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My thesis supervisor: you haven't changed your mind, right? You're staying with me to do your Master's?

Me: of course, if you can handle me for another two years

Him: I'm hoping for more than two years!

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Week 4 of Grad School

I've meant to post weekly updates lol oops. Thus begins my fourth week of grad school though. Last week I finished up my research proposal outline. It wasn't as complete as I wanted, I kinda had to pivot partway through (as is typical) so while I wait for my supervisor to look at it and let me know what he wants next, I'm going to keep looking into some of the topics I didn't get to by last Friday.

I'm really proud of myself though because I feel like I've actually managed to come up with some creative, thoughtful directions to take this research project based on articles I've read and my own interests and opinions. The impostor syndrome gets you sometimes but nothing helps with it quite like having your supervisor comment "I like this idea you came up with" and finding papers that support your hypothesis in theory enough to make it worthwhile to test.

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Not to defend corporations or pollution or anything (like truly I would never do that) but I found a paper (citation at the end) that I think makes a really important nuanced point about chemicals like PFAS that we are now regarding as incredibly detrimental and being angry at companies for using. Like there's all those "yay companies are pumping us full of toxic chemicals" jokes out there.

And like they're not wrong. Absolutely we are being exposed to toxic chemicals all the time because their widespread use in industries has made them ubiquitous in our environment. And absolutely companies have covered up and lied about these effects, and when faced with regulations, they often just turn to similar chemicals that are probably also harmful but haven't been regulated yet (bisphenols are an important example of this I think, BPA just gets replaced by other derivatives).

But I do think, as this paper points out, that it's important to acknowledge it's not exactly black and white. These chemicals weren't put in things intentionally to cause harm. Nobody knew the damage that would be caused at first. And yes, we're now seeing astonishing amounts of harm from chemicals like PFAS, but PFAS have also saved countless lives. As the article puts it, "Perhaps one of the best-known uses of PFAS is in firefighting foam, and we cannot know how many lives have been saved because firefighters were able to get a fire under control quickly due to PFAS in the foam." PFAS has also replaced other more toxic chemicals in certain contexts, like lead and tetrachloroethene.

So I think this is just something important to always keep in mind and with how many articles focus exclusively on the harm of these chemicals, I appreciate that this one addresses the grey area. And it's important to expand that to just synthetic chemicals more generally. Sometimes accurately and sometimes inaccurately, many people rail against preservatives and vaccines and medications and pesticides and plastics and so on. And even when those crusades are misinformed, there are often nuggets of truth buried in there, like medicines absolutely have caused incredible harm to people because of side effects. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't rally against things that are causing demonstrable harm, especially when there are realistic alternatives that just aren't being explored because muh bottom line (looking at you, fossil fuels). But I think it's important to ensure that the narrative centres around "oh no, this chemical that we thought was safe and effective and demonstrated significant potential to save and improve human lives has turned out to have unexpected damaging consequences that now need to be researched and addressed, and we need to learn from this to develop better procedures for catching these kinds of consequences before something becomes widespread" and not "industries and scientists are actively trying to poison us with poisonous poisons that have never done anything good and only poison us because they're poisoners."

There are innumerable synthetic compounds that have saved countless lives without causing these types of damages that nobody knows or thinks about because it's only the controversial ones that get attention. And there are huge advances recently in green chemistry that are trying (and succeeding) to make more sustainable substitutes. Scientists are not your enemy. Capitalist industries are, to be fair, but (in this context specifically) because of how they continue to use chemicals we now know are damaging, not because they maliciously put PFAS into fire extinguishers to give everyone endocrine diseases.

Gaines, L. G. T.; Nylander-French, L. A. Occupational Exposure to PFAS: Research and Protection Needed. American Journal of Industrial Medicine2023, 66 (5), 424–426. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.23467.

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I remarked on this to my friend group chat and one them replied with this which I do believe they edited special just for me.

My friends hate me.

Eeeeee my supervisor liked the research questions I put forward!! I was very concerned that I was kinda doing everything wrong lol so it's very exciting that I actually AM made of grad student stuff. Now granted these were kind of handed to me already lmao but I did have to do the research to pick some specific directions and apparently I did that well!

[polycyclic-aromatic-homocarbon]

Eeeeee my supervisor liked the research questions I put forward!! I was very concerned that I was kinda doing everything wrong lol so it's very exciting that I actually AM made of grad student stuff. Now granted these were kind of handed to me already lmao but I did have to do the research to pick some specific directions and apparently I did that well!

[polycyclic-aromatic-homocarbon]

Week 2 of Grad School

So, I’m basically done with my second week of my Masters program now! Nothing particularly exciting to report other than that I’m doing a Masters program which is exceptionally exciting on its own. It’s been a bit of a weird two weeks, felt very directionless at first and it’s a little weird getting used to the kind of freedom you suddenly have. During my undergrad thesis, I did have a fair bit of control over my own schedule but there were still pretty concrete expectations, I was regularly checking in with grad students who were also overseeing everything I did and giving me specific tasks and instructions, and I didn’t really get to choose anything I was doing.

But now, suddenly, I basically just picked a broad project to be working on and my supervisor said “go forth and come go with something to do.” Like within a general framework and realistic expectations, I get to call the shots and I set my own schedule. Which is just weird to get used to, and I think my brain has been reluctant to snap back into self-discipline because I have admittedly procrastinated a little more than I should. 😅

But I actually had a very productive and motivated day today, probably because I didn’t stay up past my usual bedtime for once, and I finished up an annotated bibliography and some prospective research questions. Next week, I need to put together a rough outline of a research proposal, and I’m hoping I can meet with my supervisor to just make sure I’m doing things right. I have a better sense of direction now but I feel like I’m just doing things wrong lol.

