I can see clearly now...

Hey hey hey!


I’ve been working almost four weeks now. So much time has passed, and yet I remember clearly a time when I did not even know I was coming here with great certainty. But here I am.


When I came to Harvard, I was afraid I would fail at science, which was irrationally compounded with a fear of success that would compel me to continue doing lab work, a fear that after meeting people here I would be even more dissuaded from volunteering for a year or two. You can’t take a year off and go somewhere like Harvard, or if you do, you couldn’t possibly succeed. At least I didn’t think so.


Within my first week, I met a postdoc in my lab from UW Madison, who told me that a) he took a year off, b) grad school is all about stamina, and c) if taking a year off is something that recharges you, do it.


Last week, I discovered that one of the graduate students in my lab, who has just finished his first year at Harvard, spent the two years before he came here in a Peace Corps term. He not only is succeeding, but also said that his Peace Corps term helped him to get a grant from the NSF or NIH. They cited it when they awarded him the money, telling him that the experience helps to frame his project (which has some sort of biomedical application, but I don’t know much about it).


I am happy to report that I was wrong, oh so very wrong, and will be applying to volunteer programs in the fall. JVC NW, FVM and the Working Boys Center.


As I continue to discern whom I am called to serve, and as I grow more confident in my own ability to do research and function as an independent and valuable member of the lab, I remember a time when I really liked to take standardized tests. (This was in high school; I no longer harbor so much of that sentiment.) When I didn’t know an answer outright, I would use all that I knew to come up with a sensible solution to the problem. I took what I knew and used it to find out something I did not know. That is, on some level, what I am doing now, with the added bonus of the possibility that it might help someone.


For this job, for this vocation, the ability to get good test scores, to “know the right answer” is not enough. I am now doing something that I only recently discovered that I was doing, that I had to do, that I hadn’t done in a while: learn a new skill. All I have been doing for as long as I can remember is learn new information from other people’s lectures. Now, I am learning the best way to find new information, to read and learn it for myself, to present it in a way that makes it seem important, to present it in a clear and concise manner. I have not encountered any sort of academic obstacle that was not easily overcome in a very long time. I am now encountering them all at once, and I have been shrinking away. I’d forgotten what it’s like not to feel at least mildly competent outright.


One of my favorite quotations (which actually is not saying much, since there are a lot of them) is from e.e. cummings: “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” While I did not start out as one good at this research thing, I am getting better, from all signs anyway, and I am beginning to believe that the academic path is part of who I really am. It takes courage to face the obstacles that life presents you, to do the things you think you cannot, and eventually do them well. I am working on the courage thing, to do things I don’t feel capable of just yet, and fail a little bit, even.


The other line I come to during my discernment is the following, from an Anna Nalick song, “Shine.” “Isn’t it time you got over how fragile you are? We’re all wait – waiting on your supernova, ‘cause that’s who you are and you’ve only begun to shine.” I hear a lot from everyone about my bright future, how I will do amazing things. If that’s true, this Harvard thing is only the beginning, and if I don’t get over my fragility, I will never produce that supernova that everyone wants and expects from me. That’s where the courage comes in.


That’s all for now.


Currently reading: Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott. I love her.


“I have climbed highest mountains. I have run through the fields…but I still haven't found what I'm looking for…"


- Rachel