Step aside, I'm a scientist

Hope you all enjoyed your Labor Day weekend! For me, this weekend was full of beach going, paper reading, and more graduate student events/parties including 3 barbecues and one Ivy League douche party. I am not making the name of that last one up. That is literally what it was titled by the graduate student event coordinators. Basically you get all gussied up and fancy, then go to said douche party. A couple friends and I decided this would be really fun to go to because A) we never have an excuse to get fancy and B) the alcohol was super cheap. However, when we got there, we were directed to the stuffy, low ceilinged, pipe-covered basement of the HGS (hall of graduate studies) building.

I reasoned they chose this location despite the hoity-toity nature of the event because this room had air conditioning.. or, did have air conditioning. I found out when I tried to proximate myself as close to the air conditioning unit as possible that it was not working. We had just arrived and paid the 5 dollars for the never-ending refills and thought we should stay and at least get our money’s worth. But it was stiflingly hot. Like, I could taste the body odor in the room. So, I decided to try to fix the air conditioning unit. I pushed some buttons, probed around, and then was tapped on the shoulder. I turned around and a guy (I'd say 24), dressed in a suit was behind me. He said, “Is this unit broken?” I replied affirmatively to which he proceeded with a stern “Step aside, I’m a scientist”.

And with that he won the biggest douche at the douche party award. I told him "uh.. I'm a scientist too". And I realized that my particular brand of science had nothing to do with air conditioners. But neither did his. I asked. He said he was in biology. And how the hell did he know that I wasn’t a scientist? Or an engineer for that matter? When I told him I was a scientist, he realized how douchey and anti-women-in-science he sounded and stopped for a moment. I motioned as if to say “be my guest” and I watched as he followed the same progression of button pushing I did and he came to the conclusion that it could not be fixed.

Have to say I was sort of smugly pleased.. But it was still hot.. 

But besides that incident, my weekend was wonderful: friends, food, taboo.. and my classes this past week went well. Though, something that Yale does that is really strange is what is called a “shopping period” where students sign up for an insane number of classes and attend them sporadically until they find the ones they like during the first two weeks of school, and then drop the rest. This is a brilliant idea for students to get the feel for a course before committing, but I was really not used to it. I was in the middle of class, while the professor was lecturing and students just got up and walked out.. While the professor was talking. Like, mid-sentence. And sometimes in large groups (5ish students) and this was a small classroom of about 20-30 people.

Seriously?! How rude is that? I guess if they decide they don’t like it by the middle of lecture, they bolt.

 Additionally, this past week I settled into my lab space and got my own desk. My little haven of peace and quiet to read :). Also, I know in the case of a zombie apocalypse, my lab’s building doubles as a fall-out shelter. Check out this sign on the side of my lab's building. The shading makes it extra fall out sheltery.

The next highlight in my life is that I found out I get to TF (teaching fellow.. in verb form) an Animal Behavior course (my number one choice of class) this semester! I will lead a group of Yale undergrads in a discussion section starting this Friday. So much excitement!

P.S. if you can't tell, I just figured out how to add GIFs to my blog! Might have gotten a little GIF crazy..