putting them down

There was some inspirational quote going around the other year or so and it was like, a glass of water is really heavy if you carry it around all day, so why do you carry it around? It's that 'let it go' advice.

Well, if you don't mind, I have been carrying a few things around lately, and I want to let them go.

1) This kid at L's bus stop doesn't want Hilary to be president because she wants to be the first woman president. (She's a third grader.) I want to yell at her. I want to say this is why feminism has a PR problem, this is why women don't help each other out. There is room at the top for all of us. Hilary doesn't have to lose for you to win. Why isn't your mother teaching you this? You can be an amazing woman while other women are also amazing. They can be amazing in a completely different way or the exact same way. Your success does not depend on someone else's demise. Why aren't we teaching our children this? Why aren't we teaching our girls this? (She's in third grade. I don't actually say any of this to her.)

2) but her DAD on the other hand. Is a Bernie-bro, who thinks that if Bernie does not win the election he should run as an independent. This I did not keep my mouth shut on. No. that would be THE WORST THING. The last thing we want is to split the democrats and end up with Donald Trump as president.

3) It's hard to find a community. I'm trying to be a part of the Duke Grad Parents, but I went to one event and they're all a) married and b) have babies. I am not married, and I do not have a baby. and some of them have 3+ kids, and that's great, there is nothing wrong with 3+ kids, but while I have very little in common with people that are a) married and b) have babies I have even less things in common with people that c) actually choose to have more than 3 kids.

related, 4) so the Single Grad Parents decided to get together (there are 4 of us). One of them is married, but her husband is deployed so...gray area...one of them wanted to get together for a play date during the day on a weekday, and their custody situation is 'up in the air' so who knows what their deal is, and the other...has a baby.

5) I'm really not as anti baby as I seem. I love babies. Two of my best friends are having babies.

6) Grad school + parenthood + being me is hard. I think each of these things are hard but all of them put together is the worst thing in the world. I wish I could be more articulate and make some gorgeous analogy to flavors and harmonies and things that are unexpected but work really well together and one of those metaphors that make it seem like it's actually a good thing and this is somehow a super power and I am secretly spiderman but nooooo. Grad school is so hard and parenting is so hard (despite having the easiest most perfect kid that does not want to be president if anything that makes it worse because literally the only thing I have to do for her is feed her and clothe her and NOT BE A JERK ALL THE TIME and I can't even do that) and gosh, I am like, the least equipped person for this. I barely made it through college! I am so lazy! I have no motivation! I cry at the drop of a pipet! I am not interested in anything! all of this is the worst combination in the world. Just an example of how these are the worst combination of things in the world: so 1) me, I'm lazy and horrible (character trait), so 2) my boss has decided that micromanaging me will help! (grad school) but 3) that actually makes me more stressed out (character trait) and a great solution would be for me to 4) be able to work on my own time, at say, night, because it would stop boss(grad school) from throwing me off when I'm in the middle of an experiment (which literally just happened which is why I am here writing, character trait) but I 5) can't because PARENTHOOD. and then that means 6) I'm miserable during the day (grad school + me) which means I 7) come home and am HORRIBLE to Lena (parenthood) which then means I am 8) unfocused at work (grad school) which then means my boss is more 9) annoying and literally if one of these things were different I think I could handle the other two, but I can't I have all three of them and I have no idea what to do. Probably stopping crying and writing this blog post and getting back to work would help. After I make a graphic that completely illustrates my life:

and they say that I'm not working on figures..

I just wish...I just wish I could get one part of my life under control. :(

the time of our lives.

Growing up is funny, ain't it? Filled with lots of learning and growing and...learning and growing.

In high school I learned about poetry. The stage. Sharing and performance and reading. And poets. Oh, oh, the poets.

In college I learned about uhmm...cooking. And the importance of protected sex. 

And now. Graduate school. Graduate school is this amazing combination of paralyzing insecurity and exciting ideas and one minute you're flying and the next falling but the best part, the best part...the best part is the friends.

Between the falling and the flying there's someone that's right there next to you falling and flying with you. 

I passed my preliminary exam today, so I'm officially a PhD candidate. (oh that reminds me gotta go change my email signature...brb....ok back.) And the best part, the best part...well. 

Aspen sent me a pie, a pie! From Pie in the Sky! From WOODS HOLE. Aspen sent me a PIE. from PIE IN THE SKY. 

When I opened the air mail box from Woods Hole, Massachusetts, I immediately then ran back to lab to grab my phone to inform Aspen that she had in fact, sent me a PIE, and throughout the lab I sang/squealed, PIE. ASPEN SENT ME A PIE. 

And Firas. Firas got me DIPPIN DOTS, because you know they are the MICROFLUIDICS OF ICE CREAM. And samosas. Because 90% of the time I talk about indian food. 

Pie. From PIE IN THE SKY. Dippin Dots. And samosas. 

Oh yeah, and friends. Those too. 

the elusive "all"

My parents didn't watch a ton of TV when I was a kid, so unlike a lot of my friends I don't have these nostalgia moments about Tom Brokaw or David Letterman. What I have a lot of nostalgia for is the opening bars to NPR's 'All Things Considered' intro music, to 'I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air.'

Yesterday on Fresh Air Terry Gross was interviewed by comedian Mark Maron, and she briefly discusses that she chose never to have children because she wanted to love her work and for her work to be her life.

And there's that trope again, that women have to choose between family and career, that it's impossible to have both, that we never can have it all.

I'm in graduate school. I love the project that is turning into my thesis project. Another student and I have dreams to start a company. We're thinking about ideas and names and sometimes it feels ridiculous and silly and other times incredibly real and serious. (Except I still really like the name 'Cuppa Bio' and Firas doesn't so idk.)

(Wait I can't let that go yet. Cuppa Bio??? That's like the best name ever. Cuppa Bio. Cuppa Bio. Like cup of bio? CUPPA BIO.)

