Week 13 in the US — A Dallas Mavs Game and Board Games
Week 13. I finally ran my fully set-up cell assay on patient samples. The results are below!
And out of nowhere I really, really wanted to play board games, so I dug through Facebook Marketplace and bought a bunch of them.
I’m slowly turning into someone with way too many hobbies! (Instead of doing the studying I’m supposed to be doing)
Day 1 — Oct 26 (Mon) · The Driver’s License, Final Round
Today was the day I applied for my driver’s license for the final, final time (please..). The license was actually one of the first documents I applied for right after arriving in the US. But thanks to brutal American bureaucracy, or maybe the mail carrier at my apartment, my license never arrived, and with my temporary permit just about to expire I went back to the DPS. (DPS stands for the Texas Department of Public Safety)
A friend happened to be going to the DPS for something similar, so we went together. There was a long wait once we got there, but thanks to them it wasn’t boring at all! And we decided that on Tuesday we’d all make mala tang at a friend’s place.
After we’d planned dinner, I wondered what we should do afterward, thought it’d be really fun to play a board game together, and impulsively bought Catan.
Day 2 — Oct 27 (Tue) · The Settlers of Catan
Tonight we all made mala tang together at a friend’s place. I’d been craving that numbing mala heat for a while, so the timing was perfect.
To be honest, I’d been debating which board game to buy, and almost gave up because I couldn’t find a decent one on Facebook Marketplace. But then Amazon Now turned out to be selling Catan! It had a delivery option of under an hour, so I bought it on the spot.
Anyway, I grabbed Catan and headed to my friend’s place after work. Of the four of us Korean friends, everyone has some complaint about their apartment, and this friend is the only one who’s actually happy with theirs, so the main goal was to tour the place while the rest of us plan to move next year.
For the rent, it looked really clean and comfortable to live in. Above all I loved the bathroom, but moving is harder than it sounds, so I think I need to think it over a bit more.
Anyway, we cooked mala tang together, and our host had prepared extra bok choy, meat, and all kinds of other ingredients, so we got a really generous, delicious pot of mala tang! After that came fruit, sweet potato bread, and an endless stream of snacks. I thought I was going to burst.
My friends were complete board game beginners, and since I had a bit of experience from going to board game cafés now and then and from a rule-master friend who loves board games, I took on the role of rule master for the first time, explained the rules, and played with everyone.
Thinking about how to explain things so it’d get my friends excited while still getting the rules exactly right, I realized being the rule master is actually a lot of fun, and it made me want to try other board games with them too.
Day 3 — Oct 28 (Wed) · Big Day!
Finally, the day to test my hypothesis with the assay I’d spent about two months setting up.
Before the real experiment, I grabbed a quick takeout coffee with friends.
The patient samples were ready, and for the instrument problem I mentioned in my last post, we’d found a fix, a temporary one, but a fix.
So my supervisor Ahmad and I decided to each run a separate plate with the same experimental design. Honestly, it was a hypothesis with low odds from the start, so for some reason I was scared even before we began. But to check even the slightest chance, I saw the experiment through to the end,
…
and the result was negative.
All of a sudden, those two months felt empty. They say failure is the mother of success, but this was a project I’d grown attached to, so the shock when the result didn’t match my expectations hit hard.
There are definitely still things to check, including the chance that it’s a false negative, but honestly the odds of that were even slimmer, so I felt pretty down. I think this week I need to let myself feel bad, chew on the failure, and take the time to accept it.
Day 4 - Oct 29 (Thu) · Facing the Failure
I’ve been buying a lot more coffee lately. I’m getting tired of the Kanu I mix at home and bring in, and it’s a bit of a hassle too. Luckily, the campus café gives students 20% off, so I can get coffee pretty cheaply.
At lunch there was an AI Town Hall. It was a session where UTSW laid out its official position on how we should handle AI going forward and set a direction. I’m very interested in how to use AI, so I went hoping to pick up even a hint, but didn’t get much out of it. Still, I got a free sandwich and had it for lunch.
…
Now it was time to face the failure head-on. What I’d called a failure yesterday was based on a rough look under the microscope, which showed the results didn’t match my hypothesis.
This time was the step of quantifying the results properly with an instrument. UTSW has a few really big core hubs, including a Diabetes/Obesity Center and an Alzheimer’s center.
The one Ahmad and I went to was the Alzheimer’s center, and it was packed with instruments worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.. The one we used was called the ‘Attune’, which our lab is also planning to buy. Compared with the ‘NovoCyte’ we used before, it gave us results about twice as fast.
Anyway, that’s how I faced the failure head-on once more, and sent the plates I’d so carefully saved off to the trash.
