mental break

instead of reworking my failed presentation, I filled my mind with some good TED talks this evening - watch one!

 

the c-word.

Cancer.

Yep, it has entered the vocabulary of my family.

I mean, I always thought this day would come - statistically speaking, the chances of my family escaping all whispers of the word 'cancer' were always rare, seeing as the rates of diagnosis have increased with better/earlier detection, and really, cancer is a broad term that generally just means 'cell that are out of control.' Actually I just looked it up on the CDC, some 19.0 million people in the US have been diagnosed with cancer. That's a lot of people!

Long story short - my grandpa fell, broke his hip, said broken hip was examined, doctors found a mass in the area, second exam revealed that the mass was myeloma (which, apparently, is more common in men than women, and generally seen in older people, and composes 1% of all cancers diagnosed - thanks wikipedia), then my grandpa got his hip replaced and the surgeons got 90% of the cancer removed in the process. All this in the past week or so, culminating with the surgery today. I don't know yet what next steps will be taken or what to think about the cancerous 10% remaining in my grandpas body.

And even though I know all these facts, it's still a scary thing. And I've been forced to compartmentalize it all - I have, have, have to get my giant to-do list done: papers for class, homework for class, spacesuit to sew, qualifying exam report to finish writing, qualifying exam presentation to prep, research to complete for said qualifying exam, etc, etc, etc.

But sometimes I just can't compartmentalize it well enough and so tears of fear, tears of sympathy, tears of reality fall while I'm trying to justify nanoparticle synthesis in a report for NASA while sitting in a coffeeshop. And the reality of it all keeps me up at night and crosses my mind as I attempt to use tabular surface energy data to estimate contact angles.

Without fail, situations like these remind of me of my own mortality and so I was doubly thankful when I casually flipped through a book on the dining room table this morning, left by one of my roommates, and opened to this passage:

“A whole lifetime is short,

and sometimes very short indeed.

How do we know that ours may not be so short

as to end an hour, 

or even a minute after

we have determined to give ourselves wholly to God?

It is quite possible,

for we cannot depend on anything

that passes away,

much less on life,

on which we must not reckon

for even a single day.

We may be among those who,

worldly as we still are,

have some deep desire

to do what is right. 

At time, rare as they may be,

we commend ourselves to God’s care.

We think about our souls every now and then.

Busy as we are,

we pray a few times a month,

even though our minds are filled

with a thousand other matters.

“Where your treasure is, there also is your heart.”

We need, therefore, from time to time

to cast aside our daily concerns.

We need to reflect upon the state of our soul,

and to realize

that we will never reach our goal 

by the road we are following.

We need to withdraw from time to time 

from all unnecessary cares and business.”

(Teresa of Avila, via Let Nothing Disturb You)

I desperately want to play golf again with my grandpa and see him fully healed, but my prayer tonight is for the peace of Christ above all else - peace for my grandparents, peace for my family, peace for me, as we all begin to tread on this new road.

Multi-tasking?

I just got an email today about a potential job position (not that I'm looking, but the Nanotech mailing list likes to send out nano-related jobs) and the first thing the position description lists is that the best candidate is able to multitask.

I can't multitask to save my life. Seriously.

I have found that if I'm doing lab work - that's all I can focus on. I tell myself that I can let my experiment run or the instrument do it's job while I work on writing/reading/homework/whatever else is on my list, but the reality is that I just can't. I also can't write a paper while in the vicinity of my lab, as I like lab work so much more than writing papers or reading literature and will always come up with more things to do in the lab.

There are some interesting articles about how multitasking is kind of a myth:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-myth-of-multitasking
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627309004589

and from a prof from my undergrad university:


and this guy from the Economist



anyways, that's my mini-rant about people asking job applicants to be 'multitaskers.' I guess if they want less productive engineers, that's fine, I just won't be working for them.

FOCUS

Somedays, I wish my friend Josh lived a little closer than down the coast of CA. He will always be king of the FOCUS sign and I'll forever remember the hectic paper writing night that didn't involve him, but he still made my friends and I a focus sign, ran up to our front room window, stuck to the window and then disappeared in a flash.