Lena is seven. I have to run some ridiculous errand that takes me across town to a UPS hub. (Yay grad school!) Lena hovers at the counter, and is ridiculously chatty. For the first time in three years she brings up my ex: "I really miss that restaurant we used to go to with Alex." "The chinese buffet?" "Yeah, that one." I make orange chicken from Trader Joe's and over dinner we talk about whether or not evolution is 'easy,' and Fresh Air is on in the background. And giving my daughter Fresh Air? That's all. Sharing Terry Gross with Lena? That's having it all.

Our start up is a possibility, because I think we can do it. And Lena is so so so so fun. And I think this, this is having it all. This is it! This is all! You just have to have a kid when you're twenty and then everything will work out PERFECTLY. You love your work and be married to your work and have the best kid ever and that is having it all!

Except.

Except it's not. Because I don't have a partner. I love Lena and she loves me but every now and then, that's just not enough. I want to be loved loved. I still want to be loved.

I guess the crux there is the 'want,' right? It's not 'need.' It's just want. So still. Life is pretty sweet.

I used to think, "Let's just remove 'having it all' from our vocabularies." "Let's just be satisfied with what we have and not worry about living someone else's idea of what a perfect life looks like."

But now...now I can see it. I can see this impact and I can see Lena and I can see it all and I want it. I want it all, I want it all so so so bad, and I don't even care. I don't care that it's a myth and that it's unattainable and that it doesn't exist and it's all in my head or it's all in someone else's head, I am going to have it all.

Work that I love, a kid that I love, and I'm going to be loved.

That's it. That's all.

frivolity

I thought I broke my headphones today but I didn't, and I am very happy about that.






Sometimes lab is really hard and life is really hard and it feels like everyone wants so much from me even if it's just a biography and a picture of my daughter and these things are so overwhelming and anxiety inducing that I don't know what to do. My happy place is alone in my bed asleep but that doesn't work, that's called 'depression.' My new happy place is just learning. I'm isolating a bunch of bacteria for myself and it's wonderfully calming. Streaking them onto plate, noting colors and shapes, when colonies appear. Science! Life! The unknown!

Yesterday [two days ago, actually, I wrote this yesterday] I extracted DNA and PCR'ed up the 16S region and sent if off for sequencing and today [yesterday] I waited for results and got them. I can name these cells (babies) that I isolated (found), grew (raised), and save them. I'm not using our fancy label maker because anxiety attack, so I'm hand labeling my tubes, and with each label, each date and initial, it feels like I am labeling my anxieties: naming them, acknowledging them, putting them away.






I really am so happy that I didn't break my headphones, but with the news today I can't be happy about that, because of the news.

How does the news impact the delicate ones. It is hard to let myself be anxious and weird. Hard to let myself be silly over little things. Even harder when the news is the news.

There is so much outrage, so much anger, so much sadness and pain in the world. I want to not listen, but that is the definition of privilege. But it is hard to listen. It is hard to feel all of these things on top of the little things.

Headphones. Music. Drowning out the world. Drowning. Drowning. DROWNING.

Here. Listen to this song. Listen. Just listen.

i wouldn't want to do this without you

I have a friend that tells the most amazing stories. She's a little scatter-brained and kind of quirky about a few things, like she doesn't let her kids drink out of water fountains, and the weirdest things happen to her.

A few weeks ago she was working late at night and heard something in her fireplace, and it turns out there's a squirrel stuck in her fireplace. Instead of calling animal control, she decides to build an obstacle course/barricade a path to the door with couch cushions in order to shuttle the squirrel out. It worked, but her telling this story was so. amazing.

Today, it turns out her husband's grandfather is in the hospital because he was in a car accident. He's 95, and he really shouldn't be driving. She was telling me how her mother-in-law was telling her about the accident, (another car hit him) and that the other car was a big truck painted in camouflage. "So my mother-in-law thinks that he might not have seen the car, and I said, but it's not camouflaged to the ROAD, that's not how camouflage WORKS." She had me cracking up during gymnastics. I could not stop laughing, and I'm sure all the other parents thought I was insane.



I had a really demoralizing week. My project has hit a tough spot, I'm in a rut, a local minima. I talked with Aspen about it, and she said, "Think about something else to do, what else are you interested in?" and I, no lie, could not think of one thing. I've been so up this project's butt, that I could not think of one other thing that I was interested in, one other problem, one other question, the tiniest of experiments to do that could get me out of this rut. I went home early, and at 6:30, propped Lena up in bed with a movie and turned off the lights and just shut out the world.

I got a little bit out of my rut today---laughing about the "camo" truck helped. I also flipped through a textbook just to get some ideas, found a relevant paper to read. Then we got an offer for a play date and heels watching from some other friends.

Paul and Amy, have I talked about them here? They are going to get their own tag today because they are going to be a key part in this grad school thing. Paul and Amy both did grad school at UNC, Paul in my dad's lab. They left, did post docs, got TT faculty positions, and then came back here. Paul is now doing a project in my dad's lab. They're trying to clone in some mutation into yeast together and it's super cute.

So we go over to their house, and they ask how I am, because everyone always does, and I was just like, you know what? I'll be completely honest. I have no self-esteem right now, everyone else is smarter than me and I have forgotten how to have any sort of original thought.

And they walked me through it.

I told them an experiment I wanted to do, and they said, that's great, why haven't you done it? I said, because no one told me it was a good idea. Paul says, you can't need validation. Amy says, Paul needs so much validation. Paul says, that's true, but you still need to do the experiment.

It continues like this---I ask them a problem that Aspen has been thinking about, and Paul thinks it's doable. So I'm going to try it. Paul also expressed into words what my project needs: an assay. I don't have a good assay. He gave me a bunch of ideas about assays. I texted Aspen about her project idea and that I was going to try it tomorrow. She said, that's awesome.

This week I: cried, felt stupid, felt like I couldn't do this, went to bed at 6:30, wanted to give up.
Today I: came up with a new idea, got a couple ideas for assays, figured out what my next steps are going to be, started some cultures for a new experiment, got inspired, excited, ready to face the world again, also laughed hilariously at Belichick: "I handled the balls, we all handled the balls."

