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One of the problems with meeting people via the internet is that you get to read some of their most personal thoughts, and support them through hard times, and congratulate them in times of joy, but your knowledge of that person only goes back to when you first said, "OMG, I love your fanart! Can I friend you?" (Oh, the days of small-lj, when there were only a few hundred thousand users.)
I've never really thought my life has been particularly interesting. Whether that's true, or because I've internalized the notion that women's stories, women's lives are less important, I don't know. But I'm going to sit down and go through my life story, in varying levels of detail, because I need to confront my inability to do introspection head on. And maybe convince myself that my story is, if not interesting, then at least important, because I am a human. I'll admit up front that some of the posts will be locked, and others are likely to be filtered. Some things I don't feel up to broadcasting to the world.
And maybe, if I have a list of the high points, I'll be able to find something for my author bio.
I was born in Maryland. My mom was a week and a half shy of her 22nd birthday; my dad a month and a half shy of his 24th. At the time, mom was either not working or working as a secretary in Bethesda (for Marylanders, you know where she worked.) My dad was working for Montgomery County Parks & Rec, mowing lawns. He tried college, but he didn't make it a semester. He didn't like it much.
Sometime in 1977, dad got his CDL and started driving a truck. He's still doing that, though he's changed companies. He's an owner-operator, which means he owns the truck he drives.
My sister was born in 1978, a week and a half after my 2nd birthday, and 5 minutes shy of our mom's 24th. At the time, we were living in section 8 housing, but this was to change in July, when, after a gunfight in our project, my parents decided to move to Frederick, where they could afford to buy a house.
Sometime in that year (definitely before fall), I started reading. I loved One Fish, Two Fish, and I had mom read it to me so many times that when I came home from day care (I think it was just a few days or afternoons a week, so she didn't flip out) and told her I'd read it at day care, she was skeptical. So she found a different book, and I apparently read it to her. (Slowly, no doubt.)
I started kindergarten in 1981, and I was already experimenting with cursive. Mom got me these workbooks to practice with. Lowercase k was my archnemesis for the longest time. I corrected my teacher's spelling of "vulture." (She wanted to spell it "vulgure.") I'm not sure she expected a five-year-old to know how to spell that word, let alone correct her on it.
I apparently tested into the G&T program, based on 97-99th %ile results on aptitude tests and my IQ score. My teacher advocated for me to get in, but my mom refused, on the grounds that I'd be made fun of.
In first grade, my teacher recognized that I was good at math and let me work ahead in the books, then managed to persuade the officials to let me go to the second grade class to take math. All through elementary school, I was in the math class a year ahead of me, except in 4th grade, when a small group of us got halfway through 6th grade math.
Then my parents divorced when I was 9, halfway through 4th grade. Mom got remarried shortly thereafter, and he made her sell the house we lived in because he wanted his name on the deed. He also wanted to adopt me & my sister, to prevent our dad from seeing us, but mom, in the only instance of spine I can remember her displaying, wouldn't let that happen.
So after 4th grade, we moved. It involved changing school districts, and this was a much smaller school. There weren't other students in above-grade math, so I had to repeat half of 5th grade math and the half of 6th grade math I'd already taken. My sister, with much berating from my mother, was allowed to skip 3rd grade, because she was also a year ahead, but I was stuck, because, apparently, the middle school transition would be too hard.
She divorced him within a year of their marriage.
In middle school, the teachers took pity on about half a dozen of us who were falling asleep in math class and gave us pre-algebra during math period twice a week. I had algebra I in 7th grade, geometry in 8th, alg II in 9th. Two years above grade level. (I was smart at math once.)
High school continued in the same vein. I graduated second in my class, having gotten one B in 4 years. We had 6 or 7 people tied for first with a 4.0 (unweighted), then another girl tied with me at 3.97 or whatever.
My mom lost her job twice in two years during the recession in the early 90s. March 1990 and 91, I believe. I remember them both being around my birthday, and almost a year apart to the day.
The National Cancer Institute has an intern program for high school seniors. I got one. I enjoyed the work a lot. It was natural products isolation and identification, and I have 2 papers published in J Nat Prod.
College was a shock. I'd been used to coasting, just going to class, doing some homework, taking tests, and getting good grades. College, as it turns out, is kinda hard. I got As in my non-science classes and Bs or Cs (and Ds) in my science classes. I ended up with a barely 3.0 in my chem major, but a 3.9 in my German major.
