This is a photo of the Lukla airstrip in Nepal
According to my stomach, I have flung myself off a cliff, which is how it feels to take off from this airport: Note abrupt end to very short airstrip. I took this photo during my days as a Himalayan...
View ArticleNine months
So I vanquished my General Exam on Friday, which was a great thing. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to relax at all this weekend. I haven’t had a day off in forever, and I feel like I should be...
View ArticleA memory of light and postdocs
Excited! (photo courtesy of Goodreads)Since the early 1990s, I have eagerly awaited each new volume. I lugged those books to my after-school and summer jobs in southeast Virginia, inhaled them during...
View ArticleCode for home
Yesterday I received my first postdoctoral fellowship offer. It’s for two years of salary, awarded directly to me, for a proposal that I wrote. I will not have a boss, but a host–the point being that I...
View ArticleAchievement unlocked: PhD
Friday came and went, and somewhere in there I defended my PhD. Prior to my public talk, my advisor mortified me with a very kind introduction. I considered repeating it here because my memory will...
View ArticleNaps with dogs
In the month since I last posted, I’ve been reacquainting myself with summer and how to not work a bajillion hours a week. Seattle has seen some hot days. I read some books. I swam off a dock in Lake...
View Article2013: The year in numbers
1 novel written: Iris. My primary goal was to complete this novel. 4 short stories written. My goal was to write at least one new story. 38 short-story submissions (4 responses pending). 1 short story...
View ArticleNothing to prove
The song, “You’re the Best,” has been stuck in my head for months. I sing it to my dog (who really is the best), myself (doubtful), my morning granola-and-yogurt (pretty dang good). I haven’t seen The...
View Article2014 Year in Review
When I went back to graduate school in 2007, then in my late twenties, I didn’t expect to wind up in Los Angeles six years later. I didn’t anticipate how much more stressful and uncertain postdoc life...
View ArticleTo patch with gold
In Japan there is a kind of reverence for the art of mending. In the context of the tea ceremony there is no such thing as failure or success in the way we are accustomed to using those words. A broken...
View ArticleNothing is ever a failure
Here’s the thing about being a writer, or a musician, or an artist, or any sort of creative person. The ones who make it are … the ones that hear no as not yet and nothing is ever a failure, it’s only...
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