The Color of the Grass

Of all the things to think I suddenly was reminded that this platform existed. I had last thought about this over four years ago when I had taken my first industry job. And now I think of it again as I had moved to another company within the industry to pursue a new opportunity.

It's always interesting to change jobs and leave the first company you work for after leaving school. Each company approaches the same problem with different approaches, and it's always an adjustment to how another company operates. But there is always a motivation to make the move, and it's not until after we've crossed to the other side we learn whether our intuition and analysis was how we imagined it.

I've been with my current company for about 6 months now and am finally getting a hang of how the business is executed and the expectations of scientists. Even though the industry aims to deliver medicines to patients, there's always a balance of operation excellence (speed to patient) versus scientific excellence (best science at first filing), and my former company are leaders in the former and my current company are leaders in the latter. This leads to different questions needing to be answered, with my questions changing from those such as "what questions about this molecule need to be answered to enable clinical trials?" to "what levers can we pull in cell culture to create the best possible process?" I think deciding which is the better approach is more a matter of personal preference and there is a fairly narrow range in balancing the two to be able to successfully deliver medicines to patients, and learnings can be taken to improve how other companies in the industry operate.

For me this is an important opportunity to learn more about the nuances of cell culture and become a contributor to our knowledge of cell culture. At the same time there are a number of operational inefficiencies where I believe there can be significant gains in efficiency. However the balance is to not stifle scientific innovation in the name of speed at all costs. What I can say if that I've learned significantly more about the ins and outs of cell culture in the short time I've been at this company and there have been many opportunities to explore exciting side projects beyond delivering the pipeline.

So what does this hold? The view might be more short-sighted since this is mostly only a plan for the next few years. The grass is greener-for now-since the scientific aspects of cell culture was an important driver, in addition to a few other factors. I don't have delusions of this being a long-term move, partially because the locale is not ideal. So maybe the grass isn't greener everywhere; maybe I need to keep the neighbor's dog from peeing on my lawn both figuratively and literally.

Cleaning, Changing, and Compromise

After I moved out of my parents' house for college, I've yet to ever live with anyone who is as clean about their living conditions as I am. I've always done the majority of the cleaning in the communal areas and end up cleaning up after my previous roommates. Of course it's just not possible to tell someone to be cleaner and expect them to be better around the place (like how telling a jobless person to get a job won't solve their problems).

I think it comes back to personal standards to living cleanliness. Growing up I spent time helping (or being coerced into helping) clean up around the house, making me acutely aware of my living conditions, whereas I bet that most people didn't have cleanliness highlighted as a part of growing up. This is particularly true about my roommates, as they tend not to see a need to clean (except when they're expecting guests). Their lower standards of cleanliness frustrated me to no end, as I would occasionally try to cajole them into cleaning more often. Of course this wouldn't work, as old habits (such as not cleaning) die hard, cleaning doesn't happen. I think cleaning habits are particularly difficult to change, as there's a high energy barrier to cleaning (especially when there's a lot of it to do) and I think it's difficult for people who are used to a certain standard to raise that standard. My current roommate will occasionally scrub the stove (despite splattering large amounts of it on the stove and floor daily that I tend to clean up), but he'll always miss about half of it.

I've come to the realization that it's generally not worth constantly pointing these things out, especially since there is never any change. It only creates animosity between roommates, which definitely isn't ideal. As this point I've had to be the one to always settle for my roommates' lower standards (so not really compromise) to the point that I'm (barely) satisfied if they do their dishes, shower, do laundry, and take out the trash when it's full. It's a low bar, but it's what I've had to settle for without exploding at someone.

Complaining Towards No Means

Recently the local bus system made an unannounced change to one of their bus routes, making it so that it no longer passed through the neighborhood (and right next to my condo) during evenings and weekends. Naturally this is not a great change (though to be fair the route was added during the latest round of expansions due to increased taxes/funding), but one of the fellow residents taped an angry note to the mailbox area that did get my attention.

