Week 1

Week 1: Getting to Know You

My first week in Wisconsin was pretty good once it actually started. My wife and I took who knows how many days to pack up all our stuff, and on Monday, June 30^th, we started our cross-country road trip to Wisconsin. Too many hours and gallons of gas later, we arrived at our apartment. Luckily, I had made contact with some friends I met previously and members of the church I attend here in Wisconsin, so we had plenty of help unloading the truck the night of July 2^rd.

The next day, I met with the program administrator and went over paperwork (can’t get enough of that fun stuff) as well as the researcher I would be working for in my first lab rotation. Both the administrator and researcher are just as friendly as they were during interviews, so that’s a good sign that they really are as happy here as they said they were during interview season. It was incredibly exciting to get a description of the project I would be working on, although I had a slight case of imposter syndrome. Luckily, it was a 3-day weekend with Independence Day, so we were able to get our apartment in some sort of order before I headed out for my first day in the lab.

The first day was just about what I expected—I watched the researcher and grad students doing cool-looking stuff and listened to them explain a lot. I had a decent idea of what was going on, but only a slight clue as to why. I didn’t do much because the rats that I’d be working with weren’t scheduled to arrive until later in the week. So, the second and third days had more of the same—lots of reading and getting more excited thinking about my project, my classmates, my future…