Week 9 in the US — The Last Gate of Paperwork Hell
I honestly can’t tell where the week went.
It feels like the exam was weeks ago, and like I’ve been wearing the watch for weeks too.
But both of those happened this week! I only realized it while sorting through photos and thinking about what to write for week 9.
I guess that’s a sign of how dense this stretch of time has been?
Day 1 — Sep 28 (Mon) · Goodbye, Proteins!
Today was finally the last day of Proteins. If you look back at last week’s post, you can see how confident this guy was, and this was an exam whose shocking difficulty left me deeply crushed..
Luckily, it didn’t seem like I was the only one who found it hard. Sighs were coming from every direction.. and afterward we all gathered and gave the professor a good piece of our minds.
The donuts set out in the student lounge calmed my angry heart a bit, and then, completely out of the blue, my Big sib had prepared a Starbucks gift card and a cake that looked like candy, and my mood was totally restored!
Here’s hoping Genes goes a lot better..
Day 2 — Sep 29 (Tue) · Genes Begins!
Today was a bit of a busy day. I left the lab at 3 p.m. with a lot still to get done. That’s right, it was that day. The day I picked up my watch!
While I was at it, I drove an hour to Frisco to finish off the living room. And after that, a nice dinner with a younger Korean friend!
The start went smoothly. Robbins Jewelry. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been there. It took a whole two weeks after ordering before I finally got the watch, and just like food at a restaurant with a long wait somehow has to be good, the watch on my wrist was completely satisfying!
Then off to Frisco to buy a living room table. The whole way there, I kept wondering whether it really made sense to drive an hour for one table, but the skeleton family greeting me at the entrance was just too cute.
Above all, it was in great condition, and the size was a perfect fit for my living room. I’d been looking for a lift-top table, and while it isn’t perfectly smooth, it’s pretty decent. And I figured a round table would make it easier for everyone to sit around it when I have guests over someday!
And then, dinner with my younger Korean friend! He’s not the type to ask for things like this, but one day out of nowhere he asked me to go to Trader Joe’s with him. Did he need a ride because he doesn’t have a car? He’s always the one who worries first about being a bother to me, so something felt off. Sure enough, saying I’d done a lot for him lately, he went and paid for dinner;; before I could even stop him..
The place we went to was a Vietnamese restaurant, but it felt like someone had added a spoonful of a strangely American vibe, or rather accidentally poured in a bit more than the recipe called for. The atmosphere was very upscale, and every single dish was seriously good. The fried wings in pad thai sauce stuck with me. The sauce felt like a bit of a reinterpretation, but it was the best chicken I’ve had in a while.
Next time I’ll have to treat him to something good. He’s a friend I’m grateful for in so many ways! We’ve decided to visit my cousin’s place in Washington, D.C. together at the end of November, and I hope we have a great time there.
Day 3 — Sep 30 (Wed) · Hanging Out with Korean Friends!
Of course, once an exam is over, you have to play. There’d been a call to go conquer a taco place we’d had our eye on for a while, and right after the exam was the perfect timing.
But this week, very un-Texas-like weather was on the way. A downpour had started!
In the end, with the forecast calling for way too much rain, we had to give up on tacos. Still, we had to eat dinner, right? So I boldly invited everyone over to test the power of my new table.
I assumed we’d just order delivery at my place, but my kind friends said they had to give me time to clean up.. and that they’d go pick up takeout from a Korean fried chicken place.. (And the next day, while eating the leftover chicken, I found out these guys had left only the drumsticks and wings for me; endlessly touched..)
Anyway, so I had a quick lunch, attended a lecture by Joseph Takahashi, an HHMI investigator at UTSW and a leading figure in aging research, finally picked up my SSN card, which had arrived by mail! And then I had a great time with my friends over a delicious dinner.
Day 4 - Oct 1 (Thu) · Korea’s Armed Forces Day
It was an ordinary day with nothing especially special about it.
I had a potato corn dog and a rice ball for lunch, and then plastered the entire apartment with the bug killer my Korean friend from yesterday lent me. (Yes.. there had been a serious discussion about Mr. Cockroach)
My apartment doesn’t have indoor parking, so I have to park outside, which means the car is exposed to all kinds of grime and the elements.
Once, there was a very sticky liquid splattered on the front of the car, and I tried to wipe it off, but it just wouldn’t come off, and I figured out it was tree sap. So I bought a few cleaning supplies on Amazon and worked hard to get it off. It’s not 100% gone yet, but unless you look closely you can’t tell, so I’ve decided to just live with it.
Yesterday when my friends came over, there was a bit of chaos because I didn’t have small plates or cups, and I guess you only get the motivation to fix the barn after you’ve lost the cow.
Day 5 - Oct 2 (Fri) · Experiments or Rest, What Really Matters?
Starting today, for about four days, so until next Monday, my supervisor is away from the lab.
There’s an event called a Gala, where wealthy people are invited, research is presented, and donations are raised. (This was a new culture to me too.. I wonder if there’s something like this in Korea?) It’s being held in LA, so today and next Monday I get some time to myself.
Still, we’d talked through what I should work on while they’re away, and I got started on experiments right away. That said, I’d designed the experiment with much trickier details than usual, so it was a day that demanded a bit more focus.
I also want to write down a conversation I had with another postdoc that stuck with me.
Every time I happened to come in on a weekend, he was always there, so I was curious. Do you like coming in on weekends?
