Myriad of thoughts

Hating the word 'healthy' as applied to food. 'Healthy' can be a person who is not sick or weak/sickly. I suppose 'healthy' can be a habit that is known to promote health: brushing your teeth, doing yoga, jogging, sleeping enough, spending time with friends and/or family, etc. I suppose a diet can be 'healthy;' one that supplies necessary energy and nutrients to allow the body to function at a high level. But a food...there is no superfood you could live off of forever by itself. You need meats for protein and iron and omega 3 and maybe even some fat to satiate you. You need plants--fruits and vegetables and mushrooms for fiber and vitamins and minerals. The list goes on. Everything we can eat, we probably need a little of...'Healthy' is about balance; and one food can't have balance by itself.

Had a really hard week, but really satisfied with the results. I got some data (I want to say a lot, but it's not quite true...still, more than before), I tried an independent idea, I went to two workshops (Time Management and Python Resources for Science and Engineering), I jogged twice, I had an hour-long and very productive conversation with my advisor regarding research, funding, and summer vacation (possibly a trip to Russia?). Spent 14 hour days on campus. Cooked for myself, maybe twice. Anyway. Made me think that the best, most satisfying weeks, are the ones where you do a lot of work and can be proud of yourself :).

When I was at home last weekend, my mom leaned back and hit her head on the doorjamb on accident. While she was wincing and rubbing it, I asked if I should "kiss it and make it better." She goes "sure." Then when I did it, she tells me in a shocked voice: "wow, that actually worked!" Apparently she had always thought it was a way to calm kids down when they weren't actually hurt, just asking for attention. Live and learn, I guess? Go placebos!

Anyway...I'm cold, I have hw, taxes, and an episode of FNL to finish :). Also, Avenue Q on Friday! *excitement*

5 Steps Out of a Quarter Life Crisis

A Xanga post made me think on this...I think I've mentioned before that I've been in a omg-what-am-I-doing-am-I-even-good-enough-for-this-ahhh! state on and off since the beginning of the school year. And I'm not certain I can actually answer all the questions it entails. However, I have been taking steps that have made me feel much better about my situation. And here (some of them) are:

1) Talk about it. I've vented to at least 5 friends, and my mom. Each of them heard virtually the same story every couple of weeks...I kind of felt bad about it. Also certain thoughts/feelings took a while to breach because with friends and family you worry about how they see you. I've thought about going to the counseling center several times due mostly to these things: I didn't want to burden my friends and family with my emotions and I didn't want to seem weak. However, it seems that it has taken a turn for the better before I psyched myself up to do that, so I think I'll continue with friend-therapy. Perhaps make them cookies to make up for it. :)

2) Sleep. Eat. On a regular human schedule. These things have amazing effects on mood, productivity, outlook, energy levels, you name it. As a corollary, watch the vitamins (nutrient deficiencies can make you tired, who would have guessed?)

3) Do work. Sometimes you get into this mindset that you have all this shit to do, and you're not doing it, and you're a terrible person, and it just escalates into omg-why-am-I-even-alive?-ness. You know what? This is your run-of-the-mill temper-tantrum, adult-style. Kick yourself in the butt and do SOMETHING. ANYTHING that you would consider productive. Take an hour, but FINISH that homework problem without opening Facebook. You can cry. It's okay. You know what happens at the end though? You get this sense of accomplishment. Of conquering yourself (as well as the task at hand). And that builds on itself.

4) Develop or maintain your social structure. Make new friends--study groups, people you meet in the hallway, all of these are valid. There's a great feeling--something to do with being liked and being needed, perhaps--that comes from a new friendship :) Study groups also help get work done and give you perspective on where you stand.

5) Forgive yourself. This one was particularly hard for me...letting go of all those lazy evenings in front of the TV with a frozen pizza in hand. Sometimes, it's my willpower that needs a break, and that's what happens when it takes one. Breathe. Relax. Sleep in. Start the fight anew. :)

It's Tea!

Today, I have for you a story.

One fine day, I was sitting in my office. Except it wasn't terribly fine because it was the Friday before spring break and I was working on engineering drawings that weren't being terribly fun. And waiting for a friend (V) who was about to get there. But it was ok.

Suddenly! A head appeared over the cubicle-divider walls in front of me.

"Hi!" The head said. "Do you mind if I go through your office to get to mine?"