Gosh---------


How do we do this without friends? Luckily, thankfully, I will never have to find out.

2014 recap

Um. Suffice it to say, it has been a good year.

January: Did a thing which is now on the internet forever….I told an extremely private story in an extremely public place and it is now on the internet.

February: Started rotating in the lab that would eventually become my home lab.

March: Found a house to live in and decided to live on my own, just me and Lena.

April: Got the NSF fellowship, which never in a MILLION YEARS I thought I would win. It was one of the best feelings in the world. I woke up at 4 in the morning to check my email, and the first thing I did was email my dad. My parent's first reaction: "You're going to be a scientist." It's hard to say exactly what this means--that this was something they could be immeasurably proud of me for. It sounds weird, because it's just a thing and obviously they are happy and proud of me, but this was just such a good feeling. The best feeling.

There was a big down which was my rotation PI gave me some harsh feedback and that was really tough to hear, but also ok. (Mostly because I ended up joining the lab.)

May: Moved into my new house. HIRED MOVERS WHICH WAS THE MOST AMAZING EXPERIENCE. Officially joined my lab.

June: L finished kindergarten, first experience with summer camps.

July: Worked. I’m sure something else happened in July but I can’t think of anything exactly.

August: Lena started 1st grade! I get the Marcy Speer fellowship, a real honor: one second year from my program gets it each year. It serves as a reminder to be the best person I can be, in science and in service.

September: Gave my first talk to over 200 people! Went to my first conference as a grad student: the Lake Arrowhead Microbial Genomics conference with Aspen, Firas, and Lawrence, which was just amazing. Motivating, inspiring, + korean barbecue. Aspen, Firas and I grew really close, which turns out to make lab the funnest place to be on earth.

October: I turned 27. Went for a walk in the woods with Alex, which was just the most perfect thing. Continuing to love my lab and my science. (I think things started to work, or rather, I started to fundamentally understand my project.)

November: I gave a chalk talk for lab meeting, and I discovered that I love giving chalk talks. During said chalk talk I came up with an idea for a project that I started working on in earnest. I also started hanging out with the most amazing person ever, and that is really exciting.

December: A month for retrospection. I am loving my life, I'm making some friends that I think I will keep forever. The biggest challenge of this month and for the coming year is focus. My project moves in leaps and bounds, I am writing more and more. Lena is fun, so much fun. And this boy. This boy fills my life with music and is occupying a space in my heart that I had forgotten existed. If past is precedence, 2015 is going to be amazing. I cannot wait. See you all there.

the broadest impact

Unsurprisingly, given the news these days, I have been thinking a lot about race and privilege. I am confused and horrified by the lack of indictments for those responsible for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and heartbroken at stories of similar violence, brutality, and mistreatment of people of color by white people in positions of power. I want to protest, to show my solidarity, but I don't know how. Being able to protest is a privilege--as we see with the way police treat black and white protesters--but also taking the time out of lives and work in order to do so. It is a privilege that I believe we have the duty to exercise if we can. 

This also though, has made me think of what else I can do. 

Before now, I knew intellectually that race is still an issue in America. I don't think I fully understood the extent of that because it doesn't affect me on a daily basis. Except, maybe it does. At Duke University, there is one black person on my entire floor that is not a member of the janitorial staff, and he is a staff scientist. This is really troubling. 

A friend from high school, the amazing poet Kane Smego wrote this on facebook a few days ago, and I cannot get it out of my head. I've copied it all here. Emphasis is my own. 

He writes, 

First of all, it comes down to 2 possible viewpoints on the world that influence a person's opinion on what is most certainly the genocide of black men. You either believe that 

1.) All human beings are born with equal capacities for love, intelligence, and success. While you believe that all humans have free will and hold a degree of responsibility for their own actions, you realize that the large-scale patterns of incarceration, poverty, gang violence (since so many people want to use that as an example), police brutalization, and other forms of suffering are the result of massive structures of inequality. Because our nation has had written language since its inception (unlike the Greek Empire for many centuries), we also have the ability to examine our history in text and identify many of the events, policies, and mindsets that first created these massive structures. While they have been dismantled and have eroded in certain areas, these structures still stand like the skeleton of an ancient building that we still live inside of. In other words, you understand that millions of people aren't choosing to be poor, and brutalized, and locked up, but rather that there are larger forces at work which make these types of suffering much more likely to affect them. 

Or you believe that
2.) Different types of people from different races or cultural backgrounds have different capacities for love, intelligence and success. The large-scale patters of incarceration, poverty, gang violence, police brutalization are the result of their own choices, inherent flaws, or racial and cultural characteristics they receive at birth. We have a name for this second belief system or mindset, it's called RACISM. If you don't like being called racist, labeled a racist, or made to feel like a racist, then maybe you should examine your own belief system and thought process and re-evaluate your view on the nature of reality.

Gosh. You either believe that all humans are born with equal capacities for love, intelligence, and success, or you don't. And it is increasingly clear based on the current injustices that a shockingly large amount of the population whether knowingly or not do not believe this. And it's not their fault, really. By having NO black faculty members on our floor, NO black post docs or graduate students, you're sending a very clear message.

So what can I do?

I am on a fellowship from the National Science Foundation. (Or I will be, next year, semantics whatever.) And the NSF, in each grant proposal, each fellowship proposal, has a section titled "Broader Impacts" and they want to know what service you will do for the greater community. And I swear 90% of these sections are complete bullshit. Mentoring high school students, training undergrads, blah freakin' blah blah blah. I said something about going to my daughter's elementary school with a presentation of my work. One reviewer wrote, "I doubt the applicant will do this" or something to that effect and at the time I bristled with indignation because that reviewer doesn't know me! but let's be honest. I probably wasn't going to do it.

But now I want to.

