I'm really glad that I love the people in my Master's of Development Practice (MDP) cohort.  Because, honestly, it was a tough act for them to follow after my Peace Corps friends.  In the last five years of my life, I've been on a trajectory of meeting more and more amazing people.  I hope it keeps going.

A number of us have the requisite awkward smiling face appropriate when you take a picture with people you don't know well yet. 

20 things i wish i had known

I'm going through some growing pains right now, luckily I have a good friend who gives me perspective.  In my search for clarity, I came across the blog entry above which has some valuable insights.

The Collider, the Particle and a Theory About Fate 



A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

Sure, it’s crazy, and CERN should not and is not about to mortgage its investment to a coin toss. The theory was greeted on some blogs with comparisons to Harry Potter. But craziness has a fine history in a physics that talks routinely about cats being dead and alive at the same time and about anti-gravity puffing out the universe.


As Niels Bohr, Dr. Nielsen’s late countryman and one of the founders of quantum theory, once told a colleague: “We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.”

Physics is pretty magical.  

The Addition Rule

My favorite explanation of the probability rule of Addition and mutually exclusive variables:  You want to pick either a trip to location A or location B from the drawing of 20 prizes.  but they are mutually exclusive, so if you are lucky enough to go to North Korea (A), you can't possibly expect to get Disneyland(B) as well since you've already chosen.  

The dirty truth

I'm here because I understand the ultimate value that graduate school has for me.  It improve my critical thinking skills, my work in development will be better informed, and my job opportunities/paycheck will meet my standards.  That being said, graduate school is hard.

I'm glad that I have a clear idea of what I want from my education and my goals to achieve afterwards, because that's what's keeping me here day after day. I got a 61% on my statistics quiz this week, that was with hours of studying + doing most of the suggested exercises + going into TA hours to prepare.  In my Theories of Development course, the material is constantly over my head as she breezes through economic policies.  Everyday there is so much work to be done.  Sometimes I think things are getting better, like a quiet period in a thunderstorm rain, but it lasts barely 5 minutes and I'm overwhelmed again.  I work so hard to get ahead of my school work, only to find out that somehow, I'm behind. 

I knew it was going to be difficult, I just didn't think that I would feel like an ultimate moron most of the time.  I don't have much of a life.  I don't even have the time to go grocery shopping, nevertheless cook.  So I survive on a diet of rice, take out food, ramen noodles.  

So that's the negative.  Here's the positive:

I'm so lucky to have a strong network of friends here.  Mai See and Lovey are the primary supports that I lean upon.  Then there's half a dozen other people that help me.  They provide morale, a space to vent, and study buddy time. I have enough friends outside of the Humphrey Graduate School circle that I can speak to people about things that are completely unrelated to politics or theoretical frameworks.  It's nice to have that space.  

More and more, I realize that the U of MN was the perfect choice for me.  I would've drowned with Fordham's econ heavy program and then came home, all failure like.  Here, on the other hand, there's enough variation in the classes to keep me engaged.  Further, in Ecology of Agricultural Systems, I can feel my way of thinking growing and developing all the time.  The atmosphere is incredibly supportive, even if there is an undercurrent of competitiveness in the Humphrey school as a whole.  Despite being the weakest link in my Statistics group, the other two members are considerate and regard my opinions.  My Development Practice cohorts have bonded nicely since we're a small group of only 16.  They are probably among the most fascinating people I know since many have done amazing things abroad.  When Kit discusses Africa with us, he speaks as a person who grew up there.  When Peter discusses sustainability and living within one's means, its because he spent a year possessing just a backpack and a bicycle across Asia and Europe.  

The interdisciplinary nature of my program has made me interested in all sorts of new things.  I'm looking forward to taking the Environmental course next spring and the Energy course next year.  I'm learning too much too fast for me to really process anything right now.  But I can easily imagine, when I graduate in two years, I will feel pretty accomplished and ready to work effectively. Between Peace Corps and a graduate degree, I'm not worried about finding a job.  The question is finding a good job and how long that process will take to unravel.  

I will have a degree at the end of this and my parents will be happy.  I can tell, my dad's already pretty proud since he's started using me as a person of authority during our family discussions.  It was really hard for me initially, because I choose the U of MN to be near my family... but the reality is I don't even have time to go home for Thanksgiving break this year.  However, in the grand scheme of things, I will be able to afford time/money to go home for winter break.  Hopefully also for the break between the end of spring semester and before my summer internship starts.  

In conclusion: Graduate school sucks balls, but vale la pena.  I've done many challenging things in my life and I always feel like I'll be lucky to survive them.  But I always survive and I always come out better for it.  And out of those difficult moments, come some startling revelations about what kind of person I am, who my friends are, and how we all connect.   

One thing that really bothers me is when people in the humanities dept say, "science is a western construct" and reject it entirely.  It's been happening quite often, usually by people who have very little science background.  It's relativism taken too far, when scientific fact is put on question as though it was just opinion.

It would be one thing to argue this if they actually had some understanding of science.  But it's so insulting and dismissive when it's done ignorantly.

