MIT Grad Blog

He had approached the window looking like everyone else:  wrinkled, dry and leathered from the sun.  He was hunched from sleeping in some urban crevice – a stairway, a doorway, maybe two or three in the same night.  But his tired eyes were unblinking.  He asked me again.

“Why are you here?”

I didn’t know what else to do, so I smiled, and offered him a plate.  He didn’t take it; he pressed again.

“Why are you here? Are you having fun?”

“Um,” I replied, intelligently.  After an eternity, he accepted his plate and moved away.  He tossed his final thoughts over a withered shoulder.   “This is not a fun place.  Don’t have fun.  I don’t know why you’re here.”

No one else at the shelter asked me any questions that night.  Nothing more than the usual what’s your name, where are you from, can I have mine with no sauce, please.  But his question would not quit.  Would not SIT DOWN.  Kept spinning and reeling and dancing in my head.

To be honest, it scared me.  By the end of the night, I scared me.  Mind you, I was no stranger to soup kitchens; a large portion of my adolescence was spent cheerfully racking up community service points by playing “Restaurant” at my church’s monthly feed.  I donned my favorite apron and circulated the seminary room, doling out hot bowls of chili, refilling glasses of punch, and serving up seconds on cornbread and thirds on smiles.  I smiled because this work made me happy – I was near food, I was feeding people, I was having fun.  And THAT – that last bit – that was his question, and my fear.  The fun-ness of all this.  And whether I should be having fun.

It took a week of brain-racking and soul-searching, but I think I made peace with my friend’s question.  He just wanted me to remember that those community service hours were serious, too.  Those extra points on my pretty pink card may have been someone’s only meal that day, and after they turned in their plate, and I turned in my card, they went on to deal with problems bigger than I could ever hope to understand, and I just went to go home and wash my apron.

And now, even though I am long out of high school, and I return to shelters because I still like being near food and feeding people and doling out cornbread and smiles – despite all of these reasons for being here, I have to remember that what I am actually doing is something real and important.  At its core, service is not something fun; it is something necessary.

Last night at the shelter, I smiled a little less, but stood a little taller and moved a little faster.  My friend returned.  “Back again, Crazy?”  His eyes were unblinking, but this time I think I detected a smile.  “Why are you here?”

“You look tired.”  This definitely tops the list of “Ways Not To Start A Conversation With A Grad Student”.  Other favorites include, “How’s your research going?”, “What year are you?”, and my personal nemesis, “So, when will you finish?”

I’m sure Timmy (names have been changed to protect the identity of the offender) did not mean to ruin my morning.  But the fact is, when I hopped on the Northwest Shuttle and ran into Timmy, Timmy had greeted me not with “Hello”, not with “What’s crackin’?”, not with, “Catch that episode of Hell’s Kitchen last night?”, but instead with “You. Look. Tired.”

And as I stepped off the shuttle, and every time I stepped out my office to grab a drink of water, or ran down the hall to grab some notes from the printer, indeed all morning long – I just kept mouthing the words to myself in different ways, trying to impart some positive meaning to them.

“YOU look tired.”

“You LOOK tired.”

“You look TIRED.”

Nope, no two ways about, this is the grad school equivalent of the day someone calls you “Ma’am”.

On one trip to the printer, I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass of the Triaxial Consolidation Test for Cohesiveness of Soil poster hanging in the hallway.  I studied my reflection over the faded diagram of a triaxial cell.  What had Timmy seen?  What had provoked this particular greeting?  Bags under my eyes?  Brows in need of plucking?  Had I gone not far enough, or too far with the cosmetics?  Should I have held back on the foundation and mascara?  Or added more blush?  Was it something bigger?  Poor posture?  Walking too slow?  What, Timmy?  What? WHAT?!

I slapped myself and continued towards the printer.  Maybe Timmy had meant it as a compliment.  MIT is a really special place.  Work is kind of social currency around here.  If I looked tired – it means I am tired – which means I’ve been doing things at night time – which at MIT means I’ve been working at night time – which means I’ve been working hard – which means Timmy actually respects me – which might mean Timmy even admires my work ethic.  Maybe Timmy was simply greeting me with an acknowledgement of my high MIT social status owing to my hours and hours of hard work.  Timmy didn’t mean, “You look tired,” he meant, “You look like a hard-working MIT student, the cream of the crop!”

