Social noise clutters thoughts. Even after years of trying to reduce its impact on my state of mind I waste some mental space thinking about how I compare to others or what others think of me. I think until the end of the semester, every time I feel social noise in my thoughts, I'll do a PDE problem

someone thought I hated them for months bc I made a face at a party when they said "I could listen to you talk about your research for hours" I did not hate. if I made a face it was shock. then found out a lot of my friends once thought I hated them. I seem aloof to hide awkwardness, I dont hate.

I told these guys to take difficult math and physics classes, work very hard to learn the material, and not let fear of getting bad grades stop them from pursuing their interests or taking challenging things … hope that was good advice.

Aww omg next semester my teaching assignment is the discussion section for “intro to computational models of the brain“ for undergrads ❤️❤️ I’ve done all of the material before and it’s stuff I’m v comfortable with, calculus and python! hope I’ll like teaching more if it’s something I’ve done before.

Undergrads put so much pressure on themselves. I have told multiple over the past week, like, how you respond to setbacks matters way more than a bad grade. Even if I myself have to assign a bad grade I don’t think any less of someone’s capabilities! What matters is how we move forward.

Omg I covered another TA’s drosophila lab section this week (for a very good reason), and someone in that section has read all my sci-fi in Clarkesworld and recognized my name 😂 weird blending of worlds.

I think the concept of a “fried chicken and egg sandwich” is worse (we dip chicken into more egg too before the frying!) but it’s delicious, I try not to think about it too much as I eat it. But the thoughts do arrive nonetheless 🥲

Ik nothing about early universe cosmology but someone in my math physics class brought up how in the early universe matter was distributed as a bunch of spikes, spreading out according to the Euler equations and galaxies cluster in a way bc of this. I’d love to learn more about the galaxy clusters.

Im presenting the state of my project next week to both my advisors together, important meeting … man I’ve done a lot of work on this since January. I’ve learned so much too about translating between mathematicians and biologists. Hope this presentation goes OK. I’ve put a lot into this.

These two arguing about the proper conduct of science is like a pair of sewer rats arguing about French cooking techniques after finding a four day old soufflé in the dumpster

"As a student, I spent countless hours struggling through Wilson’s great papers, some of which were quite difficult." John Preskill on reading Wilson, the inventor of statistical field theory

someone thinking of joining the lab I'm in asked me "how did you learn statistical field theory?" and I was instantly like "What do you mean, I don't know anything!" but then I realized I have been looking at & studying this stuff week after week for months now, so I do know maybe a *tiny* bit.

I think similarly to how tying self worth to the yearly award cycle and pressure to be relevant is a cursed distraction from sci-fi writing, this ball of shame is a cursed distraction from math and science. Both need to be totally eroded to focus on what matters, the art.

This is so ridiculous— eventually in math you will get stuck and need help, whoever you are. It is delusional to think you won’t. And when you do, if you’re an asshole, who is going to want to help you? Learning to care about others around you and treat them with respect is important.

Recently told my math advisor how little formal math training I actually had in undergrad lol. I was kind of afraid to share for months, he knew I came from a non traditional background and I was just doing the work and figuring out what I needed to. But feels better to have that off my chest.

Really nice thing about attending BU is how I somehow hit 10k-20k steps nearly every day just walking between buildings and taking breaks to walk along the Esplanade.

I’ve set up a study group for my math physics class, bc it turns out I’m not the only one who thinks the class is hard and wants to ace the final 😂 going to review and figure out problems together w/ my classmates each week until the final.

Opening to my sci-fi novella “Fractal Karma”: You can read it for free here: clarkesworldmagazine.com/ratnakar_10_...

Wanting fame and recognition is honestly such a cursed distraction from art. I’d like to be almost entirely rid of it, keeping only just enough to submit my stories to the harshest judges I know and see what they think. This period of being forgotten will be good for that.

Actually it’s not to the detriment of my sci-fi. There is a sci-fi trilogy I read once, and I think I need to learn this intersection of difficult fields in my PhD and actually live as a scientist to write a sci-fi story anywhere as good as that trilogy.

I still don't regret taking these classes this semester-- because I've taken them, I can now take stat mech and other even more advanced stuff I won't have to teach anything like this lab again, so if I manage to do well on the finals despite everything, the next set of classes will be doable too.

I know I write scifi well, and that I am (or was) a decent visual artist. So why do I put myself through so much stuff at the detriment of both of those things I am good at? difficult math classes, difficult research, difficult teaching responsibilities bc i want to figure out how the brain forms.

I looked to see if people are discussing my sci-fi on Reddit 😅 saw a nice comment someone made where they followed up w/ “I’ll read anything she writes next” read my backlog of stories too! Idk when I’ll produce scifi next. But I’ve written a bunch since 2019 mostly in @clarkesworldmagazine.com

When this semester ends I can reflect on how hard it was, but for these next 4 weeks I need to adopt the energy of that Blue Eye Samurai episode where she fights through the 9 level building. If I pause to realize how hard it is I’ll falter, so, just going to focus on the next 4 weeks.

