The Bio-Hustle

It’s been a while. Not that I’ve had nothing I wished to say – it’s that I haven’t found the framing, motif or theme to pack the words into. It’ll come.

In the meantime, here are some snapshots of what I’ve been up to in the last 12 months. Uniting theme? Hustle.

(Northeastern) Big City Nights

I don’t need much of an excuse to visit DC. In November 2018 the American Medical Writers Association hosted their annual conference there. I’d yet to visit the National Museum of African American History & Culture, and I had a couple of hundred dollars in my bank account. How many more signs did I need?

DC. Washington DC.

I like the grand expanse of the US Capital. It’s a bitch to walk round on a sunny day – sunlight beamed back off marble – but there’s space to pause and enjoy the surroundings, which you can’t do in NYC. Every time I visit I’ll peek into the Library of Congress, I love it as a monument to intellectual power.

This time around I lucked out and found a pretentious coffeeshop near my hostel. They served me a double espresso in a volcano-shaped mug, on a slate tile. Although not pictured above, there were extensive quantities of cacti. The espresso was perfect.

This could be the section of my post where I brag about the AMWA conference: how insightful it was, how many late night revelries I crammed in, the glamour of big meetings in endless hotels. Instead I departed DC with the realisation I wasn’t quite a medical writer. I was hitting ~50% success rate interacting with people at the conference: half the people I had decent chats with and enjoyed their company, the rest I had kinda stilted exchanges with and felt I wasn’t connecting. The workshops and talks were all useful, but there were 3 blocks of attendees (writing academic papers, regulatory writing and continuing medical education) and by then I was self-identifying as ‘healthcare marketing’.

The AMWA Southeast chapter.

A disappointing conference isn’t the worst thing life can hit me with. It helped me refine my professional identity: I’m not a medical writer, I’m a healthcare copywriter (that’s totally a thing). There were plenty of good experiences on the trip: I was able to walk into the NMAAHC without a minute of queuing, I spent time with my local AMWA chapter (“local” in this case encompassing Atlanta, Knoxville and chunks of Florida).

 

ChemBros

People don’t come to Atlanta for chemistry. I was surprised to learn that my adoptive city specialises in global health. Atlanta hasn’t been branded with the same strength Boston has as a biotech hub, for example. Global health equates to public health, medicine, epidemiology and the likes…but not chemistry.

So you can imagine my delight when two chemists did visit for the weekend.

Fernando and Peter – selfie afficiandos.

The Future Leaders in Chemistry program sustained me throughout my PhD. It was only two weeks during the summer between my 1st and 2nd year, but when I hit the mid- and late-stage troughs of grad school I remembered that someone had accepted me onto this prestigious program (and no one had questioned my inclusion once I was there). It’s been 5 years now, and I’m not sure I’ve become a ‘Leader in Chemistry.’ But maybe that doesn’t matter.

Anyway, my two FLIC buddies had lunch at Ponce City Market. It’s one of those hipster utopias: ‘industrial’ interiors, expensive shops and artisanal food. I paid $8 for a sandwich smaller than my fist…but was one of the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth, albeit for all of 5 seconds.

 

While you were partying, I studied THE STICK

 …Well, you probably weren’t partying first thing on a Saturday morning. Nobody does that. As a time for karate & jiu-jitsu classes goes however, it’s pretty effective: with evening classes you have a whole day to accumulate excuses and flakiness. First thing in the morning you’re always fresh. There have been a few occasions when I woke up to the 6.30am alarm I’d earnestly set for myself Friday night…rolled over and went back to sleep. I’m human. Still, I’m more likely to be in attendance than not. It’s an intermediate-plus class, so we go through tricky things like weapons.

With martial arts, it often feels like moving up the ranks just means opening extra avenues of critique. You don’t stop doing technique wrong, instead you access more sophisticated layers of wrongness. It can be frustrating, especially when it seems you’ll never get it right.

