Things I've learned in grad school

A recent seminar prompted some reflection on what I've actually been up to the last three years. More specifically, a recently hired postdoc in my department had invited her former advisor to speak, and was going through the inevitable introductory monologue. This brief speech typically recalls some humorous connection between the inviter and invitee, or at the very least something they shared. The freshly minted PhD chose to bring up her ex-advisor's teaching skills as a lasting memory of her grad school experience. This got me thinking: what's the real take-home message so far? Granted, I'm far from done, but I'll be a monkey's uncle if I haven't learned something in the process. So, on the assumption that nostalgia is a form of advice, or that the reader is curious about what it's like, I will dispense this advise now:

1. You are all freaks. This is actually the only valuable insight I gained from graduate student orientation. Graduate students are the 1% of college kids who actually enjoyed the classes, tests and mental challenges. Everybody else went to get a high-paying job, because their parents told them to, or because they wanted to party. This fact becomes especially pertinent when you do any sort of teaching, or when you interact with undergraduates in the lab. Don't expect that these people are motivated for the same reasons you are, or even care at all. Similarly, conversation about your "job" with members of the public is best restricted to "I'm a grad student" and stating your general field of study. People don't know, and don't particularly care, about that miniscule portion of human knowledge you're trying to master. I suggest talking about sports or TV instead. The upside here is that you'll be surrounded by at least one set of like-minded people to commiserate with: other graduate students. You'll want to bitch to somebody, because...
   
   
2. Academia has hazing. This isn't readily apparent until you've been in it for a while. When presenting your research to an audience of your peers (and superiors) you'll get a bunch of questions, many of which you won't be able to answer. Reviewers will delight in tearing your precious papers to shreds. Your committee members are liable to rip you a new one during your preliminary exams. Whether all these mechanisms are supposed to instill humility, confidence or are just perpetrated because they're tradition, I don't know. What is important about them is that they are survivable. Rarely is a student actually drummed out of a program, and no matter how much looking like an idiot sucks it's not actually going to kill you. Fortunately, there's a reward...
   
   
3. This is the most flexible job you'll ever have. Possibly the biggest advantage to the situation. Graduate school exists in an odd limbo between employment and education: you're kinda working, but on the other hand you're in school - although with very few classes. The end result is that you, and only you, are responsible for producing the data that will some day result in a shiny piece of paper and people mistaking you for an M.D. Don't feel like going to the lab today? Nobody's making you. Early mornings annoying? Arrive at the crack of noon. On the other hand, experiments need tending at all hours of the night, and since you don't have a set schedule the temptation to work way more than is advisable from a standpoint of mental health is always there. Particularly when considering...
   
   
4. Publish or perish. A tried old saw, but stereotypes exist for a reason. Aside from the stupid hat they give you, your publication record is the only tangible outcome (reward?) you'll get for 4-10 years of mind-destroying labor. This is what gets you your next job, and possibly the next one after that. If you're planning to continue in academia your papers are the only thing you take with you to the next lab, and one of the more important selection criteria when it comes to getting that tenure-track professorship. Nothing you do is worth anything until it's on a piece of paper stamped with your name, your advisor's name and something like "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" or (if you're not so lucky) "West African Annals of Floral Development". This becomes important when you...
   
   
5. Carefully select an advisor. This is a biggie, and unfortunately a decision that is thrust upon you pretty early in the game. You will be choosing your boss, main collaborator, closest colleague and professional mentor (for the next half-decade) without all that much information to go on. Picking the right one sees you exit graduate school with your head held high, a half-dozen papers in hand and a sweet job awaiting you in a location of your choice. If you choose... poorly... you can look forward to endless arguments, lack of funding and eventually quitting in frustration. Make sure that you find somebody with a compatible personality, research interests you share, money to pay you and some drive to succeed. A professor who has never graduated a student, or one that is about to retire, might not be the best choice. A good balance between all these elements is not simple to find in one person, but it is vital in order to...
   
