Grad Student Eating: Adventures in Ramen Substitutes

On the heels of the grad student food carnival, I thought I might share with you my trials and tribulations in attempting to find a satisfactory Ramen substitute. Ramen is one of the worst things you can eat, as it is high in fat (~16g fat per brick), sodium (on the order of 2,000 mg), and monosodium glutamate (MSG), and it has no nutritional value other than the empty carbs and fats. Most people eat it because it is cheap, but it's also very effective as a comfort food. Often when I feel nauseated (which is just about all the time) I want to eat Ramen because a) it reminds me of being a kid and b) it is relatively simple in terms of flavor, texture, and ease of digestion. However, when I was having gallbladder trouble in the late summer/early fall, I had to cut out fatty foods from my diet completely, which meant no more Ramen at a time when I really wanted comfort food. I've tried several natural/vegan alternatives, but so far none of them have lived up to my expectations.

Thai Kitchen Garlic and Vegetable Instant Rice Noodle Soup

This was labeled as "Ramen" noodles that are steamed instead of fried (and therefore don't have all the fat, I believe it was ~2g/serving), and the preparation and presentation are very similar to Ramen bricks. The noodles were a bit chewey, but otherwise it was almost perfect... except for the fact that it was so spicy, I couldn't finish the bowl. I knew it contained ginger and "spices", and I omitted the oil packet that contained more ginger and red pepper, but damn. I know that what I consider spicy and what most people consider spicy aren't really comparable, as I have a very diminished tolerance for spicy food compared to most people (worst of all my boyfriend, who grew up on Indian food), so your mileage may vary, but I couldn't eat it. Fail.

Dr. McDougall's Ramen Chicken Flavor

My friend recommended this to me because it is vegan, and the noodles are "baked not fried" as it says on the packaging. The spice powder did a good job of imitating the flavor of Ramen spice powder without adding MSG (although it was still spicier than I would have liked), so kudos for that, but the noodles were made of durum semolina (the flour that macaroni/spaghetti noodles are made of) instead of rice, and I could taste the difference. Plus they were in tiny little pieces, so I couldn't twirl them around my fork! Fail. I also bought a miso-flavored package of the same brand, but I have a feeling I'll have the same complaints about it.

Thai Kitchen Spring Onion Rice Noodle Bowl

In addition to the same spiciness pitfalls as the first (of the same brand, even), this had overly thick noodles that were very chewy. Double fail. I doubt I will try anything else by this brand.

If I could combine the noodles of the first with the spices of the second, and subtract about half of the spiciness, it would be perfect. Alas. I am considering just buying a box of rice noodles and a bottle of miso paste and calling it a day. Since my gallbladder issues are over I could, in theory, go back to eating regular Ramen, but I don't think that would go over well after having such a good diet for so long. And, anyway, if I'm going to stick 16g of fat into my body in one sitting, I'd rather it be for a worthwhile cause, like chocolate.

Birthday cat and lab stuff.

Sorry for the radio silence yesterday. I had a big day full of thesising, teaching Undergrad T how to filter his samples, cleaning grime off of the evaporimeter (Labmate J swears by toothpaste for this job, but I didn't have any handy), desperately searching for autosampler vial caps in all the little hiding places in the lab, and then going to pre-birthday dinner with K and my dad (today's my actual birthday though-- happy birthday to me!).



Today I'm meeting K at the adoption agency during his lunch break to pick up my new cat. I'm excited but I have a lot to do to prepare. I need to completely sanitize the litterbox so that it isn't overwhelmed with Kitty's (that's my current cat's name, Kitty) scent and I also need to vacuum the house for the same reason. I need to designate a safe space for her if she and Kitty don't hit it off immediately (which I doubt they will, Kitty hasn't been exposed to another cat since he was a kitten). Fortunately they're both fixed, so that isn't an issue.

