ari

this fellowship is so challenging! I'm stressed but weirdly loving it all, my mentor just started a journal club for us to present scientific papers at T_T I'm drinking hot coffee again and I've been working all day at my desk. I'm so scared honestly and my central nervous system has been so sad, but this is fun in its own way and I'm glad to be here and a part of this crazy machine. also it's been raining so much lately.

Well I'm here in co! It's my second week so far and I was so so so nervous coming here to this huge research facility, but everyone is soooo welcoming and warm. I was worried I would be getting no break in between ending the semester and starting this opportunity but it's all worked out. I have two desks, so that's cool lol! I officially have a GitHub account and I'm pretty good at unix shell. Currently learning Matlab, but as you might know it was down for a long time so I had to use some work arounds. I'm having fun so far, it's a very autonomous style of work if I'm being honest. And I get to work with engineers, physicists, and mathematicians every day. It's a lot but I don't feel like I don't belong if that makes any sense. I feel good, and the state is beautiful! It's a very small town feel, which I'm not used to lol. I'm working in quantum sensors and I still can't believe I somehow landed this opportunity so far outside my schooling and experience. T_T I'm just very thankful for it all.

Also it's crazy to believe that I was able to handle full time classes, working as a grader for three physics courses, working as a research assistant in the nano-optics lab, and starting a keychain business (random I know), with being able to do all of that and prepare for this opportunity I'm at now which was a lotttt of work, and ending the semester with all A's T_T. I can't believe it! I literally only have one more class to graduate. Sometimes I'll run into "those" stem students that like to make me feel like I'm not doing enough, or going fast enough, but I feel very proud of myself and have accomplished a lot from some girl that literally failed chemistry her first year LOL. But here I am, still here because I didn't give up :-) I'm still learning but I can't let people think I'm supposed to know it all, what's the fun in life if you think you've already got it all figured out?

I'm happy, stressed sure, but thriving and enjoying every second. I really want to branch out more, I'm still a little shy when it comes to talking to people. I just try to be nice, but I can get in the hit of thinking I'm just not there, so people probably think I'm not acknowledging their existence either. Ugh, I need to work on it. I just feel so awkward and creepy for some reason sometimes, like I'll bother anyone I talk to. BUT there's this one girl that is literally so friendly and sweet and she'll talk to anyone, but sometimes people still respond coldly to her so I'm def in my head lol. It'll be okay. Everyone's going through their own thing.

My second week proctoring for 200+ students and it went so much more smoothly this time. Ive graded about 1/4 of the exams fully. I end up having to solve four different tests so it takes me a while. I enjoy it and my professor and me get along well. The only thing is balancing this AND research and my 5 classes is pretty difficult for me. But i’m trying my best. Some days I do end up missing class ngl 😭

I hate that I’m so behind on my research. I feel like I haven’t been making great progress especially since I’m really there once a week for a couple hours.

i have exciting news!! i just accepted an offer to NIST as a research fellow for the summer (omg no way) to work in their quantum sensors division. is this a dream!??? like you're kidding????