Judging by the looks of the people in the computer lab, I think I actually said, “WELL WHO WANTS TO LOOK LIKE THAT?!” out loud as I snatched my printout from the HP Laserjet.  I stormed back to my office with the intent of reading about the Conditional Expectation of Random Variables, but instead I just sat there and thought about Timmy.  Timmy hadn’t looked all that hot himself.  Timmy had a few bags under his eyes.  Timmy could have sat up straighter, could have ironed his shirt that morning. ‘You know what, Timmy?’ I thought. ‘YOU look tired.’

I wanted to run back to Timmy and tell him that.  But that would be mean.  Instead I opted to turn my anger into good and let all you Timmy’s out there know that “You look tired” is no way to start a conversation.  I don’t care if it’s midterm season, I don’t care if quals are coming up, I don’t care if your friend has bags the size of suitcases under her eyes, do not tell her this.  Grab her arm and ask her “How’s it goin’?” instead.  Take her for a coffee.  Tell her a joke.  Inquire about the latest episode of Hell’s Kitchen.  Just – don’t go there, or you might actually give her a reason to look tired.  And for both of y’all’s sake – you don’t want that.

Before last Sunday, I did not know it was possible for noses to scrunch in unison.  However, on that sticky afternoon I witnessed the simultaneous scrunching of two upset noses.   I actually induced the scrunching.  It went something like this.

“My mom’s coming to town next week.  I think I’ll take her to Legal Seafods.”

:: scrunch ::

:: scrunch ::

Amongst the scrunches, I also identified one gasp, two furrowed brows, and a look of horror.  “You what?” said Mike. “No.  NO, no.  Don’t do that to her.  Don’t you love her?  I don’t know you.”

they begged us not to go

Alex took a more constructive approach. “How about tapas?  Does she like Spanish food?  The best meal of my life happened at a tapas bar downtown, and — OH! Oh, oh!! Two words — DIM. SUM.  Can I meet her?  Can I come?  You know what – I’LL take her, you stay here and work on Orientation.  I won’t take her to Legal Seafoods, though.”

The mere utterance of Legal Seafoods had jolted my acquaintances into Rescue Mode.  They were federal food agents on a mission to save my mother from overpriced and overrated seafood.  They pleaded with me to change my selection, begged that I take her someplace fresher and nicer – Craigie, perhaps?  L’Espalier? Even Rendezvous?  A passersby sensed distress from our corner and, like any good Samaritan, suggested a funky new Brazilian place (Muqueca).

I smiled and pretended to acquiesce.  Don’t get me wrong – I appreciated the concern of my colleagues; I even forwarded their suggestions on to my mom.

But my mom, like me, is stubborn and forgetful and stubborn, and at the end of a long day of seeing my new apartment and commenting on my hair and commenting on my new apartment and offering to help clean my new apartment and shopping for cleaning supplies and price-comparing cleaning supplies and asking-to-see-the-manager about mismarked cleaning supplies and commenting on my hair again and generally expressing her love for me, we found our weary selves seated in – buckle your seatbelts, kids – Legal Seafoods.

We shared a house salad, and some laughs.  She had the swordfish and bite of my barramundi.  She bought me the chocolate cake and gave me cleaning advice, and when I’d walked her to her hotel to say goodnight she also gave me a kiss and a hug and told me she loved me in that you-may-be-twenty-something-but-you-are-still-and-will-always-be-my-baby voice.  As I strolled down Vassar I knew that nothing, legal or illegal, new and trendy or old and overpriced, could change that.

So, despite the corniness of this blog posting, all you Craigie-loving, Legal-Seafood-hating, tapas-bar-seeking critics out there can kindly unscrunch your noses, grab someone you love, and go to dinner.  Go anywhere you like; I don’t care.  And you know what?  That loved one you grabbed probably doesn’t care, either.  So long as you let them have a bite of whatever it is you’re having, and comment on your new apartment.

I am/am not my research.  (Circle one.)

This GRE question has bounced around my head for the last (mumble mumble) years.  It arose because of a struggle between my work and my self.  At times, this struggle makes me want to pull out my hair.

When things are going good in the lab, I am on top of the world.  I am one baaaaaaaad motha-shut-yo-mouth.  I am a genius for selecting my technique, and a rock star for properly calibrating it, applying it, and monitoring it.  My analysis could go platinum.  Twice.