However, jiu-jitsu shows proof of my progression. When I first hit blue belt I was thwarted by hip throws. These are (basically) when an opponent’s behind you, and you bump them up and over your back.  Despite drinking many protein shakes, I don’t have the upper body strength to brute-force the throw, I have to apply good technique. And I since I’m a tall woman my practice partners are either women roughly my weight but shorter (which makes body alignment hard because I’ve got to crouch down), or men who are taller than me…but 100 lbs heavier. You can’t hide bad technique: you’ll either do the hip throw or fail. My tolerance for practising the throw was limited – I’d get too frustrated after a series of misses to continue.

Then one class…I performed the throw. THWACK! went my partner. And I realised I was hitting correct the technique more often than I was missing. I still mess up my hip throws, and I’ve now graduated on to its more finicky variants, but it’s proof that eventually things click. There aren’t any showy flashes of insight here, just getting things right. It’s not that I enjoy failing, but I can tolerate it. And to improve at martial arts (and life, I guess) you need to tolerate exposure to your failures.

Party in the dojo – Saturday 9am | Photo courtesy of The Martial Arts Center Atlanta

Lastly, here’s a picture of me and a lizard.

I realise this photograph raises more questions than it answers. But as we say in Okinawan Shuri-Ryu: ‘Karate is my secret.‘

Chemist in the White City

“When I came to Georgia State from Georgia Tech I was so surprised. People would talk to each other in the elevators – it was so friendly here! The atmosphere was really different. And of course, at Emory they’re snobs towards everyone else.”

At least five pairs of eyes – all belonging to academics from the two “Georgia X”s – turned to look at me. [Emory University] it said on my name tag. On my behalf of all employees of the second-biggest employer in the metro Atlanta area, I shrug-nodded diplomatically.

“With reason, I guess,” the Georgia State employer added.

I’m not here to discuss university rankings in the metro Atlanta region – beyond saying there isn’t that much difference in rankings between Emory and Gatech. What I’m here to say instead is that my first reaction to seeing Emory was “Damn, this is a nice campus”.

They’ve got a tasteful white marble theme going on. There are unifying architectural principles that link old and new buildings. It feels…refined. You can understand why hanging out on Emory campus brings out the inner snobs in people.

True story – I went to Georgia Tech campus to interview a scientist. Google Maps pointed me to the wrong cluster of buildings, so I had to ask for directions. “Just head out that way. You’ll see a kinda ugly brown brick building looming in front of you. That’s where the Center is.” I proceeded to get even more lost after those words of wisdom…because every Gatech building is an ugly, looming, brown brick building. Lady, you didn’t narrow it down!

Sorry. I didn’t set out with this blog post to trash the “Georgia X” universities. Instead I wanted to show photos of my favourite Emory campus views.

Emory School of Medicine

My favourite building is probably the Emory School of Medicine. It’s grandiose; its two wings tower over you and sweep you in as you approach. It feels like an important building, even before you know what exactly it contains.

Brumley Bridge

I made a point of taking these photos early in the morning, because sunrise makes Emory campus look great. They’ve got several large bridges on campus, this one is the prettiest.

View from the Chemistry Department

Emory campus is crammed onto its Druid Hills perch – a swanky North Atlanta suburb. This hidden hill gives lots of these cool level changes and perspectives.

Emory’s Main Quad

This is what I mean by architectural unity and thematic marble. Lots of white and peach.

Lullwater Preserve

Emory also owns the expansive Lullwater Preserve, a chunk of woodland surrounding a lake and river. This is one of my favourite spots within the Preserve. Atlanta doesn’t go for waterways. Rutgers has the Raritan, Philadelphia the Schuylkill. I grew up on the coast with a garden that almost reached the sea – I need some proximity to water in my life. Here it is, in the middle of Georgia.

Lullwater Preserve

You can cross the river via a Temple of Doom-esque swinging rope bridge and get to the abandoned tower across from the waterfall. It has its charm. I once saw a fashion shoot take place here: it featured a smoke machine and a tattooed girl holding a >2 metre yellow snake. That’s the sort of gritty vibes this place gives off.

 

This city makes me look like a decent driver – and other reasons I love Atlanta

“I’m moving to Emory University in Jan 2018.”

“Great! …Where’s Emory?”

“Oh, its in Atlanta.”

“Brilliant! …Where’s Atlanta?”

