Who are you and what do you do?

I can't tell you how happy I am that the weather finally cooled down. I can actually wear my hair down without worrying that the humidity will give it a reason to go wild. The temperature indoors feels about the same as it does outside so walking out the door isn't like hitting a wall of hot wind either. No one likes to stand around waiting for the bus in the hot, summer heat; makes the wait seem a lot longer than it really is--especially for this gal from Northern Ontario!


I spent most of the last two days on my feet almost non-stop. Now that I've gotten more comfortable with the all the new procedures I've learned, I've started running multiple experiments in parallel. Since I am also past the point of having to replicate previous experiments conducted by other people, the promise of future publications compels me to cram as much as I can into each day I spend in the lab. It hasn't been easy to get things done this past week with all the interruptions and appointments outside the lab. My PI laid down a concise plan for what she wanted accomplished and when she expected things to be done so it's important to me that I stay "ahead of the curve" so that when the next few interruptions come along, I don't fall behind schedule.

Not all PIs have the same expectations. Most of the people I worked for in the past didn't have deadlines and just about all of them kept me in the training/study reproduction phase a lot longer (which is frustrating for any scientist yearning for new discoveries and/or independence in the lab). If there's one thing I don't cope well with, it's feeling held back! Since I feel challenged and stimulated in this lab, I don't expect motivation to ever be a problem. I also enjoy being able to talk to my PI directly, instead of having to work my way up through an extensive hierarchy of post-docs, managers, and senior grad students. Dr. Sahai never makes us feel as though her time is "too important to waste on us". I have to admit though, I'm still trying to find a balance between sending her every data point as it comes in and not sending anything until it's requested. Some people are born "micro-managers" and others spread themselves so thin that they become "absentee PIs" (they have an office but hardly ever use it).

Being the first student in my class to arrive (the rest won't come until at least mid-August) also gives me the opportunity to get to know others in the department separately. Sometimes, that can be a bit spooky. It's gotten to be fairly typical for people I'd never met to greet me by name, know whose lab I was in and where I'd come from (schools & hometown). I guess it's fairly simple to remember just one person. What I find so striking is that people often seem to know more... like what I plan to do when I graduate. Most people are genuinely surprised when I tell them I'm keeping a blog, that I have my own business and make my own jewelry, etc. But they seem to know the sorts of things that are important in an academic setting (is my file posted on the wall somewhere in Weeks Hall?).

Just today, in fact, a professor dropped by my office as I was eating lunch and he seemed to recall all sorts of things I wouldn't have expected him to know. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I'm from Sault Ste. Marie; a favorite geological expedition destination (precisely why I wanted to create a research center there!). Maybe it's the fact that this department is so close-knit (like a little village or a small town where everyone knows everyone else's business). Maybe I have more (blog) readers than I realized. Whatever the case, I'm not used to getting so much attention. I usually just fade into the background... and silently slip below the radar...