"No, go right ahead," I replied, suppressing giggles the whole while. It wasn't easy. Because he proceeded to climb over two cubicle walls; not that I could see it. (My office has two halves; he went through the other half, behind a wall from me.) You see, the grad student 'offices' are really one giant room divided into cubicles of various sizes. Sometimes with their own door and sometimes without. Anyway, after he was gone I signed on to Facebook and immediately informed the world that someone had finally jumped/climbed the cubicle walls. I had been waiting for it to happen for months.

I thought the story was over.

Monday (after an awesome weekend :) ) I arrived at work and went to check my mail; I was waiting on a fax, which did not arrive. However, my mailbox had a small box with a card attached. I read it. It said:

Dear Galina,

Thank you for letting me go through your cubicle. I have seen you making tea several times so I hope you will enjoy this tea. I am also of course willing to return the service you have rendered me, should you ever be locked out of your office.

Signed,

The tea was Ahmad. I was impressed, to say the least. Also, anyone with a taste in tea is OBVIOUSLY a good person. I was going to write him a card, but frankly, I'm just not awesome enough for that. So I said thanks for the card next time I saw him in the hallway. :) Next time after that I asked when he was stopping by for tea. He said sometime. The next time I made fun of him for being at school on a Sunday night (note: I was necessarily also there, also on Sunday night :\ ) Apparently we were both on the way out, because he offered me a ride 5 minutes later when I was at the bus stop. I refused because my bus was pulling up and it wasn't that close to him anyway...but it was nice :)

So, that's the story. I made a new friend :)

Building a Reputation

One of the things that genuinely sucks about starting in a new place: all the work you did to build up your persona in the old place is gone. Can't depend on it anymore. I have to prove once again that I am smart, persistent, analytical. And I have to get over my fear of speaking up. It's easy to speak up when you have aces in your corner. It didn't take me long at camp--I had graduated summa cum laude from college, en route to grad school in Aerospace. I was humble--I hadn't done their job before, after all--but as far as overcoming myself, I had a lot to draw on, by comparison to 18-19 year old (sorry) kids.

At IIT it took me about 2 years to gauge my classmates to the point where I could say "If I don't get this, no one does" and ask my question. Whereas starting grad school, it was more like "I don't get this, am I a dumbass?" and then not want to ask anything, hoping that when I get home and look at my textbook it'll all make sense. You know how the saying goes "Better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."

It will happen in time, but that time passes with some degree of suffering.

Unexpectedly good day :)

Today, I had a moment of fierce pride. My computer was used for two PowerPoint presentations in my design class--we were going over mission specifications, if anyone is interested, more on that later--and two people, after seeing my background, asked me what it was. It was the image you see, which, to the best of my knowledge, is property of the Ad Astra Rocket company, http://www.adastrarocket.com . I encourage you to go look at the rest of the site because the company is A-MAZING. But in a nutshell, it's a concept spacecraft using the company's VASIMR engine that can (theoretically) get a manned mission to Mars in about 39 days (using chemical rockets: 6 months). Anyhow, since this is what I want to work on getting done in my lifetime, and I really like having it as my desktop, I was very pleased to have someone take an interest :) Actually, two someones, both of them classmates I intensely respect.

On design presentations: My group decided to take Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang, the Jetsons, and the DeLorean of Back to the Future as our inspiration and work on a flying car design. We're never actually going to MAKE this vehicle, but we're looking at having something that can drive 100 miles and fly 500 on a full tank of gas. You can't quite take off from your garage, but you can drive to a local airfield, take off, fly to the next one over, and then drive to grandma's house. Or your business meeting. You do need a pilot's license to operate it, though.

A little update on me (I put this at the end for a reason, hehe): The end of last semester was a somewhat stressful and hectic time--I ended up with 3 projects toward the end of the semester, plus two classes (and a few CAD homework assignments) thrown into the mix. A couple other things happened, the result of which was I made a difficult decision and chose to leave research for two jobs: TA for the CS department and tutor at the Academic Resource Center (the latter I had held before, and remembered it being fun and, dare I say, relaxing :))

Now, after a mostly relaxing break and a lot of graduate school applications (sorry, you missed them all: Princeton, University of Washington, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, CalTech, Georgia Tech), after all that, I started my 3 design classes+IPRO semester. It's been okay so far, the hardest day (night) being last night when I had to come up with 20 product ideas! And I didn't quite procrastinate, because we only really heard about the assignment on Monday (he had mentioned it before, but not in detail).

Still, I came up with some cool ideas, went to class, and am basically having a blast with all these cool projects. I'm also looking forward to Interview Weekend in a little over a week, having a high school student stay in my room one last time before I graduate!

