Mini-Review: Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

First book of the year, and it's one I've been interested in reading for a few years now so I'm glad I got it out of the way. Also the first book I've read on my iPad Kindle app.

Source: Bought Kindle edition
Pages: 510
Rating: 3/5




















Plot

The book centres on Ruth, an experienced black Labour & Delivery nurse, who has been accused of murdering the newborn baby of a white supremacist couple after they insisted she not look after their baby due to her race. As with all Jodi Picoult books that I know of, it culminates in a court case so it just follows that, from the baby's death to Ruth's arrest, the discovery process, and the case, and how it all changes her, Turk's and Kennedy's life.

[I don't know what to make of the main ending, but the small twists at the end seemed way too neat and saccharine.]


Telling

It's told from the perspective of three characters: Ruth, Turk Bauer, a white supremacist, and Ruth's public defender, Kennedy. I enjoyed Ruth and Kennedy's perspectives, but it was very uncomfortable reading from Turk's, since he was just constantly using racial slurs and being over-the-top hateful.

Like other Picoult books I've read, it was a page-turner and an easy, engaging read. I cared about what happened to Ruth. 

Characters


Ruth was a very sympathetic character who'd 'done everything right', with her Masters in Nursing from Yale, her honor-roll son Edison (whom I liked) and her veteran husband who died fighting for America. She's contrasted with her mother, who spent her whole life as a domestic servant but was also very 'respectable', and her sister, who speaks in ebonics and generally doesn't try to be respectable. It was a bit on the nose, and not great to imply that someone who tried less hard to assimilate into white society would have been less innocent, but I can see why she did it: to show that when you're black, no matter how perfect you are, you're still distrusted by white society - followed around shops, thrown in jail on a suspicion, discriminated against at work.

Re Turk: It was hard to believe anyone like that could exist - he had a swastika tattooed on his head, beat up his own dad for being gay, ran a white nationalist hate site, went to white nationalist festivals, and just generally obsessed over racism all the time. There were sweet moments, like his marriage to his wife, Britt, whom he adores. I guess Picoult was trying to make him seem more human, because those parts are indeed cute - but jesus, did he have to marry her at a white nationalist festival? Maybe these people do exist, I don't know, but if so what a sad existence. 

Society

It was very America-centric, which is reasonable because that's where it's set, but I think there's a bit of a different racial experience in Ireland. I'm not saying there's no racism here or something, but it's different and doesn't have the same historical bases. 

Kennedy, the public defender, was pretty heroic in the book, but it did upset me to see how the court case really wasn't about figuring out the truth at all but was just each lawyer saying whatever would make their side win. 

The point the book laid out very clearly was that while Turk Bauer was obviously a racist, so was everyone else, just to lesser degrees. 
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Overall, I'm not certain what I think about the book. It was a page-turner and I cared about the main character and felt immersed, so it was certainly an enjoyable read (apart from the tenseness) but that can be said about most Picoult books, and the race aspect wasn't really new and the black reviewers I've seen commenting on it haven't really been fans, so I'd probably recommend another one instead. 

On another bookish note, I went to Greystones library recently and checked out 8 books, which I'll make a start on once I'm finished with Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor, which I bought for Kindle. Here they are:

2018 Review

Welcome to my fifth (!) annual year in review post! This year, for the first time, it's arranged thematically rather than chronologically, so let me know what you think if you're so inclined. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. People
2. Second year of college, second semester
3. Research summer job
4. Third year of college, first semester
5. Scholarships
6. Conferences & Adventures
7. Reading & Extracurricular learning (French, programming)
8. Wellbeing 


PEOPLE

I'd like to give a shoutout and thanks to the people who have helped me in 2018. That's a lot of people probably, but in particular 

For friendship, fun and company:

Leon, my boyfriend, and his family, who have become my second family. 

The genetics class, who are cool

My family.

My fellow Laidlaw scholars and Trinity scholars friends for good chats outside the Pav and at Commons, especially Sean and Aaron, in the intersection, and Emma.

The Physoc and Netsoc committees

My old physics friends, including Anastasija who defected to biology with me

For mentoring and championing me I want to thank:

• Aoife McLysaght, my research supervisor and department head, who champions me everywhere I go except where it would be weird/unfair like in lectures, and whom I admire a lot.
• Alan, Zoe, and everyone who helped me in Aoife's lab over the summer
• Shane Bergin (who introduced me to Aoife in 2017 among many other things!), Mags Amond (one of the few people I've stayed in touch with from the old days of gallivanting around conferences) and Margaret Burgraff, more champions for encouraging me, introducing me to people, and letting me know about things that might be up my alley
• Orla and Joel from the Laidlaw Scholarship, for their mentoring
• My aunt Anne, who's helping me with my J1 in America next summer by providing accommodation.
• Sara, who mentored me for the Launchpad Women Who Wow programme
• The Naughtons of the Naughton Scholarship, Lord Laidlaw of the Laidlaw Scholarship, TCD (Schols), and of course SUSI.

