Outsmarted by ND Kids

Humility is an odd virtue. One is told to work on becoming greater at humility, and yet the purpose of humility is to remove oneself from pride's influence. You can't someone that they are humble and expect them to agree.

Humility is internal.

Otherwise it's some sort of a lie.



It's super common for us to act like we are being humble. One of the priests at ND gave a few examples at Mass on Sunday: saying that we just threw our outfit on, that we are not really all that smart, that we were just "helping the community."

We all hate it when people fish for compliments.

And yet we all do it.

Myself included



Someone told me once that graduate school was where you went to learn that you knew absolutely nothing.

Of course that makes sense when it comes to being in the lab. Undergrads are not supposed to know how to use expensive equipment, nor were they expected to understand how research really worked. Since I went straight from undergrad, I was expecting to be completely confused in the lab.

I knew that people expected me to fail, so I let that become my persona. My small victories were hidden under my "Experiment Fail" tally hanging by my desk. When I messed up, I made sure everyone knew about it. And then when I did something right, when I got an image or had good yield, everyone acted happy for me.

But they were much happier for the people who were not announcing their every result.

It was like fishing for compliments, just in a different context.



Now I am not saying that we should all act like we have our lives together and know everything. We should not discredit our success, but we certainly should not flaunt what little skill or talent we have. Just like humility, pride can also be a sort of a lie.

The people in the graduate school describe this as "Imposter Syndrome." We think that in the sea of people around us that we are the only one lost, confused, or hurt.

So we pretend to have it all together

We act like we are smart, like we are the top of the class, like what we think we are supposed to be.



I learned what it felt like to lose my mask the hard way.



Coming from an undergraduate institution without research, my strongest scientific ability was to read papers and answer well in the classroom. Back at Belmont, I was known for reading journal articles for fun. I was known to be the kid to answer the questions. I was known for being the book worm who probably studied too hard for her exams, even though she enjoyed it.

So I walked in to my graduate level Cell Biology Class with the mentality that I would run the room again. I assumed that I had read more than my first year cohort, and I assumed that the Notre Dame kids were just like my graduating class at Belmont.



I don't know if y'all are aware of this, but...

Notre Dame kids are super smart.



My advisor was the first to present, so I figured that I would be ok. However, as soon as he asked the first question, a senior raised her hand and said a sentence I only understood two words from: "the" and "a."



Shocked by my inability to not only answer my advisor's question, but also my inability to understand my peer's answer, I slumped a little in my seat. And as more questions went by, and more eloquent answers came from behind me, I realized just how smart everyone was. Instead of believing in my own ability, I focused on the talent surrounding me instead.

My pride did not let me see how blessed I was to be with people who challenged me.

I never felt so out of place.




I went back to my lab, and my eyes were burning. It wasn't sorrow that I felt, but rather sheer embarrassment. I did not read as well as I could have. I did not try as hard as I should have. I had convinced myself that I was better than these extremely talented students, and I lost myself in the process.

Had I just been a little more humble, I could have taken the time to read and actually speak in class.

Had I just been a little more confident in my God-given talents, I could have selected the proper data points to speak on in class.



But I chose pride.

I chose to be an idiot in the lab and arrogant in the classroom.



After I reorganized my bench, I cleaned out my old experiments, only letting my successful works be seen. I threw out my experiment tally and wrote a positive note on my wall. I created a research plan, and I bought a notebook to take more extensive notes in.



I think that the act of recognizing where our humility and pride lie is one of the hardest parts of growing up. We want to be capable, but we also can't assume that we are the only one with the ability to do what we love. We want to be independent, but life does not exist in a vacuum.

The truth is that we do not have to prove ourselves to anyone but ourself.

My second week of classes starts tomorrow, and I will have the opportunity to prove myself to myself.




It doesn't matter what everyone else thinks about you.

If you are struggling with imposter syndrome, or if you can see eyes rolling when you talk about your shortcomings, try to make a change. Try to see life in a new light.


All that matters is that you work hard, learn what you need to learn, and become the person God made you to be. If that is the leader of the group, awesome. If that is the average kid in the back who will eventually make it in another field, great. If that is the kid who is struggling that inspires someone else to learn to teach, wonderful.



Whatever you do, do it for yourself, do it for God, but do not do it for your peers/superiors/strangers.



Believe you are capable

Believe that you can fail

Believe that whatever you do will be successful if you humbly take the time to succeed.



And Dear Reader...

I believe in You.

Water Jar Moment

Have you ever had a moment that changed everything for you?

It was not until the beginning of this summer that I realized the moment that changed everything for me in my research lab.