I also plan on finishing my thesis proposal today. My advisor said that with a few minor changes to the last draft, it was ready to be approved by my committee. I have one last paper to read and cite and then it should be ready to go. I feel a little silly that I'm just now finishing my thesis proposal, especially considering the fact that the lab work and data analysis are completely finished, and the manuscript coming from my thesis work is already written (not revised or publishable yet, but written). Also, I'm a little afraid to admit this, but I have no idea how to send my proposal to Drs. Bat and Bug. I mean, I know I'm just supposed to email it to them, but I feel like there's some kind of unwritten rule about HOW I'm supposed to approach them about it, and I have no idea what the rule(s) may be. Maybe I'll talk to Labmate Li tomorrow about it if she's around. I would just ask Advisor, but apparently he's on a 1.5 month vacation that nobody told me about. I've been emailing him back and forth about my proposal all last week, and I had no idea he wasn't just sitting around in his office. Oops?

I need to bang out some ideas with Labmate A about Undergrad T's work and the paper that will be coming from it. See, Labmate A and I are co-advising Undergrad T, because he's working with Labmate A's samples (also some samples from a former labmate of ours who is also a collaborator on my work), but I'm the only one in the lab who knows the protocol for the specific measurements he wants to take, so I trained him in how to do the extractions and Labmate A taught him how to do -ography. I have no idea if I'm going to be an author on the resultant paper or not. All I've done so far is train the kid how to do the extractions, but it'd be a shame not to have my input on the paper since I'm the resident expert on 'protein channels' in our lab. Unfortunately I also don't know how to approach someone about wanting to co-author on a paper they're in charge of. Again, I feel like there are unwritten rules on this that I just plain don't know.

Mr./Ms. vs Dr.

Today I received the following email:

Hello. I took [class] with Ms. B------ about two - three years ago, and currently I'm in the process of applying to graduate school. The graduate school that I am applying to would like a copy of the syllabus for your course to see if it fulfills their physiology requirement. Can you provide me with the [class] course syllabus?

I tried contacting Ms. B------ directly, but my attempts have been unsuccessful.

S----- J----

My response:

Hi—I've attached DR. B------'s syllabus from this quarter.

Michelle

I wonder if CB were a man, would this student have called her Mr., or would he have defaulted to the correct title of Dr.? Either way, people be pissin' me off today.

How important are appearances, really?

Like every other grad student in history (I imagine), I have mixed feelings about my advisor. There are lots of things about him that I respect, and there are many ways in which he's been an immense help to me, but there are an equal number of ways in which his existence makes my life hard. He's a stubborn, blunt guy with a very loud bark, and sometimes that works for you, sometimes it works against you. But one thing I have always admired about my advisor is the fact that he's never told me I had to look or act a certain way to be taken seriously as a scientist.

When I first joined this lab as an undergrad, I had pink hair and two facial piercings. Of that, all that is left today is my lip stud, but it was my own choice to get rid of the pink hair and the eyebrow ring. I think about my lip ring about as often as I think about my earlobe, because by now it is just another part of me. I forget that I have it, even when I'm looking right at it. And every so often someone will behave oddly around me, and it isn't until (much) afterwards when I realize, oh, they were probably reacting to my piercing. It isn't often that it happens, but often enough for me to wonder what the hell is wrong with people. People have enough trouble taking young women seriously as a scientist to begin with, and if you throw non-traditional facial adornment into the mix, who knows what they think.

But, my advisor took me as I was, and when it came time to attend conferences and present research, he never asked me to take out my piercings to change my hair color. He told me that the work can and should stand for itself. It makes me wonder... the idea behind scientific communication is that it shouldn't matter who does the research as long as it makes a sound argument backed up by good data and factual analysis. However, scientists are human beings, and often the knowledge of who does what piece of research can change our opinion of that research. If some old dude passes by me standing in front of my poster at a conference, he's going to make a snap judgment about my work based on the fact that I'm female and my appearance. He may or may not realize that he's doing it, but he does. I always wonder what people's motivations are when they approach me. Are they actually interested in my work, or do they just want to find out if I know what I'm talking about?

