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Life in Davis
Figured it was time for another attempt at a real update. It's been a while since I've written anything of updating-type substance.
So, yes-- the past month or two have been terribly tough. Threw me into a time of emotional darkness I'd rather not repeat, thank you very much. But I survived, mostly intact, due to help of God and friends. Which reminds me-- note to self: find a church.
Anyway, spent all last week in my new lab. A lot of my fears have been addressed, though things are still more bumpy than I like. My advisor, Dr. Motani, is a very, very, very sweet man. He's just a little scatterbrained, and it seems like I won't be getting as much guidance as I was hoping for in the beginning. He's incredibly knowledgeable, though, and I love the way he thinks. I'll just have to be more focused and organized when I go talk to him than I have been with Blaire, or Pete and Josh.
Met a good number of the other geology grad students (great googolly moogolly, I keep forgetting I'm in a Geology department, rather than biology), all of whom have seemed totally awesome. I'll start with my lab, and then work outwards.
Motani-san has two older grad students (Sanja and Lars), and added three (Alec, Li-yeon, and myself) this year. Sanja and Lars are both international students, and both got their Masters in other programs before coming here to work with Motani on thier PhDs. Sanja's doing a really cool project on different types of diving in birds-- she's the one I've had the most contact with, and I feel the most comfortable going to with questions. She and I were actually the first two to meet, way back last year at SVP (we met at the Starbucks across the street from the hotel, and I let her look at my book of abstracts because she'd never gotten hers). She's a genuinely lovely person, and someone who I can share my interest in birds with. Lars is very, very nice, and helpful when need be, but he's usually off doing his own thing so I haven't had much interaction with him. As far as I can tell, he's interested in eyeballs-- specifically, he looks for osteological (bone) indicators of visual ability. Right now he's looking at sclerotic rings (bony eyeball rings) in birds and icthyosaurs.
I only just met the two other students, Alec and Li-yeon, the day before the departmental field trip (which I opted out of, due to inexperience camping and a sudden, annoying physical development). Alec actually worked with Motani-san when he was an undergrad, and Motani in the employ of the University of Oregon. He grew up in Colorado, has a love of animation, and is a generally laid-back and awesome guy. If I remember correctly he was thinking of pursuing research on retrodeformation-- or, in layman's terms, unsquishing squished things. Li-yeon already has her Masters, and has worked in several biologically-related fields. Currently she's looking into the biomechanics of feeding in placoderms (specifically Dunkleosteus). She's rather quiet, but easy enough to get along with.
The other two grad students that I run into most are Jess and Paul. Jess, strangely enough, I met at UCLA-- she had applied to work with Dave Jacobs, and she and I met at the weekend when all the potential grad students were invited to interview. She did her undergrad at UCSB, and is now one of Dr. Vermeij's first-year students. She and I chat a lot, and get along really well. I'd have to say she's my closest friend up here at Davis. Paul is a 6th year, working on brachiopods, I think, under the guidance of Dr. Carlson. He's the resident know-it-all (not in the bad way-- he really does know a lot), and computer guru. He's been totally friendly and helpful, and has been very reassuring to Jess and I (who have been spazzing like crazy all week).
All in all, I'm starting to settle in. The biggest disappointment came to work space-- there are grad student offices on each floor, but there was no space in the office next to Motani's room, so Alec and I both got dumped downstairs. This is somewhat distressing to me, since I've never even seen any of the other grad students in that office, and all the people I'm familiar with and would want to be able to randomly chat with are upstairs. But, que sera. Alec and I will bond, I'm sure. And currently I've taken up residence on the couch in the upstairs offices-- so, so far so good.
Let's see... I'm adapting to my living situation. I really do like Jo, though Darius makes me want to step on eggshells for some reason. I absolutely love the animals (particularly Lenny-- there's nothing like cat-hugs and fuzz-therapy to cheer you up), though one of the Ringnecks, Sam, is starting to take to me. I haven't been cooking and eating as well as I should, but I'm surviving.
I am, however, terribly lonely. Not that I'm not constantly surrounded by cool people here-- Jo and Darius always invite me to go out with them, or watch movies in the living room, and the other grad students always invite me out to lunch or beer or random things.. I just really miss all my friends from back home. I miss my roomies, particularly D and Jess. I miss having people randomly pop into the apartment for fun and silliness. I miss everyone in Blaire's lab. I miss my family. I haven't even managed to keep up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zhai, tikal, anguirel or mythicalgryphon! (Oh, and anguirel, thank you so much for the phonecalls! I've been strapped for minutes, but now that it's a new billing cycle I should be able to return your call and chat for a bit!!) Really, the only people I've managed to keep in any kind of decent contact with are nalroth, d1ucb4u, and definexistance.
So, yes... I think that's something that was particularly hard to deal with-- the ending of one phase in my life, and the beginning of another. I hate endings, no matter how promising the subsequent new beginnings are.