Aspen, the other grad student in my lab brought it up at lunch. Let's put our time into underserved minority kids from Durham this summer. We put so much freakin' time into these pre-med duke undergrads (and if there is one population that does not need anything it is the pre med undergrads of duke university) why not put that time into a population that actually needs us? Where we can actually make a difference.

Science has SO MANY problems. America has an even bigger problem. But gosh, if I could do one thing that would help both of those problems, well, it would be a shame, the greatest shame, not to.

why we do grad school

There are so many disgruntled graduate students/post docs and there's a lack of faculty positions and I think the current graduate school/post doc (in the sciences) model is a bit outdated--we still do things the way we did when the NIH payline was at 30%, and it's now at less than 8% but it takes so long to change the way things are done so we can only hope that the good ones get out unscathed--and they do, the ones that are going to be successful are always going to be successful no matter what--but that's not the greatest reason not to admit that the system is failing a lot of people. 

But I don't know. I read this quote today and to me it was about my grad school experience. Like, right now I get to immerse myself in every single thing possible. Yesterday I spent most of the day reading ridiculous papers on microfluidics and magnetism. Because why the hell not? I wish this is how we talked about graduate school. 

Graduate school is your "selfish" years. It's the time to immerse yourself in every single thing possible. Be selfish with your time, and all the aspects of you. You are the most important thing. Your ideas, your time. Tinker with shit, travel, explore ideas. Love them a lot, love them a little, and never touch the ground. 

the work-life balance myth

I've got this great new outlook on life, where if there is something that I do not like, or something that bothers me, I've decided that it simply does not exist. Humidity, political attack ads, homework. They just don’t exist. It’s a great system.

The latest thing that just does not work for me therefore am moving to dismiss it entirely for the rest of my life: “work-life balance.”

Work-life balance is talked about ad nauseum on the internet. I think it’s because misery loves company. Or insecurity loves company. No one has it figured out so we look anywhere for people that do have it figured out and that is comforting, until we realize that work-life balance is so individualized that none of that helps. The 7-Year Postdoc was a really popular post ostensibly about how to have fun! while being really stressed out! But her descriptions of handling work-life balance sounded like a nightmare. On top of not having a partner to split 50-50 parenting, I'm not a stay-at-work-late kind of person. I am shit at compartmentalizing different parts of my life. So when I read this account of work-life balance, I was devastated. (That's way too strong a word. I was just kind of pissed at my lack of efficiency.)

So then I looked inward. And focused on Lena and focused on me and set up some play dates and made it through 5 seasons of Gilmore Girls in less than two months. (Actually when you think about that I have work-life balance completely under control. You don't make it through 100 episodes of Gilmore Girls without being incredibly efficient and extremely dedicated. Work ethic, who would dare say that I don't have one.) And then I figured it out.

There is no work-life balance.

It just doesn't exist. Mostly because for me, there is no work. It's just life. This is the life I chose, and I am the luckiest person in the world to be doing every day, what I love. Which is to say, living. And for me living happens to include, taking care of another human being, who I love (thank goodness because otherwise it would be harder), designing experiments, learning new techniques, reading papers, attending seminars, going to class, cooking dinner, cleaning the house, giving another human being some interesting experiences and cultural exposures, and taking care of myself. Ok so listing it all out like that seems really overwhelming but it's surprisingly not. The idea that there is no balance between all of these things is, well, liberating.

Since there's no work-life balance, there's definitely not a one-size-fits-all solution. 

Just like the 7-year postdoc lifestyle made me want to hurl, I'm sure my lifestyle is horrific to some. But it works for me. Some weekends I cook for the week and freeze meals and am very martha stewart. Some weeks I make ramen and chicken nuggets for me and Lena. Last week I forgot to remind Lena to turn in her homework and of course she forgot to turn in her homework, and it was ok. I've stopped doing dishes. L and I use paper plates and it is AMAZING, I just throw them away after we are done using them. I stopped making Lena elaborate lunches for school: she gets a turkey and cheese sandwich (with bread out of the freezer) and a bag of chips, applesauce, and a granola bar. Lena sleeps in my bed with me, because bedtime is some of the only uninterrupted time that I focus one-hundred percent on Lena, and I love it. Most of the time, I go to bed right after she falls asleep. It's early and I love it. Sometimes I wake up naturally before 5, and I'll get up and start the coffeemaker (all I have to do is flip the switch because I've filled up the machine the night before) and other times I wake up when my alarm goes off at 5:30. Early mornings are me time and making lunch time and watching an episode of Gilmore Girls time.

The balance part of work-life balance gives the impression that there is something to achieve. That I must devote some part of my day to watching the scales; to add and subtract things to reach and maintain the perfect level upon the ridiculous fulcrum that separates "work" and "life." Admitting that this balance just doesn't exist is the most wonderfully freeing thing I have done since...switching to paper plates.

I'm still figuring out how to do my best, trying to finish my biography of Grover Cleveland, etc, now instead of wasting a ridiculous amount of time on trying to maintain some absurd balance, I can focus my energy on doing my best. Being the best grad student I can be, being the best parent I can be, being the best person I can be. Because that is who I am, and that is my life. Balancing, optional.

bits and pieces

**I started this blog post on Sunday morning, and the original title was "living the mothereffin' dream". I think I was in a good mood.**

Thoughts that have been floating around my head the past few days/notes that I've written to myself:


2014-10-10:
You guys--I don't think I actually like molecular biology. (In the like, canonical sense of the world I mean what *isn't* molecular biology, in the same way that as soon as you use a plasmid you are doing synthetic biology but *synthetic biology* still means something very specific. Where was I? Oh yes--) So I don't think I like molecular biology that much. That level of mechanistic detail just doesn't drive me. But for some reason I love listening to talks about mitotic spindles...spindle pole bodies...microtubule dynamics. It reminds me of my childhood. Of sitting around the table listening to my parents talk. It just...feels like home. I had kind of a weird childhood.


earlier that day...