This was the type of conversation I had with my non-American friends last year. I can’t take the moral high ground because a few years ago I wouldn’t have been better-informed.

I knew Atlanta was a big city. I’d never felt compelled to visit it as a tourist, but I’d never heard anything awful about it either. When I was listening to Marketplace on NPR I heard a segment about Atlanta as a emerging transportation and business powerhouse, which intrigued me.

When I told my savvy American friends about the move to Atlanta, there were two common replies:

(i) “Oh, I visited Atlanta once…AND I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT.”

(ii) “Oh, I passed through Atlanta airport once…AND I ABSOLUTELY HATED IT.”

As I packed up my life in New Jersey, I figured that if I made it out of Hartsfield-Jackson Intl Airport alive I’d be in for a positive experience.

***

Nights that are alright for fighting: most of ’em

Now and then I’ll walk into a room and feel deep relief. These people are my people, I’ll realise. You can’t predict or articulate after the fact what it was about the circumstances and personal chemistry, only that it fit and you knew so immediately. That’s how I feel about my martial arts. I could have walked into any other martial art school in this city and it wouldn’t have clicked. Conversely, I could have walked into a Crotchet Support Group and experienced a more forceful connection. You never know in advance.

I’m probably getting better at deploying marital art prowess on 12 year olds…but now the 12 year olds are getting better at fighting me. My push-ups remain pitiful and I can’t even fall to the ground right…but my enthusiasm is unwavering. I got promoted to yellow belt in karate recently, and intend to move higher.

I need to work on my game face | Courtesy of The Martial Arts Center Atlanta

Big City Nights

Atlanta meets my criteria of “a proper city”. In a city I should be able to walk to the supermarket and coffeeshops. I should have access to serene greenery. I should be able to dine on Indian-Mexican fusion cuisine for lunch and vegetarian Soul Food for dinner. If so inclined I should be able to waste my weekend in a 24 h Korean spa, cinema complex, hipster coffeeshop, or the Target ‘scented candle’ aisle.

Atlanta has drawn in people from across the USA. It doesn’t feel like a “Southern City”, although an hour’s drive will take you to the site of recent alt-right rallies. Recent as in ‘last month’. Within Atlanta these past 6 months I’ve had more contact with successful, confident non-white professionals than I did in all my years on the East Coast. Which I think is great.

It’s a shame I’m not connected to other cities the way I was in the NJ area: it’s a three hour drive to the nearest large towns or cities I could conceivably want to explore. The Southern public transportation system never recovered after Sherman tore up the railways. But on the plus side, Atlanta covers all the basics of what I need.

 

 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Tristate Area

My evening flight up to New Jersey was delayed in increments. Text messages at intervals eventually told me it would be 3 hrs late. I couldn’t even try to scrape onto the last train from the airport – we were arriving way too late for that. By 8.30am I’d need to be at Rutgers University for my PhD convocation.

Don’t panic. As the saying goes. It wasn’t worth paying for a hotel room near the airport that I’d only reside in for 4 hrs – I’d get to sleep in an airport terminal the night before the culminating, crowning event of my advanced degree (duration: 4.5 years).

The symbolism seems obvious enough.

Anyway, this is why I always travel with a pashmina. Those things almost as important as  towels. Throw ’em over your head when attempting to drift off under glaring LED lights; wrap ’em around your body when an unexpected chill breeze strikes up; cover your bare shoulders to reduce sunburn. Pashminas are amazing. It’s why I managed to get ~60 mins of sleep within a 4 hr time span crammed onto an airport “sleep proof” bench next to a massive widescreen TV blaring 24 hr entertainment drivel, with AC blasting me. I got to my Convocation early.

If a PhD teaches you anything, it’s how to operate under stressful conditions with limited resources.

***

Memory functions like a strip of paper. You can fold two distant pieces so they fit together. It was weird to disembark in New Brunswick…and everything felt exactly the same. It was like I’d never left. But the disquieting bit was I forgot what Atlanta was like as soon as I returned to New Brunswick. Memories and emotions are stained into the fabric of places. When people ask if I miss the UK I tend to shrug and say I don’t really think about it. And that’s totally true: it’s impossible for me to conjour up the memories and sensations of a place when I’m living somewhere else. But those memories and feelings will come flooding back if I return.