Cheers. Early bedtime for me!

Mentors

So, we went to SWE conference, and I have not gotten around to posting about that yet. I will do so...sometime. I really want to do justice to it, and with mid-semesterwork piling up (especially after being gone half a week :X), I don't think I can do it justice right now.

I have, however, a nasty habit of doing more thinking when I'm busy than when I'm not. Or maybe that's everyone.

SWE wants to start a mentorship program; mentoring is basically a way to form a relationship with someone who has been through your experiences (or something close) and come out alive; for example, a mentor who is a working engineer to an engineering student. Or a college student to a high school student. Or a college senior to a freshman (because we do have a lot we can, and should, pass down!) A mentor offers encouragement, advice, and is one more person you are accountable to, but who also knows the mistakes you can make and can tell you that they are okay. They're human and not perfect, but they are someone to look up to, someone you aspire to be, who will also help you get there.

I realized recently that I am a sort of (unofficial) mentor to some people, most recently and notably a friend I met in my IPRO group. We are friends, I have no doubts on that, but I can tell he also sees me as someone who has accomplished what he wants to do in college; lining up the double major, doing research. I know how to start the "can I work in your lab" conversation and interact with professors, where the machine shop is, what classes to take when and what not to take together. It's the little things, but they matter a lot. He amazes me every time I see him with enthusiasm and excitement for things that I just want to get done; and reminds me how fun life can actually be, if you let it. I like to think I helped him start the research conversation (though from there on out I'm sure he did fine enough himself), got him involved in AIAA, introduced him to things he could do to develop useful skills (some that I never got a chance to learn), while doing something good for the school. I look forward to finding out where he goes from here and keeping in touch. Perhaps I'll soon lose my "lead" that allows me to be a mentor now, that doesn't matter; it is nice to help someone along the path of their life in the direction they want to go with experience I may have earned the hard way. It also makes me realize how much I do, actually know.

On that note, it also makes me realize how many mentors I have had. I suppose the first ones are my parents, but that's not really the same; although they are amazing people that I still go to for advice, help, and support. My professors have been mentors as well, some more than others, of course, as has every club advisor SWE has ever had. But I have also had classmate mentors: AG freshman year, who claimed to be "training a new AG," and helped me get my foot in the door of student activities by helping me and my friend organize a big dinner event. She was also a fantastic peer tutor (as I found out the next year when we worked alongside). And oh yea, she always looked put-together, a feat I have yet to get down. RW, whom I idolized sophomore year, as he seemed to do everything and then some, while maintaining a fantastic GPA (he was active in several student orgs, worked as a learning assistant, and worked in research). Finally these past two years I have greatly looked up to ST, who commits to his work and projects like there is no tomorrow and also amazes me every day with the depth and breadth of his relationships with people, from family to professors in the department.

I suppose the purpose of this point is to bring to attention that a mentor does not need to be an official post, although it can be. We are also not limited to one mentor in a lifetime or one mentor at a time. Mentors are people we learn from and go to for advice. They are people who inspire us and support our endeavors. Those who volunteer information, as well, when it is wanted, without being asked, because they know what we are going through.

Look at your friends, family, and teachers. Is there someone who stands out particularly as a mentor to you? If you're brave, thank them the next time you see them.

Fun Night!

So I haven't been out for a while, trying to stay on top of, well, everything, really. Which made tonight nice on a number of levels...

About a month ago, one of my friends re-started a "getting together" thread. This friend was of Russian origin, and the gathering was a cultural one that happens pretty regularly (every few months, anyway). Initially, it was about five or six of us, a year or two ago, at someone's apartment on the North side. We have reconvened two or three times since (and tried a couple more, but those just didn't work out). We gather to have a potluck dinner; everyone brings a food item, and we try our best to cook, or at the very least go to a Polish/generally European or middle-eastern supermarket to get something extra-special (Russian social eating habits include elements of all of these).

This time was cool because everyone had talked to their friends about this tradition, and they all wanted to come; so we invited them, and tonight ended up being a night of meeting new people in an environment that I find a comforting change from my usual company at IIT.

To explain: I am not a cultural clique-ist. I will normally be neutral toward or even tend away from people of my cultural background. I will not analyze why because it's basically an observational fact. Still, after moving away from home (where I was surrounded in Russian culture most of the time), and maybe even after moving away from our home in California, in an area that had a huge Russian community, I found that I seriously missed that kind of interaction. I missed quoting classic (Russian) movies to people outside my family without lengthy explanations, I missed the slightly more formal approach to having friends over, and I even missed the language. These Russian gatherings provide me with a rare opportunity to have these things and ones that I can't quantify as easily....

