So I just finished my first class and nobody killed me. I was trully afraid that these UC types would notice a CSU intruder. Today I may go home unharmed. Nine more days to go.

I definately have discovered that feeling like an idiot is ubiquitous in grad school. Recently I was present when a grad student fell apart for a couple of minutes in her regular day. Later I saw her at lunch: she was smiling. Isn't it such a roller coaster? There's been days when I want to disappear from this "science world" in the morning but in the evening be appalled by the possibility of not doing science anymore. What else would I be? There's nothing I love more than finding out how a chameleon is able to maintain its body temperature through behavioral modifications. Or how the elasmobranchs seemed to have originally been located in fresh water and then moved to the sea. I get to absorb information day in and day out as part of my "job" instead of driving into an office and sitting in a cubicle performing mundane jobs day in and day out. What else can I ask for?

Of course those days that I feel more like an idiot than normal make me always re-think whether I belong here. It is my first week of classes. I have attended one of my classes twice this week and both times I have been praying that I will not get called upon to answer any questions. I honestly don't think I would be able to answer them and everybody else seems to be following along perfectly. I hope they don't find out that I am an imposter. That I don't belong!

At a seminar this week I was asked: Don't you think that its not worth it? That the inserted gene will eventually be selected out?

Response: umm....yea....that makes sense.....( I hadn't thought about it really)

In class it was asked: How would you determine the specific heat of a mouse?

Response (in my head): I need a Coke.....what??

The questions are not really impossible to answer. I just don't seem to be paying attention and it takes me a while to process. What if I am called upon next week? They'll find out!

TAing

Today was the start of the year. The first year cohort is assigned to this 3 day workshop which is aimed to assist you in developing your TA skills. Although it was super early I managed to enjoy it. I assumed that the workshop would be give by some anonymous HR person, but instead it was given by a 3-year grad student so the talks/demonstrations were relevant. Tommorrow we have to give a little lecture on some biological topic so that the class could evaluate us. I am going to give my BIO100 lecture on diffusion/osmosis. I'm sure that will amaze them......

I've learned that I will be TAing BIO100L. I have no idea what that means. Everything seems so High-tech here though. Last week I received an invitation to join Turnitin which is a web-site in which my student will need to turn in their assignments. The database is used to check for any sort of plagarism. Therefore I will ask them to turn in a written and an online copy. UCI also has something called an Electronic Educational Environment (eee), where as a student or lecturer, you have an online site where you could look at post for the classes your scheduled to attend or, in turn, you could post things for the class you are teaching. So, apparently, my first task is to try and design a web page for my class. You could also post students grades on the eee (this will not only post the students grade but it will also give the average and where the student stands in comparison to the rest of the class...apparently you can see graphs/curves). Did CSUSB know about this?

My last quarter teaching at CSUSB kind of sucked. I was teaching 3 BIO100 labs (which is a class for non-majors) and I had a lot of kids (well...students...which I'm sure where older than I was) who were disruptive...well....they were a pain. One student yelled at me because she didn't want to pay attention and learn how to properly use a microscope......others got upset because I had 22 other people in the class ....you know, and I wasn't focusing only on them. My goal here is to stop being so nice. I definately have to set boundaries from the beginning.

The labor of writing

The worst is when you're writing and you are trying to find studies to cite.

You write a paragraph, then remember that you have a study showing that exact result, and then you forgot where you read it? Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I keep on spending all this time trying to figure out where it was I read what I am trying to write about. For example, I found that there was no real difference between hydrated and dehydrated frogs in the amount of time they take to find a water source, and in fact some frogs die from dehydration just a few cm away from a water source. I read that today in an article and I have spent the last 3 hours trying to find the article I read that in! There must be a better way of keeping track of these!

New School Year

(im on the 5th floor)

So I've finally buckled down. I've been actually doing science for the last couple of days. Therefore, there has been less blogging. I guess the daunting taks of just writing has diminished by now thinking of trying to write AND attend classes AND teach. Oh well, I'm going to have to do it somehow.

I met with the first-year committe on Monday so that they could tell me what classes I needed to take or ones I could skip. As soon as I walked in I made a fool of myself.

Prof: So what is your background?
me: Well, I've studied osmoregulation in frogs.
(LONG PAUSE)
me: Is that not what you meant?
Prof: No.

I keep on feeling so lame! There's been tons of questions I have been wanting to ask my PI about the project I am working on, but I'm scared that if I ask the questions will be really retarded....or that he'll think I am questioning him (I've gotten that feeling before). So instead, every time that he comes up to talk to me about it all I do is nod and say "right, right". But now that's feeling really stupid as well. I mean, shouldn't I be questioning things if I am a grad student? Should I be giving him some ideas about how to proceed? Like, have some input or something? It's not like I know everything about this subject but I do have some ideas/questions. I'm just afraid of his reaction. I totally don't know where I stand, and I have been here TWO months!

Anyways, I will be taking three classes (a Physiology seminar, a Physiology refresher course, and an ecology/evolution seminar, I got to skip statistics). Along with that I will be teaching Bio100....which I hear is relly easy and super structured, which I don't mind at all. I am looking forward to these. I miss being in a classroom. It's been almost a year since I was last in that environment.

I have been unable to read all of Collapse:How societies choose to fail or succeed but what I have gotten through is scary. Its so possible. With the hurricane and its effects in New Orleans we see how societies can collapse so quickly. It seems that within a week of being "disconnected" a lot of individuals began to take advantage of those who were already hurting. I couldn't believe that while in a place that was supposed to give people comfort some took this as an opportunity to continue bringing heartache by raping and killing. It reminded me of The Heart of Darkness or Lord of the Flies.

Are men really destined to be evil? Is kindness achieved only through some sort of social pressure and only for our individual advantage? I mean we are still animals. Doesn't 'survival of the fitest' still apply? Maybe its not so much that we are evil, but that we see nothing further than what will benefit us. In Easter Island endemic fauna and flora were destroyed by its inhabitants without a second thought. Ultimately this led to the collapse of their civilization and total destruction of the island. The surviving population turned to cannibalism in order to survive. Jared Diamond, author of Collapse, poses the question: "What was the person who chopped down the last tree on the island thinking while cutting if down?". Nothing. He was thinking of the canoe he was going to make. Or the warmth of the fire the burning wood would provide.

Although I have tried to do my part in protecting/preserving many of the resources which are now not as abundant as they were hundreds of years ago, it seems so hard to continue this way of life. Everything is so disposable. But should we really be tied down to material things simply because they are convenient? What will happen when they are gone? Or worse, what if the usage of these material things causes other resources, which we really can not live without, to disappear.