More thesising.

K wants to go see Despicable Me today, which I desperately want to see, but I had to say no because I was counting on working on my thesis today. Infinite sadfaces. We were actually supposed to go see it yesterday, but then we wound up spending the whole evening running around town looking for a new man bag for him to take to work. How hard is it to find a canvas messenger bag anymore? Pretty goddamn hard.

I'm making a lot of progress on my thesis, though! It is funny how the amount of work that you need to do feels insurmountable until you actually start doing it, and then you realize it wasn't that much work after all. And on the contrary, when you think something isn't going to take very long, you wind up spending the whole day on it. Funny how that works, eh?

I had a poop-my-pants moment of fear earlier when I was working on some updates to my model that Advisor asked me to do, and I accidentally saved the new file over the template file that I use for all permutations of my model. Um. Oops. I almost flipped my shit (in a bad way), but then I remembered that I keep a redundant system because I have two laptops that I routinely use. I just copied the template file over from my netbook. Crisis averted!

Weird things professors do.

I got my thesis proposal back from my advisor this morning, and I've spent most of the afternoon going over his comments and making revisions while K and his friend kill aliens on the couch next to me. Friend brought over his PS3, and K is enjoying his last week of freedom before he starts his first Real World Job. It is somewhat distracting, but I'm surprised at how much work I've actually gotten done.

Advisor doesn't think I need to change anything major, and that it is "almost ready for [my] committee". This is good news, but the best part about reading my advisor's manuscript revisions is the way he chooses to get his point across.

For example, in one sentence I was explaining that there was genetic divergence between populations of my study species in the USA and Desert Country. I figured that the reader would know that it was genetic divergence for the expression of 'protein channels', seeing as how that's what my whole thesis is about, but his comment was, "for what???? beak length??? what?" hahahahaha. Okay, I get his point, I should be clearer as to what I'm talking about.

In other news, this morning CB (the professor who teaches the human physio class I TA) was talking to the class about, I don't know, blood pressure or something, and my attention went off to space for a moment. When I came back to the present, CB had adopted an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent and was talking about how she couldn't touch her nose because of all of her muscles. I still have no idea what point she was illustrating with that, but man, that was fucking surreal.

Stuff I liked today:

- Afarensis has a nice post up explaining how the genus Homo and extinct hominids can be distinguished from other living apes AND how living primates (including humans) can be distinguished from extinct hominids by examining critical points on the proximal femur bone.

Culture shock and grad school identities

In my second post for Samia's zomg grad skool carnival!!!1, I'm going to attack a different question. Samia asks, "How has the academic culture affected your navigation through multiple identities? Was there a culture shock involved?"

When I first became aware of the grad student demographic in my department during my last year of undergrad, the atmosphere was a lot more diverse than it is now. There was a significant population of Latino students, but they have all graduated and moved on to other things. There was also a decent portion of east Asian students, and a few of them are still around, but most of them have graduated as well. There are no brown students, and only two black students. I've noticed a significant whitening of the faces around me in the last two years, which I can't really attribute to anything tangible but I doubt (I hope) that it is on purpose. The population is, as a whole, heteronormative, which isn't a huge problem really because I present as heterosexual right now. My labmates know my true orientation, but it doesn't really come up much. There are more girls in my department than you would see in the more physical sciences and even in a lot of biological science departments, but I think that's partially due to the nature of ecological science and how it seems to attract more girls than any other branch of biology. Everyone I've spoken to in my department is a bleeding heart liberal. I like it that way.

