Welcome back! I really hoped I would have the time to continue reflecting and capsuling my Ph.D. experience more regularly, but the prospect of keeping this going is bringing more stress than connection into my life. So, these updates will be less frequent and fleshed out, but hopefully still as interesting!
If you’ve stayed with me this far, I would love to stay connected over Instagram Close Friends, call, or by meeting whenever you’re in the Bay. Please send a message! I’ve truly appreciated all my long-distance inbox friendships this year.
A few anecdotes from the chaos and wonder of the Bay:
I went to watch a piece of performance art inspired by a zine that two exes are writing about their break-up. It involved watching them rehash their relationship as if there were no observers, while we sat around them in a close circle. Felt extremely invasive, but I appreciated their courage. We rarely get to learn how conflict plays out in intimate settings, and as bizarre as this experience was, there was something to be taken away in that sense.
Made some new friends over a dumpling making evening :) My housemates are also lovely. All four of us have complementary areas of kitchen expertise: baking, salads, spicing, and snacks. I will be well-fed this year.
I am loving my neighbourhood! It’s a lot of grad students, young families, and grandparents. My gym is full of 70-year-old cliques of women trying to keep their hips together—much less intimidating than college weight rooms. I eventually want to befriend some of the babies that live near us. I’m building up to it…
Have gotten into a lot of routines, including meal prepping for the first time! If you have any meal prep recommendations, send them my way. The biggest hit so far has been a tofu-peanut sauce-shredded cabbage-roasted squash bowl.
I have picked my first rotation lab and am really loving the scientific and social environment there! They work on two very disparate and cool topics: CRISPR-based diagnostics and immune cell biophysics. Lab meetings are super lively and enriching, and my P.I. is the kind of person who will miss the first 5 minutes of a Zoom call to have banana bread with his students. That tells you everything you need to know :)
Still reading the Mistress of Spices…The characters from the Bay Area South Asian diaspora that it highlights are heartbreakingly pained. The story continues to feel heavy-handed, but I can see why it might have demanded to be written that way. Some things are just inherently weighty.
Tried out AMAZING tacos at Tacos Oscar, a local joint on the Michelin Bib Gourmand list. They have fresh tacos on the menu every week, and on Sundays an ice-cream pop-up opens outside with Mexican flavors. Their elote ice-cream with habanero sauce was strangely wonderful!
It’s much easier to get to know new people on a campus than it was at home. In general, the Berkeley-Oakland area is full of funky stores, events, and people. See: Berkeley Hats in the pictures below. I like being back in a place that feels easy to get a grip of.
Had a wonderful day in Golden Gate Park featuring a surprise birthday picnic, live music, balloons, and the Dahlia garden. I learned that Dahlias are the official flower of SF, for their immense diversity. There are four types and over a hundred colours. The Dahlia Society lets long-time SF residents breed new varieties and name them. The bloom for a couple of months every Fall. I found the weaving of nature, geography, and local community beautiful!
Found my work spot at UCSF. They have a room with wall-to-wall whiteboards, walking and cycling desks, and little booths where it’s easy to curl up and take a nap. Sleep helps so much with focus and attention! Study→Nap→Study is my new version of the Pomodoro method.
Other than that—it’s been really great to see friends in the area after far too long. Stanford folks have helped the Bay feel familiar and homey, as I slowly figure out who I do and don’t like in my cohort. This is also the first time that I really feel like I have an academic community. I didn’t align with most of my school peers in terms of interest and motivation, and most of my colleg
e friends were majoring in different things. It’s really amazing to be able to discuss visions, inspiration, theories of change and the like with people I trust and respect in a specific disciplinary context.
I am open to any and all recommendations for SF and the East Bay, so send them my way! Here are some random food, nature, and sunset pictures to get you through the next month:
Really liked the blog and while we have been talking so regularly, there were still so many things that I learnt about your life here like the work room at UCSF, the Dahlias, you finally having an academic community.