About Me

I see myself as a compilation of changes.
Since I started this blog, I've been through four years of undergrad, studied abroad, acquired a bachelor's degree in biochemistry, and survived a year of grad school.
I beg of you, do not judge me by my four year old blog posts. They are old and I was kind of an ignorant, entitled, asshole when writing to the global audience that is the internet. I've added apologetic paragraphs to the most egregious posts, but I'm not taking them down because reasons.
Anyway, I'm now a biochemistry grad student instead of a biochemistry undergrad student, and you would not believe how much of a difference there is (unless you too have graduated, gained a bit of experience, then talked to undergrads). My goodness.
I've gone from hating the idea of teaching with a deep passion inspired largely by fear to maybe not minding it so much to seriously considering teaching at the college level for the rest of my life, once I get the prerequisite PhD out of the way. No big.
About me: I'm a scientist and a feminist and a gardener and a reader and a writer. Part of the problem is that I grew up as a sheltered white girl and got really slapped in the face by how shitty it is out here. Women of every age, shape, and color are treated as less equal than men across the board.
Feminism isn't a movement that I align myself with, it's a word to describe how I want to live my life. When I do science, it's with the awareness that nearly anyone, male or female, who reviews a paper I write and sees a female name as first author will automatically assume the paper isn't as good as the same paper with a male name as first author. They've done studies, people, that haven't been retracted (unlike the one that linked MMR vaccines to autism). When I read anything, I search to see if women interact in meaningful ways that don't involve men. When I write, I constantly check myself to see which stereotypes I've fallen back on when depicting anyone who isn't exactly like me (men, people of color, LGBTQ people, people from non-judeo-christian backgrounds, people who aren't from the US) and I check to make sure I've included these people at all. The world isn't made up of people like me. This is a good thing.
I garden because I love the growing things, and I make as much of my own food as I can (finally got a sourdough starter off the ground, but I don't have time to blog about it) because it's very instant gratification, with the exception of cultured foods which take FAR TOO LONG. It's just a windfall that these happen to be political things right now (early 2010s, if this survives until a future in which gardening and making food aren't political any more).
I adore science. My favorite molecule is RNA and my favorite topic in science is RNA interference, a schnifty method of gene regulation. It really gets my goat when people rely on anecdotal evidence or evince a deep mistrust of scientists. We're not all bad! Most of us are not bad, actually. Probably my least favorite scientist ever is Andrew Wakefield, who published that study linking MMR vaccines to autism. Not only were his conclusions systematically disproved by the scientific community (do a quick google scholar search of "autism and vaccines" if you'd like to check this yourself; compare anything with Wakefield as an author with everything else), his study relied on unethical experiments on children. On a more positive note, my favorite scientists EVAR is Rosalind Franklin, the lady who got gypped out of a Nobel prize because her lab partner didn't like her and her collaborators (Watson and Crick of DNA fame) screwed her over. I identify with her a lot, aside from her being more hardcore than me and a physical chemist by training, because she was taciturn and not well-liked. I imagine she had resting bitch face. Basically, you had to be one tough cookie to get hired as a research scientists if you were a woman. At the same time, you had to be ladylike and loveable in order to have any luck in your professional relationships, which usually meant that you'd get shafted by your male colleagues on a regular basis. The exception is if you're Marie Curie and your lab partner is your husband who (1) adores you, (2) respects your intellect, and (3) makes sure that you get credit for your work. Anyway, Rosalind was a badass who is finally getting the mainstream recognition she should have had back when she was alive.
Let me see, what else?
I also sport 8 piercings, dye my hair purple on a regular basis, and named my fish after my favorite scientist (Rosalind Franklin).
My favorite books are heavily biased towards urban fantasy (a la Bordertown) and science fiction, although classical fantasy and westerns have their places in my heart.
Urban fantasy, at least the kind that I read, seems to be centered around people who live their lives the way that they want, dream dreams, wear combat boots, dye their hair, and make it all up as they go along. This is the model for my life. I'm pursuing my dream of a PhD and doing my damndest to leave my mark on the field of biochemistry, but there's no denying that I'm making it all up as I go along.
I think that punk culture is SO COOL (heavily influenced by urban fantasy) and do my best to be tough and cool but I'm constantly foiled by the fact that I'm not tough and cool. I have the kind of soul that belongs in cardigans and tank tops, so I've given up on the tough and cool thing. Now, I'm just me in all my awkward glory, although I still kinda wish I was a little tougher and cooler.
I am the sort of person who, when she finds something to be interested in, sits down and reads up on it. I am not kidding. I researched punk culture. This is probably why I don't look good in spiked leather. Anyway, my researcher's brain insists that there must be SOMEONE else who does this, so I try to report my findings so that the next person doesn't have to weed through as much junk, unless I find a really nice, concise source that I can direct others towards in which case I just put up a link.
Life is crazy, so get that piercing, dye your hair, and don't look back.
I get the feeling that these are supposed to be more succinct.
Too bad.