I desperately need some focus for the next 48 hours, as I have one group paper draft due and a draft of my qualifying exam paper due, a combined total of 30+ pages that need to be written. I'm currently sitting at 5 pages and already mentally exhausted. I dislike that my writing process is still so last-minute; I thought I had kicked this habit over the past two years.

Related, and interesting - here is a AsapSCIENCE animated discussion of procrastination (originally found on the fantastic brainpickings.org):

Also in my procrastination tonight I ran across this article about overcoming a creative block on brain pickings, and I'm pretty sure it also counts for scientific blocks, as I would posit that sciences takes a large dose of creative thinking.

 

So, I guess in light of a lack of a focus sign and a foggy brain, I think I'll procrastinate productively by sleeping early tonight. I can always cram more tomorrow, right?!

(and only somewhat related, I have my eyes on The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business and Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You're So Tired and

Imagine: How Creativity Works)

back in the big apple.

I'm currently in NYC for a week-ish, so I thought I'd dust off this poor blog and write about all the fun things I get to see here! Fair warning - every post might be a bit boring if you're not a museum/fabric shop/bakery/theatre lover, as my week is planned to generally revolve around those themes :)

After the second-worst red-eye of my life, I made it safely to NYC, napped for a few hours and then ate the spiciest indian food of my whole life. The naan was awesome and so were some of the dishes I tried, but overall, it was spicey. And not just Olivia-can't-handle-any-spice spicey, I would say it was in the 2-3 stars range, which for this girl who gets 0s at any place, was quite a bit to handle!

spicy indian food assortment. lovely delicious large garlic naan!

Yesterday, day two of my mini vacation to NYC (yes, I'm still working on research things in the evening - that's what you get when you don't love the typical NYC nightlife and all the places you want to go close up by 6pm...)

My morning started with attending a church service at Redeemer Presbyterian - a beautiful space hidden between some buildings on W83rd - where I heard a great sermon based on Colossians ___. Apparently this is a traditional text to follow Christmas, reminding me again as to the significance of the Incarnation and how the way I view my life, others, and my community changes because of Christ.

Following church, I wandered a bit waiting for Hannah and Dan to catch up so that we could take some engagement pictures :) and ended up at a coffee bar that I think even my most coffee-'snobbish' friends in Seattle would like, though I'll readily admit that I only drank tea :) But, since the shop offered pour-overs, single-origin coffees, and sold Chemex's and Aeropresses, I think it qualifies as a good coffeeshop. Tables were scarce, but I managed to snag one and start reading the copy of The Hobbit I picked up on the way.

Before taking pictures though, Hannah, Dan, and I booked it down to the NY City Center to pick up some rush tickets for Alvin Aliey. I love love love this dance company and the rep we saw this afternoon was incredible. The company started utilizing social media recently and has excerpts from all the works I saw, which I have embedded here to remember them :)


I saw Petite Mort at PNB earlier this year and knew I would love the piece again, though it looks so different on the Alvin Aliey company! Due to the slightly different training, one gets more of a sense of 'strength' from these dancers than from PNB. This version was missing the humorous section that was present in the Seattle version, but I think the absence lent the whole piece a more serious air.
Strange Humors - the first video gives you a better looks at the Aliey staging, but the second video is actually the whole piece. This was Hannah's favorite and was quite interesting. I like that Aliey consistently does pieces for two or three males, as many companies don't (I think I've seen one in Seattle and that was with the W'him W'him contemporary company). The dancing styles of the dancers we got to see were more differentiated than the ones in the videos, which I really liked, as the dancer who frequently represented the drum beat was stiffer and sharper than the other dancer, and it seemed to fit the music quite appropriately

This third piece, Another Night, was so much more fun than this video portrays. I'm not sure if it was because today was the last day of the season and the dancers were just going all out or what, but the version we saw today was much more lively and loose! While still technically excellent, the dancers seemed to enjoy the piece immensely and that translated well to us in the audience.
I forgot to read any of the information about the last piece, Grace, before it began, but apparently it is about the journey to the promised land - something I kind of guessed based on the spiritual music and the costumes/lighting. The dances began in sets of red and white, but all had changed to wearing white garments by the end of the piece. The audience actually got really into this, audibly engaged with clapping sprinkled throughout, so you can tell just how captivating it was! What actually struck me the most about this piece, which isn't really obvious from the clip, was how frequently the dancers faced the wings while dancing, turned 90 degrees from the audience. It was visually interesting and thoroughly entertaining.

year one.