But when things don’t go so well?  When the experiment stops for no apparent reason overnight?  When the results that I got twice in a row decide not to reoccur?  When the trend — the beautiful, understandable, reasonable, backed-by-literature trend — disappears?  Ohhhhhh — just get me a coffee and back away slowly.  And hide me from my advisor.

grad student life

The life of a researcher can be feast or famine.  It can be the Cyclone at Coney Island — the highest of highs and the lowest of gut-wrenching, vomit-inducing, white-knuckled, heart-beating-in-my-throat lows.  And the highs are great, yes, but this up-and-down? Well, more than a few hairs may be found on the floor around my desk.

And here’s the tricky part: this is maybe kind of how it is supposed to be.  You hear it all the time, that every genius has a dose of psycho, too.  That the successful people find success because they are obsessed with what they do.  In fact, pundits have developed a cute little phrase to highlight the necessity of this obsession.  Tiger Woods bleeds golf. Venus and Serena bleed tennis.  Chris Rock bleeds comedy.  Oprah Winfrey bleeds talk.  These people are the greatest.  They are great because each has incorporated  his or her activity into his or her blood.

So what is a grad student to do?  Do I stay on this roller coaster and live for the highs?  Buckle down and fight my way through the lows?  Or do I remove myself?  Should I stop trying to be the Tiger Woods of micromechanics?  Spend less time in lab and more time anywhere else?  Does that mean I stop caring and do only what needs to be done?

I think the answer is somewhere in the middle, but I don’t really know.  I also think my answer would not be your answer, or his answer, or her answer (I’m pointing at some people behind you, now).  Even if I knew the answer, I would still have to figure out how to live it.  I’ll probably figure it out the day they give me my degree.  If not then, then definitely the day I get tenure.  Or the day I retire.

Until then, if you have any advice, I would love to hear it.  You can find me in the lab, or at the Muddy, or maybe on the basketball court .  I’ll either be the grad student pulling out her hair, or the one doing a little a victory dance and slapping high fives with her grad student buddies.  Or better yet, just look for the one who seems like she has not figured everything out just yet.

Last Friday was one of those lovely days where you jump up, pack your books, and tell your office-mates you’re going to “go read in the sun” (Nothing can tear you, Scholar-of-Scholars, from your precious work — not even a gorgeous day.)  Well I am a Scholar-of-Scholars, so I did that, and I was just getting really into the micro-detection of the plastic zone in metals beneath the shade of an ancient tree — when I sensed some movement near me.  Some impatient movement.

I looked up.  I screamed a silent scream and jumped up.  About two feet away from my rear, well within my personal space, my human bubble of protection, was a squirrel.  A gritty, street-wise, impatient squirrel.  I know he was street-wise and impatient because he didn’t run away when I shouted at him.  He didn’t flinch when I clapped my hands and raised my arms to look intimidating.  I think he actually rolled his eyes.  And chuckled.  (Kind of like a group of tourists strolling along the walk at that moment.)

I was really creeped out so I kept backing up, and when I had stepped sufficiently out of his personal space, he hopped over my books, scurried right through where I had just been sitting, and paused beneath an open window on Building 1.  He made sure that the coast was clear — and leaped into the window.

I didn’t dare sit down until he reappeared about three minutes later, empty-handed but in an impatient hurry.  He scampered off to wherever he had come from.  Apparently he had just needed to check on his experiment or something.

Central Park ain’t got nothin’ on the squirrels at MIT.  From now on I’ll be doing my reading inside.  With the window closed.

just another grad student

Last Thursday, I was arrested on my front porch.

It came at the end of a long trip, full of research, meetings, reading, grant-writing.  I was greeted with a front door that had swelled shut in the Boston humidity.   My friend unlocked the side door, came around front, and helped me shove the stubborn thing open.  Imagine my surprise at being confronted with a police officer a few minutes later.  I showed him my ID, established my residency, but he did not believe me.  I got frustrated; I got upset, I yelled.  We moved onto my front porch.  He arrested me.  On my front porch.  For . . . yelling?  For being black?  For both?

Technically, this did not happen to me.  This happened to Professor Gates, down the road at Harvard.  But at times like this, when a fellow member of my tiny minority group — African-Americans in academia — experiences injustice, I feel as though I experience the injustice, too.  I want to step out on my own front porch and yell a few things.  I would yell about my pride, my confusion, and my frustration.