So, yes-- the past month or two have been terribly tough. Threw me into a time of emotional darkness I'd rather not repeat, thank you very much. But I survived, mostly intact, due to help of God and friends. Which reminds me-- note to self: find a church.
Anyway, spent all last week in my new lab. A lot of my fears have been addressed, though things are still more bumpy than I like. My advisor, Dr. Motani, is a very, very, very sweet man. He's just a little scatterbrained, and it seems like I won't be getting as much guidance as I was hoping for in the beginning. He's incredibly knowledgeable, though, and I love the way he thinks. I'll just have to be more focused and organized when I go talk to him than I have been with Blaire, or Pete and Josh.
Met a good number of the other geology grad students (great googolly moogolly, I keep forgetting I'm in a Geology department, rather than biology), all of whom have seemed totally awesome. I'll start with my lab, and then work outwards.
Motani-san has two older grad students (Sanja and Lars), and added three (Alec, Li-yeon, and myself) this year. Sanja and Lars are both international students, and both got their Masters in other programs before coming here to work with Motani on thier PhDs. Sanja's doing a really cool project on different types of diving in birds-- she's the one I've had the most contact with, and I feel the most comfortable going to with questions. She and I were actually the first two to meet, way back last year at SVP (we met at the Starbucks across the street from the hotel, and I let her look at my book of abstracts because she'd never gotten hers). She's a genuinely lovely person, and someone who I can share my interest in birds with. Lars is very, very nice, and helpful when need be, but he's usually off doing his own thing so I haven't had much interaction with him. As far as I can tell, he's interested in eyeballs-- specifically, he looks for osteological (bone) indicators of visual ability. Right now he's looking at sclerotic rings (bony eyeball rings) in birds and icthyosaurs.
I only just met the two other students, Alec and Li-yeon, the day before the departmental field trip (which I opted out of, due to inexperience camping and a sudden, annoying physical development). Alec actually worked with Motani-san when he was an undergrad, and Motani in the employ of the University of Oregon. He grew up in Colorado, has a love of animation, and is a generally laid-back and awesome guy. If I remember correctly he was thinking of pursuing research on retrodeformation-- or, in layman's terms, unsquishing squished things. Li-yeon already has her Masters, and has worked in several biologically-related fields. Currently she's looking into the biomechanics of feeding in placoderms (specifically Dunkleosteus). She's rather quiet, but easy enough to get along with.
The other two grad students that I run into most are Jess and Paul. Jess, strangely enough, I met at UCLA-- she had applied to work with Dave Jacobs, and she and I met at the weekend when all the potential grad students were invited to interview. She did her undergrad at UCSB, and is now one of Dr. Vermeij's first-year students. She and I chat a lot, and get along really well. I'd have to say she's my closest friend up here at Davis. Paul is a 6th year, working on brachiopods, I think, under the guidance of Dr. Carlson. He's the resident know-it-all (not in the bad way-- he really does know a lot), and computer guru. He's been totally friendly and helpful, and has been very reassuring to Jess and I (who have been spazzing like crazy all week).
All in all, I'm starting to settle in. The biggest disappointment came to work space-- there are grad student offices on each floor, but there was no space in the office next to Motani's room, so Alec and I both got dumped downstairs. This is somewhat distressing to me, since I've never even seen any of the other grad students in that office, and all the people I'm familiar with and would want to be able to randomly chat with are upstairs. But, que sera. Alec and I will bond, I'm sure. And currently I've taken up residence on the couch in the upstairs offices-- so, so far so good.
Let's see... I'm adapting to my living situation. I really do like Jo, though Darius makes me want to step on eggshells for some reason. I absolutely love the animals (particularly Lenny-- there's nothing like cat-hugs and fuzz-therapy to cheer you up), though one of the Ringnecks, Sam, is starting to take to me. I haven't been cooking and eating as well as I should, but I'm surviving.
I am, however, terribly lonely. Not that I'm not constantly surrounded by cool people here-- Jo and Darius always invite me to go out with them, or watch movies in the living room, and the other grad students always invite me out to lunch or beer or random things.. I just really miss all my friends from back home. I miss my roomies, particularly D and Jess. I miss having people randomly pop into the apartment for fun and silliness. I miss everyone in Blaire's lab. I miss my family. I haven't even managed to keep up with
zhai, tikal, anguirel or mythicalgryphon! (Oh, and anguirel, thank you so much for the phonecalls! I've been strapped for minutes, but now that it's a new billing cycle I should be able to return your call and chat for a bit!!) Really, the only people I've managed to keep in any kind of decent contact with are nalroth, d1ucb4u, and definexistance. So, yes... I think that's something that was particularly hard to deal with-- the ending of one phase in my life, and the beginning of another. I hate endings, no matter how promising the subsequent new beginnings are.