   
6. Relax. Or at least try to. A lot of people in grad school are Type A overachievers who put a lot of pressure on themselves. This has advantages (like getting shit done) and disadvantages (like stressing out). It's all too easy to get caught up in the microcosm that your lab and your research represent. Before you know it you've gained 40 pounds and developed insomnia. Take a step back, breathe, and go talk to some normal people every once in a while (see point #1). Hike, climb, knit scarves, play video games, hang out in bars, sky-dive, travel, whatever: the objective is to put some distance between you and your work. Bonus points if you are in a relationship with somebody outside The Game, since that person can help you put things in their proper perspective. By the way, if you figure out how to actually do this, let me know how.

And there endeth the lesson. If you're thinking about going to grad school, which is probably the only reason you would've read this far, the million dollar question is of course "Is it worth it?". I have no idea. I'll get back to you after I graduate.

Fall actually happened this year

Amazingly, Wyoming didn't switch directly from summer to winter overnight this time around. Incredible weather and pretty visuals have been dominating the last few weeks:

But before summer was even over, Dad came to visit:

So we chilled, drank beer, and caught some more fish:

Fortunately we had amply luxurious surroundings, golf course included, to relax in after all that heavy lifting:

The guest/dude ranch (or rather five-star resort) that we stayed on was border-lining on trippy. Not only is this thing sitting a stone's throw from the Platte Wilderness, with private ownership of some fantastic fishing waters, but it also includes a tennis court and Guide Michelin-quality restaurant. The people wandering around the place ranged from brain surgeons, through Old Southern Money, to Tom Hanks' neighbors. I've never felt quite so poor, and rarely so pampered. Fortunately I haven't the faintest idea of what this largess ended up costing, since (as they say in the Old Country) "pappa betalar"...

I've done very little climbing lately, after sustaining yet another chronic over-use injury (elbow tendonosis, round two). I got a little too uppity after a successful start to the season, and after several one-arm mantles on a particularly sweltering day in Clear Creek Canyon (105 F, holy crap!) my triceps attachment called it a year. A painful reminder of mortality. On the bright side I found two new climbing partners, John and Jeff:

I've been pretending to show them the ropes (sic), but my advice is hardly needed. "Climb up the crack, John. Try right hand up, left hand down." "Oh, like this?":

After three days of climbing both of them are already better than I am. That kind of natural talent used to piss me off to no end - I certainly never had any - but these days I'm trying to take things like that in stride:

And it looks like the dog agrees - things are actually pretty awesome (zoom in on this one, folks):

Far away from Laramie

The other day I was re-organizing my storage closet, and I found an old roll of climbing tape that looked all red and dusty. I peeled it back a little bit and caught a whiff of the desert. I was instantly transported back to Indian Creek:

So in May, I finally managed to get to Indian Creek, UT - perhaps the world's premier crack climbing destination. Over the last three years I've tried to go there no less than five times, consistently being beat by either weather or no-show partners. On the fourth attempt I even had the car packed before a massive snow storm made travel over the Rockies impossible. But in the end, it proved just as good as I expected. The endless supply of cracks of all sizes, in skin-friendly and incredibly continuous sandstone, is nothing short of amazing. After every single route I was thinking "No, this one is the best climb I've ever done!". For instance, the super-classic Scarface:

Three days down in the desert was both not enough and way too much: the relentless nature of the climbing is both inspiring and debilitating. My wrists and ankles were absolutely demolished by the end of the weekend, but I can't wait to go back.

My early summer trip to Utah kicked off a series of weekends out of town. I've not traveled as much as I would've liked over the last couple of years, but this winter I realized that I'm on a clock with respect to seeing the Mountain West. So I've been getting my ass kicked on longer routes on impeccable granite at Lumpy Ridge in Rocky Mountain National Park:

Painting by Bruce Peil.

I swung by the unique Devils Tower:

And climbed to the summit, planting my (adopted) flag:

I've also been on a bit of a sport climbing binge. Last year I formulated a climbing goal: climb a route of 5.12 (French 7a+, Swedish 8-) difficulty. While it's a somewhat meaningless threshold number, it does represent a significant step forward in my personal climbing, and to some degree a transition from average punter to intermediate climber. So I went to exploring limestone sport crags in Spearfish Canyon, SD:

In further pursuit of of my goal, I took two trips Ten Sleep Canyon in Wyoming:

Steep limestone abounds outside that tiny Wyoming town, and I surprised myself by getting two 5.12's in on my second trip. Playing to your strengths works, apparently, considering that's three full number grades harder than the cracks I'd been falling all over down at Lumpy Ridge. I also had a good time hanging with the local sport climbing crowd, including some professional climbers (and semi-professional drinkers):

 Photo by Alli Rainey.