I think one of the things that stuck out to me almost immediately about grad school was that virtually every single female grad student that I met was in a long distance, long term relationship with boys they had to leave behind when they moved to BigStateU. About half of them were engaged to said boys, but I don't believe many of them were already married. This was awkward for me, as I was fresh out of a failed long term relationship with someone I thought (at one point) that I'd probably marry. I had also drastically fucked up my first date with K right before grad school started (funny story, our first date was the summer before grad school, but we didn't start seriously dating until November because I'm kind of an idiot-- maybe I'll tell that story someday), so I was pretty bummed out about relationships in general. Whenever we got together in casual groups, the conversation would generally drift over to complaining about two-body issues, etc, and I felt like I had no place there. I had the opposite problem. Then... of course... K and I actually got together and I became the girl everyone hated because her boyfriend lived just off campus. :)

Actually, that brings up another issue. I felt like I was a much better student when I was single than I am now. I spent long evenings at the office when I was single because, well, I didn't have anything to look forward to coming home to. I didn't mind staying late and working extra because I just didn't have any other priorities. Now that K and I are quasi-living together (he has an apartment but he doesn't spend much time there), I come home as soon as I can on most days, and I rarely work from home. It makes me feel guilty that I don't spend evenings working anymore, and it makes me feel like I'm falling behind everyone else. But if I spend too much time working in the evenings, I feel like I'm neglecting my relationship. All this stress and guilt lowers my libido, and then nobody is happy. I'm still trying to figure out how to reconcile this girlfriend-vs-student stuff, but I don't see any easy answers in the immediate future.

One major bit of culture shock that is probably unique to people who go to grad school at their undergrad institutions is the transition from taking undergrad classes to teaching undergrad classes. When I'm talking with my human physio students, and they tell me about something they learned in introductory bio last year, it amazes me when I think to myself, "Oh my god, I took that class SEVEN YEARS AGO." Everything those students are going through, I already went through at least five years ago. It is weird, because it helps me relate to them, but it also keeps me separate from them. I keep getting very jarring reminders that, culturally speaking, undergrad life and grad life are very different, even though it is all taking place on the same campus, in the same buildings.

Another way that grad school has changed my identity is the fact that it allows me to be financially self-sufficient. I am lucky enough to belong to a department that funds all of its students one way or another, so my tuition is paid for and I get a pretty decent stipend that allows me to pay all of my bills without any help from my parents, for the first time in my life. All through undergrad I relied on financial support from my parents, and I didn't mind it really, but it is a very cool feeling to be able to support yourself for the first time. It kinda makes you feel like you might actually be a real adult instead of just faking it for the cameras. I think this is perhaps one of the most important shifts in my identity due to grad school. After all the stupid, self-absorbed identity crises and existential crises I had in undergrad, I feel like I'm finally growing up.

What I wish I knew when I started grad school

For the zomg grad skool carnival!!!1 Samia wants to know:

What do you wish you'd known going in? What are you struggling with now? It'd be really awesome if people could address more than just the academic portion of graduate student life. How has the academic culture affected your navigation through multiple identities? Was there a culture shock involved? What kinds of psychological tolls has graduate school taken? What kinds of support systems have worked for you?

Here I'm going to attempt to answer her first question (and perhaps a few of the other ones, too) with a handy numbered list. I might address the other questions in a future post, but for now, here's my advice to new grad students.

1.) Go to every departmental social event. Every single one. This is important because you need to establish a support group with fellow graduate students both inside and outside your own lab. You also need to get to know the professors in your department apart from your own advisor, because you may be teaching for them some day, or you may need to decide who to include in your committee, or you may need to ask them to loan you a centrifuge. They may even GIVE you (well, your lab) that centrifuge when they retire. The more professors you're on a first name basis with, the better.

2.) Start writing as soon as possible. For example, my thesis project is complete, but I still haven't written my mandatory thesis proposal. Not only that, but I have a manuscript I've been sitting on for two years. Get it DONE. Everything you write your first couple of terms will be complete shit, but you can mine the shit later for the gems, which you can work into new drafts. Get as much of that done as soon as you can, because if you don't, you have no idea how much time you'll be spending on it later.

