Grad School: Quarantine Edition

If someone had told me that in 2020 a world pandemic would occur and I would be quarantined, away from lab, with limited access to the physical outside world I don't think I would have believed them. But here we are. Two months into Quarantine 2020. To put things in perspective here, I am a...

Homesickness in Grad School

It’s a little weird to speak about homesickness when you’re 30 with a husband and part time custody of a (step) child. But regional sicknessdoesnt have the same sentiment or capture all the memories. I grew up in the East Bay (aka east of San Francisco in California but close enough to see the golden...

Qualifying exam does not exam qualifying at life

The qualifying exam. Orals. Comprehensive exams. Whatever your program calls it.... outcomes on this does not equate your worth or aptitude in science/ research etc!!! I have been anxiously awaiting quals since I accepted a contract with my university. I knowingly accepted a PhD offer at a university that had an entirely oral qualification exam...

The Real Deal

I overheard a conversation today (just my favorite past-time, eavesdropping conversations in our neighborhood coffeeshop) between a youth program supervisor and a young program manager. After listening in on their conversation for a few minutes I heard the manager switch gears. He switched gears from business and deadlines, call-backs and followups to touching base on...

Echo my thoughts

I was always the person who thought that I needed to have my career figured out by 24, jump into the work force. If I could go back I would love to tell myself to slow down, that there is no rush. No preset formula for what successful adulthood looks like. There are people my...

This post is long overdue. But better late than never I suppose. I survived my first year of graduate school (and topped it off with presenting my research at the annual Alzheimer's Association International Conference!) Actually as of today I have survived six quarters of my PhD. Most of my coursework is behind me, I...

New Home-Same Smell

    I will forever remember the smell hotdogs and bacon and onions it reminds me Oakland California well past midnight before 3 AM reminds me of running home from the bar hungry and tired ready for the night to close but not ready for it to end it reminds me of past chapter of...

Latinx Feeling Excommunicated

        I was corrected on my Spanish from a non Latinx person today. And all of my cultural identity tied anxieties came bubbling to the surface, quick. But not nearly as quick and the flood that used to drown me as a child, caught in the cross hairs of a white household...

Clouds

Do you walk around under the cloud of ambiguity? People asking you the most obtrusive question, of where your ancestors orginated? How deep your blood line flows? For I carry my ambiguity in my olive skin, my coarse dark hair. In the deep laugh lines that line my mouth. That ambiguity reflects its self in...

Reflections and Projections

2017 was full of new beginnings, changes, and adventures. To start, I got into graduate school, I moved across the country, presented at my first conference, and traveled outside of the continent, on my very first solo trip. But perhaps most noteworthy, from a personal, completely non-scientific stand-point, I got engaged to the love of my...