When I went in on Tuesday, I was not expecting to stay there for a whole work day. In fact, I thought I would do my blood test and get my ID, then go home. I got to stay the whole day and it was great.
TA and AB collaborated in creating a list of papers for me to read. They gave me 12. I don't know if you have ever read a scientific paper, but there are really two types: easy to read/understand or is-this-English-it-is-not-comprehensible-at-all. They were all the latter type. Unfortunately, very few of the classes that I have taken at Hampshire were of any use to me in making heads or tails. I thought that maybe if I just read them, it would eventually click. Sort of like immersion in another language. So I just kept chugging through. I would finish a paper and think, 'I have no idea what their goal was, or if they accomplished it!'
For the past few months (since the beginning of January), I have been teaching myself Cell Biology out of a textbook. CJ told me which chapters I should definitely cover, and which I could skip. Unfortunately, he told me I could skip a lot of the protein and DNA stuff, which is all that these papers were about. I did preempt this though. I was interested in the protein and DNA stuff, so I did not skip that much of it. CJ, I know you meant well, and I don't hold it against you.
I wrote down questions I had about the papers. I was not sure that any of them would be particularly helpful, but I asked things about what a certain technique did, or why was it important to do such-and-such? I spent the entirety of Wednesday reading papers (I had spent some time reading papers on Tuesday as well, in between bureaucratic nonsenses). TA said that tomorrow (Thursday), I would meet with AB and him to ask questions and have a learning session. He set aside 1.5 hours, and I got nervous. We would meet at 11.
I came in on Thursday, and sat down to go over papers. And it clicked. I was not reading jargon, but I mostly understood what was going on! I finished that paper in probably half the time it had taken me to do earlier ones. [If anyone ever tells you that the human brain is not good at adapting, you should laugh at them...]
I finished the other papers I had left pretty easily, and went in for my meeting. I brought a sheet of questions, and even took notes. I did not need to ask half of the questions at that point. I think that TA and AB were impressed with my grasp of the material (they had not intended that I finish all the papers before Friday). They told me what they intended for next week, but they were in between experiments, so there was nothing for me to do in the lab until Monday. I asked if there was any reason for me to come in on Friday, and they could not see any (I am paid salary, not hourly, so if they said I could be off, I was still paid for it). It was not even lunch yet, so I went home and made lunch.
AK and I then went out to a park, and went on the swings a bit. I got to hang out with her for the rest of the weekend too! It was great. We went to a mega-church on Sunday morning. AK is studying fundamentalist Christianity, so it was a real treat for her. She really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it too. It is a really well-oiled machine! They gave us some really great travel mugs because it was our first time there.
AK had to leave shortly after the service so that she could be back at Camp Hamp before the vampires came out. I miss her already.
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