In the note she posted the reason why the route had to be further truncated during the evening and weekend periods (the route is normally truncated during the evening and weekend since it can only access a particular facility that's otherwise locked during regular business hours), noting that the park where the bus would turn around during evenings and weekends did not really like the buses inside the park (which does clog up a fair bit of traffic and takes up a lot of space). She also states that she was "stranded at a gas station", which is right along another bus route that goes right past our condo complex which you can use with a free transfer. Her only recourse of action was to urge everyone to call the local transit authority to complain to restore service (a service that the park didn't like having, with the buses turn-arounds inside the park boundary).

When faced with a problem, there seem to be three avenues of responding. The first, which seems to be favored by this lady (and those "I would like to speak to a manager" types) is to get angry and demand something from who the feel to be the offending party. This approach doesn't get anything done, and results in complaining for the sake of complaining. The second of course is to offer a solution or a work-around to the existing problem. Of course most people won't want to put in the effort as they believe that everyone else should fix their problems. The third, which is how I feel, is apathy. I don't particularly care, and I go on and live my life. The note did give me a nice chuckle at how people think they have been so wronged by everyone else.

Looking Back

Recently I received a small note in the mail from my high school, which is the first contact I had had with my high school since a year or so after graduating. They are in the process of trying to compile an alumni directory of sorts, which you would expect a high school of that size and (some) stature to already have been doing before 2015. Unfortunately this unwanted contact brought be back to those days, and also served as a stern reminder that no matter how hard to you try to distance yourself from something, you can always be found. (I mean, no one I went to high school with or grew up with should know my address.) Overall high school was pretty forgettable for me. I never really fit in, though that was more of my own choice and doing. Obviously I didn't need any reminders from that period of time-a time I no longer associate myself with.

Visiting The South

This past weekend I traveled to the deep south for the first time (because we all know Florida doesn't count as the deep south), spending the weekend in the Mississippi gulf coast town of Ocean Springs. Naturally I wasn't expecting how the south is portrayed in the media and entertainment industries where everyone sits on their porches with sweet tea overlooking vast plains of grass (and other portrayed stereotypes). However, I am unable to provide a great perspective, as I was pretty busy with an event most of the weekend and I wasn't able to really explore. I was only able to go out to eat once, and that was the Wendy's next to the hotel because the Waffle House was too far away. All my other meals were catered as part of the event, which didn't help me explore the south.

That being said, there were a good number of observations. Everyone I engaged with seemed happy to just chat and shoot the breeze, starting with my taxi driver from the airport, who essentially gave me a small commentary of the coastal areas we were passing from Gulfport to Ocean Springs and continuing onward with the drivers of the shuttles for the event. At Wendy's (and a restaurant at the airport) every customers were addressed as Sir of Madam. They're also really into their soda (or coke as they call it). The Wendy's had one of those touchscreen soda machines, but the selection was huge-they carried seemingly every known variation of Coca Cola (including the flavored variations) and Fanta flavors (lime) that I had never heard of before. No wonder obesity is such a problem. They also really like their sweet tea, and I have to say it's quite tasty, and I even took the liberty of making my first Arnold Palmer (and I see why people like it so much). However I would have to say that the Mississippi gulf coast is a place I would like to stay for an extended period of time-sure the food would be good for a few days, but after a while I would easily get bored.

The Downtown Tunnel Station and Murphy's Law

Early I wrote about how I see weird things on the bus, and I continue to chronicle my bus adventures. Recently, most of my trips that involve the downtown tunnel stations seem to result in some kind of issue/incident.

My Murphy's Law experiences began in May, when I was trying to go SEATAC airport. A bus had broken down at the first tunnel station (Westlake) going southbound, and the bus wasn't towed into the middle area of the tunnel (between the two lanes) for about 20 minutes. My bus going downtown showed up right after the bus had been moved out of the way and they were boarding passengers into the alternate bus. This meant that the light rail (train) that goes to the airport can't run, so the resulting fiasco resulted in three trips worth of commuters trying to cram into a single train. It also didn't help matters that we had to depart the train one stop away from the airport and board another train because the train was beginning to overheat. My return on that trip featured the "phantom bus" that never showed up.