It means that there are feelings I can only access in one city. The feelings experienced when floating down the Rhein on a lazy summer weekend in Basel? Yeah, I’d need to fly to Switzerland for an August holiday. Cycling over the Thames to the backdrop of a vivid purple & yellow sunset? Can’t recreate it ever again.

As I wander around New Brunswick and Rutgers taking this in, I feel heartbreak. Because I was glad to leave the wilderness of New Jersey and plunge back into a massive city…but I can’t recreate to this sense of place. It was unique.

On my last day at Novartis – a couple of days before I’d fly out of Switzerland permanently – I sat crying on the banks of the Rhein for an hour. It didn’t matter how I’d struggled in such a foreign country, or the frustrations of education plans thwarted long-distance…it hurt to leave. I still catch myself yearning for those tranquil walks through Basel’s old city, dawdling beside quiet fountains in empty squares.

A city will break your heart. Although your heart will heal…it’ll never re-form how it was before.

And you won’t want it to.

***

Graduation isn’t really about the ceremony itself. It’s about closure on an experience that can be fuzzily-defined. I defended my PhD in early December in a low-key fashion (bought 2 bags of croissants for my defense catering, the leftovers lasted a week), then loitered around the area until early January in much the same manner as pre-defense. Hanging around the school gymnasium for a couple of hours just to walk across the (small) stage and get “hooded” with something that WOULD NOT function as a hood in a rainstorm is as good an end point as any. You Walked, you’re 100% done. Send official photographs to your parents – everyone’s happy.

On the subject of location-specific memories…I spent a bit of time in New Brunswick and went down to Philly for several social engagements. Some of the highlights of my trip included:

• Thai food that wasn’t sickly sweet.
• Sleeping at the 24 hr swanky Korean spa. Cheaper than a hotel, I was out like a light for 9 hours AND I got sauna/hot-tub time thrown in for the price of admission.
• Coppery espressos drunk slowly in view of Independence Hall.
• Hanging out with friends I’ve known for almost a decade, sharing plates of Sichuan grub and having stupid conversations. Then going to a dessert bar to eat ice cream in a torrential thunderstorm.
• Brunch in Manayunk. It tastes better there.

I’ll get on a flight to Atlanta. These sensations will fade out as others fade back in. I’ll taste the humid Georgian air and remember my martial arts, Emory, and all the writing. I won’t remember what it really felt like to be a doctoral student, or to live it up in Philadelphia.

At least, not until the next time.

Fear and Loathing in Atlanta

“We can’t stop here – this is biscuits and gravy country!”

I’ve been moulded into a product of New Jersey. By which I mean I love diners, drive like  a lunatic and don’t know how to re-fill my petrol tank. I learned to drive in the States, and have done one 4-hr road trip during my time as a PhD student. As you can imagine, driving from NJ to Atlanta sounded like a challenge. It’s over 800 miles (14-hrs according to Google Maps). At one point I was stupid enough to consider making the trek in a U-Haul with my car clipped on the back. After some reflection I realised that was idiotic – I’d overtake a lorry at 80 mph and forget I was towing a car behind me, or something like that.

Therefore. A two-day road trip in Saxon (aka my ‘Wheels of Steel’). I’d been told that the journey was (i) really scenic and iconic, a fun experience you had to try at least once (ii) an awful soul-destroying grind that you’d never want to repeat again. It was the same person who told me those two things, before then after they actually did the trip. I decided to stop over in Burlington NC (just over halfway there). Armed with 4 pages of Google Map printouts and several bottles of water I prepared myself for an early start.

The key to long-distance driving is the radio. “Adult variety” is my first choice, but I’m not too fussy. The Top Hits stations are too repetitive: I must have heard the opening to “Havana” by Camila Cabello at least ten times over 2 days, and I kept switching stations. RnB/Hip-hop is fine, but I cry to 70% of country songs (it’s embarrassing – I was even tearing up at the overblown ones about two alcoholic lovers shooting themselves). Conversely, when I started my engine at 6.30am and heard Solisbury Hill blasting over the speakers it had a better awakening effect than coffee ever could.

