On being “one of the boys”

Picture this:  you are a woman, and you are surrounded by a group of your closest friends. You're not the only woman in the group; rather, you are one of two. Everyone else in the group identifies as male. Amidst the light-hearted conversation, you hear one of your male friends turn to your female friend …

Klarsonisms: a romance edition

During my almost 2 month hiatus from this blog (mostly because I haven't thought of anything worth shouting into the internet void), I've made some pretty positive changes in my life. I've started running again. I had a really good talk with my PI, and I feel a lot more confident in my research. I'm …

Life Update #4

Another year has come and gone, and like every sappy millennial with a blog, I've been spending  a lot of time this holiday season reflecting on 2017. "I've been through a lot this year," I think, "Just like every other year, where I have also been through a lot, because 365 days is a lot …

Developing Myself

You know that song by the Talking Heads that goes, "And you may ask yourself... How did I get here?"  Well, I already wrote a blog post about that. But honestly, not much has changed regarding how I feel about grad school. The other day, my boss actually compared me to a gerbil running on …

All That Jazz

The time has come... the long awaited post that nobody wants to read because I never shut up about it anyways... I GOT A KITTY. She is a domestic short hair, all black, and she is 4 months old and 4 1/2 pounds and I love her.  I named her Jazz, or lil J for short …

My brain is an just organ, but I am just my brain

One of the biggest arguments that mental health advocates use is that illnesses of the brain should be treated exactly the same as those of any other organ.  After all, the brain is exactly that - an organ.  It's just another part of the body, and that part gets sick, too.  So why do we …

STEM doesn’t stand for “Smarter Than Everyone (else), Man”

I just realized that I've been working at Vanderbilt for over 100 days now.  Things have finally begun to feel more natural - I know where most of the buildings are, I optimized my bike route to work, and I even joined the BME grad student council e-board.  As each day passes, I feel more …

On sexual health…

I have mixed feelings about prefacing this with a TMI warning.  On one hand, it's weird to talk about sexual health on a personal blog, especially because I draw some of my opinions from personal experience (i.e. I want to discuss my personal experiences to back my ideas).  On the other hand, I don't think …

How DID I get there?

Have you ever had a moment where, when you're just hanging out in an intergalactic hospital lobby trying to get an iced coffee, and you suddenly find yourself standing on top of a lamp post on a crowded, urban street?  And you just have to ask yourself, "How did I get here?"  Well, I haven't. …

Life Update #3

It's been a couple weeks since I wrote here.  I have a lot of half-posts that I have yet to complete or review, most of which are talking about current events and how I feel about them, a classic klarsonism.  But for some reason, I haven't been able to finish any of my thoughts as …