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.‘

Like a fire needs flame

I couldn’t sleep, it felt like my whole body was burning. Except this wasn’t me at the lowest point of my PhD. I was in early Spring 2018, long after the emotional immediacy of grad school had blurred into a memory chained to someplace else. I was in Atlanta, lying in a bed where I could no longer hear Amtrak trains hurtle by in the darkness. Why was my skin on fire?

The answer was perhaps more wrenching second time around. In grad school I’d become so stressed that my immune system lost control, causing hives to erupt over my body. This time I’d come home from my first jiu-jitsu class where I was introduced to the new martial art and practiced some throws, joint locks and grapples.

My skin was burning because it had forgotten what it felt like to be touched.

***

I asked this question before my PhD, during, and in its fading days. Could I recover from this? I’d seen too many broken and bitter grad students – even among those who made it to the end. I’d reconfigured my life so all my energy and hours went into the lab, I didn’t know if I’d remember how to twist it back.

That’s the question I came to Atlanta with: Was the PhD a blip in my trajectory, or was it the new direction? Could I re-access the person I was before – diverse hobbies, useful volunteer roles, high physical fitness – the person I saw as productive and happy? Would I know how to have an existence that didn’t orbit my research?

My burning skin answered my question.

You can starve yourself of something for years at a time, until you lose the memory of it.

But your body can always remember.

Belt Testing Sept ’18 | Photo courtesy The Martial Arts Center Atlanta

I’m not one for excessively sentimentality – that’s still too American for me. But martial arts – here, in this city – is important to me in general and specific ways.

It’s important to be physically active. It’s important to have hobbies. It’s important to try new things. It’s important to get out of the house and meet people.

Courtesy of TMAC (Apologies. I don’t have any footage of me kicking ass. If/when I do, I’ll share it.)

Martial arts is a great sink for my energy and focus. I’m not a natural fighter, same way I wasn’t a natural dancer. So I train, practice, adapt and try again. I hold a million technical reminders in my head with every pattern: hands here, weight here, feet here, knees here, fingers here, elbows here, neck here, left leg here. Everything must be accounted for. I know I’ll never be perfect, but I’ll always be making progress. That’s the balm to research uncertainty right there!

Right down the line | Photo courtesy The Martial Arts Center Atlanta

Traditional Far Eastern martial arts like karate & jiu-jitsu do have strong honour codes, dojo etiquette, and emphasis on obedience/self-discipline. Sure, yeah. By the time we get to adulthood most of us have already wrapped ourselves in too many honour codes, veering into self-denial instead of self-discipline. Martial arts is also the space where you can be playful and have fun. We spent one karate class wrestling each other off a large mat. Know when I last did anything like that? When I was 8 and trying to wrestle my brother off his bed. I’d spent the intervening years pretending like I was too old for those dumb games…when of course I wasn’t. Why would I deliberately choke off my sense of play, when it’s so fundamental to what we are as humans, as animals?

Special guest seminar Sept ’18 | Photo courtesy The Martial Arts Center Atlanta

Let me put my own basic needs first. It’s never too late.

Midday in the Chem Lab of Good and Evil

“I’m sensing internal conflict when you talk about your career aspirations.”

I took a long drag from my cranberry juice.

“…Yeah.”

We were in an artfully-dimmed speakeasy bar on the outskirts of one of Atlanta’s northern satellite towns. I was here doing something close to, or in mimicry of, professional networking. I always figured networking was for the folk who looked comfortable in power suits – not me. But since anonymous online job applications were now striking me as as a fools’ game, I was sincerely trying it.

What I’ve realised about moving around cities and continents is that I can assess my “fulfilment” and “happiness” at each stage of my life with a few outcomes: do I take up new activities, and do I build new friendship circles? It’s all about creating a unique set of good experiences you associate with a particular location. In Philly there was dancing, hiking and a book club. In Basel there was running. In London there was an intense tourist program. Here in Atlanta I’m doing martial arts and building up a professional network bound into the fabric of the city.

I didn’t network during my PhD. Not with any vigour. I’d feel more affinity for the New Jersey suburban realm if I’d tried to connect with professionals outside the university, instead of just with fellow grads in the program. Which isn’t to downplay the value of those grad school friendships. But now all my buddies are getting their PhDs and scattering across the continent. I sunk 4.5 years of my life into a single town, and now have no reason to hold on to it. NJ wasn’t really a “bad location” – it just feels like a misuse of my time not extracting more value from it.

So in Atlanta I’m swinging back to my usual approach: dig in. Meet people. Draw on their experiences, needs and advice if necessary. Although I’m at the “whoah she’s introverted!“ end of the extrovert-introvert continuum, I don’t mind meeting new people. In fact, the controlled environment of “networking” suits me. Those strangers want to chat with you. Their conversations are concise and to the point. You’re expected to circulate, not hold someone’s attention for an hour. No one is drinking heavily or playing shitty music, the space isn’t too loud or crammed. I bought 200 business cards, a shiny card holder and practiced extracting the holder from my pocket without breaking eye contact/conversational flow. That’s a networking skill right there.

Some people have networking miracle stories (“They told I was getting laid off so I left to get coffee and as I was standing in the queue at Starbucks I got talking to the guy behind me and he said his company was hiring and he’d take a look at my CV and after they hired me I learned he was the CEO.”). I’ll let you know if something similar happens to me. Right now, meeting a lot of random people generally has helped me connect with a key subset of people. Drinking a couple of post-work fruit juices and chatting for ~90 mins has helped me articulate what I was looking for in a career (if you can’t articulate what you want, how can you expect to get anything?) and nudged me into several proactive steps. AC: if you’re reading this thanks for your time and ear. I also appreciate that you said a bunch of nice things about my business card design and ‘social media strategy’ (I’m glad I possess anything it can be identified as a strategy!).

***

I don’t have anything important to say about my martial arts progress. But there’s a comment I need to publicly address. When I posted that recent photo of my karate/jiu-jitsu class, a friend jocularly commented: “Don’t tell me you have to try and beat up those massive guys!”

Rookie misunderstanding.

Big guys are the easiest targets. For some reason they feel bad about deploying force on a woman, so they hold back. Sure they’re heavy…but they make a real satisfying THUD when you throw ’em on the ground.

Dude, it’s the women you gotta watch out for.

They won’t hold back a single muscle fibre. They won’t feel compunction whacking you. They’re smaller and bonier than the men. You ever been caught by a bony edge? I’ve met women who are 90% bony edge and sharpen their elbows before class. Some of my biggest, most persistent bruises were given to me by female martial artists. They’re fantastic.

Martial arts requires this combination of strength and dance-like grace, neither of which are my natural attributes. I feel as if maybe I can learn both…but progress is incremental.

 

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.