Which is just as well, because I was severely under-caffeinated for the whole trip. I bid farewell to NJ with breakfast at a 24-hr diner. I was reminded why I don’t eat breakfast there more often: omelette was greasy, the coffee was brown water. Says a lot that my last hours in NJ were spent eating bad diner-food.

I decided that under-caffeination and mild dehydration was preferable to bladder discomfort and restroom hunting at high speeds. By the time I got to my sleazy motel (if you’re after a proper road trip experience of course you need to stay in sleazy motels) I was too exhausted to drive out and look for food/coffee. When I set out on a walk around the neighbouring strip malls, people in the car parks gave me weird looks (what’s that chick doing walking around HERE?), and after making note of my surroundings I could understand why. Following greasy diner food I was craving a salad or some fresh fruit, but perusing the local southern eateries I could see that wish was impossible. It was all “biscuits” (which as a British person I can assure you aren’t what I’d call biscuits) and waffles. So I crashed asleep at 7pm, vaguely hoping no one would try and break into my room. They probably could, if they wanted to. Only 30% of the electrical sockets in my room worked and despite its Non-Smoking designation…it smelt of smoke.

By Day 2 I was on the home strait. Despite exceeding the speed limit by an average of 20mph I made it into Atlanta without getting pulled over once. There was a steady scattering of busted cars in motorway ditches along the American coast, I suspect left there as a warning to cocky drivers such as myself. Still…faster speed = better fuel efficiency, right?

I made it to Atlanta. As soon as I pulled off I-85 I stumbled into an Ethiopian restaurant only a couple of miles from new apartment. Veggies and strong coffee – I demolished everything. Part of my sadness of leaving NJ involved parting with things I couldn’t replace. Knowing there’s stellar Ethiopian food in the Atlanta metro area had an instantly reassuring effect.

 

Midnight in the Chem Lab of Good and Evil

Back in 2009 I told a friend I’d be spending a year in America, interning at a pharma company. Her response was to insist I read one of her favourite books – “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” by John Berendt. She hoped I’d check out Savannah, GA while I was in the US. I did. And in 2018 that book is still on my shelf. Along with American Gods (Neil Gaiman), The Devil In The White City (Erik Larson), Alexander Hamilton (Ron Chernow) and Evicted (Matthew Desmond) it provides me with an atlas for navigating this vast country.

Setting out to that internship, I viewed the American South with the same level of trepidation and beady curiosity as I viewed West Philadelphia. It was unknowable and dangerous. After my first exposure I stopped fretting about the ‘hoods of Philly, but I never got comfortable with the American South. My Scottish East Coast values templated onto American East Coast values to the point where I barely felt a culture shock. This part of the States is viewed as rude and uppity by fellow Americans: I decided that therefore made me rude and uppity…and I was OK with it.

Now I’m moving to Atlanta, GA.

(Which is 3-4 hours drive away from Savannah. I checked that out pretty early in the process.)

I find it easier to move to a new place than back to an old one. I get a kick from re-activating my Meetup account and trawling local interest groups. Going to a place where I know no one forces me to socialise and meet people. I get to re-roll the dice and correct past mistakes. You miss dancing? Well, Google ‘ballroom dance Atlanta’ and start checking out studios! New location – new habits. Any pre-move jitters are soothed by putting events into my Moleskine Calendar to fill up my time.

Even if the South turns out to be as alien as I once feared…I can make the experience meaningful. I left Basel, Switzerland with a strong feeling of relief, but because I’d thrown myself into the new location I never felt like I’d wasted a year. Quite the opposite!

You can find opportunities for good and evil in the same place, at the same time. That’s what I love about this country.

 

Pilgrimages and Holy Sites

My wheels of steel, Saxon, has finally found his purpose.

There was a bit of reluctance on my part to drive on the motorway. Going at higher speeds is kinda risky, driving for several hours at a time becomes a feat of concentration and endurance. British motorways are organised: fastest cars keep in the centre lane, with slower traffic on the outside. You overtake by passing on the inner lanes only. In contrast, American motorways are freeways: free-for-all-ways. Drivers zigzag and weave in all directions, there is no strong correlation between your speed and which lane you feel entitled to. The whole thing looks rather intimidating. I have no smartphone or fancy GPS systems to guide me: if I got lost, I’d rapidly get really lost.