3.) Don't be afraid of your advisor. S/he is not out to get you. I used to be absolutely terrified of my advisor. Every time he wanted to talk to me, I would freak out. I thought I did something wrong, or he wasn't happy with my progress, or... I don't even know what. It was never the case. NEVER the case.

4.) When you start arguing with your advisor, it means you're maturing as a scientist.

5.) You will change your thesis topic three times. That's okay, it happens to everyone. It has happened to most of the people in my cohort and in my lab. It didn't happen to me, but that's because I'm special. :)

6.) Get to know the administrative staff in your department. Bring them cookies. They will make or break you when it comes to getting paperwork through for important things like ordering equipment or reagents, or approving travel funds. You want them on your good side.

7.) Figure out the neighborhoods where the undergrads live, and make sure you live far, far away from there. There are generally small, quiet neighborhoods a bit further away from campus where grad students live in peace, like real people, and not like barbarians.

8.) Even if you aren't required to, take a statistics class. I've taken at least one every term since I started, and I enjoyed it way more than I thought I ever would. You might be surprised.

9.) You will fuck up data. I repeat, you WILL fuck up data. You'll also break some expensive piece of equipment. That isn't the end of the world. And when you do, I don't recommend trying to work with that piece of broken equipment while hiding the fact that it's broken from everyone in your lab for several months... Not that I did that... (What, it was still FUNCTIONAL!)

10.) One of the most important factors to consider when choosing a lab is social fit. That seems stupid, but it really is. It goes back to the support group thing.

11.) Go to seminar. I know, I know, I just made a whole post the other day about how I never go to seminar, but really. Do as I say, not as I do. If your university is like mine, the grad students get to have lunch with the seminar speakers afterwards, and it is a great way to build connections in your field beyond your home department (assuming your department invites speakers who are actually in YOUR field more than a few times a year, unlike mine... *grumble*).

12.) Don't take it personally when your students don't care as much as you do. Don't take it personally when you get negative or conflicting student evals. Don't let teaching suck up a majority of your time, because it is a way to pay the bills, but it isn't what you're there for.

13.) Get a pet, especially if you're moving far away from everyone you know and love. Having something warm and cuddly waiting for you at home makes things better in so many intangible ways.

14.) Impostor syndrome is real, and horrible to deal with. I don't know how to help you with this one, but knowing that you're not the only one who feels that way can help a little bit.

Committees.

I found out recently that I've been nominated for a couple of departmental committees for next year. I don't know if this is typical of R1 universities, but our graduate student organization appoints graduate seats (typically one or two) in each departmental faculty committee. We do anonymous nominations at the end of each year, and then vote on the nominees for seats the following year.

I was nominated for the diversity committee (apparently someone out there is keen to the fact that I'm an ex-lesbian in an interracial relationship, because otherwise, dude, I'm totally whitebread Americana) and the seminar committee. I have a feeling that the seminar committee nomination is a thinly veiled attempt by someone in my lab to try to force me to go to more seminars.

I am notorious in my lab for skipping seminars, because so few of them are actually relevant to my research. As I think I've mentioned before, I am in an ecology and evolution department. It isn't a perfect fit, because while there is an ecological aspect to my research, the majority of it is physiology or biochemistry. I just could not give two rats' asses about population ecology or ecological modeling or, worst of all, PLANT ECOLOGY*. Ew. And since the plant ecologists and ecosystem ecologists make up the majority of the department, most of the invited seminar speakers are in those fields. I'm sure I would learn something if I went, but to be pefectly honest, I find plant ecology to be completely snooze-worthy. I'm sure the speaker would rather that I didn't go to their talk than for me to sit there and yawn rudely through the whole thing, right?

Needless to say, I turned down that nomination. The job should go to someone who cares, and I, frankly, don't. I accepted the other nomination, though. I have no idea what the diversity committee does, but I'm sure I can wing it.

