a little steamrollered...

I think Quarters have a tendency to behave like the bookends of March - either lamb-like and midquarter crunch sneaks up before you know it or lion-like. Or, as with this quarter, it's like staring down one of these:

Monday night I found out I can have time on the science machine at Caltech this weekend, which meant a dramatic overhaul of my week to be ready with four days worth of samples by Thursday night. Monday night I also read a piece called "Women in Science," which basically offers up an alternate reason for why there aren't so many women in science. But if you are also a grad student, don't read it before bed. I had trouble sleeping. Anyway, the collision of these two events (trying to rearrange my life for the week with the little nagging doubts of my current path in life brought to the front) made me feel, well, I felt a little sorry for myself. On the bright side, I did see an incredible shooting star that seemed brighter than Venus and took at least 30 seconds to cross the sky [gross exaggeration: it was really only 20] on the midnight ride home. That helped.

Thing is, it doesn't seem like it should feel so taxing, but I think the root is that, while I'm grateful for the time, I have to mentally gear up for these trips. I really don't look forward to 14-hour days in the lab with no human interaction. For four days. The hard part here is the lack of interaction as opposed to the long days. My phone takes a pretty heavy hit on these trips. I never realized how much I need some kind of human interaction in the course of a day until grad school.

Related to this, I want to make a shameless plug for a book I read over break called "The Female Brain." No, it isn't a cheezy pop-psychology book. It frames a lot of the different aspects of women's lives in the various chemical and hormonal concoctions going on in our brains. I was really surprised at how much I liked this book. Thanks Sarah! So, if you're a woman, you should read it. If you're not a woman, but like women, interact with women, can't hide from women, you should read it. I hear walking around with this book is a pretty good chick magnet too.....

Slightly broken

I'm back in Golmud, a little earlier than expected (supposed to be back on the 10th). The four of us in the field crew were managing the elevation change fine (minus the usual wheezing), but I came down with a cold on Monday. Worse was the cough that came with it. I spent the day in Toutou He resting, hoping maybe the cough would get a little better, but colds just don't improve when you're sleeping at 15,000 feet. And there is a good chance the cold will escalate into something worse, like pneumonia, bronchitis or AMS. So, I rode back down to Golmud with Lau Zhong Zhifu (one of the drivers), who hadn't been dealing well with the elevation.

So, that's it. Pete is with a solid crew, so he'll get lots of samples to bring back to stuff into a mass spec back in Santa Cruz. I'm kind of bummed. It is hard to think about all the time and money that other people put in to get me there, essentially for nothing. The early days in the field were initially to check the outcrops and plan the later half, so all the sample collecting is going on now. It isn't much fun feeling useless, but I guess that is kind of how it goes out here too. Anothere reason to be grateful my field area is right in my backyard.

At this stage, I'm playing the waiting game to find out how I will be getting back to Beijing and eventually home. There is a chance I'll get back early, but who knows. In the meantime, I'm sleeping a lot and set my self little mini-adventures (where is a phone to call the US? where is the internet?) to keep myself entertained. There isn't a whole lot to see in Golmud....