More recently I ran into another similar incident coming home from downtown. In this case I didn't see any cause of an incident, but there were at least 3 full busloads of people waiting for the university express, which is not a normal sight. After the next university express bus arrived, only a small handful of individuals boarded the bus. Since this route is run every 15 minutes, it would have taken over an hour to board a bus. Instead I boarded a bus above the street to head back to campus. However, while we were going up Broadway in Capitol Hill, we were temporarily slowed by a small march speaking against the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, further delaying my return to campus (and work :P).

Granted I take the bus most days to and from work without incident (though today something happened which resulted in all the buses I could take home from the office between 6 and 7 to arrive at 7), but apparently I seem to attract mistakes when I take pubic transit downtown.

Frustration and Jehovah's Witnesses

Frustration is a funny thing. It can be as gnawing as anger, but tends to be much more subdued-until a breaking point is reached. As such:

Apparently Seattle was the host to an international Jehovah's Witness convention this past Friday through today (Sunday). The article states that the convention (not usually an international convention) is usually held in Tacoma, but was held in Seattle due to the sheer number (as can be seen here). Apparently over 38,000 (yes, thousand) of them from 4 states and 40 countries descended upon Seattle and the UW campus, taking over the football stadium and bringing traffic to a standstill on and around campus before and after their events each day, and that's where the frustration begins to set in.

Usually the drive from my place to the airport takes about 20-25 minutes. Instead, I got caught in the traffic leaving campus Friday evening and I was stuck in the same spot for 30 minutes before I somehow took a turn onto a side road and drove around the entire standstill to reach the airport. Needless to say the bad driving habits of many of these individuals (including but not limited to not signaling while trying to cross two lanes to make a right turn at the next intersection less than 10 feet in front of you...and doing the same thing at the next intersection). Also, it took me half an hour to drive to work today (usually a 10-minute drive) and it seems like they took every last parking space on campus. UW is not really well-designed to host any large event, including their own home football games...

Taking The Bus

My bus rides are never as weird or interesting as the one depicted by Cyanide and Happiness, but I tend to find that riding the bus exposes me to the greatest range of people around, ranging from the downtrodden castaways to the clean and well-dressed. Since it is a means of public transportation, however, there have been a fair share of uneasy times.

A few weeks ago I was taking the bus to Northgate Mall on a weekend and a (somewhat not right in the head) gentleman gets on at the same stop at which I'm getting on the bus. However he starts to have a long discussion with the driver, and soon enough, our bus gets stopped by the police and the man is escorted off the bus and detained. I'm not sure what was going on, but my guess was that the driver was not happy for some reason to have the police come on the bus and physically remove the passenger. Several months ago I was also on a bus downtown with a belligerent passenger who kept cussing out the driver before getting off after being on the bus for only one stop.

In addition to the belligerent, there are the passengers who try to talk to everyone about their lives and their inflated sense of self-worth (or perhaps they just like to hear themselves talk). Most notable was several weeks ago on the light rail to the airport during the afternoon rush there was a fellow who tried to have conversations with everyone about their private lives. I can understand a little bit of small talk, but on a jam-packed train that's carrying twice as many passengers as usual due to a bus breakdown in a tunnel station preventing traffic for 20 minutes? I think talking to a stranger who likes to hear himself talk is the last thing anyone wants to do.

We'll Leave The Light On For You

Unfortunately, my apartment is not a Motel 6. However, all of my roommates have this bad habit of leaving the lights on. The roommate I share a bathroom with never turns the light off after using the bathroom, and all of my roommates leave all the kitchen lights on. They even leave their lights on when they go home for vacation. I don't understand how it can be such a difficult concept for them to keep the lights off and not waste power. Also, sometimes they forget to lock the windows in their rooms.

I know it's a small sample size (n=3), but from my experiences white people don't seem to be aware of their resource usage as they should be. Is this a general trend across the population, or did I just get three roommates who can't keep anything clean and always have a case of bad body odor?

The Supposed Right of Way

A large portion of the country seems to feel that the pacific northwest is a somewhat more "progressive" society, full of hipsters and people who aren't downright buttoned-down and closed-minded. However, this doesn't mean that they are necessarily not assholes who believe that their self-worth comes above the worth of anyone and everyone.