I can't stop thinking about how yesterday I pronounced 'annals' like *anals* in front of the really smart grad student in my lab.
— rachael bloom (@_rachaelbloom) October 10, 2014

I feel like that's an acceptable alternative pronunciation.
— rachael bloom (@_rachaelbloom) October 10, 2014

I mean I know you're supposed to want to be surrounded by people that are smarter than you but I'm starting to feel like the dumb one.
— rachael bloom (@_rachaelbloom) October 10, 2014

"The anals of grad school."
— rachael bloom (@_rachaelbloom) October 10, 2014

I mean seriously. Next time my PI gives a talk he's going to say, "Here's the smart one, here's the one that works hard, and here's rachael, the lab idiot." I mean everyone needs one. I'm the foil. The comic relief. The cautionary tale.


My favorite memory from a class in college...

In a human genetics lab we had to turn in a lit review thing about a genetic disease. I chose oculocutaneous albinism...because there was this great Science paper from 50+ years ago where these geneticists drew a pedigree from a Hopi Indian tribe in Arizona that had this crazy high incidence of albinism. The reason was this: albino people were held in high esteem by this tribe, and also because they were really light sensitive they had to stay inside all the time. So like, when all the men went hunting, the albino men would stay at home in their cabin things and you know, and then there is a really high incidence of albino babies being born. I love that story. Ok so--I wrote a report on this, and I was turning it in, and all the other papers were like, 10 + pages. Mine was 3. I mean I printed double-sided, but still I was SO WORRIED and I got really insecure about my assignment. But I covered everything I needed to cover! So then later, I get an A on it (like literally the only A I ever got in a science class I think because maybe I was so tickled by the subject matter) and I talk to the professor who was teaching the class, and she says Rachael, I was so worried when I picked up yours to grade because it was so much smaller than all the others, but you covered everything and you did a great job! 

I just went to find the paper, and I had forgotten the other great thing about it--the citation is "Woolf and Dukepoo, 1969" DUKEPOO.

Just call me Rachael "the village idiot" Bloom.

The reason all this came up...

I'm working on my grant for a class, and I am consistently under the page limit, because I've just said everything I've needed to say. But then I'm like, does anyone ever submit a grant that doesn't meet the page limit? I mean there's no rule against going under. Ok. back to work.

acceptance

I'm an up and down kind of person. The highs are high, the lows are low. It's not DSM worthy highs, not clinically depressed lows, but I don't seem to just have "bad" days and "good" days. Days are REALLY REALLY GREAT or really really horrible. Like last week I heard that I won another fellowship, and then this week I spilled coffee over everything in my car, so I just threw everything out on my driveway and cried in the front seat while Lena waited patiently and confused on the front porch for me to open the door.

Lab work is kind of the same. I never have run of the mill productive days, I just get these waves of malaise and unproductivity, and then suddenly everything clicks and I am incredibly productive.

I talk to my dad a lot about all of this; the good and bad days, and the productivity thing. His response is always the same, "you just need to work on being even-keeled." Last night, he brought L back to our house at 7 because I was having a VERY PRODUCTIVE as well as GREAT day and needed to ride the wave, and I articulated this to him, again. Then, for the first time he says to me, "Well, that's just the way you are, and you should just go with it."

It's that self-acceptance theme. The stop-giving-yourself-a-hard-time theme. The gotta-be-me theme. I can't express how thankful I am that I am in a place that forgives me the time of figuring this all out.

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program

.@NSFGRFP applications are open for 2015 fellowship year! Deadlines in Oct - early Nov 2014 http://t.co/niUUYdhoLk
— NSF Educ, Human Rscs (@NSF_EHR) August 13, 2014

August. School starts in a week and that means it's fellowship season!

Last year was my second year applying for the NSF GRFP (I applied the year before I started grad school), and I received the award. I think I spent more time scouring the internet for advice re: doing the application than you know, actually doing it, but I found it really helpful. A really great compilation of advice and essays can be found here.

Quick background on me: Biology major with a shitty GPA (3.2), acceptable GRE scores, and at time of receiving the award, in the University Program for Genetics and Genomics at Duke University. I worked for three years as a technician before starting grad school, with one first author pub and a couple other mid author pubs, annnnnnd I am a single parent. So I might be what you call an "unconventional" grad student.  

Here is my personal statement (relevant background, future goals), here is my research proposal, and here is my reviewer feedback.

The only piece of uniformly useful advice I can add is start early and get a ton of feedback from as many people as possible. Work on a narrative in your essays. I think so much of this process is random luck. I think it's important to remember that this is a fellowship, not a grant proposal.

That's all I have! (That's a total lie. I have so much more unsolicited advice. If you're feeling solicitous (or am I using that the wrong way?) you can feel free to find me on twitter, or some similar method of communication.) Hope it helps!

generous, but a little dirty

"Jacques wanted to be logical, even purely logical, while he considered me as being mainly intuitive. Which would not have disturbed me if he had not injected into his remarks a bit of irony, even scorn. But it was not enough for him to be logical. Nature also had to be logical, to function according to strict rules. Having once found a 'solution' to some 'problem,' it had to stick to it from then on, to use it to the end. In every case. In every situation. In every living thing. In the last analysis, for Jacques, natural selection had sculpted each organism, each cell, each molecule down to the tiniest detail. To the point of attaining a perfection ultimately indistinguishable from what others recognized as the sign of divine will. Jacques ascribed Cartesianism and elegance to nature. Hence his taste for unique solutions. For my part, I did not find the world so strict and rational. What amazed me was neither its elegance nor its perfection, but rather its condition: that it was as it was and not otherwise. I saw nature as a rather good girl. Generous, but a little dirty. A bit muddle-headed. Working in a hit-or-miss fashion. Doing what she could with what was at hand. Hence, my tendency to foresee the most varied situations..." 

-from A Statue Within, by Francois Jacob

My dad sent this quote to me over three years ago. I liked science then, I was doing science. I recall vaguely liking the idea of there not being a right answer, about there being room for error. About the importance of a feeling. Now I am a graduate student in microbiology. I can see the discoveries of Jacques Monod and Francois Jacob as brilliant, and I see and use their techniques every day.

