happy that I lie back and just let myself feel happy.  And so it was that a really rough week turned into one of the highlights of my life so far.