What R Ur Top Books Of All Time

Of chess, it has been said that life is not long enough for it, but that is the fault of life, not chess.

-William Napier

"Every now and then a man's mind is stretched

by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks

back to its former dimensions."

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Of chess, it has been said that life is not long enough for it, but that is the fault of life, not chess.

-William Napier

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.

George Eliot // Edward Young // Malcolm Liepke // Marcel Proust // Kahlil Gibran // Thomas Aquinas // Holly Warburton // Taylor Swift // Arnold Lobel // Ralph Waldo Emerson

Jane Austen - "Sense and Sensibility"

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”

— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

... One night a friend lent me a book of short stories by Franz Kafka. I went back to the pension where I was staying and began to read The Metamorphosis. The first line almost knocked me off the bed. I was so surprised. The first line reads, “As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. . . .” When I read the line I thought to myself that I didn’t know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago. ...

Gabriel García Márquez, The Art of Fiction No. 69 (interviewed by Peter Stone)

forever in love

with your dark night

Science Dark Academia Things

staying up late to read one cool paper

which turns into reading another cool paper that the first paper referenced

that turns into getting to lab mid afternoon because you woke up at noon 

staying in lab late into the evening because there’s just so much to do

wanting to be aesthetic, but knowing that wearing nice clothes into lab is a bad idea (:’()

blue light glasses to protect your eyes from strain as you analyze data

going back to lab late at night to rerun an experiment because the data sucked and you have group meeting tomorrow

the wonderful feeling of finally troubleshooting that one experiment correctly

having science idols that you gaze wonderingly at when you see them at conferences

struggling through a class even but you enjoy it because sometimes learning is just hard

students emailing you with questions about the class you’re TA-ing causing you to wonder when you became the Adult In Charge who Knows Things

talking with your PI/ older grad students and realizing that you definitely are NOT the Adult In Charge who Knows Things but that’s a good thing because it means that you’re in the right place to learn

when your NMR shows your expected product and the MS shows high purity (tears of joy)

being the nerd in all your conversations with non-Science people and pulling out fun facts about solubility rules, thermodynamics, or the ultimate crowd pleaser: molecular quantum mechanics

getting really excited meeting another person your age from your field even if your projects are totally different

remembering even that when science is kicking your butt… you’re doing something cool that will have an impact and that no-one else has done yet!

days filled with reading 💭