I spent my junior year in Marburg, Germany. That was probably the best decision I made in my college career.
When I graduated, I thought I wanted to be a chemistry professor, so I went to grad school. I spent a year at RPI learning that I suck at lab science. Apparently, my experience as a lab tech didn't transfer to liking being an investigator with a question.
While at RPI, I met a bunch of cool folks, and through them I met my husband. After I decided to drop out of grad school and study pharmacy, because I liked the med chem class I took, I moved to Chapel Hill, where Ben was in CS grad school.
I had to take a couple pre-reqs for UNCSOP before I could apply, so I did. While I was at it, I took two years of Japanese.
Pharmacy school was largely uneventful. I made a few friends, learned some cool stuff, and decided I was satisfied being a B student.
I thought I wanted to be a clinical pharmacist, or do something working with individual patients, such as diabetes education, so I took a residency. I didn't match at any of the places I interviewed, so I ended up in the scramble. I took a residency in Oregon, site unseen, on the basis of their online materials. This turned out to be a terrible thing; the materials were misleading. The only good things to come out of that year were the realization that I'm really an ESFJ, not an ISTJ, and two of my cats.
Back in NC, I didn't have a job lined up, so I farted around a bit, working on my costume for Dragon*Con. I had a job at a chain pharmacy, and I'd signed some of the paperwork, but we didn't have a first day lined up. I wanted part time, and they gave me 72 hours every 2 weeks. -_- Then I got a call from the health department, where I'd done a rotation as a student, asking if I was still interested in working there. I dropped the chain and went to the health department. It was 8:30-5 Mon-Fri, and even if the pay was 3/4 what the chain offered me to start, the tradeoff in not having to work nights, weekends, or holidays was worth it.
Eventually, the sucktasticness of the managers and clients/patients, including a threatened assault, wore the shine off, and I quit. I was angry coming home every day, and I wanted to work on a novel. I was too wiped to even think of it. This was May 2009.
I took a job as a per diem pharmacist, which means they ask when I can work. Which is like any freelance job: you wonder when your next job's coming.
Then I decided I wanted to utilize my large quantity of free time and go to Germany to take a refresher German course. I think you've all been here long enough to have heard that bit.
It was really hard for me to type some of that. Parts felt like bragging.
I've never really thought my life has been particularly interesting. Whether that's true, or because I've internalized the notion that women's stories, women's lives are less important, I don't know. But I'm going to sit down and go through my life story, in varying levels of detail, because I need to confront my inability to do introspection head on. And maybe convince myself that my story is, if not interesting, then at least important, because I am a human. I'll admit up front that some of the posts will be locked, and others are likely to be filtered. Some things I don't feel up to broadcasting to the world.
And maybe, if I have a list of the high points, I'll be able to find something for my author bio.
I was born in Maryland. My mom was a week and a half shy of her 22nd birthday; my dad a month and a half shy of his 24th. At the time, mom was either not working or working as a secretary in Bethesda (for Marylanders, you know where she worked.) My dad was working for Montgomery County Parks & Rec, mowing lawns. He tried college, but he didn't make it a semester. He didn't like it much.
Sometime in 1977, dad got his CDL and started driving a truck. He's still doing that, though he's changed companies. He's an owner-operator, which means he owns the truck he drives.
My sister was born in 1978, a week and a half after my 2nd birthday, and 5 minutes shy of our mom's 24th. At the time, we were living in section 8 housing, but this was to change in July, when, after a gunfight in our project, my parents decided to move to Frederick, where they could afford to buy a house.
Sometime in that year (definitely before fall), I started reading. I loved One Fish, Two Fish, and I had mom read it to me so many times that when I came home from day care (I think it was just a few days or afternoons a week, so she didn't flip out) and told her I'd read it at day care, she was skeptical. So she found a different book, and I apparently read it to her. (Slowly, no doubt.)
I started kindergarten in 1981, and I was already experimenting with cursive. Mom got me these workbooks to practice with. Lowercase k was my archnemesis for the longest time. I corrected my teacher's spelling of "vulture." (She wanted to spell it "vulgure.") I'm not sure she expected a five-year-old to know how to spell that word, let alone correct her on it.
I apparently tested into the G&T program, based on 97-99th %ile results on aptitude tests and my IQ score. My teacher advocated for me to get in, but my mom refused, on the grounds that I'd be made fun of.
