The Way Things Look

This is what two months of work looks like in a box:

This is what finishing a two-month-long project looks like:

This is what finishing a two-month-long project and then having the next day be your last day of work looks like:

On to the next thing!  :D

Spring, Summer, Fall

After months of waiting and thinking and being in limbo, I accepted an offer to join the graduate chemistry program at University of Oregon!  I had known since January, when I received my first acceptance, that I would definitely be attending school in the fall, but I needed to wait until I had more information to decide where.  I didn’t want to let myself get too excited about any one place until I knew for sure I’d be going there.  Now it’s all set!  I’ll be moving to Eugene, Oregon in the fall and hanging out there for the next five years or so. 

UO follows a trimester schedule, which means classes don’t start until the end of September.  In my first year there, I’ll take classes, teach lab sections, and spend a term each with three research groups.  This will give me the chance to try out different areas of chemistry and clarify what I'm most interested in.  I'm anticipating a big adjustment going back to being a student.  After undergrad all I wanted to do was something "not school" for a while, and I'm glad that I did take a break.  Now I'm choosing to return to school to further my own goals, but I'm not thrilled that I'll have homework again!  Then again, there will be perks I never had as an undergrad at a teeny school -- free bus rides and all kinds of student discounts.

So that’s fall.  Until then, I plan to take advantage of my last foreseeable chance to have several months to myself.  The only things I could consider bucket list items for Pittsburgh are trying a handful more breweries, finishing the series of bike maintenance classes at the co-op, and going camping at one of the nearby state parks.  Otherwise, I'll be working on my own projects, resting, visiting family and friends, and figuring out how to move myself across the country.  

Grad School

I sent off six graduate school applications before leaving for vacation in December.  It's not that the application process was so much work, but I dragged it on for a long time.  (I tend to have unrealistic expectations of myself to finish things way before it's necessary, which means whether or not I am actively working on said things, they are hanging over my head for quite some time.)  In this case, the process started with me taking the GREs well over a year ago, and I had been thinking about grad school even before that.

It's just as much of a relief as I anticipated having the ball in someone else's court.  Every weekend rolls around and I realize that not only do I not have to work on applications, I don't even have to think about working on applications!  Of course, I'll have plenty to think about in the coming months as I begin to make decisions.  For now, though, I don't even know what choices I will be deciding among, and it seems pointless to do too much comparing and ranking too soon.

In any case, I'll be going to school in the fall!  Probably due to the time I spent job searching not very successfully, I had some doubts in the back of my mind about if I was applying enough places, if my statements were good enough, if I'd even get in anywhere, if I'd have to figure out something else completely.  I've gotten one acceptance so far, so thankfully those thoughts are laid to rest.  I'm looking forward to having more news to share with you when my specific plans are clearer!

For those of you asking what I'll be going back to school for, here's part of what I wrote about my reasons for wanting to go and wanting to go now:

I’ve become convinced—without much difficulty, in fact—that the only way to utilize chemistry responsibly anymore is through green chemistry. It is clear that we cannot keep using resources and processes without regard for long-term human and environmental impacts. Chemists have a responsibility to work toward greater sustainability, both through thoughtful, incremental modifications to our everyday tasks and through revolutionary ideas and actions that engender change to positive, restorative practices across the board. Chemists play a critical role in educating manufacturers, designers, lawmakers, and the general public about the harms associated with certain chemicals, as well as in providing alternatives and adding to the repertoire of benign and useful chemical building blocks. 

I want to focus my career on this intersection of chemistry and sustainability, so I have been looking for ways to build on my undergraduate chemistry degree and become better equipped for this work. I recognize problems in the ways we make and use chemicals and need to increase my level of expertise in order to understand the many contributing factors and find meaningful solutions. My desire to gain more tools for using chemistry for its greatest good is what is motivating me to pursue graduate studies. Not only do I want to expand my knowledge of chemistry as a general field, I want to learn some specific ways of thinking about and responding to problems—ways of thinking that I see demonstrated by those people currently working in green chemistry. 

Although I have acquired bits and pieces of green chemistry knowledge up to this point, I now desire a more rigorous, in-depth approach to learning about the topics that interest me. I am eager to discover more links among the ideas I have previously learned but also to try new things and find my own place in the field. By the time I complete a graduate program, I want to possess the following:

• An extensive knowledge of chemistries used in common materials and industrial processes and of their corresponding hazards

• Ideas about what kinds of chemical policies and regulations are most effective in increasing health and safety

• Ability to find novel clean syntheses and make the business case for their implementation

• Competence in using toxicology, life cycle assessment, and the principles of green chemistry to evaluate and make sound judgments among alternatives. 