Miscellaneous thank-yous go to my good lecturers for making the Genetics course so interesting.

COLLEGE: SENIOR FRESH

The second half of my second year in college took place during 2018. The modules I had that semester included Genetics, Microbiology, Ecosystem Biology and Global Change, Infection & Immunity, (animal) Behaviour, and Statistics. I've written separate blog posts about my SF modules, but briefly: I actually really loved the half of Ecosystems where we learned about a particular biome each lecture - it was such an interesting way of teaching Ecology (via adaptations to each environment), and that has stuck with me; I enjoyed some of Behaviour but found the psychology bits very boring, but it's been probably the most useful module in my day to day life and conversations; I didn't end up liking Micro and Immunology, even though those subjects were literally the reason I'd moved into Biology in the first place. Weird how things change when you learn more about them. I do adore Biology still, but turns out my favourites were evolution/genetics/metabolism.

There was also the bloody Chemistry 'broad curriculum' [mandatory chemistry project] that I had to do even though I wasn't doing second semester Chemistry. On the bright side, I did win a prize for best speaker and for being group secretary. On the dark side, that prize was a literal bag of glue. 

In April 2018, I had to choose the subject I was going to specialise in. I had been planning to do Molecular Medicine, but a combination of campaigning from Aoife (who's the department head) and realising that I actually much preferred genetics and especially evolution to immunology, as well as looking at the Sophister exam papers for Genetics and seeing the interesting topics and emphasis on problem-solving and understanding rather than memorization, made me choose Genetics. I'm very happy with my choice. 

I sat 11 exams over 3 weeks in May 2018, and thankfully did really well in them, coming out with an 86% average and the highest grade in the year of people who went into my moderatorship. That was lucky, since a lot of things including moderatorship choice, a scholarship, and Lit Review picks were based on that grade. 

A graph I made of my overall result for each module. The black line is 70% aka a first. 

This may sound strange now, as those results did give me a bit more faith in myself, but in June before results came out I honestly spent every night for weeks struggling to sleep because I was so scared I'd failed Chemistry (calculating over and over again different marks I might have got on the various sections and how those might add up to 35% so I could pass by compensation) or otherwise not done well enough to get into Genetics. I then got 81% in the Chemistry exam, so that was ... flawed. I do think they must have curved it or something though because that is very far off. 

I also got 100% in my Multivariable Calculus exam and even got in the 90s on some fully essay-based exams, as well as firsts in all 11 modules, which I was thrilled with. It was amazing because I had absolutely no social life in second year so that I could study and get Schols and get into my moderatorship choice, so I'm so glad it paid off and I can try to chill out a little. It was not a good year for my stress levels. 

Funnily enough, my worst grade was in Genetics...tied with Chemistry! Eek. 


RESEARCH

I worked in Prof. Aoife McLysaght's lab for 8 weeks over the summer looking at the relationship between codon usage bias (which takes forever to explain if I can't start from codons, but if I can, it's just when you can make one amino acid with multiple equivalent codons but they're used unequally) and ohnologs (duplicate genes made from whole genome duplications) vs copy number variant genes (genes/DNA segments whose number of copies varies between people). 

The interview was amazing. In fact, it wasn't actually an interview at all, I just assumed that 'meeting' was a euphemism for interview, but Aoife actually started by talking about what her lab does and then we talked about her papers and geeked out about genetics together! In the middle of the conversation she casually mentioned she'd be happy to take me for the summer and the whole situation was just so stress-free and I am so thankful because I am terrible in stressful interview situations. I wish more interviews were like that.

On a day-to-basis I was programming almost all the time and reading papers the rest of the time. Looking back on it now, I can think of a lot of things I could've done better, and am not sure whether that was me being especially bad or just what happens the first time you do full time research. 

Things I wish I had done in that project and plan to do when I return next summer (hopefully I don't get retroactively fired):

Use good coding practices! Yes, technically I left plenty of comments, but they were mostly along the lines of '#fucks sake why won't this work' which, while stress-relieving, isn't exactly the point. I also could have learned more about aspects of R I didn't already know, such as that %>% thing, and used and learned my other languages (Python, Ruby) more. 

The majority of my time was spent figuring out individual code/data processing things and once I knew them I was able to retype/copy paste the whole thing to make a (relatively) streamlined version and run it all in a day at the end, which feels kinda like I hadn't done enough work but also makes sense because the hard part isn't the literal typing of the code, it's making the analysis decisions and then figuring out how to make the computer do those things, test that they were done right, and visualise the results. 

My variable names, which when I got frustrated were things like 'yo', or 'joeyo', or when I tracked how far along I was in the process via variable naming rather than comments, i.e. 'Bdf2noNavailLen3orderdedup', left a lot to be desired. 