He looked at me like I was strange.. who would like that, he said. He told me that back when he was a PhD student, he never came in on weekends.
He said a PhD is very long and hard, and that’s exactly why keeping a good work-life balance matters even more. And he told me that what’s important is to focus as hard as you can during the time you’re at school, design your experiments very efficiently, and get results.
The biggest strength of this lab is that there are great postdocs and great colleagues like this everywhere you turn.
…
Anyway, that’s the story of how I squeezed in lunch in the middle of experiments, spent a moment debating whether to buy a Stanmore III during Amazon Prime Day on October 6 and 7 next week, finished all my experiments, went for a short workout during the hour and a half the measuring instrument was running, and grilled thin-sliced pork belly for dinner.
I usually work out at a place called the MD Student Center, and the lobby was decorated so nicely that it put me in a good mood too. And the combination of my new lift-top table and the TV is a work of art.
Day 6 - Oct 3 (Sat) · Am I Finally Creditworthy?!
The day has finally come. The last gate of paperwork hell: a credit card.
How long I’ve waited for this day. It’s been almost a month since I applied for my SSN, and it’s already been more than two months since I came to the US.
Chase offers many different credit cards, but the ones an outsider like me (with zero credit) can get are very limited. And my friends, who got their SSNs well before me, were issued the most basic credit card, the Chase Freedom Rise.
At the time I was impatient, so I was planning to get the same card. But the more urgent things are, the more you should take the long way around. Maybe, since more time had passed, I’d built up enough history to get a card one level higher? With that thought, I applied for the Unlimited, a step above the Freedom Rise.
The result: a huge success! The card was approved the moment I applied, and now I’m officially creditworthy too! I’ll play the Credit Game hard with this and build good credit.
And by the time I pass my Qualifying exam two years from now, the gate to becoming a PhD candidate, will my good credit let me splurge on a Tesla Model Y on installments? (Of course, I’m just thinking about it)
Less than a week after I got the watch, a stain appeared on the first strap that came with it. It was a bit long to begin with, so I always had to tuck the end in, which was a little annoying. Because of that, the watch started to look a bit ugly, and I wanted an alternative.
One option I found thanks to a ton of Googling was the Google Fitbit Air. It wasn’t made for that purpose, but it fits watches with fixed lugs, it can also monitor my health data, and above all, I liked the design, so it seemed like a decent option.
I looked into ways to buy it right away, and Amazon shipping was taking almost two weeks. Luckily, the Target nearby offered online order and pickup, so I went for it immediately.
But my wrist turned out to be much thinner than I thought, and it didn’t fit. On top of that, there were lots of reviews saying the Fitbit Air’s measurements are somewhat inaccurate, so I returned it without any regrets.
And next week, my first guest from Korea is coming. That’s also one of the reasons I rushed to set up the apartment.
Suddenly buying a TV, and then a living room table. Of course I bought them for myself, but somehow, knowing a guest was coming from so far away, I wanted to welcome him with the place a bit better put together.
So I stopped by IKEA to pick up a few more kitchen things I needed.
To keep myself from getting lazy, I’d bought only the bare minimum of bowls and utensils and washed up after every single meal, but that started to feel like a bit much.
Now I’ve added enough dishes to cover about two meals a day, and I bought small plates and glasses I can easily put out when friends come over.
Then I went to H-mart (a Korean grocery store) and picked up various things I needed. The guy visiting from Korea, an older friend I call hyung, arrives next Monday evening and leaves early Wednesday morning, so I want to show him as much as I can in that short time.
I’ve also arranged to introduce him to the Japanese friend I always sit with in class, and the plan is to eat Texas barbecue together and then invite everyone over and feed them all kinds of things.
Day 7 - Oct 4 (Sun) · Katy Trail Run
Maybe because it rained all week, the Texas heat has eased off a notch.
The weather was cool, and a refreshing breeze was blowing. I was a little worried the wet ground wouldn’t be good for running, but I decided to go out and run anyway.
I finally went to the Katy Trail, which I’d always put off, blaming the weather, telling myself I’d go someday. The scenery was so much better than I expected that I couldn’t focus on running and ended up sightseeing instead.
I ran for about 20 minutes and walked for the other 40 or so, sorting through all kinds of stray thoughts, and breathing in all that fresh forest air while my head got a reset made it the best kind of rest. I’ll have to make chances to run more often.
Week 9 in the US. In a way it was a very smooth week, but there was one big problem. On Tuesday, September 30, I went to the SSA office to get my SSN card reissued.
Here’s what happened: the receipt said that if you don’t receive your SSN card by mail within two weeks of applying, you have to apply again,
and since I’d waited a whole four weeks and it still hadn’t come, I went to apply again.
But oh no! The very next day after reapplying, Wednesday, October 1, it arrived in the mail. If only I’d waited one more day.. but what’s done is done.
At that point, I thought I had to keep waiting for the newly requested SSN card, but it turned out that wasn’t the case. Since the new card is issued with the same number anyway, the SSN on the earlier letter is valid too! (I only found that out on Saturday, right before applying for the credit card..)
Anyway, it all worked out in the end, but it was a brutal critical hit of the bitter taste of American bureaucracy, and I wasn’t in a great mood about it. Even so, it’s a touching ending where I successfully got my credit card and everything got resolved.
The US seems to be a place that demands a little more patience than I actually have.