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Working and reading on a Wednesday
Jan. 5th, 2022 11:23 pmMy first three days of work have been a success, despite some administrative hiccups. Apparently neither I nor my supervisor got all the info we needed to get me a systems account and then get me onto the network, but it's been ironed out, and today I finally got into my email!
Monday and Tuesday I went in person, and I mostly spent the time getting shuffled around meeting people. Sometimes we talked about Organization stuff, one asked me a lot about my research, one didn't know what to talk about so I asked him about his research... so far everyone seems very nice and welcoming! Many of them have also been there for 15+ years, which seems like a good sign.
Starting yesterday, I was able to begin going through all the mandatory self-paced trainings, which I finished today after sitting in on a couple of group meetings that I'll probably be contributing to in the future. I think the trainings were supposed to take me longer, judging by all the estimated times, but I guess I read fast, and most of them weren't tied to audio. For some reason, they make the non-clinical staff take a lot of medical safety stuff, too, so I can now tell you how to properly dispose of sharps, even though I will never be legally allowed to stick a needle in anyone.
There's live video training next week, but until then, I'm not sure what else there is to do! Or even what I'll do after that and before the data structure training I'll be taking in February. Will see if Supervisor has anything else I should be starting, or if I'll end up spending the time working on a paper or something.
Read: I finished Queen of the Damned in the days after Christmas, my last book of 2021. I think I might have enjoyed it more than the second book? I could have used less of Lestat being Super Special for no particular reason (the first vampire Akasha becomes obsessed with him because... what?), and Akasha's death was underwhelming and didn't make a lot of sense, but the narrated flashbacks were more bearable this time, being more broken up and also more interesting. All I remember from the ones in the other book were skimming because I was so bored I couldn't focus on the words. They should have still been shorter, but this time the story of the red-haired twins was built up for most of the book and intriguing, so it was nice to finally get the payoff of the full tale.
I also enjoyed how the first section of the book was focused on different side characters - I mostly found them interesting, and they had distinct voices. The scene at the end between Lestat and Louis was sweet, too - as long as it's been since I read the other books, I spent the whole time waiting for them to have a real scene together. It was nice good-bye for them to have together to the events of Interview. (Despite some of her nastiness, I have to appreciate that Rice unapologetically wrote so many queer characters and thought trans people were wonderful.)
My first book of 2022 was Radium Girls, a book I had heard a lot of hype about at some point. It's a nonfiction novel about the girls and young women who were poisoned by radium used to make glow-in-the-dark dials and watches. It's a fascinating read, albeit horrific at the same time. I kept having to put it down for a moment after reading about one of the awful things that happened to the poor women and then pick it up again to keep reading. The author made each of the women focused on really come to life; the details of their immense suffering were hard to read, and it was hard not to hope over and over again that this one somehow pulled through and lived a full life, or perhaps this one.
That said, I did find that author's voice intrusive and repetitive at points. What bothered me the most was how she keeps coming back to the idea of corpses being 'unheard' until doctors dug them up; there was one section that just felt gross to me where she details a woman's jawless skull as 'screaming for justice' and 'staring accusingly' when its image was developed on x-ray film.
Reading: Far From the Tree, a book about what the author calls 'horizontal identities', which are identities that in many cases are not shared between parents and children and are often learned from outside communities, as when children are born deaf or with dwarfism or transgender, or who go on to become criminals. The first chapter was disorganized, but the second and third are a variety of perspectives from families who dealt with their new situations in different ways, usually including perspectives from both parent and child. Chapter two, which deals with deaf/Deafness, covered an impressive range of people and opinions, so although I only just started chapter three, I am curious to see where it goes.
Monday and Tuesday I went in person, and I mostly spent the time getting shuffled around meeting people. Sometimes we talked about Organization stuff, one asked me a lot about my research, one didn't know what to talk about so I asked him about his research... so far everyone seems very nice and welcoming! Many of them have also been there for 15+ years, which seems like a good sign.
Starting yesterday, I was able to begin going through all the mandatory self-paced trainings, which I finished today after sitting in on a couple of group meetings that I'll probably be contributing to in the future. I think the trainings were supposed to take me longer, judging by all the estimated times, but I guess I read fast, and most of them weren't tied to audio. For some reason, they make the non-clinical staff take a lot of medical safety stuff, too, so I can now tell you how to properly dispose of sharps, even though I will never be legally allowed to stick a needle in anyone.
There's live video training next week, but until then, I'm not sure what else there is to do! Or even what I'll do after that and before the data structure training I'll be taking in February. Will see if Supervisor has anything else I should be starting, or if I'll end up spending the time working on a paper or something.
Read: I finished Queen of the Damned in the days after Christmas, my last book of 2021. I think I might have enjoyed it more than the second book? I could have used less of Lestat being Super Special for no particular reason (the first vampire Akasha becomes obsessed with him because... what?), and Akasha's death was underwhelming and didn't make a lot of sense, but the narrated flashbacks were more bearable this time, being more broken up and also more interesting. All I remember from the ones in the other book were skimming because I was so bored I couldn't focus on the words. They should have still been shorter, but this time the story of the red-haired twins was built up for most of the book and intriguing, so it was nice to finally get the payoff of the full tale.
I also enjoyed how the first section of the book was focused on different side characters - I mostly found them interesting, and they had distinct voices. The scene at the end between Lestat and Louis was sweet, too - as long as it's been since I read the other books, I spent the whole time waiting for them to have a real scene together. It was nice good-bye for them to have together to the events of Interview. (Despite some of her nastiness, I have to appreciate that Rice unapologetically wrote so many queer characters and thought trans people were wonderful.)
My first book of 2022 was Radium Girls, a book I had heard a lot of hype about at some point. It's a nonfiction novel about the girls and young women who were poisoned by radium used to make glow-in-the-dark dials and watches. It's a fascinating read, albeit horrific at the same time. I kept having to put it down for a moment after reading about one of the awful things that happened to the poor women and then pick it up again to keep reading. The author made each of the women focused on really come to life; the details of their immense suffering were hard to read, and it was hard not to hope over and over again that this one somehow pulled through and lived a full life, or perhaps this one.
That said, I did find that author's voice intrusive and repetitive at points. What bothered me the most was how she keeps coming back to the idea of corpses being 'unheard' until doctors dug them up; there was one section that just felt gross to me where she details a woman's jawless skull as 'screaming for justice' and 'staring accusingly' when its image was developed on x-ray film.
Reading: Far From the Tree, a book about what the author calls 'horizontal identities', which are identities that in many cases are not shared between parents and children and are often learned from outside communities, as when children are born deaf or with dwarfism or transgender, or who go on to become criminals. The first chapter was disorganized, but the second and third are a variety of perspectives from families who dealt with their new situations in different ways, usually including perspectives from both parent and child. Chapter two, which deals with deaf/Deafness, covered an impressive range of people and opinions, so although I only just started chapter three, I am curious to see where it goes.