I was an REU Fellow, and I had not done anything in the lab yet. After going through sequences and reading far more papers than I thought I ever would have to read, I was starting to lose morale. My PI is an amazing advisor, but since I hardly knew what science was like, I assumed that I was viewed as incompetent.

After all, a professor at Belmont once told me that I was incompetant in front of the entire class.

My lab buddy looked at me and asked if I was going to do anything today.

“No,” I could feel the anger in my voice. 

I still remember how palpable my self anger felt in my mouth. It was not my PI’s fault that I had not gotten my hands dirty yet. My inability to understand the journals I was given, sequences I analyzed, or task at hand was all my fault. It was not my inexperience that kept me away. Other undergrads probably would understand more, and they were only kept away to save money...at least that was what I kept telling myself.

Brewing in my self doubt, I turned away from my lab buddy, trying to hide in the journal article from the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the only place I thought I still had some semblance of capability.

Two seconds later, I heard my lab buddy's chair slide quickly away from his desk and felt the air push past me as he left the room.

Hiding behind my laptop screen, I continued to listen to my lab buddy’s rustling and clanging. I had no idea what he was doing, but we did not talk very much as it was at that point.

I thought he was too smart for me.

“Felicity!” my lab buddy said over Ben Rector's song "Sailboat" blasting through my headphones.

“What?”

“I am going to teach you how to Cell Culture,” he said, “Watch a YouTube video or something.”

I was slightly shocked, but I did not question it. Quickly, I went back to my computer screen and searched for Cell Culturing. I watched a few videos as my lab buddy set up the bench behind me with jars filled with water bottles and pipettes. 

After I familiarized myself with the protocol, he demonstrated, and then I was instructed to do the same.

That was the first time I realized that the little things we give to others make the difference

Because my lab buddy took the time to show me something small, I was able to gain confidence on my own. Every day for the next two weeks, I went in to the lab early, and I would grab my little water jars, pipettes, and cell culture plates. I practiced every morning for about an hour until my lab buddy showed up.

I felt like I could do something.

Anyone can find a way to help someone gain  confidence.

Success has to be their own idea.

But their idea can come from you, even if you don't notice it happening.

Sure, you can give them compliments, support them, or listen to them on rough days. You can be a driving force in their life. You can give them something to do. However, without giving someone the tools to acheive on their own, they may never realize their potential. More importantly, you have to give them something small to work off of to realize their potential.

Science is not the vocation of an individual; it is the vocation of imparting small pieces of knowledge to empower the minds around you.

After my "waterjar moment," I found little things that I could learn, and I took the time to become successful at it. And as I started to find myself in the late nights and early mornings in the lab, I started to recognize all the little things each person in the lab did for one another. 

We never have to thank one another for the impact we make on each other's lives. The truth is, I think the Vaughan lab thanks one another by simply becoming better scientists. I never told my lab buddy what that meant for me, mostly because I had no clue that that moment would make such an impact on me, but I think I am a better scientist now because of that day.

I am a better scientist because I give little things to those around me. Just as my labmates give nuggets of knowledge to one another, I give younger scientists tasks I know they can achieve, and I help empower others in similar ways. Little by little, I saw more confidence in those I tutored, friendships I formed, and lives lived.

I am forever grateful for that Monday morning and the many little memories made after it.

Fact: Little things become greater things.

Faith: God provides us with little moments every day. We just need to have the faith to see them.

Sprinklers, Cars, and Love

This weekend I went on a roadtrip to surprise my parents. It may have appeared to be a spontaneous decision, but I actually had been planning this little trip ever since they left South Bend in the beginning of July. 

It’s amazing how much you can do when you prepare yourself.

Every afternoon leading up to the drive, I would plan out the drive. I figured out which of my friends lived in each major city along the road. I looked at the general traffic jams, the construction, and any noticable delays. I checked gas prices in each state. I did basically everything I could to feel more comfortable with the drive.

I even practiced being in the car for an extended period of time by driving up to Chicago and back.

While the drive was successful, there were many unexpected experiences I gained from the trip.

I had expected the drive to be absolutely miserable. The most obvious reason would be my ADHD. Sitting in the car staring out at similar terrain for nearly eight hours sounded like a death trap. How could I imagine focusing for such a long period of time? The second reason was my extroverted personality. I actually feel drained by being alone for more than four hours, so sitting alone in the car for twice that amount of time sounded like a psychological nightmare. Bascially the decision to drive from South Bend to Nashville was a decision to put myself in a somewhat miserable condition.

But it wasn’t.

