Monday, April 6, 2009

The Leslie Winkle experimental methodology

Okay so as I write this I am tucked up in bed with the flu, I have my lemon, honey and ginger tea next to me, on the other side is the work I brought home with me that I have yet to pick up yet.  Very hard script is on top of the pile mocking me with its brilliance - I made a little progress on understanding it - upside is I have realised I will have to learn how to script in python - although I am told once I know how to script in it - I wont ever go back - bit like the dark side really.  Any who I was reading Juniper's blog, about her current trevails and trials in her pathway to become a real scientist, and I thought to myself damn - how can it be so hard?   Then as I do in my slightly drug-induced fluey state I thought - things happen for a reason and sometimes we dont get what that reason is until we get to a place where we do.   

For me I wanted to do science when I left high school - but due to a mixture of severe lack of intellectual self esteem and generally propensity to take the easy way out (when I was 17) I enrolled and completed a very average BA and then took up the only career I believed was open to me.   Turned out I was good at it but I felt like my true potential was being smothered and I just couldnt do it anymore - so I stepped outta my comfort zone a long way outta my comfort zone and found the confidence to do what I wanted to do in the first place, science.  I thought of doing medicine so I started there and my undergrad was focussed on that goal - but in the end I decided Micro was where it was at and battabingbattaboom whaddya know here I am.

Course it didnt happen all nice and neat like that - when I said I wanted to do science, my then partner basically laughed and fully expected me to fall flat on my face and go back to doing what I did before within a year of starting my undergrad.  It felt good to show him the straight A's I got in my first year - I didnt give up I worked two part time jobs and was a full time student and a mother.  It wasnt easy and I have to say the first year of my MSc was the most stressful year I have ever experienced in my whole life - I wouldve lost the plot completely had it not been for a very good friend of mine who I love dearly.  Needless to say my relationship with my ex didnt last, but my relationship with science is still going strong.   When I think about it now - if I had of tried to do my science straight out of high school I would have crashed and burned majorly - I didnt have the motivation or the self confidence to do the work that had to be done.  I couldn't see that at the time.  I do now - I had to go through a shit load of growing up to realise I had a brain in my head was useful for something other than sleeping and breathing.

Juniper sweet cheeks - I almost feel like you need to take a time out and center yourself and make a plan.  OMG I am such a control freak - I am such a planner - I like to know what to expect - go figure.   You need to focus your efforts, don't disperse them left right and center - get a piece of paper out - write down what you want, what you want to do and how you are going to get there.  Find places that are doing what you want to do - then ring them up and explain your situation - could you intern for them? Could you do an MSc with them?  You never know your luck - and believe that half of the science opportunities start because some is in the right place at the right time.   You are a kick ass writer - your blog shows that - figure out what you want to happen and then make it happen - you are the only person who can do it for yourself and you are the only person who can stand in your own way.  Focus chick focus.

E.

PS:  Still fluey  gotta love viruses - they are little pieces of God's own glory they are, they are.  Mmmmm I have M&M's as well - purely for medicinal purposes you understand.  

2 comments:

Nat Blair said...

Turned out I was good at it but I felt like my true potential was being smothered and I just couldnt do it anymore - so I stepped outta my comfort zone a long way outta my comfort zone and found the confidence to do what I wanted to do in the first place, science.

This is way more than most people would have the stomach for, and it's basically totally kick ass.

Juniper Shoemaker said...

Once again, thank you so much, Eppendork! I have more to say in response: I hope to get to it tomorrow.