I've noticed this a lot more as I get back into riding. While riding and other forms of non-solitary vehicular transport are more prevalent (in addition to exercising in general), a disproportionately large group of these people act as if they're above the law and above reproach. The prime example of this behavior is when the bike trail crosses any road.

When many bikers (and runners) reach these crossings, they choose not to stop and then just continue on through the crossing regardless of traffic. While some of these crossings have stop signs for cross traffic, most of these crossings just have a sign indicating that there is a trail crossing at that present location and no more. However, this does not stop the endless berating of these drivers who choose not to stop at these crossings that have no stop signs and let the bikers/runners pass.

It's quite obvious that those drivers owe the trail users anything and anyone who does stop at these crossings is only doing so out of courtesy, but yet it has come to the point where these runners and bikers, for some strange and unfounded reason, expect any and every car to stop at these crossings as if it were the law, and will actively curse out drivers who don't wait at every crossing to let everyone cross.

What is especially maddening about some of the cyclists here is how they feel like they're above all laws and that no laws apply to them. In many places it is illegal for bikers to use the sidewalk, so bikers must use the road and designated trails. That being said, many cyclists feel like traffic laws don't apply to them and bike around the streets as if they were pedestrians, with everyone yielding to their every whim.

What would be entertaining is to see these bikers and runners try to be "progressive" and everything in the LA area, where I started riding. I feel like they would be a lot more grateful for what Seattle has to offer them...

Presented Without Comment

Grad School Snap Judgements

I've now been here for a full month and my graduate career/life/purgatory is somewhat underway. Being in labs for parts of the past 5+ years has dampened my excitement coming in, but nonetheless this is a foray into the unknown and a chance to start fresh.

Most importantly I learned (or relearned?) that I tend not to like undergrads (or people in general). The apartment complex I live in has its fair share of undergrads, and most (if not all) of them have the inability to tell time and fail to remove their laundry from the washers more than an hour and a half after they are done. Sometimes when I walk to/from the office I'll overhear undergrads talking about drinking, partying, or the people they hooked up with last weekend. I've never really understood why people choose to be so open about their indiscretions around everyone else, and why they choose to value those ideas over most others.

I also never understood going over homework sets during class time. Class time should be spent learning material, not spent on what was already supposed to be learned. I feel like if there's a gap in understanding then make use of office hours or try to understand what's been missed. I just feel like it's time wasted that could be used more productively (either learning more material or not having class at all).

Seattle has actual working public transit (at least much better than LA) that has buses that run somewhat regularly. There's even an app that tells you when the next bus should be arriving, and at least tries to account for early/late buses. It's pretty cool, and it's made even better by my bus pass. It's convenient when I want to get to campus in the morning when I wake up late and it's raining (which occurs somewhat regularly).

I have found the 99 Ranch, but it's 10 miles away, so I have to have someone drive me there each week. There's also an Uwajimaya in the international district, but there's no good bus to get there from my apartment. The QFC nearby carries a surprisingly large range of products, but of course the produce tends to be more expensive at QFC than at the asian marts. Personally I've just waiting for the Din Tai Fung to open nearby (within a 5-minute walk from my apartment) sometime in November.

Labwork so far hasn't been very productive, mostly because I'm also balancing it with my classes at this point, but I've joined a group and I'm looking forward to doing research for the next N years (and hopefully I'll at least not hate research when this is all said and done).

Woo grad school!

Moved In!

I'm now out in the Pacific Northwest! I've been here a little over a week, and it's only rained two or three times so far, though I'm getting ready for the next 8 or 9 months of not seeing the sun anymore...

"I Miss You"

Emotions are tricky business, because we react differently to the same situation; because we have different values brought about by our upbringing. We've been conditioned to say certain things in certain situations, saying our goodbyes (and the occasional "I'll miss you") before parting ways and our greetings (usually with "I've missed you") upon meeting again.

I've spent my life saying "I'll miss you" before shortly falling out of touch, losing tabs on other people that I had spent time with. I've been conditioned to be almost indifferent on the inside, to always accept moving on from the past and look towards the future, because that's what we can change.