Yet unless I braved the motorways, even through ownership of Saxon I would still be trapped. The “safe” roads led me to nothing but suburban mall wastelands. Risks would need to be taken.

It would be a waste of my time driving to New York: tolls on the roads, bridges, tunnels, everywhere. The real pressing need I had was to drive South. By regional rail it would take me 90 minutes – up to 2.5h if I needed to access a suburb – to get to Philadelphia. In a car that time was shaved to an hour, and less if I only needed to reach a suburb.

I’ve now driven twice to Philly and back. To my surprise, the motorway part isn’t a big deal: people do drive like lunatics, but I guess that I’m a lunatic (New Jersian) driver myself now. I can certainly anticipate and react to their crazy slaloms across 4 lanes of heavy traffic. Navigation to Philly is really easy: follow Route 1, then switch to 95-South when it becomes available. Barely 30 min later and you can see the Philly skyline. My strategy for getting back is still evolving: twice I’ve pre-emptively exited  the freeway into the suburban idyll around New Brunswick, and stressed a bit in the hope I was on the correct road to get back to familiar territory. Next time I should have it figured.

It may seem over-sensitive for me to call my newly unlocked travelling ability as “empowering”…but it really does feel that way. Before, Philly was a hassle to get to – a long boring train ride away – and I would go months and months without visiting. Now, I can get there in barely an hour, have a full enough day there (long enough to see people, wander around, maybe waste time in a coffeeshop), then get back to New Brunswick with a late afternoon/early evening to spare. The nostalgia hasn’t felt as painful these last two visits: I may still be able to maintain a meaningful connection with the city after all.

***

The time, I invested a little time in a trip to the Swan Memorial Fountain. It was a glorious day – no-jacket weather – and I needed to walk off my lunch. Where else should I go?

The Swann Memorial Fountain

Since 2010 I’ve visited this city at least once every year. Only the yearly trips when I flew in from other countries, other lives, I would always go back to this spot – to sit with my feet in a fountain and contemplate. There have been stresses and uncertainties, but those leave me at the fountain.

I’ve been struggling for my current research project for almost a year. It has worked, then failed when I thought it would work. It has progressed slowly – any slower and you could label it a dead end. If this project works, if it works in an efficient and reliable manner, then it could lead to some good publications for me. As yet I’ve not hit the benchmark that would prove such a thing, although I’m not far off. Running up dead ends, wasting time on countless side projects, spin-offs and new ideas is emotionally and physically draining. There is nothing else in my life besides grad school: my self-esteem and moods have become pegged onto my research, fluctuating with it on a daily basis. I can run from hope to despair in less than 24 hours. For the most part I am confident, but I’ve had a bad couple of weeks with disappointing experiments to process and bounce back from.

Right now a side project has given me cause for hope. I have a handful of results that are good and I’ve established are reliable. Yet I know that any experiment (and I have to run the important ‘killer’ experiments as soon as possible) has the power to crash my project and invalidate my good results. As yet, no failsafe benchmark has been reached.

Going to the Swann Memorial fountain helps me. Maybe the waters are holy. In any case, I was able to soothe the darker emotions and refocus myself. What needs to be done, what I mustn’t lose sight of. Calmed and empowered, I head for home.

Slow Burn Summer

Sunset On Edinburgh

The DoE Expedition Experience

There is something deeply, deeply satisfying about sitting in the middle of the Scottish Highlands at the foot of a tree; your back pressed into the curve of the bough as you shelter from the passing evening showers, thoroughly engrossed in “A Walk In The Woods”.

In the three days I was out on that DoE Expedition I not only started and finished the Bill Bryson, but I burned through Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods“, too. I know I’m a fast reader, but I absolutely devoured those two books with the relentless hunger of one who hasn’t had the time to read for pleasure in over 12 months.