Big thanks to Alli for letting us crash at her place and showing us around the canyon. And getting us some badly needed transmission fluid, but that's another story...

Other than that, things have been pretty quiet. But good views, so far:

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Yep, it turned into another long winter, alright. Despite freakishly hot conditions all over the country, and unusually mild weather around here, we just got hit by another major snow storm. Although things will gradually improve over the next two months, we can still look forward to blizzards in May and sub-freezing temperatures in June. Meanwhile, I've been parked in front of my computer screen in my windowless office - so there hasn't really been much to write home about. One or two things did get done, and I'll briefly re-cap below.

First off, I got to visit a state I'd never been to: Arizona. I had never seen the Southwest, really, other than a brief stop outside of Vegas, so I was stoked. Tom's girlfriend Jessi had clandestinely invited some of Tom's best friends down to celebrate his birthday, and we kept our mouths carefully shut about the plan. The whole gang flew in to Tucson:

We arrived about an hour ahead of the birthday boy, hid in the laundry closet (a little cramped!) and jumped out right in his face when he walked in the door. I swear, I have never before seen a man so close to a heart attack, and the look on his face was priceless. He literally reeled with shock for half an hour afterwards, and it took a number of stiff drinks before reality finally set in. Totally worth the effort. We then proceeded to the Dragoon Mountains and Cochise Stronghold to go climbing and partying for the weekend. We did pretty okay with the drinking, but our plans for climbing somehow offended the ghost of Chief Cochise:

Seeing the cholla cactus and yucca palms covered in two inches of snow was particularly surreal in light of the fact that the reknowned Western town of Tombstone was not two miles away - in other words, we were in the middle of a bone-dry desert. So, we retreated back to town and sought out friendlier climes for the remainder of the trip:

On another climbing note, I finally visited the nearby and world-famous-in-America Eldorado Canyon. It's got thousands of routes, and is quite warm in winter, but I was slightly underwhelmed by the experience. The routes are good, no doubt, but it's definitely not my type of climbing (balancy, runout) and the rock is on the loose side. Nice-looking spot, though:

This winter I've also had the privilege and pleasure (which I "treasure without measure", as Gilbert and Sullivan put it) to see my friends Corey and Emily get married. This was my second court-house wedding, and substantially less formal than the first one: we barely made it there before closing time! I got to sign the papers as a witness, though, and I'll be damned if the practically-minded couple didn't look just a little dazed, confused and happy afterwards. We then proceeded to have a hell of a wedding party, complete with live lobsters, rivers of champagne, $15 cigars and a fantastic cake. There are pictures somewhere, but I'm fairly sure that they're better left unpublished.

And while we're on a happy note, I'm pleased to announce that there's finally a peer-reviewed paper out with my name on it. Since the only result of getting a PhD - other than a piece of paper and a stupid hat - is a publication record of some kind, this was a Pretty Big Deal for me. It can be seen in its full and incomprehensible glory at the BMC Genomics journal, although I suspect you'd have to pay money to read the whole thing. While I'm bragging, I'll mention that we had the "Most Viewed" title in that journal for a couple of weeks. Hopefully it wasn't solely the result of me looking at it over and over...

Finally, I leave you with the European and American views of their counterparts across the Atlantic:

Things I'd forgotten about

"Out of sight, out of mind," they say. That goes for a lot of things, including many of those little details that make up so much of the difference between the US and the Old Country. It's always a little startling to be reminded when I go back. For instance, woolly bicycle seat covers:

Good-looking women of Middle Eastern descent:

 

 

Filmjölk:

Increasingly metrosexual men's fashion:

Poor service:

Beautiful snow-covered cityscapes:

Beer served in quantities larger than 12 oz:

And 18 hour nights:

It's all very disorienting. But it's always nice to see people I haven't met in years and years - probably set a new personal record this time by re-connecting with a guy from high school. How'd time whizz by that fast?