I forgot that this was still in my drafts folder....so here are some year 1 reflections, just a couple weeks late!
---------------
Give or take a few days, it has been one year since I began graduate school - wow.

Though I've shared most of what has occurred over the past year, I've learned some valuable lessons, many, unfortunately, the hard way. Between TAing, research, classes, homework, and commuting more than a few blocks, I'm so happy just to make it to this day. The transition between undergrad and graduate school was tougher than I envisioned, but I'm not sure exactly why.

Maybe it was the expectations of those who I respect and needed to work well with?  I just realized recently that I always get nervous before meetings with my professor because I always feel like I'm headed into an oral test. and I never feel like I do well when I leave. (Though, about two weeks ago, I finally finished the first meeting with my advisor without feeling like I failed my test!)

Maybe it was trying to get a new project off the ground with the weight of it being my entire thesis hanging over my head. New projects at NASA always had an end date - I couldn't work on it past my 10 wk internship and typically nobody continued my projects into the fall, so if it didn't work, oh well! Now, if something doesn't work, it means I may not graduate in the time I have remaining on my funding.

Maybe it was because my head knew that public school undergrads were different from my private school undergrads, but my heart didn't get the message - it was difficult to see the students not care and remain disengaged with the material of the courses I TAed for the whole quarter. This one aspect that turns me off of teaching for a career - how do you work with students who just don't want to be there? (yes, I know it happens at schools like SPU, but it wasn't as obvious to me. They at least knew they were paying lots of money, so some effort was required.) I respect great teachers all the more, as I know they work hard to keep their courses interesting and engaging for all levels of students.

Maybe it was the giant qualifying exam I faced right before the new school year started - memorizing has never been my strong suit and I literally memorized a textbook. This one, in fact:

(I think I actually realized at that moment that my sound was on in the super quiet reading room in the library - whoops! It still expresses the overwhelming task memorizing 700+ pages of information!) It was not small task - the test itself lasted ~4.5 hours :/ (However, I just found out that I squeezed by and passed the exam! Yay for not having to re-take it!) Since I've checked off all my core coursework, the next step is will be to give an presentation (followed by an oral examination via questions) and then I will actually be an official PhD candidate. Fingers crossed that goes well, it will hopefully happen in the next few months!

So, yeah, overall - it was a rough transition. But at the same time, I do really like my project, I like what I'm learning, MSE is definitely where I'm supposed to be, and I'm super super excited that I'm now fully funded through one of NASA's graduate research programs! (the NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship, to be precise). I love the flexibility of graduate school and I'm finally starting to get trained on a bunch of instruments, so my research is becoming increasingly more interesting. I'm trying to capitalize on my current enthusiasm and work a bit longer hours to get more things completed :) Only taking one class is also totally awesome. I'm not looking forward to home-work laden classes again, though I know there are a few more to come.

I'm still not sure where I want to work for a career, though I feel like I'm asked that quite consistently - industry, academia, and a government lab are all still options :) Finally, this year has started off much, much better and I can only express my sincerest thanks to all of my friends and family members, close-by and far off for putting up with me and helping to keep me sane last year!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

(Confession)

This week's Confession of Sin during services at Grace Seattle was quite apropos:

Almighty God, we want life. We want full life. We want life that satisfies
     our deepest longings:
     our longing to belong,
     our longing to be safe,
     our longing for comfort,
     our longing for purpose,
     our longing for relationship,
     our longing for life. 

Giver of life, you are the only source of life that satisfies these longings. 
     but we reject you. We are often ashamed of you. 
     We are more comfortable fighting for ourselves than trusting you.

We repent. We now turn to you
     and away from our lifeless, uncaring, and unsatisfying gods.
Forgive us and renew us. Amen.

I pray I will continually remember and reflect on this prayer.