Hopkins, One Year Later

Last week, my little boss extended my contract here at Hopkins for another year. (End of newsflash, opinion piece follows.)

(I just looked up the term "op-ed", which I had presumed to mean "opinion-editorial" or sth. like that. However, it means, "opposite of the editorial page". How good I didn't embarrass myself.)

So, I've spent almost eleven months at Hopkins by now, working in Little Boss' ultrasound lab. I learned a lot about the use of ultrasound in interventional settings, about ultrasound physics, about elastography, registration, about hardware, about compilers, code optimization, and linkers, and also about students, student life, guiding students, running a lab, acquiring projects, running collaborations, and politics. Life at a private research university is stressful (luckily, I am blissfully shielded from funding acquisition almost completely).

In fact, X told me long ago that a) I would love the country for its gadgets (true), and b) I would learn how to work properly at Hopkins (also true). Unless one makes a very conscious decision to get out of lab in the evenings, one gets absorbed.

Now I am looking down the barrel of another year at Hopkins, in Taylor's LCSR, in Emad's MUSiiC lab, where by now I have seen people come and go, have seen students grow and students break, with reasonable researchers and crazy scientists, with personal quarrels and project vendettas.
It's a big place, it's got lots of people, and every day brings about a new piece of wisdom, knowledge, or at least some insight.

Mt. Washington is a quiet, green suburb. Sitting at my breakfast table on the rear deck, there is one other house that can be seen peeking through the forest. Squirrels, raccoons, and deer abound, with foxes here and there. Admittedly, one can hear the expressway in the valley when the wind is coming the wrong way, and the police helicopters' din is a staple of Baltimore life. Luckily, East Baltimore and "Death Valley" (north of JHMI) are far away.

Overall, it's a good experience. You get to work with great people, have captivating projects, get to work on your own ideas, push some publications, and have an agreeable life. In my private life, I am no smarter than I was before. Still, I'm looking forward to the beginning of year two.