This separation never really pulls on my emotions; my heart. I had never really understood how separation can sometimes cause people anguish and anxiety. Previously it had just been a handshake or hug and a goodbye, and then maybe I'll run into them again in a few years and we'll chat and catch up a little bit before parting ways. Never a tear shed, rarely a moment of thought of what could have been, what should have been done.

But this time is different; I have felt the pains of separation and the pulls on the heartstrings. I've discovered that you can miss someone so much that it actually hurts; that causes tears to freely flow. It's the most emotion that I can remember feeling at one time, and it showed me what it really is like to be human. Sometimes life really sucks, but this time there is so much more to "I miss you" and "I can't wait to see you again", even if I don't know when we'll next meet.

Rainy With a Chance of Sunshine

Sometimes you write out something and realize you put too much of yourself into it. You let everyone in while you're trying to keep them out. Mistakes are sometimes unavoidable, but you have to learn from them.

Sorry.

Saying Goodbye

It's never easy to say goodbye; it tugs on the heartstrings like no other. It's the connections we value; that which makes the experiences special.

Life is full of many goodbyes, but it doesn't get easier with time. It almost seems harder to part ways these days. As we grow, we are better able to make connections.

It's time for another goodbye. Goodbye, Tech; at least for now.

Four Years

[Note: This is more or less going to be a stream of conscious post. No edits/revisions/proofreading, except for mis-spellings-otherwise I feel it makes the feelings less organic]

On the motivation levels of undergraduate students:

"...if we haven't beaten it out of them already"

Someone who I greatly admire told me this recently. It seems to be a common sentiment among us undergrads. When we arrive as freshman, it seems like we are destined to do great things, to go and change the world. Many of us were the crown jewels of our high schools, to be paraded around by those who knew us.

Thoughts on Pursuing Graduate School and Beyond

The other day one of my good friends sent me a link to an article in Science titled "The Myth of the Well-Rounded Scientist". Combining this with the Erick Carreira letter that surfaced a few years ago, it's not hard to see why so many people are dissuaded from pursuing a graduate education in certain STEM fields.

I don't really see this culture changing anytime soon. At top graduate institutions, there are always people on the outside who are willing to put in the effort it takes to perform at the highest level. It's somewhat analogous to the supply of illegal immigrants for low-paying jobs: wages are low because there will always be someone who's willing to work for such a low wage. The criticism for these cultures mainly seems to come from those who are not very experienced about the workings of those involved.  Sure we can all sit back and be appalled at the situation, but until those who are in those situations muster enough support for change, nothing will happen. (Because apparently most people think that yelling in the comments section on Yahoo is going to change the world.) As long as we choose to pursue a graduate education and are willing to work as hard as necessary to obtain that coveted Ph.D., graduate school will continue to kick your ass.

This is of course not unique to graduate school in a STEM field. We see young lawyers who are just starting out working non-stop. Of course, they can just be fired if their work isn't up to standard. In the medical field sometimes there are ridiculously long shifts. This dedication to craft is immense in areas where results and productivity are of utmost importance. Until the majority of the population has undergone these experiences and feel like there are not people on the outside willing to step into those shoes, it would be mostly unproductive to scream at other people and be outraged at these things.

Of course, I'm just an undergrad, so what do I know?

One Hamper, or Two?

This is just a random thought that occurred to me in the last couple of days, but does anyone realize how dirty their laundry hamper is? Day after day we toss our dirty clothes into them and then we do our laundry. That's what the hamper is supposed to do, and it servers its functions pretty well. I think what we don't think about is how dirty they really are after coming into contact with our dirty clothes covered in dirt, blood, sweat, and tears. There are generally no issues with that since we don't expect our laundry hampers to do the cleaning for us.

Throughout my time at college (before I moved into my own apartment off-campus), I noticed that people would use the same hamper to take their freshly-cleaned clothes back to their room. Think about that for a second-you're putting your clean clothes into the hamper that your dirty clothes were in. I don't think people really give it much thought, but after a long time, laundry hampers aren't exactly the cleanest things around. It just seems that we don't give too much thought about it, or at least I didn't...

Don't Lab and Midterm?

There's the expression "don't drink and drive." There should  be some kind of catchy mnemonic for not taking a midterm while doing labwork, because that doesn't end well for either of them...