In fact, I discovered many beautiful things about the world as I drove along US 31 and I-65.

You are never fully alone.

When you drive by your lonesome on the road, you can very easy put up your blinders and ignore the people in the other cars. The other cars can simply be that: other cars. We see the machine instead of the person controlling it.

Because my extroverted nature causes to seek out human contact, I was pretty quick to find a face to communicate with. Actually, it was a hand. Early on in my drive, there was a passenger in a semitruck that waved when they passed me. For about 100 miles, we would pass each other and wave each time. I never saw his face, but I know he saw me laughing because his waves became more and more emphatic with each pass.

It was sad when we took separate exits.

After that moment, I tried to make sure I looked past the glass to see the people in the cars surrounding me. I saw people driving alone, couples chatting, families singing…bascically every type of person was around me.

This sort of situation is something that we can apply to the outside world. How many times do we wait in line at the grocery store and count the number of items they have to scan instead of notice the person? How many times do we get annoyed with the person at the ATM solely because they are there depositing a check when we could have been there instead? I know that I have felt the same way about people using our cell culturing hood or microscope.

What if we took the time to recognize the soul standing in front of us or in our way instead of angrily trying to get rid of them?

What if we looked people in the eye when we passed them on the sidewalk? (use the look up link)

Another thing I noticed about the drive was that the pain of driving was alleviated by the mission at hand. I was not driving because it would make me happy. If I wanted to make myself happy, then I would have asked my parents to buy me a plane ticket and just fly out to Nashville. This trip was meant to be a surprise, something special for someone else. 

By choosing to sufffer a little bit, I had the opportunity to make my family’s weekend.

Every time my wrist ached, I remembered how excited my little brother sounded on the phone when I told him that I would be there in two weeks. He’s a pretty stoic guy since he’s an athlete, but the pure joy in his voice made the entire trip worth it. My family is a beautiful place filled with love, and since I knew how happy my brother was without the surprise, I knew that my family would be even more excited by my surprise arrival.

We will all have to go outside our comfort zone to make others smile.

I have written before about the little things that we can all do to make others feel loved. I have yet to talk about the big things.

Doing big things to show your love is not something to be done all the time, but it is neccessary that we go outside of ourselves to show our love and appreciation for others. Think of the times when someone did something unneccessary for you.

Just an example: when I was in college, my Residence Director was fired during RA Training. It was easily the hardest thing I had to deal with as an RA. Yes, he made a mistake, but he was still an amazing boss, and our entire staff was crushed, myself included. I spent all day trying to make them feel better, hiding my own pain…and by the end of the day I felt completely broken and upset.

I contacted my best friend at the time. We went for a walk, and unlike usual, he could not make me feel better after ten minutes. He knew that I felt better when I laughed, so he found a way to make me smile. It was late at night, so the sprinklers were going.

He jumped through every single sprinkler….even though it kind of hurt.

He doesn’t know it, but that was my favorite memory of him.

When we choose to do something for someone else, big or small, we show them our love. Love causes us to go outside of our own little world and become a part of someone else’s. It is what allows for joy to come to the world, what makes even the most terrible days bearable, what motivates life to continue forward. Romantic, familial, friendly…even love from a stranger is the most powerful force in the world.

The most perfect representation of this love was Christ’s Passion.

Jesus suffered the Cross so that we could be saved from our sin and join God in Heaven. I am not a biblical scholar, nor am I a theologian by any account, but I often wonder if it was neccessary for Christ to die for this to still happen. God has the power to do anything, so it would seem illogical for a supreme being to endure such suffering.

Christ enduring a cruel and public sacrifice was more for us than it was for him.

By seeing Christ's sacrifice, we may be more aware of God’s love for us. He endured it all for us. This is perfect love. Jesus gave His entire life not for His benefit, but rather He gave us a way to finally love Him back, to see that our salvation had come, to be able to choose Him.

The next time you have to be a little uncomfortable, do something new, change your lifestyle a little, or whatever it may be to make someone happy, take the time to do it. Take the time to love on them.

No matter what you may feel, you will be more motivated than ever anticipated.

It may not be easy, but it is worth it to go outside yourself. I cannot even begin to describe the overwhelming love I felt when I saw my mother’s face when I walked in the door. All I can say is that no matter how carsick and sore I felt, nothing could beat the joy caused by that long drive. 

So take the time to notice those around you

Don’t think of them as a machine or a nuisance

Notice what they need.

Notice how important each soul is.

And then go outside yourself to love them.

Because no matter how long the journey is, no matter what crosses you may have to carry for them, it is by far the most amazing thing you can do.

