Saturday, October 11, 2014

Making a way out of no way.

                                   Texas humidity = bad poofy hair days, LOL!!!

So last week I volunteered at an Informatics meeting and overall it was a great experience. The second day was a little rough because the team lead that day was a micromanager, but overall I had a pretty good time. And like I predicted in my last post, everyone from my last group over the summer was there and seemed surprised (as hell) to see me there, LOL!! Of course, it was nearly impossible not to see me since I worked the registration table and was the ONLY Black person at the entire meeting. And given the strong computer science nature of this sub field of informatics, I was not surprised to observe that the majority of the attendees were Asian. It is what it is.

The highlight of the meeting for me was meeting (urgh redundancy) someone from an East coast government employer that is not only considering me for a research fellowship with her agency (since I'm having such a difficult time finding one where I am now) but FAR more importantly, offering to be a mentor too. In fact, she was one of the first PhD students (and even fewer women) to complete a dissertation in what was then the emerging field of Translational Informatics, which is my intended area of focus. Honestly before I met this Scientist (an Asian woman), I had MANY days where I felt like I'd have a better chance of being hijacked by a blind terrorist with a peg leg than developing skills in translational informatics in a research setting. And as has been common among the many URM students/scientists I've known throughout my career, we are often relegated to projects which have very little substance (ie lead to publications) for reasons which can't be explained by qualifications, work ethic, and academic acumen alone. But you know, I don't have an ounce of time to focus on that bullshizzle anymore, I'll continue to do what I need to do until the goal is achieved, obstacles be damned!!!

Movin' on, my orientation to volunteer at the cancer hospital is delayed due to a scheduling error and I'm a little disappointed by that because I've got some "free time" I need to use ASAP. But it's only delayed by a few weeks, so it's cool.

I ended my VERY busy week visiting my friend who has been discharged to a rehab hospital learning to do basic things like swallow and walk again. And instead of focusing on the long road ahead for him mentally and physically, I'm choosing instead to focus on how this experience keeps me motivated to pursue my long term, MD/PhD goals.

Now I'm not one to celebrate the foul language contained in many rap/hip hop songs. But the the song featured on this post is my "ode" to any and all the "b*tches" things/people that would serve to keep me off track, discouraged, and feeling isolated. MOVE!!!



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