I would shout first about my pride, my rich history.  I would holler about my grandfather who shoveled coal instead of finishing  ninth grade, my grandmother who clerked fifteen years in a New York ER to feed the seven mouths in her house, my father who finished his homework every night on an ironing board so that I would one day have a front porch of my own to stand on.

I would yell about the years I had spent in school — the hours in lab, the weekends in the library, the sunny days lost to my desk and my laptop.  I would yell that I had invested those years to contribute to a discipline and to a generation.  That I was a scientist, a researcher, a teacher.  That I was black.  That I was a woman.  That I was so much more than black.  That I was so much more than a woman.  I would cry about stereotypes, and stereotypes broken.

I would scream about affirmative action, and diversity initiatives.  I would wail that though I appreciate and benefit from such programs, I hold a secret fear that with every success, and every failure, that others see only the black, or only the woman.  I would scream about the frustration that comes with that fear.  The impossibility but the necessity of being prideful but focused, of forgetting and remembering oneself at the same time.  Every day.  All day.  My whole life.

I cannot say with certainty that Professor Gates was mistreated because he was black.

I cannot say with certainty that Professor Gates was not mistreated because he was black.

I can say with near certainty that Professor Gates was mistreated, and that Professor Gates is black, and that the mistreatment conjured up a minority’s life-long struggle between pride, and confusion, and frustration.  Maybe more so for me than for him.

And Salvadoran food, too — and it is all a hop, skip, and a jump away.  You hop on the Red line, skip to the Green line, and jump onto the blue line (which is clean, shiny, air-conditioned, and not surprisingly, well, blue).  You exit at Maverick Square, and find yourself at Taqueria Cancun.

picture stolen from www.burritoblog.com, who did not give this oasis the stellar review it deserved

Order anything.  Order everything. Try not to fill up on their house-made chips and fresh-and-tasty salsa.  But if you do, no worries — just wash it down with a cold one, pay your bill, and book a return trip in the not-too-distant future.

And on that return trip — either save room for the horchatas, the pupusas, the chile rellenos, the sopa de mariscos, the mexican burritos, the carne asada, the quesadillas, even the expertly fried shrimp and catfish plate,  or bring me with you.

This blog posting is supported by me, a four-year Los Angeles resident (which makes me an officially licensed authority on great Mexican food), and the Boston Globe.

. . . begins with chapter 3.  or chapter 4.  and  definitely not chapter 1.  that’s what i’m told, anyway.  all of my friends who have conquered that nasty monster, the thing-with-the-forty-eyes, The Thesis, have told me,

“Do Not, DO NOT, DO NOT begin with chapter 1.  Do that LAST.”

mas-ter [MAS'tur]; (noun, singular) that which one must beat to pass either grad school, or a level in Super Mario Bros.

master, or thesis?

I witnessed this on the last day of my first attempt at quals.  In retrospect, it may have been prophetic.  Like quals, it left me wondering about things I (or any human, for that matter) may never know the answer to.

A breeze blew.  A girl screamed.  The world stopped.

I looked out my window.  75 seconds prior,  I had heard a gasp from the pavement below.  I had peered out to spy the owner of the gasp — a girl my age, awestruck by the adorable Mommy Duck and ten Baby Ducks fearlessly waddling across Pacific St.

From my apartment perch high above, I had taken a minute to admire Mommy Duck’s confidence.  She glided, head held high above her adorably ducky shoulders.  She sashayed from side to side with sexiness and determination, followed by an army of chicks struggling to mimic her swagger.  She cocked her sexy ducky head to have a look at the line of cars waiting for her to cross the street.  “Yes,” she was thinking.  “I stop traffic.  I’m amazing.”  She laughed a haughty ducky laugh and continued on her way.  I had resolved to copy her swagger when I next headed out, and I had returned to my work.

Fast forward to the scream.   I located its owner — again, that emotional girl my age.  But she was not awestruck this time.  She was upset.  She was crying, tugging at her boyfriend and pointing at — pointing at — I had to open my blinds, and move to the side of the window to get a better angle — she was pointing at —

The . . .  sewer grate.  Through which one of the baby ducks had just dropped.

how do you waddle away from this?