Although I’ve encountered numerous people over the years who couch their Chemistry Grad School experiences to me in terms remarkably akin to PTSD…one year in and the PhD still hasn’t beaten the enthusiasm for knowledge out of me.

***

I’m becoming more and more convinced that the key to success in grad school is perseverance. Intelligence, dedication and stamina are all really helpful…but the most important make-or-break trait is how well you stick at something. I’m at a point in my research project where I really need to persevere: I don’t mean “persevere” in the sense of “repetition until it works”, but that I have to keep up the same momentum of new ideas, different approaches and diligent analysis, tackling the problem from every single new angle until I crack it. Sounds like it takes a lot of mental finesse, right?

 

No guarantees. At the end of the day, it might just be that the fundamental science is stacked against me.

 

***

There has to be a reason why I keep on returning to the DoE Expeditions. I began to help out on them in 2006…I’ve now been helping out on the school’s expeditions longer than I was even in school. It satisfies me, I think. Going out into the Scottish Highlands satisfies me on a lot of levels.

I love to sit in air-conditioned Starbucks during the summer, drinking strawberries & cream frappuccinos and watching the street scenes. That was a habit I picked up in the States. That doesn’t diminish the fact that the Scottish part of me wants to get out into the remote wilderness to camp. You can tell by my reading material – two sizeable books that I lugged along on my back – that the American psyche fascinates me. I’m living in a new country where I can do more, buy more, be more. I have disposable income for the first time in ages – I went to a farmer’s market to buy vegetables just this week – I don’t have to worry about not being able to afford things!

And yet Americans sometimes frustrate me. They don’t seem to realise how privileged they are, how self-entitled they seem to outsiders. I think that 98% of then time I get along great with Americans…but now and then an encounter will happen that makes me wrinkle my nose and think “…Oh man. DID I REALLY JUST HEAR THAT?! Gosh.” I know we share a common native language, and I look remarkably similar to an American…but I’m still a foreigner. And I think that the fact I “pass” for a native makes me feel even more foreign, at times. America is the melting point, so I adapt, code-switch when talking to my parents, and hold on to the parts that make me Scottish.

 

***

On the whole I feel that I am doing well in the USA. It is the sustained adaptability, perseverance and ability to shake off grad school (albeit only now and then) that is keeping me afloat. I hope that it continues.

 

 

 

 

 

High Rolling in Manhattan

 From a business perspective, New York City is a great place for retail activities.

I stood in the checkout queue at the Topshop on Broadway. In front of me were two immaculately dressed girls lamenting that they had forgotten to bring their student IDs. Their makeup was perfectly applied, they were dressed with painstaking fashion precision. I couldn’t believe that these were undergraduate students – weren’t undergraduates the ones who slobbed around in tracksuit bottoms, jeans and bed-head hair? My initial suspicion was that I must be looking at two Art or Fashion majors…except that in NYC the physicists are probably this well-dressed, too.

That’s the problem with New York. Everybody in downtown Manhattan puts so much effort into their appearance, I feel embarassingly scruffy when standing next to them. And of course that only way I can mitigate such an impeding sense of embarassment is to buy lots of expensive clothes. What business owner wouldn’t want to set up a store in that kind of societal pressure cooker?!

***

Now, the immediate question is…why would a scruffy international grad student even care about how the denizens of Manhattan garb themselves?

It’s to do with escapism, I think.

There is the persistent sensation that I am trapped on the campus of this sprawling public university. The staple of the undergraduates’ wardrobes seem to be Ugg/Timberland Boots (gender depending) and university-brand hoodies. If I want to “eat out” on campus it means a choice between the “so inauthentic its good” Chinese & Mexican vendors that cost me less than $8. When I exist solely within the confines of my university and town life is cheap, but rather constrained.

Whenever I board the regional rail I am attempting some sort of escape from being a scruffy international grad student. If I jump on the South-bound train I am escaping the “grad student” part: Philadelphia is where I meet up with my “Year In Industry” friends, 95% of whom aren’t grad students. If I jump on the North-bound train towards New York, I am escaping everything.

Brit In America Problems

I like to consider myself unshockable. Culture shock is something that is supposed to happen to other people. Culture surprise though, not necessarily.