* This is not a judgement on the importance of plant ecology or the work of plant ecologists. Just a statement on my ability to tolerate hearing about it in excruciating detail.

Honestly, I didn't even know the planet existed at that hour of the morning.

I just received the official word on my TA assignment for fall, and it turns out I will be teaching human physiology again, for the third time in a row. I have mixed feelings about this.

Pros:
- The subject material is easy for me, as this is an intro class in my field (although humans aren't my study species).
- The work load is insanely reasonable. My salary is paid on the assumption of 20 hours of work per week, but I rarely push 12 hours in a week.
- It involves NO grading and NO lecturing (this is actually why I was placed in this class in the first place, because I had a discussion with the person who makes TA appointments about my agoraphobia, which is apparently also majorly triggered by standing in front of a room of students).
- 90% of the time, the students I am interacting with are there by choice, not because they have to be, so I don't have to deal with disinterested zombie faces.
- The professor is a fantastic, friendly woman with very reasonable expectations.

Cons:
- Class is at 7am four days a week. SEVEN AM. FOUR DAYS A WEEK. THE SUN HASN'T EVEN RISEN BY THEN ON MANY DAYS OF THE YEAR.

You have to understand that before I started teaching this class, I hadn't woken up before 9am on purpose since high school. That was seven years ago. As much as I adore teaching human physio, I was really looking forward to the possibility of late mornings again.

Alas. K is happy about it, though. He says that me waking up early will help HIM get up early for his first Real World Job. He just graduated from his grad program (MPH) last month, and it is weird to me that he gets to be a real adult and I don't. If you knew us, you'd know that it really ought to be the other way around.

Navel-gazing about anxiety.

Sometimes I am surprised by how confident I've become as a scientist and as a student, especially considering how anxiety-ridden I used to be. Two years ago I was a 5th year senior doing undergrad research in the same lab that I'm in today. I had wicked impostor syndrome, and I was having panic attacks about not being able to complete the project on a bi-weekly basis. A year and a half ago I had a nervous breakdown at a hotel the night before my presentation at a national scientific conference. This was one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me. I had to go to the emergency room to be sedated just so I could get some sleep, and I spent the better part of a year learning how to deal with my suddenly-elevated panic disorder. I had to take a nine month break from science, which is why I dropped out of the blogosphere for so long. I almost decided not to go to graduate school, because I didn't feel like I could handle it. I'm glad I made the last-minute decision to attend (and I mean that literally-- I sent in my acceptance on the very last day). The ordeal resulted in a very strained relationship between me and my advisor for a while. He was frustrated with my lack of progress because he didn't entirely understand what was going on with me, and I didn't know how to articulate it.

It is interesting, though, because despite going through all of that in the year before grad school, it went away almost completely as soon as I actually started. The solidarity and camaraderie of the kids in my cohort and my labmates has been an outstanding help in that regard. My department (an ecology and evolution department) is not one of the superstars of the college of biosciences, but in the scheme of things I feel very blessed to be part of it. There are times when I feel like I don't belong in this department, since my research is only very loosely attached to ecology, but it is still a great environment. I have made so much progress in terms of my school-related anxiety. I used to be afraid of my professor, but now I am able to hold my own and argue points with him because of the confidence I've gained. I no longer feel like I have impostor syndrome. The only school-related panic attacks I've had in the last year were over teaching, but that's another whole beast entirely. I have a love/hate relationship with teaching, and I doubt I'll be doing it again when I graduate, but for now I'm staying afloat. Part of that is finding the right class to teach, and the right professor to teach for.

I still have a lot of anxiety issues in my personal life, which I'm trying to make progress on, but unfortunately that is slow going. K (my boyfriend) did his undergrad in psychology, which can sometimes be very helpful but sometimes pisses me off because I just feel like he's patronizing me. All I can say is that I'm working on it, man.