To summarize, I am looking for a cross-disciplinary education in green chemistry. Because I’m more concerned about the why than the what of my future work, a variety of research areas interest me—everything from recyclable catalysts to alternative/benign solvents to bio-inspired materials to decontamination agents. 

After graduate school, my goal is to be a sustainable chemistry specialist, bringing chemical expertise, a life-cycle mindset, and a knack for problem-solving to any industry that wants to do better by human health and the environment.

Biking

Last October, I had a bike accident involving a cracked fork and a nasty fall.  After determining that fixing my beloved orange bike would be more of a project "for later" than a short-term solution, I found myself a lovely gray Schwinn.  I bought this bike from a co-op called Free Ride that fixes and sells bikes (or lets you buy cheap and fix yourself), so it needed just a little straightening and adjusting before I could ride it.  On my first ride, beginning of December, to a destination mere minutes away, I was hit by a car that pulled out of a driveway (slowly, thankfully) and right into me!  "Didn't you see me?" he said.  I wasn't yet too comfortable on that bike to begin with, so between the shaken-up feelings and the impending cold, I was out of commission for biking all winter.

This spring, I finally mustered the motivation to re-straighten the bent rims as best I could and get on the road!  Now that I'm driving to work every day, I've noticed a shift in my thinking (one I'm not fond of) that makes biking seem like much more of a hassle than it is.  Thankfully, it hasn't taken too many rides to give me back my confidence and remind me how much I love the feeling of being on a bike!  The handful of rides I've done so far this year is a far cry from what I was doing in the fall (I rode at least 1.5 miles 26 out of 30 days in September), but being able to get around by bike is probably one of my favorite parts of summer in Pittsburgh.

Free Ride also has a program where you can volunteer time in the shop and use those hours to earn a bike or maintenance classes for free.  I've been meaning to participate ever since I moved here 21 months ago, and I finally volunteered for the first time and went to my first bike maintenance class (on derailleurs) earlier this month.  One of my goals for this year was to do their whole series of six classes, so I'm pleased to have started!

Another exciting biking-related thing was going on an underwear bike ride!  Hundreds of people did a 10-mile ride up and down hills, over bridges, past houses and restaurants, and even through one of Pittsburgh's many tunnels wearing nothing but underwear!  This happens monthly during the summers here, but this was the largest one yet and my first.  Beautiful night for it, and what fun!  

Murals of Pittsburgh, Part II

Update

I've been working for about two and a half months now as a lab tech in a paints/coatings development group at PPG Industries.  I have some administrative responsibilities (customer complaint tracking, cleanliness/efficiency initiative, other duties as assigned), but most of my time is spent in the lab.  This is no chemistry lab, mind you, but a paint lab.  Being in development, I get to work on a variety of paint formulations, but the basics stay the same: collect raw materials, mix up a small batch of paint, adjust the formula and remake the paint as many times as needed to obtain the right color or specifications, paint metal panels with said paint, put said painted panels through testing or cut them up into displays for a customer.

Probably the most useful outcome of this position for me will be the look I'm getting into industry.  Quite a bit different from the nonprofit/academic world I've been in.  I don't imagine I'll work in paints long-term, but I'm enjoying becoming familiar with how the company functions and I'm trying to pick up bits and pieces of chemistry along the way.  It'll take me a while longer to completely know my way around or to have a good sense of what goes into the production of the big batches of paint that actually get sold.

Even in the short time I've been at PPG, I've settled into a routine that makes me feel like I've been doing this for quite some time.  Working in a small-town suburb, driving to work every day, and getting to know coworkers with significantly different priorities than mine were all big adjustments at the beginning.  Surprising how quickly something can become the new normal.

Outside of work, my stressing about the growing number of adult-ish things I have to do has been punctuated by some novels, some trips to Indy, some newly learned Hindi phrases, some happy hours, some chilly walks, and a lot of snuggling up in blankets.  

You Is Brave

A story.  This is from back in February when we all made mini podcasts as part of one of our PULSE seminars.  Makes me wish my whole life was set to music!