I tried to write an entry, but how do you possibly capture 4 months of readjustment in a few paragraphs?  That may be why most of my earlier entries were 2 sentences long.  But I figured a way to explain it:  

Top Ten things that happened to me in the last 4 months

1. I made a new best friend  - Mai See, who distracted me from dwelling on more negative emotions
2. I made a poor choice in attending grad school 1.5 days after landing in the USA, but I’m starting to finally adjust
3. I went swimming at midnight in a pool overlooking the city
4. I became a city bicycler, I even wear a helmet
5. I have really embraced my love for alcohol, even if it’s only once a week that I have time to enjoy it
6. My mother has become very concerned as I am now the oldest old maid in our extended family
7. I bought a Macbook which I still mostly hate, but am starting to grudgingly accept
8. I’ve started to find agroecology one of the most fascinating things ever
9. Two of my sisters got married and knocked up
10. Crunk music circa 2005 is a top playlist on my computer
11. I am still not reconciled to the prospect that winter is forthcoming
12. I am still hesitant to like the Twin Cities given my NYC intentions, but my heart is definitely Wisconsiny
13. Pandora is currently on my “God Bless the USA” station that is mostly country songs about our troops, America, some golden wheat grass rustling in the Midwest
14. I am constantly suffering from imposter syndrome in grad school, but I am constantly not letting that stop me
15. I bought a cute winter jacket, my friend disapproved, as the sleeves were only ¾ length
16. I live in an apartment with 3 other women, it’s about the same size as my former Guatemalan house where I lived by myself.
17. I had to make a special filter for PC email because “Peace Corps Response” was always tempting me with offers to leave the country
18. I can feel my brain expanding
19. My cohort of Development Practice grad students are all pretty amazing
20. I’m doing okay.  

 I'm debating what I should do to reward myself next Sunday for finishing my project (fingers crossed):
1. Spend all day shopping so that I can own more than 2 pairs of pants.
2. Sit on the grass all day and just be.
I am seriously clothing deficient, but grass is one of my favorite things in the world.  It has to be one or the other because I like a good 7 hour chunk of activity time. 

i find myself in an inverse relationship of intelligence and maturity.  As I increasingly educated, I listen to more lil jon music circa 2005 and gravitate towards the humor standards of 14 year old boys.  

In regards to the academic presentation I have to deliver tomorrow: See says I'm struggling because I'm not used to academic discourse.  I replied, "I'm not used to english"

exhaustion hit me like a pound of pop tarts, made out of lead.  looking forward to winter break where there might be -40 windchill, but at least I get to nap leisurely.

Finished the rough draft of my 25 page paper.  It doesn't need to be good, it just needs to be 'not bad' in the literal sort of way.  happy relieved sigh to have finished this stage.


* fyi of the day: phd students will spend half an hour discussing teletubbies and deciding which one best reflects the personality of each person.  

I get by with a little help from my friends.

I like my friends.  I like my new ones, I like my old ones, I like the ones that I rediscover.  I like the ones who understand why buying a bicycle is considered an overly large commitment.  I like the ones who do everything to make my life easy my first week in the country.  I like the ones who sit with me for 7 hours while we try to focus on our individual 25 page papers.  I like the ones who see me fall apart.  I like the ones who jump in rain puddles with me.  I like the ones who break out the NYC nightclub glow sticks during a camping trip.  I like the ones who write me 3 pages of advice when I have a problem.  I like the ones who discuss 3rd world country diseases. I like the ones who are represent the best of humanity.





I don’t think I would be where I am today, without my friends.  In the last few years I have been putting myself into ambitious situations that are over my head and my friends are the ones who keep me from drowning.  Cheers to friends.

Settling in... my room so far

Pants

I bought a pair of pants a few weeks ago.  Number of pants I now own: 2.  


Unfortunately, my friend pointed out they are made of very similar fabric.  It's just that one has a slim cropped look while the other is a normal straight leg.  So number of pants that people think I have: 1. 

The lightness of unbeing

            It’s been a month and a few days, but life continues to be surreal.   Of Guatemala and Minnesota, either reality really exists. Going to a public bathroom freaks me out a little.  Everything is motion activated: the toilet flush, the soap dispenser, the running water, and the air dryer or paper towel dispenser.   The faucet water runs lukewarm while the drinking fountain water is chilled.  The bathroom floors are glossy and clean. 

            In Guatemala, I had to pay to use the bathrooms, which I gingerly tried not to touch with any part of my body.  I always brought my own toilet paper, sometimes flushed with a bucket of water from the barrel, and used travel hand sanitizer in lieu of the absent soap.

            A few days ago, I went to a presentation where all the participants received a 20-page copy of the PowerPoint slides.  Although it facilitated our learning, I could only think of how wasteful it was, from both an economic and environmental point of view.  Printing, photocopying, was so expensive in abroad, I had to make judgment calls every time I considered doing it.  More than anything else, I am amazed at how casually people treat these little luxuries. I am still in awe that my income can easily afford cereal, yogurt, sitting in a coffee shop.