The world stopped.  But only for a second.  The stalled cars eventually screeched out of line and sped past.  A man on a cell phone furrowed his brow but kept his pace.  Emotional Girl and Emotional Girl’s Boyfriend approached the sewer.  But Mommy Duck — surely Mommy Duck was overcome with despair, no longer the sexy confident duck-stress she had been moments ago.  Was she quacking little quacks of grief?  Calling for her lost child?  Comforting her little ducklings, demanding that they sit tight while Mommy goes for help?

No.  Mommy Duck threw one sexy ducky glance over her left shoulder, another sexy ducky glance over her right shoulder, PICKED UP THE PACE, and waddled away.

She left her child.  Her child!  Now a ducky orphan!  In a sewer!  How could she DO that?  What could possibly be more important?  Did she have a duck plane to catch?  Was her duck house on fire?  NO!  Mommy Duck said, “Aha, NOW’S my chance!  I always hated Duckling No. 7!  He whined!  He ate too much!  He was ugly!  I’m OUTTA HERE! C’mon kids, let’s GO!!!!”

Me, Emotional Girl, and Emotional Girl’s Boyfriend were more upset than Mommy Duck.  A little mad too.  We temporarily lost our faith in humanity.  Then we remembered that technically ducks aren’t humanity.  Then The Cambridge Department of Public Works saved the day.

The familiar bright orange THE WORKS truck pulled over and ejected two strapping men.  One bounded straight to the sewer, the other paused to grab a hook from the backseat.  He nabbed the sewer grate and flung it to the side like a piece of dirty laundry.  He pounced on the ground and jammed his head into that dark, nasty hole.

chariot of a hero

An arm disappeared into the abyss.  It came up moments later, streaked with black, but duckling-less.  “IT’S TOO DEEP,” shouted a thick Boston accent, “I NEEDA GET SUMTHUN.”  He sped back to the trunk, grabbed sumthun, and sped back to the sewer.  He had grabbed — it was — I had to crouch in the window, now — in his hand — he held –he had grabbed a rope.  He was tying the rope to the bucket!  Brilliant!  He lowered his delicate device with a tenderness that defied his brawn.  Except for the occasional passing car, the world stopped again.  I held my breath.  Emotional Girl held her breath.  Emotional Girl’s Boyfriend held his breath, and Emotional Girl’s hand.  Suddenly, inevitably, the increasingly loud but distinct chirping told us that HE HAD RETRIEVED NO. 7!!! Success, rejoicing, the world continued on.  The bouncing white spot in the orange bucket of black muck was the lost child, lost no more.

But Boston Man didn’t get up.  Boston Man handed the bucket to Boston Man’s Partner, who removed the chick, dumped the remains (hopefully on Mommy Duck, that ducky scoundrel) and HANDED THE BUCKET BACK to Boston Man.  Who lowered it into the abyss.  Which means — no, it couldn’t be true, could it? But there was — there were — here comes the bucket now — and the chirping — a white spot — in black muck — oh my goodnes —

ANOTHER CHICK!  TWO CHICKS! TWO CHICKS!  No.7 AND No. 8!!!!  I rejoiced.  Emotional Girl did a little Emotional Dance of Joy.  Boston Man beamed.  He was no longer A Public Worker.  He was The Hero.  The Hero with two chicks.

The Hero stopped beaming.  He frowned at No. 8, then No. 7.  He slowly turned a full 360 degrees, looking high and low for that deadbeat Mommy Duck — but she was gone.  Off selling her children for cigarettes, probably.  The Hero heaved a heroic sigh, and gingerly placed No. 8, then No. 7, back into the now empty bucket.  He mumbled something to his almost heroic friend, and the two shared a chuckle.  Bucket in hand, they hopped into their orange truck and drove off to whereabouts unknown, amidst a small applause from me and Emotional Girl.

Weeks have passed since then, but I am still conflicted about Mommy Duck.  She had swagger, no doubt, but was that all?  Did she love her ducklings?  Or did she selfishly pare down the stack with a treacherous walk past a sewer? Did she genuinely not know she had lost two children?  Do ducks have foresight?  Or guilt?  Or peripheral vision?  Do they love?  Or is that what the Department of Public Works is for?  If I ever see The Hero again, I’ll be sure to ask him.  Until then, I’ll just keep sitting by my window, waiting for the world to stop.

and i raise you a SHOT of BRILLIANT and ADORABLE:

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