If you've ever used the term SNAFU to refer to a difficult, chaotic, or messy situation, you know that it is an acronym. It is now 2021, and I guess this is normal. If you're reading this sometime in well removed from when I'm writing it, this is the week after a group of rioters stormed the Capitol Building disrupting the certification of election results, injuring scores of people, and leaving 5 dead. I'm more than a little shook. But life goes on. I ended up taking a prolonged break from writing this at the end of 2020. I was really struggling, some with my mental health, some with classes. As I mentioned back in August , I've been frustrated with my classes. It's not that I dislike learning. No one would be in grad school if they did. I've just reached the point where I'm frustrated with coursework, and the inordinate amount of time it takes up. Between that, the stress of living in a pandemic, and so...
A first hand account of my experience as a PhD student in the biomedical sciences, related in real time as I'm going through my program. The focus of this blog is going to be more on the human experience than the specifics of the science, but there will be plenty of science in that experience. You can follow on Twitter @TheMacAran