So far though, it’s been a good start to grad school and I’m so excited about my project! Enjoy a picture of a latte I made myself today. :)

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I’ve been kinda quiet on here again lmao but I’m back and starting grad school! Yesterday was the start of my first semester as a masters student, and I’m having my first meeting with my supervisor later today to get everything started. I am SO excited, I don’t know how far we’ll be getting into a specific project for me (I imagine the truly specific specifics will take a bit to establish) but I’m hoping to at least have a clearer sense of what I’ll be doing in broad terms. I’m also still frustratingly waiting on my final undergraduate mark, which happens to be for my thesis course that is effectively worth 4 courses. I’m not really worried about anything there, I’ve heard that most people who finish it do quite well and I kinda ate my presentation, but I don’t like not having it be official that I’m done my undergrad. Soon, hopefully. Until then, enjoy this photo of a latte I got myself yesterday.

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The university reimbursed the cost of my grad application. :D I loveeee getting $150 back.

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WOOOOOOO THAT’S IT MY LAST UNDERGRAD ASSESSMENT IS COMPLETE!! And I think it went well enough too! I dunno if I’m going to come out of all these last courses with the best marks ever but I’m pretty confident they’ll be good enough so who cares.

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I think 7:30 pm is the worst time to have an exam. Like yeah having the whole day to study is nice I guess but you get stuck in that anticipatory stress for wayyyyyyy longer, which I find makes it harder to study (and also to relax or do something else productive instead).

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Seven hours until my last exam of undergrad. 😬😬😬

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Genuinely the fact that caffeine doesn’t make me feel awake and alert the way it does for people who don’t have ADHD frustrates me to no end. Like it actually sucks so bad. In some ways I do appreciate it because it does mean I can have coffee (which is one of my favourite beverages, I love coffee so much) more or less any time of the day without it affecting my sleep. But on days like today (and frankly almost every day for the past few weeks) when I am just so tired and exhausted, I would kill for something that makes me feel a little more awake and alert and energized. Like it would make such a world of difference honestly but coffee doesn’t do that for me.

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I am SO problematically exhausted right now. I swear the last few days I’ve been fighting tooth and nail to keep my eyes open which is really not good because I still have one more exam to study for. Please send help, preferably in the form of stimulants that actually stimulate me.

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Switching between these every day

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I really need people to understand that the things scientists do in their spooky, scary, mysterious labs full of strange and unnatural chemicals are the exact same things you do every day at home.

When I'm working with organic solvents, I use a ventilated fumehood so I don't breathe in toxic vapours, just like when you cook on a gas stove, you turn on the fan on your range hood so you don't breathe in toxic carbon monoxide (you'd better be doing this if you have a gas stove). When I need to add a specific amount of reagent, I'll use measuring instruments like a micropipette, just like when you need to add a specific amount of baking soda, you use measuring instruments like a teaspoon. When I want to analyze the chemicals in an environmental samples, I soak it in solvent so the chemicals leach out, just like when you want a coffee, you soak coffee grounds in hot water so the chemicals leach out (because yes, caffeine and all the other chemicals that make coffee, coffee, are chemicals). We are doing the exact same things, the difference is just what tools and ingredients we're working with.

But that's the same difference between you and a Michelin star chef. There are restaurants out there equipped with cutting-edge cooking equipment, things I don't know enough about to even give examples of just like you might not know enough about lab work to give examples of things I use. There are probably ingredients in dishes I've never even heard of because they're so far beyond what I can afford and just not necessary for the kind of food I make. But at most, people just scoff at how much money someone is willing to pay for a tiny plate of deconstructed fruit. Nobody pictures Gordon Ramsay the same way they picture scary chemical labs making scary chemical things.

You can also do science at home, and lots of people do! Not even just as cooking, kids especially like to do fun experiments like baking soda and vinegar explosions or separating the colours in a Sharpie or even extracting DNA from strawberries, which you can do with dish soap and rubbing alcohol. People even do the "fancier" experiments in garage labs, synthesizing organic molecules and such. Actual labs are just higher-tech for the same reason high end restaurants are higher-tech; you can't cure cancer in a garage, and you can't make chocolate sculptures in my tiny, student house kitchen without the proper molds and thermometers and supplies.

Obviously yes, scientists usually work with chemicals that are significantly more dangerous than what you find around your house, although your home is more dangerous than you think. People get food poisoning all the time, and I'd bet that more people die from eating spoiled food than from exposure to chemicals in a lab. And just because something starts out dangerous doesn't mean it stays that way. Raw chicken can make you sick or kill you, but cooked chicken is a delicious and healthy meal (as long as you season it, not seasoning your chicken automatically sends you to mega hell). Similarly, a lot of organic molecules are dangerous if you were to just chug them, but taken in correct dosages at appropriate times, the drugs that get made from those chemicals are completely safe.

I think there's this tendency to hold science as this separate, scary, complicated thing that only a few people are capable of doing and that anything coming out of a lab is unnatural and dangerous, and I think that scientists are responsible for that in a lot of ways. But with how significant anti-intellectualism is right now and how crucial that has been to the rise of fascism lately, I think it's just so important to understand that the only thing that makes science special is that my tools are just really expensive and when scientists make something that goes in your body, it's usually not food, because you don't need $2 000 measuring cups to make yourself some cookies.

Science is not special, labs are not unnatural, and this is so important to understand.

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Congratulations on your award :DDDDDD

Thank you anonymous friend!! :DDDDDD