It’s an interesting comparison to make – did I feel more of a foreigner in Switzerland or in America? In Basel I had the foreign language issue to deal with…but on a word-by-word basis I’m more likely to be stopped mid-sentence in the States and asked “Wait, what was that?” Random words or phrases that I take for granted in British English actually aren’t a part of American English (The other week I used the verb “to cycle” – an American would say that they “bike”).

When I’m talking in English to somebody for whom English is a second language (as was mostly the case in Basel) I watched my language to make sure it was straightforward, clear and understandable. When I’m around native English speakers I must just plough on however I feel like – the result being that linguistically I’m more out of place in the USA than Switzerland.

There were also many things I came across in Switzerland that I strongly identified with as “a European” (as opposed to “a Westerner”, which is how I group the UK & North America). The emphasis on efficient public transport, in continental Europe was something that fitted into my bike-friendly lifestyle. As was the European attitude to work-life balance (i.e, decent quantities of paid holiday time).  In contrast, these European values seem out of place in car-centric, work-centric America.

At the same time as I’m feeling foreign in America…I also don’t feel “foreign enough”. Being white, Western and English-speaking there really isn’t much to differentiate me as foreign here.  Being an English speaker in a German-speaking area  of Europe I felt gave me the freedom to be foreign, to not quite conform to Swiss cultural standards, to feel that it was OK for me to make the occasional social faux pas and to ask stupid questions about ‘how they do things here’. When my plane landed in JFK Airport it felt like I should just be…getting on with it. This isn’t really a complaint about American life, just a musing that any feelings of ‘foreign-ness’ are really hard to pin down.  After all, I’ve had culture shocks returning to the UK; I’ve felt like an alien in my native Scotland.

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I’ve already been clear on what I enjoy about life in the USA. I feel that I have to include some of the most pertinent problems about being British in America.

• Coffee. You would assume that the nation who brought Starbucks to the world would have their coffee sorted, right? Oh man, you’d be wrong. American coffee is designed to be grabbed on the go – cup holders in car – to hype up white collar workers as they sit in their air-conned office cubicles. American coffee is designed to be drunk in large quantities (I’m pretty sure that the “large” coffee mug size to a Brit is “small” to an American) while you’re busy doing something else. American coffee is designed as a caffeine base for syrups, flavoured shots, lattes & frapps & capps. American coffee is rubbish. A European prefers to savour their coffee, drinking it slowly and enjoying the taste. When I drink an espresso from Artisan Roast I get kicked in the face by the caffeine horse…and I love it. The espressos I’ve had in the States just taste watery, though I acknowledge that their filter coffee is better than what I’d find in Britain. I’m hoping I will (a) find a funky independent coffee shop somewhere my immediate vicinity before too long (b) buy a Nespresso machine to make my own damn stuff.
• Toilets with in-built gaps between the cubicle door and its walls. This is majorly f*cked up. The fact that it’s been reported in The Onion means it isn’t something I’m hallucinating in the depths of my caffeine deprivation. Why do Americans design their toilets to have signifiant gaps between the door and walls?! Have American toilet designers never been to Europe and realised that feats of modern engineering exist to successfully remove aforementioned gap?
• Use of the word “girlfriend” to denote a female friend who you aren’t actually having sex with. “So, you’re meeting up with your girlfriend from New York this weekend?” “Yes…but you know she isn’t my sexual partner, right?” This is the qualification I feel I have to make every time somebody talks about a female friend of mine. [For reference, in the UK you might use the plural ‘girl friends’ and not be talking about polygamy…but your friend who is female is just a “female friend” or “friend”.]
• Groundhogs. To me these creatures are cute oversized guinea pigs with tails. To Americans they are irritating vermin who will destroy your garden and attack if provoked. There’s one who potters around in the grass near my apartment in the early evenings – I think if I get to the end of 12 months without being hospitalised for rabies it will be a miracle.

   

  I reckon that once I jump through all the admin hoops at grad school, get used to the heat and (finally) start taking driving lessons I’ll have gotten through the worst part of the “adjustment” phase and be ready to make the most of my time here. I might just have to grit my teeth and wait until next summer for that decent espresso, though…