Omg I’ll never have to teach an advanced wet lab class again! 🙏 you guys my research is on math and mammalian embryonic cortex not decapitating and microscoping flies 😭 Also my friends said they’re OK with me being MIA until the end of the semester ❤️

I think the PhD is more about how to bounce back from setbacks than about how to do things perfectly from start to finish. definitely had a setback the past week, it’s a tough semester, but I could wallow in despair or I could figure out how to move forward (after venting a bit lol) and do my best 🤷🏻‍♀️

If others are watching … idk, I still don’t regret taking harder classes. I want math skills and I wasn’t going to let a difficult TA assignment stop me from getting them. Going to try to ace my finals, idk if I will, but regardless ive learned a TON of math skills useful to my research.✌️

I can ace my finals, if I just practice enough. I am the same person who got over 100% in dynamical systems. Doing well on involved math problems while teaching this draining night class needs to be treated like swimming with weights on. I can do it man.

Actually, saying this out loud, this is a lot. I learned the fly brain dissections 2 days before I had to teach them but I taught the lab successfully. I got home after teaching 11pm the night before the exam. I solved a lot of the exam even tho I was exhausted & not my best cognitively. wasn’t easy

I want to be able to teach anything (even a random advanced wet lab unrelated to my research i enter w/ no skills for), produce tons of research, ace my super hard classes, maintain a rich social life & write scifi on the side. Maybe that person can make it as a professor. It’s not me right now 😢

Maybe I wouldn’t be able to handle being a professor. I’m sure there are other careers where ppl get to run their own research and mentor others but with less overwhelming demands. That might be better, idk if I like operating under being overwhelmed.

Things kinda suck rn but I’m going to take all the suckiness and put it into my sci-fi novel characters lives lol. It will fuel dimensionality of the characters, those guys are like sponges.

you know I’m not going to let this TA position get me down. can’t change it I can do well in my classes, do more research each week, & see my friends. I can find a better way to manage my time. I want to ace my final exams. If I manage my time well, I can. Honestly just need to treat this as a game

Franklin was probably the most accomplished crystallographer among them Franklin’s partner at King’s Maurice Wilkins did not like her (the feeling was mutual) and Wilkins was secretly feeding data to Watson & Crick Watson tried to goad Franklin into sharing more by negging her:

idk if anyone will know the serious feat it will have been to have simply made progress on my research, done *okay* in my classes/exams & have taught this late night wet lab class I had no prior experience in this semester. It’s one of the hardest sets of things I’ve ever done. Definitely my limit …

There is a serious difference in my cognitive ability on days after I teach this drosophila lab night class. I don’t think late night on-your-feet-for-hours, you’ll get home 11pm classes are great for doing math 😢

I mean, I will have a scientific paper soon, about a mathematical theory I have developed — that was just as fun to think about as scifi. I suppose my effort went to that instead of a novella this year. It also took a bunch of creativity, research, math And I am writing scifi, just extremely slow 🥲

Im thinking about this — some loss of status & ego death is good for us. I started grad school when my scifi career was kind of on the rise, was a finalist for a major award etc. 100% expecting “loss of status” as I get slower. But it recenters you to what matters, not the accolades, but the art.

Painting I made 7 years ago, before I went into neuroscience. Used a mix of watercolor and poster paints, hand painted on watercolor paper. Titled "Seaside House"

Omg the undergrads in the drosophila lab I teach saw me reading Helias & Dahmen, they asked about it and I ended up teaching them about moment generating functions. now they want me to teach them how to do a Gaussian integral (I’ll do that next week lol, they’ve got to do drosophila stuff not math)

man, sometimes I am like "why am I putting in all this effort learning about wild stuff like Legendre transforms and formatting SDEs s.t they have an action functional" then i go back to the introduction section of the textbook and I'm like, okay, yeah, back to dying bc of this weird, hard math ...

I am finally less “scrambling to catch up” in this math physics class lol. Fourier analysis, moment generating functions, wick’s theorem … finally 🙏

For better or for worse, this thought of “With enough dedication to my writing, I can do what my inspirations can, and I can also do other things they cannot” has really fueled not only my story writing but also part of why I want to learn so much. Don’t know if it’s good or bad but it is what it is

"Fractal Karma" and what I'm writing now are kind of my Thinking About Hinduism lol. My mom is Hindu, my grandparents were Hindu, they've told me a lot that I ignored growing up and in this kinda cringey "I am an atheist" phase I had, but I have been reflecting on what I actually believe recently.

Had some weird dreams recently. Had one where water was rising, a panther and an old man were talking. The panther said “in a next life, you will be panther, we will eat good meat together”. the old man said “in a next life, you will be man. we will drink whiskey together” then a giant wave hit them

The daylight did not need to be saved. Ugh, time to bring out the vitamin D gummies, a seriously meek weapon against the gloom of soon-to-be 3pm darkness.

I knew it would take less than a day for a tiktok dj to make something.

I haven’t painted/drawn in 5 years … miss it, but idk how to manage my time to fit it in. already struggling to fit in scifi and keep up my social life, & barely managing research, teaching, and coursework together. need to learn, since being overwhelmed is the cost of a career in academic research.

Colored pencil drawing I made in architecture school in 2017

I can pick anywhere?? Dude I would haunt Titan (which has hydrocarbon lakes) or fall into a black hole.