It can sometimes be hard to keep up with your culture in college; even when you share bits of it with your college friends, it's difficult--it's a foreground activity instead of a background presence. I'm really glad I found people to share a part of myself with which I don't necessarily have with my usual (awesome!) group of friends.

And it turned out to be a great way of meeting new people in a relaxed environment; something I've been having trouble finding lately!

AIAA day!

I got a request on my last entry to post more about SWE's activities, but since I spent most of today working on AIAA* concerns, I feel more inclined to post about that for today. But SWE is coming, have no fear!

AIAA stands for American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. I was elected president last year on the basis of 2 years student org experience and senior status. This year, I am seeing that this really was a valid basis to get elected.

Today, most of the officers had a meeting with our two advisors. We ran Prof. Pervan and Prof. Vural (our 'co-advisor') through our (written-out) plan for the semester--apparently we are one of the best-prepared and most enthusiastic groups in recent years. Here's the plan:

1) Get a model airplane, construct it, and fly it.

2) Create a team to enter a competition to design, then build (from scratch) then fly an airplane according to specifications.

3) Have set hours every week when people can come in and use the flight simulator we have.

4) Do tours of labs on campus and corporate facilities (Northrop Grumman, United Airlines)

5) Do workshops by upperclassmen or visitors

6) Publish an email newsletter.

Then, I talked to our treasurer some about choosing the plane and related tools, because we need to submit a proposal for these things to the Finance Board by Sunday night. (Finance Board: student board that delegates funds to student organizations from a common fund that students pay a little into every semester.) Then we presented our plan for our proposal to our Finance Board advisor, who put us on the right path as far as demonstrating the necessity of our purchases. It went quite well. I am now letting our treasurer take care of the proposal.

I am personally stunned by the difference in my experience this year as head of AIAA, as compared to last year as head of SWE. Here's some differences:

1) I start things earlier-I've finally learned how bad procrastinating is; especially where other people are involved!

2) I communicate faster-I respond to emails within a day or two if they require a response and I don't think I ever drop the ball or put it off anymore like I used to.

3) TRUST. I trust my officers and delegate tasks to them; this sounds like the most obvious thing ever, but it was very hard to learn emotionally. Not only is it giving someone a task, but it is also resisting the urge to check in on their progress all the time.

4) I try to set times and dates as soon as possible. I also try to assign tasks to specific people ("[Name] should do this by Monday and send us all an email" vs "Someone should do this soon...") Again, it seems obvious, but seems to require experience (for some of us, anyway) to catch it in the act.

5) I don't feel guilty when things don't go right, even if it seems to be happening constantly. Things happen and life isn't perfect; I shrug it off and move on!

There's other things I've learned that help out a lot; I know most of the professors in the department, I know most of the Office of Student Life staff. I know a lot of great people in Admissions ;-) and in a few other offices. I know leaders of some student organizations on campus. The people I have gotten to know through student organizations far outnumber the people I have been introduced to through classes.

Overall--my leadership experiences at IIT have been invaluable, and my leadership of AIAA senior year seems like it will be a test of all the lessons learned...as well as a few lessons of its own.

Verification:

Late is better than never. It has been proven.

I sent my best friend a birthday present last Tuesday (8/18). Her birthday is in February (2/18). I do wish I had made it in time, but honestly, I would rather give a good present late than a bad present on-time. Furthermore, it was a little unexpected joy...so I'm hoping that kind of evens that playing field...I'm not hiding that I do still feel bad, though.

Same law (better late than never) goes for my stuff arriving tomorrow. Apartment is lonely and empty. :(

Bedtime! One last night of sleep unclouded by homework :O

One of the most important things I have done in college

...has been getting to know people. I realized this today at the FDRC (work; fluid dynamics research center) barbeque lunch. As a freshman, I was really shy and barely knew my professors. It took me a huge effort for me to put myself out there and get to know people. After being in that situation, it feels really good to have lunch with professors from your department and have a nice conversation with them.

One of the students I work with, I've noticed, knows a whole lot more people than I do (or probably ever will). Then again, he has a knack for casual conversation and putting people at ease; or maybe he has just had more practice than I have!

Either way, I find myself really glad that I know the people I know and looking forward to meeting new ones. I learn something from every person I meet; and furthermore, they are the ones who will be writing my reccomendations later this year!