I also imagine myself working with nature, not against her. I'm thinking about what the engineers are doing, the synthetic biologists. They are using her tools to trick her into giving up her secrets. My project is starting off just trying to ask her a question that she has never been asked before, and seeing if she will share with me.

Three years ago I found myself wanting to identify with Francois's nature. A rather good girl. Doing what she can with the best of intentions, no matter the outcome. A bit muddle-headed. I still do. Maybe this is what I want out of science. I don't want to prove anything to anyone. I don't want the glory of an I told you so. I'm not sure it even means anything to be right. I just want to go along my way. To do what I can with what is at hand. To be generous, but a little dirty.▪








I started writing this a few days ago, and since then have experienced the predictable ups and downs of the summer. Between my hormones and the heat, science is the strangest bedfellow. I am in love, I am enchanted, I am frustrated, intimidated, scared. Little life update: I have been anxious and stressed, despite loving what I am doing. I am snapping at Lena and not returning phone calls. Despite that, despite all of that, my daughter comes willingly into my arms, snuggles against me in her sleep. Despite all of that, upon arriving home late last night, tired, sweaty, I found four new comic books and a peach cobbler on my back porch. I am lucky the luckiest to be loved.

building

I've started collaborating with an engineering post doc, and it has been a really interesting learning experience. Our collaboration got off to a slow start. After the first couple meetings of sketching out experiments and work flows, they* had to go back to China, and then got stuck there with visa issues for two months. But even in that short time, I learned a lot. For one, they came to every meeting with a powerpoint presentation. First was of their work, so we could understand what they were bringing to the table. After the second meeting, they made a powerpoint presentation of what I had wanted to do, in order to make sure that they fully understood what I wanted to do. (When word arrived that they had returned from China, my PI said to me, 'Please prepare a Shuqiang-like presentation for Shuqiang.' As if I needed them to tell me that.) Note to self, even if powerpoint is the most ridiculous medium ever, being overprepared for a meeting is never a bad idea.

Over the past week we've spent more time together. We have vastly different schedules and skill sets. Where I rely on biology and the random processes of nature, this post doc is an engineer by training. The biology doesn't come naturally to hir**, instead, polymers, flow rates, the properties of oil and water, this is their language.

The fun part is the learning. The post doc came from China, and they told me that the reason they make their presentations going into meeting is because they are self-conscious about their communication skills. They want to learn more biology to be able apply their engineering skills. We have biology coming out of our ears, (my PI cautioned me to not "vomit ideas all over [them]." Again, as if I need them to tell me that!), but the analytical, engineering parts of this project are way over my head.

I'm learning to balance, to listen, to be humble. When we work together sometimes I don't talk much, because I'm trying to absorb as much as I can. When I do talk, I'm learning to communicate. I'm kind of vague, sometimes (heh.) You know when that doesn't fly? When you're talking to an engineer. When I'm talking to peers in my lab, or my PI, sometimes I'll start off an idea without any intent on finishing that thought, relying instead on them immediately understanding what I'm saying, and filling in the blanks. You know when that doesn't fly? When the person you're talking to can't read your mind. So much to learn!

Also, I don't read enough. Which I think is always going to be the case.

*I've read some other science blogs that use gender neutral pronouns when talking about PIs and students, and though I used to find it kind of annoying, I'm starting to understand the reasons why and the importance for doing so. Maybe a conversation for another day? At any rate, no gendered pronouns!

**hir = him/her. omg it looks so weird, but I will stick with it!

the kind of science

I have had a whirlwind of a week, scientifically. I just got to a point in my project where I am learning things and finding directions I want to go in an exponential way. I feel wrapped up so completely in this project, so overwhelmed and so, so excited.

Then I saw this exchange on twitter. 

I've spent the last few days reading Jeff Gordon's papers. Now there's an e.g. of steady, careful, methodical, high-quality science.
— Ed Yong (@edyong209) June 12, 2014

.@matthewherper It is, and when you mainline it in one go, you really see how methodical it is. Firm steady steps.
— Ed Yong (@edyong209) June 12, 2014

I feel too early in my career to say what kind of science I want to do, or what kind of scientist I want to be, but after this whirlwind of a day, I do know that I want to take firm and steady steps, wherever this may lead.

summer priorities

You might have noticed my absence these past few months (Or not. You know, whatever.) This was a really hard semester: class (data structures and algorithms), picking a lab (don’t even get me started), home life (roommate issues, hating my apartment). All of these things have tidily resolved themselves. I got a B in my comp sci class (ok maybe it was a minus but my GPA is still a 3.7 and no one cares about GPA anymore anyway and the point is I SURVIVED), I chose a lab(!!!) that most importantly, also wanted me (!!!!), and I moved into the sweetest most perfect house with Lena, and there will be a bajillion pictures and writings to come, because I have already written a lot about my Little House, which we call the Little House.

Summer is here, well, my summer is here, and with that all the things I said I was going to do after the semester is over, in list form:

1. Science
2. Be with friends
3. Be with family
4. Read books
5. Write fiction
6. Write nonfiction
7. Work on online presence (sort of goes with nonfiction.)
8. Take more photographs with my real camera
9. Tend houseplants, herb garden
10. Make things (knitting, cooking, baking, for some reason I REALLY want to try needlepoint.)
11. Exercise. (like, for real, with the intent to lose weight, predominantly.) (Also I am incapable of ever spelling “exercise” on the first try, ever.)

It’s become apparent to me that I am only going to be ever capable of accomplishing three of these things at a time. Class has been over for a week and a half two weeks, and I have done science, seen my family, and have been devouring books like its my job. (I am Charlotte Simmons, and The Descendants). I haven't even made the time to hit publish on this blog post.

So how to deal with this problem? Have a monthly rotation of three out of these eleven things that I want to do? Which even then is misleading, because science and family are mandatory. So I am allowed one other summer activity.