In first grade, my teacher recognized that I was good at math and let me work ahead in the books, then managed to persuade the officials to let me go to the second grade class to take math. All through elementary school, I was in the math class a year ahead of me, except in 4th grade, when a small group of us got halfway through 6th grade math.
Then my parents divorced when I was 9, halfway through 4th grade. Mom got remarried shortly thereafter, and he made her sell the house we lived in because he wanted his name on the deed. He also wanted to adopt me & my sister, to prevent our dad from seeing us, but mom, in the only instance of spine I can remember her displaying, wouldn't let that happen.
So after 4th grade, we moved. It involved changing school districts, and this was a much smaller school. There weren't other students in above-grade math, so I had to repeat half of 5th grade math and the half of 6th grade math I'd already taken. My sister, with much berating from my mother, was allowed to skip 3rd grade, because she was also a year ahead, but I was stuck, because, apparently, the middle school transition would be too hard.
She divorced him within a year of their marriage.
In middle school, the teachers took pity on about half a dozen of us who were falling asleep in math class and gave us pre-algebra during math period twice a week. I had algebra I in 7th grade, geometry in 8th, alg II in 9th. Two years above grade level. (I was smart at math once.)
High school continued in the same vein. I graduated second in my class, having gotten one B in 4 years. We had 6 or 7 people tied for first with a 4.0 (unweighted), then another girl tied with me at 3.97 or whatever.
My mom lost her job twice in two years during the recession in the early 90s. March 1990 and 91, I believe. I remember them both being around my birthday, and almost a year apart to the day.
The National Cancer Institute has an intern program for high school seniors. I got one. I enjoyed the work a lot. It was natural products isolation and identification, and I have 2 papers published in J Nat Prod.
College was a shock. I'd been used to coasting, just going to class, doing some homework, taking tests, and getting good grades. College, as it turns out, is kinda hard. I got As in my non-science classes and Bs or Cs (and Ds) in my science classes. I ended up with a barely 3.0 in my chem major, but a 3.9 in my German major.
I spent my junior year in Marburg, Germany. That was probably the best decision I made in my college career.
When I graduated, I thought I wanted to be a chemistry professor, so I went to grad school. I spent a year at RPI learning that I suck at lab science. Apparently, my experience as a lab tech didn't transfer to liking being an investigator with a question.
While at RPI, I met a bunch of cool folks, and through them I met my husband. After I decided to drop out of grad school and study pharmacy, because I liked the med chem class I took, I moved to Chapel Hill, where Ben was in CS grad school.
I had to take a couple pre-reqs for UNCSOP before I could apply, so I did. While I was at it, I took two years of Japanese.
Pharmacy school was largely uneventful. I made a few friends, learned some cool stuff, and decided I was satisfied being a B student.
I thought I wanted to be a clinical pharmacist, or do something working with individual patients, such as diabetes education, so I took a residency. I didn't match at any of the places I interviewed, so I ended up in the scramble. I took a residency in Oregon, site unseen, on the basis of their online materials. This turned out to be a terrible thing; the materials were misleading. The only good things to come out of that year were the realization that I'm really an ESFJ, not an ISTJ, and two of my cats.
Back in NC, I didn't have a job lined up, so I farted around a bit, working on my costume for Dragon*Con. I had a job at a chain pharmacy, and I'd signed some of the paperwork, but we didn't have a first day lined up. I wanted part time, and they gave me 72 hours every 2 weeks. -_- Then I got a call from the health department, where I'd done a rotation as a student, asking if I was still interested in working there. I dropped the chain and went to the health department. It was 8:30-5 Mon-Fri, and even if the pay was 3/4 what the chain offered me to start, the tradeoff in not having to work nights, weekends, or holidays was worth it.
Eventually, the sucktasticness of the managers and clients/patients, including a threatened assault, wore the shine off, and I quit. I was angry coming home every day, and I wanted to work on a novel. I was too wiped to even think of it. This was May 2009.
I took a job as a per diem pharmacist, which means they ask when I can work. Which is like any freelance job: you wonder when your next job's coming.
Then I decided I wanted to utilize my large quantity of free time and go to Germany to take a refresher German course. I think you've all been here long enough to have heard that bit.
It was really hard for me to type some of that. Parts felt like bragging.