Day 5 - Oct 30 (Fri) · Halloween and a Basketball Game
Halloween Potluck
Today our lab held a potluck to celebrate Halloween. A potluck was a bit of a new concept to me: in short, everyone brings a reasonable amount of food and shares it all together. The Korean friends rotating in the same lab as me made gimbap and Korean-style fried chicken bites together, and the most talented cook among us also brought a homemade pumpkin cheesecake.
Before the potluck, I stopped by the Student Center to grab the free Halloween treats they were handing out. The bag with a pumpkin on it was so cute, and if I ate the whole bag of chocolate & candy, all my teeth would definitely fall out.
Anyway, the potluck went great. Since we’re an international lab, everyone brought famous dishes from their own countries, which made it fun just to look at. The yakisoba my Japanese friend made was especially delicious.
It would’ve been even more fun if we’d all dressed up in costumes and really gone for it, so next year I should try putting together a costume too.
Dallas Mavs Basketball Game
After work, I went to see a basketball game with friends. There were four of us: one Korean friend, one Taiwanese friend, and one Middle Eastern American friend.
The Taiwanese friend and the American friend were people I’d only ever said hi to at school, and this was our first time hanging out, so I was worried about whether we’d have fun. But the worry was for nothing. Once we switched our brains off and got lost in the game, we had a really great time!
It was the home team, the Dallas Mavericks, against their Texas rival, the Houston Rockets. The standouts were Cooper Flagg for the Mavericks and Kevin Durant for the Rockets, and sure enough, watching those two do their thing was the main attraction.
It was my first NBA game, and I could really feel America’s wild, all-in energy for sports.
…
After the game, I invited everyone over to my place and we played board games. We’d originally planned to play Catan, but we were all pretty worn out, so we went with a simple party game instead, and my friend Rex stopped by his place to grab some board games, and we had a great time with beers.
Lately I’ve been planning to buy mostly heavy strategy board games, but nights like this made me realize I need some light party games too.
Day 6 - Oct 31 (Sat) · K-bioX Mentoring
Today there was nothing on the schedule except a short Zoom mentoring session in the evening. After staying out late last night, I woke up really late and spent a slow weekend afternoon just resting.
Then a seller was offering a used board game bundle at a pretty good price, so I left my lazy weekend afternoon behind and went to pick it up. Here’s what I got: Azul, Wingspan, Ticket to Ride, and Dominion.
I figured my friends would struggle if I threw a really heavy board game at them, so I’m planning to start with lighter games that still build the basics of deck building and engine building.
And my ultimate goal is to play Dune: Imperium – Uprising! (I’ll keep it sealed until that day) I’m also so excited for Dune: Part Three, coming out this December.
After buying the board games, I did a quick grocery run at H-mart, then headed home when I got word that some clothes had been delivered, but I couldn’t find the package anywhere. Looking at the delivery photo, it was definitely my apartment complex, but not my unit, and once again I despaired at the American delivery system.
With no other choice, I ran around to every door looking for my package, and finally found it dumped in front of a unit with a completely different number (ㅠㅠ)
In the evening, I took part as a mentor in a mentoring session hosted by K-bioX. Just last year, I was the one on the mentee side asking for help, and I joined as a mentor because I wanted to help, even a little, the students preparing for PhD programs in the US.
I could feel the energy of students who’d decided to take the leap despite the tough US funding situation, and to help them as much as I could, I shared my email and kept the Zoom meeting going even after the session ended.
I hope more Korean students get to come to the US, enjoy this environment, and have the chance to grow as researchers.
Day 7 - Nov 01 (Sun) · Weekend Run
I’ve been going out for a run every weekend. The weather has been so nice, and the Katy Trail is such a great place to run that I keep coming back.
I run hard in one direction, then walk back calmly and sort through my thoughts, and since a lot of things seem to fall into place while I walk, I’m planning to make it a weekly routine. (At least while the weather stays nice)
I picked up a few more things I needed at Trader Joe’s, and wrapped up the day with In-N-Out for dinner.
Week 13 in the US, and my first taste of American sports culture. Next time I’d love to catch a baseball game too.
And though I’m still debating it, the LoL Worlds semifinals are being held in Dallas this week. I’m dying to go see it in person, but I have my second Genes exam next Monday, so I probably can’t.. It can’t be helped, but I’ll watch it live at home.
At least the Worlds final is after my exam, so I can watch it with peace of mind. The final will be in NYC instead of Dallas, though, so we decided to all watch it together at the place of Rex, the American friend I watched the basketball game with!
And my new hobby, board games, really is a fascinating one. At least while you’re playing, you’re freed from your phone, and you get to refresh your brain with that analog, hands-on feel!
There’s a YouTube channel called Sectioned Studio that posts board game introduction videos, and I lose track of time watching them. Someday I’ll play every board game they feature!
And that’s another week done.