I think I've figured out a solution though. It looks something like this.

Revised summer to do list:

1. ScienceFriendsFamily
2. ReadBooksWriteThings
3. MakeStuffExerciseTakePictures

Solved it! Now I have only three things to accomplish! It’s going to be a great summer. I'm neglecting my houseplants, but you know, I had to make some sacrifices.

Lena on a summer adventure without me. Don't worry, I already yelled at my parents about not wearing a life jacket. It's like I'm the only adult around here sometimes. 

in dreams

I have these really intense dreams about whatever I've been thinking about most during the day. A few weeks ago I was dreaming of sets and dictionaries and keys. (computer science) and last night I dreamed about gene regulatory networks and monty python.

I was supposed to be reading this paper “Bifurcation dynamics in lineage-commitment in bipotent progenitor cells”, but really I've just been thinking about reading this paper. I also found this text processing program that works in Python, and all the examples are with Monty Python quotes; so I dreamed, last night that I was drawing a diagram for the bifurcation of the knights who say “Ni” to the knights who say Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-PTANG. Zoom-Boing. Z'nourrwringmm.

Gosh I need to get back to work. But I was thinking, oh man, I could draw a gene regulatory network to figure out the transcription factors that are in charge of determining whether the knights say "Ni" or that whole other thing. 

I woke up out of this dream having to go to the bathroom, because hydration! And then I couldn't get back to sleep because I was really pissed off at myself because this is not a bifurcation network, rachael's dream state. It's jut a run of the mill development diagram. 

references:

Huang, S., et al. (2007). Bifurcation dynamics in lineage-commitment in bipotent progenitor cells. Dev Biol. 305: 695-713.

TextBlob: simplified text processing. https://textblob.readthedocs.org/en/latest/

black boxes

We all have black boxes in our lives. Things that work, that we don’t really understand. My car is one. I put gas in it, it takes me places. I don’t really understand how it works. (Maybe this is why two years ago I needed a whole new engine because apparently you are supposed to change the oil?) Ergo, black boxes are fine, until they’re not. And then it would be helpful to know something about them.

As a technician, sequencing was this huge black box for me. I handed off my libraries, they got sequenced, analyzed, and then we back a few files, some graphs, some RPKMs, and that was it. So this is why I decided to to go grad school, right? So I could spend some quality time with SAMtools, figure out what was going on.

It turns out (it always does, doesn’t it?) that I got more than I bargained for. I have a two-week assignment where on Monday, the prof handed us a link to a reference sequence on some online database, two fastq files (raw sequencing reads) and told us to write a perl script to align these reads, give us number of snps, number of indels, etc.

LITERALLY that is all he gave us. Like, perl? I have never used perl. I’m not even sure if I’m supposed to be capitalizing perl. (Ed note: you are.) But hey, I wanted to see what was inside this black box, is there any better way than just being dropped inside of it?

I was thinking about another project for another rotation, which might involve primer design. Primer design is less of a black box, because there are programs where you input the piece of DNA you want to amplify, and the program spits out the ideal primers (taking into account GC content, annealing temperatures and that sort of thing) for that piece of DNA. Next, you take your primers, and do an in-silico PCR, where you go into another program, pick your reference DNA, put your primers in, and it will tell you if your primers map to multiple places on the genome.

So I was walking to my car yesterday, and I was like WAIT. WHAT IF I CAN’T DO THIS. Because if my genomes don’t have a good reference and I don’t really know what’s going on, I can’t do an in silico PCR and what if my primers are horribly designed and map to a thousand places on the genome!

And it hit me. (Not unlike a car, whose engine has run out of oil, this was accompanied by a large clunking sound) I...could write a program that does this. I mean, I could input my own reference. Put in my own primers. Require some specificity, require some distance apart, return the sequence in between, etc. I could probably even email the guy, ask for his code, and put in my reference sequence. Because in programming, that's not plagiarism, that's encouraged! (Sorry I'm totally getting this printed on a shirt at some point.)

Now, this isn’t incredibly groundbreaking. But what’s crazy to me is that I would have never imagined that this was an option before now. Three months ago, I wouldn't have even considered this as an option. To be honest, I would have just winged it, ordered my primers, done the PCRs, hoped that I only got one band and that band was the one I wanted. And that probably would have been fine. But I love that this is an option. I love that I'm learning to think like this. Look! There is one less black box in my life!

**

The other black box in my life is this one. Lena gets on the bus at 7:55 every morning. School starts at 9. What the heck does she do between 8 and 9 in the morning. I’ve tried asking her this, but kids are shit at estimating time. “Just think Lena how long are you on the bus.” and I’ve sort of figured out that she walks her friends to class. But still?? is my kid just wandering around school for an hour in the morning? Do I even want to know?

Kids, the ultimate black boxes.

having it all, giving it up

Grad school is the most overwhelming, exhilarating, humbling thing I have ever experienced. I can’t tell you how wonderful it feels, how I know I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

I can’t remember if I’ve said this before, but there’s this common thread about being a successful woman and then not being able to “have it all”. And I read these things, and I write them all off--It’s not about “having it all” to anyone else’s standards, it’s about having what you value for your standards. Look, I solved it! Pssh, amateurs.

So….I was wrong.

I want it all. And it hurts so bad when I can’t have it all.

One of my friends is also in grad school with kids, and I saw her last weekend and confessed to her, I haven’t made a real meal on a weeknight since school started. She admitted to the same thing It’s just practically impossible. I leave lab at 5. it takes me 15 minutes to walk to my car, then another 20 to pick up L from afterschool, then another 10 to get home. If we get home by 6, we’re lucky. L has been so exhausted from school, I have to get her in bed by 7:30 otherwise we’ll both end up in tears. So the clock starts when we get home, an hour and thirty minutes to make something to eat, eat, get in the bath, get in jammies, brush teeth, and into bed.

Oh you wanted to just relax with a beer when you got home? ha!

