Is Mercury still in retrograde?

It must be! The past few days have been the strangest, in a good way, that I have had in a long long time. In March I took my qualifying exams. (For those of you who haven’t experienced or witnessed first, second, third or fourth hand the terrors of the quals, let me give you the quick version of what they are and how mine were. When I started graduate school, my advisor and I came up with an idea for my thesis. For three years I collected data on the topics for my thesis. Then I picked 5 professors that I had for class or knew through research to test me. They tested me by reading through my proposal, listening to a short presentation from me about what I research (where I REPRODUCE FROM MEMORY graphs and charts, numbers, and results because we are given only a set of markers and white board with no other references… so NO note cards. Nothing.), then grilling me with questions for about 2.5 hours. They could ask me anything they wanted. Things about my research, generally chemistry, organic chemistry, the list is endless. This is a rite of passage. Consider it “hazing” for a Ph.D., but with intentions of making sure you are smart enough to get your Ph.D. You can imagine how hard it is to study for. And how long one might study for such an exam).

So this is now more than 5 months behind me. I am stronger person for having done it. But the point of this post (which almost always happens in the second paragraph of my post) is that I was in the elevator this morning with a professor down the hall. And he asked me how Greenland was, and I politely said that he had be confused with my other group members and that I don’t study snow chemistry. Then he says, “Oh. You’re the gal that does the EXAFS research. You really impressed your qualifying commitee.” To which I respond, “Really? Huh, I was really nervous. I just wanted to earn their respect.” Then we talked about QE dynamics.

But this guy doesn’t know me from Adam. I mean he says hi to me in the hall, but I have never talked to him about research. In fact, I have accidentally insulted the man in the past. He has a head of grey hair, is a tenured professor and I think fairly well known in his field. He has this picture of a toddler on his door. I wanted to start a conversation with him, so I figured I would ask him about the toddler. For weeks I kept saying in my head, “Whatever you do DO NOT ASK HIM IF IT HIS GRANDSON.” I am practically yelling it in my head, right? And what is the first question that pops out of my mouth as soon as I get up the courage to ask him about the toddler? Yep. You guessed it. “Is that your grandson?” To which the response was, “No. It is my son.”

I now know why I do all of that yoga. So that it is easier to open my mouth and insert my foot.