Choose love.

Oh, and if you are reading this and need a little love today...know that I love you Dear Reader simply for being you. Go forth and be awesome.

Summer of Small Victories

This summer, I decided to tell the undergrads that we would call this summer “The Summer of Small Victories.” This was mostly because we did not accomplish very much on the day to day, and there were more failures than successes in the lab.

So then we had to find a way to celebrate something.

Therefore, “The Summer of Small Victories”

It is very important to recognize the moments when we succeed, even if those successes are not necessarily the ones we expected.

Learning that something is NOT what we expected does not mean it is bad. It just means that what we thought is not the reality. We may not have confirmed our hypothesis, but we can say we learned something. We can say we learned what doesn’t work, what could go better, what we could learn, etc.

There were many other small victories that I have experienced this summer, so allow me to share some of my #ThatsGold moments of the summer.

But I’ll have you know, they don’t look like victories at first

1. I gained weight

Just like any other girl, I was pretty disappointed with the number on the scale. I weight train, eat right, and do everything in my power to be the healthiest I can be (minus sleep, but we’re working on it!)

However, the number on the scale was not a reflection of poor health. In fact, it was a sign that I was getting stronger. Muscle weighs more than fat, and let me tell you, once you really get in to a groove with the weights and eat enough protein, you gain muscle pretty quick.

What I thought was a setback was actually an indicator of my improvements.

But the real moment that proved that this weight gain was good was when I went to leg day, and I outlifted a guy by 80 pounds. (Should I mention he was a lacrosse player?) The look on his face was priceless, and I came to the realization that while I may not be a stick person, it is far more impressive and satisfying to see the pure shock on a man’s face when you outlift him. I definitely felt more confident in myself after that moment.

2. I spent a lot of money on food

Again, it is not smart to spend too much money. So I decided one day to try to bargain shop a little more, and I bought more standards instead of the ingredients I had been buying for my meals.

I lost a lot of energy, and I felt pretty gross. It turns out that the money I was spending buying fresh meat and other high protein foods actually was worth the payout. By eating higher quality foods, I did not have to snack as much, which meant I actually spent less in the long run.

3. I wasted 60 dollars on an unneccessary road trip

At the end of July, I decided to drive up to Chicago to go to Trader Joe’s (because there isn’t one in South Bend), and then go straight back to Notre Dame. Due to the unneccessarily high toll road prices, I ended up spending more money driving than I should have.

However, I learned that I was able to roadtrip on my own, and I knew that I would have the endurance to surprise my family the next weekend! The small financial loss was a good sign that I was able to handle a big emotional boost by seeing my family before classes started.

4. My experiment failed in the exact same way it did last summer

Yes, my images were terrible at the beginning, but I was able to trouble shoot. Additionally, I was able to bounce the issue off on my undergrads, which gave them an opportunity to practice trouble shooting as well.

(I apologize Dear Readers, but I will probably talk about them a lot. They’re the most interesting and amazing kids.)

Oh, and by the end of the summer, I got 1 picture!

Small victory indeed.

See, there are many moments in life when we think we failed utterly, but the truth is that our failures are actually a pathway towards success. The problem that we face in society is that we think that every failure is waste. We think that by making mistakes that we move further away from our ultimate goal. So we attempt to fix what we did wrong by doing the same thing over and over and over again.

But if we choose to learn from our mistakes, if we celebrate the small victories in the midst of the losses, then maybe we can start to find new ways to come to a conclusion.

Even if that means completely starting over.

Check out this Ted Talk about how Google uses this concept.

Here’s a nice example: when I was in Organic Chemistry, my professor would have us work in pairs at the chalkboard. We would all be trying to figure out how to draw a certain mechanism. Now, there are many common mistakes made in these problems, and instead of simply telling us what they are, she would walk around the room and wait for it to happen.

“Thank you!” she would say. 

That’s when you knew you got the answer wrong. However, instead of leaving the student feeling frustrated and stuck, our professor would help the entire class work through the common error. This had a substantial impact on our overall understanding of mechanisms, and it actually gave the class an odd sense of comraderie.

Imagine if we celebrated the small mistakes of those around us and helped them find the small victories underneath?

I know I would not have seen this summer’s small victories if it were not for the guy at the gym, the number of events I could attend with my friends once I ate better, the smiles of my siblings, or the help of my undergrads.

So celebrate the setbacks.

Find your small victories.

You got this.

Stop Breathe and Think

Life is crazy.

Well actually, “God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.”

It’s true. People are crazy. 