So in this hour and thirty minutes that I have with my kid after school, the last thing I want to do is spend time on an elaborate meal, have her not eat it, and then have to do a bunch of dishes to do afterwards.

Except, I love cooking. It’s how I relax and destress. And I enjoy these meals. And I want to have a healthy, balanced meal at the end of my day, and I want L and I to sit at the table all civilised and talk about our goals and accomplishments.

So...I could leave lab earlier, pick L up earlier, and have a little more time at home. But...I don’t want to leave lab earlier. I love the lab I’m rotating in. I love the project, I love the people. I don’t want to give that up.

I get it now, I get wanting it all, and having it be impossible to achieve. I want to be a rockstar grad student. I want to be an amazing mom. These aren’t entirely unachievable goals, but they’re hard, for sure. I come from a place of privilege, and it’s still hard. And it’s been said before, by people who have spent longer thinking about this issue, but there’s not an easy solution. I mean, my life would be about 500 times easier if I had some sort of cleaning service that did all my laundry and all my dishes. And it would be nice to have someone to cook for me. And someone to entertain L when I’m busy. But (with exceptions to the laundry and dishes) I like cooking. I want to be the one that plays with my kid.

On top of it all, I don’t want to work from home. I want to be in lab. I want to be able to run into my PI’s office at 4:45 and show him the result I got after a full day of work. (!!! THIS HAPPENED AND IT WAS THE BEST FEELING IN THE WORLD.)

So, I’m figuring it all out. In my head I’m starting to rank things that are most important to me, and I’m dropping the ones that aren’t. Because there’s no other way. (That I can see at least, if you have the answer, please, please tell me.) So...we’re eating more pasta. We had vegetarian chicken nuggets, french fries and creamed spinach for dinner last night, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it was awesome, but it didn’t stress me out. I’m not watching shows on netflix anymore, but I’m reading a chapter of a book before I go to bed. Because that’s still important to me. L and I bring a book to the bus stop every morning and read together there, because every second with my kid counts. (We finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this week, and I cried, and it was the best feeling in the world.) A while ago I signed up for a half-marathon in October. I’m not going to run it. I’ve been running on the weekends, but not nearly as much as I need to be. I’m giving up that goal (for now!)

I want it all. I never realized what that meant, and that I wanted it. But I do. And I don’t want to settle--for what that means to me. I don’t want most of it. I am crazy woman monster who wants it all!






I woke up early to write this blog post, but in the middle of the night L came and slept in my bed. I didn’t want to go anywhere else to write, so I stayed in my room. She woke up early too, and started looking at what I was typing. I didn’t think anything of it until she started mumbling, “So...I...wuh-wuh-was...wuh-ruh-rong.” GODDAMMIT MY KID CAN READ.

Kids man, you have one tiny little handle on everything, and then they go changing it up on you.

Also clearly I am well equipped to handle this:

OH SHIT LENA CAN READ SHE JUST READ OVER MY SHOULDER A BLOG POST AND WHAT DO I DO NOW HELP SHE'S ABOUT TO READ THE WORD SHIT QUICK WHAT
— rachael bloom (@_rachaelbloom) September 13, 2013

epic

This was a momentous week. First day of kindergarten, first week of graduate school.

This also happened to be the most traumatic week of my life. 

Let's start with the good.

Nana and pops couldn't stay away on the first day of school. They came to visit us at the bus stop. The bus was 20 minutes late, but, whatever, we're rolling with it.  

L won't take a serious picture with me. 

The good kind of ends there. L had a great first day of school, except at 5 o'clock, as I'm leaving school to go pick her up at afterschool, I get a call from the bus driver, who has reached the last stop on her route, and still has Lena left on the bus.

...

The short of it, Lena is ok, she was always safe (however unaccounted for for two hours), but I put on my mama-bear skin and went to go fuck some shit up at the school. Not really. I was super pissed (obviously), but I decided instead of playing the "How the FUCK did you lose my kid" card, I played the "I'm a single parent, I'm just trying to get by, and oh by the way I am really good at crying" card. That card worked awesomely I am happy to report, and I got to meet the principal of L's school. 

The second day of kindergarten was an operation.

Pops met us at the bus stop. I texted Nana when she got on the bus, and while I headed off to school, Nana headed over to the school to make sure Lena got to her class ok, and to remind the teachers that she goes to afterschool. The texts we went each other all day were hilarious. "Package is on the bus" "package was delivered" we would be an awesome secret service team. When I picked her up today I sent the message "BABY IS IN THE NEST. REPEAT: BABY IS IN THE NEST."

She's not really a baby anymore though, is she. 

OH, so the next thing that happened:

Lena had the most epic of all nosebleeds. It lasted twenty minutes and thank goodness I had a friend to capture this occasion. "Remember when..." Mikey was a rockstar, Lena was a rockstar, but twenty goddamn minutes?? This seemed way too long for a nosebleed. Also apparently you are supposed to pinch the nose that entire time. And keep your head forward. And if you do get any blood in your mouth, spit, don't swallow. (heh.)

This is not to even mention my first week, which was so amazing, humbling and exciting. I love my new lab, I love my classes, I love the opportunities that I'm going to have here. I'm thinking a ton about everything. I want to write a post about computer science and Anna Karenina. How I programmed a turtle to draw a spiral. How I'm reading so many papers and things are just starting to click into place. It is very, very cool. 

It's also really hard. In ways that I didn't actually expect. It's hard because I think, on some level, I do want it all. 

Over the summer, I had to 'sneak out' at 5 every day to get Lena. I dreaded this every single day. I was always the first to leave, and even if I had been there before 9 in the morning, I just felt absolutely horrible about it. Like I wasn't doing enough. And I was embarrassed, so I would sneak around my PI's door like a chump. 

Now, I actually feel the same way. I'm dreading leaving at 5. Because I am having a really, really good time and I don't want to leave. I didn't expect to feel like this. It's really really awesome. But, it's all awesome, really.