We think that we can somehow do everything and anything all the time. We think that it is indeed possible to be involved in everything, have a thousand “close” friends, acheive academic accolades, and be the most fit person on the planet.

But we forget about something.

Our bodies cannot keep moving like that.

The truth is that the day of rest is one of the most important parts of maintaining our humanity. God gave us a day to stop running around so that we could compose ourselves and focus on His mission. Resting gives us a chance to see things clearly.

When we spend days on days on nights on nights running around, not taking a second to breathe, we forget and lose pieces of our lives that we used to know. Tunnel vision closes in on what we think is the most important thing in the world. 

It could be improving our GPA, trying to find the best way to win the heart of the boy we probably should get over already, have the best body, earn the most money…whatever it is, we find these things to be more important than anything else.

Sure, we all say we have our sanity.

We have friends.

We have faith.

We have a job, a major, a plan.

But we also have dark circles under our eyes, crying out to the world that we haven’t really stopped moving since we found our mission. We have irritable moods that have our friends exchanging uncomfortable glances at the lunch table. Regardless of how much success we have on paper, our exhaustion cannot be disguised for too long.

Who wants to admit they are overtired? 

I know I didn’t.

I came in to my summer research with the intent of gettting valuable data to put on my NSF-GRFP proposal. My advisor already had a bunch of ongoing experiments, so it took a little while for us to come up with a strong first experiment. That didn’t bother me. Science takes a while to get started, and once you get started on an experiment it may be months before you see anything worth sharing. 

Once my experiment started, I was in the lab every moment, running four experiments at once.

And that's when I started to get bothered by science.

What bothered me was that I completely forgot what it was like to not meet my own expectations. I assumed that because my experiments this summer were so similar to last summer that I would be able to get the hang of it with out much effort. My expectation was to finish all of my work before orientation rolled around

My experiments totally failed.

I did not meet my expectations

I failed.

So I kept going over and over, running more and more experiments, going to the gym in between experiments, eating lunch at my lab bench. (Yes I know, not proper protocol...no one sticks to that even if my professors at Belmont said they do.)

I was not about to say that I took on too much at once, at least not to most people.

What was funny was how I found out I was taking on too much at once

And it has to do with Reslife and Pizza.

On Friday, I helped my friend with his “End of the Summer Cookout” for our apartment complex and the Graduate School. He put me on pizza duty, which basically meant I was going to heat up 15 frozen deep dish pizzas using three small ovens.

End result?

I made all 15 pizzas, but a lot went wrong. We had no idea which pizza was which, and plenty of vegetarians ended up with pepperoni. The pizzas were not cut yet, and we couldn’t leave knives out with all of the young children running around. People were hungry, and many of them snapped at me.

This would not have happened had I just slowed down.

But I did not admit that until the next day, when I was laying on my bed sick.

My body screamed at me that I had to stop moving. I will not go in to the details, but I basically ended up laying on the floor of my research lab Saturday afternoon, sobbing because I was in so much pain. There was nothing seriously wrong with me, thank God, but my body finally got me to stop moving.

And I finally said it, "Maybe I am overtired."

And a few sobs later, I whispered, "I need to slow down."

As I limped back to my apartment, I started to think about how I could have more effectively made the pizzas. I started to think about how I had approached the entire summer. Perhaps I had been trying to work on too many experiments at once. Perhaps I did not need to be running around the lab at all hours so that I could “get ahead.” Perhaps I needed to stop trying to beat the nonexistent clock that dominated my mind. Perhaps I did not need to be pumping iron at the gym every day at 5:30am. Perhaps I did not need to be doing all of the things I had been doing to "be better" or some other crap I had come up with.

I know I am not the only one trying to do too much too fast. I also know that maybe it is harder to admit that we are trying too hard than it is to actually stop running around. We don’t want to stop because we do not want to fall behind.

However, when we choose to overwork ourselves, we make mistakes that stop us from acheiving our goals. Exhausted, we skip steps, we ignore details, we forget the pieces we normally could keep track of.

My mom likes to remind me in these moments of the wise words of Steve from Blue’s Clues:

Stop

Breathe

and Think.

You do not need to be the one running the show all the time. You can stop, breathe, and think every so once in the while. That does not mean you can't be involved in everything, be fit, do well in school, and have strong relationships. It just means that you have to listen to your body and rest when you need to.

Let that day of rest mean something.

Let that hour before bedtime mean something.

Just because you stopped moving does not mean that you are not accomplishing anything. It may not be obvious, but the thoughts in your head when you are at rest may be some of the best you have had.

Who knows?

Maybe you’ll find all of the missing pieces of your life in your clear thoughts.