I learned a lot in the Python module we had this autumn, which I'm a bit embarrassed to admit since I was paid for my summer work so it feels wrong that I had so much left to learn. 

Another very important and neglected thing is VERSION CONTROL AND FILE ORGANISATION! So important, and my fear of Git led me to remake a good few graphs because I couldn't remember where I'd saved them (though to be fair since I code the graphs rather than making them manually it only takes a few seconds to rerun them), and having to piece together my code because my Jupyter notebook kept breaking and losing stuff and I was storing each bit in poorly-organised places. I have asked Orla (Laidlaw scholarship coordinator/head of Careers service in TCD) to give us a workshop on version control and she said she will, so I hope to rectify that soon. 

I'd also like to learn a bit more about writing code tests - I did informal checks as I went along, like checking the dataframe still had the right number of rows and bits that were supposed to be unchanged still matched, that the removed rows were right, etc., but there's a ton of info out there on testing your code, e.g. some foreign thing called '''unit tests''' that '''real programmers''' do...that I hope to look into.

More importantly - do more science. Despite my many poor coding practices, I think the main thing I want to change is that I spent too much time coding and not enough time reading or thinking about the science. I read some papers, but not enough, and most of my thinking time went into figuring out coding problems. I know this because I actually learned a ton about codon usage bias in a lecture in autumn and while prepping for the exams (exam prep always makes me consolidate information), and I feel I could've done a lot of that if I'd just, for example, read that section of the Molecular and Genome Evolution book during the project, though I don't know how much it would've directly helped with the project. In general there were a lot of cool books in the lab library I would've liked to peruse but I think I time-pressured myself (for no reason) into thinking I had to be 'productive' and couldn't afford to spend the time, even though a lot of academia IS reading and thinking.

Try not to be so shy. It's weird, because in some ways I'm definitely not shy, but I did struggle with asking for feedback and not being intimidated by the other lab members and my supervisor, even though they're nice and helpful. 

In general, I think I struggle with the idea of employment also being training. I feel like because I'm being paid I have to be perfect and not waste people's time with questions or spend time picking up skills, which is probably not true. I think it would be helpful to know what's considered normal/acceptable, because that's not something I'm good at intuiting. 

I think I've learned that in work and college, it's really helpful for me if I'm told clearly what the expectations on me are, because if not I'll construct arbitrary expectations and worry about not reaching them. I have a good work ethic, so if I'm left unsupervised for long periods of time I will work hard and not goof off, but I might be on the wrong track, and even if not I'll worry I am. I guess that is part of academic work so I'll have to be able to deal with it eventually, but I'd like to at least work up to that. Also, just ask for feedback damnit. 

COLLEGE: JUNIOR SOPHISTER

I started 3rd year in September, and it's been pretty fabulous. Definitely kinda stressful, as they seem to have very high standards, but the department is lovely and our class is close (which is a lot easier when there are ~30 rather than ~300 people in it). This semester I did Evolutionary Genetics, Genomics, Eukaryotic Molecular Genetics, the molecular genetics lab module, a broad curriculum module called The Prison System, Data Handling, and then over the Christmas break my lit review. I mostly love the material, and especially the inquiry-based and empirical way they teach it. It's not just 'this is how X works', it's that plus how we know that's how it works, plus being asked questions so we can figure out part of it ourselves. 

The BC Prison module was completely different but also quite interesting, and I learned a lot - not just information but also a new mindset, since I guess I'd never thought about prison as a subject people study academically before. Guess that's the point of broad curriculum! I was proud of the project I did for it, which was an R-based analysis of the relationship between prison policy and public opinion using the European Social Survey and the SPACE I report on prison conditions. 

I definitely went into this year with the intent to relax a little and not study as much as SF. It's hard - in first year I studied very little and socialised a lot, in second year the complete opposite, and now I have to try to strike a balance, which is actually a lot harder because it requires making choices. I don't know how well I'm doing - probably still studying a bit too much - but I'm definitely socialising more than last year, which is a start. Helps that I like my class! It's cool getting to know everyone. It's not just that I have to think about genetics/evolution less, though I should probably get more hobbies, but that I worry too much about doing well in exams and satisfying the lecturers when I should just be indulging my own intellectual curiosity and not worrying as much about losing a few points on exams. I've stopped myself from taking out too many interesting genetics books in the library by saying I only have time to study what's examinable. 

(I may change my tune when my exam results come out next week!)

SCHOLARSHIPS

The biggest thing in this respect was sitting the Schols (Trinity Foundation Scholarship) exams in January and then, unexpectedly, finding out in April that I got Schols! The Trinity Monday when I found out and went to the various induction events and the evening feast was one of the best days of my life. 

Schols gives me free accommodation and a free meal every workday for 5 years, with the last four years of accommodation being on campus (excited!), as well as a title (Sch.) after my name, though I can't really get much mileage out of that one without being obnoxious. I am proud of Schols though, if of little else - it was my first set of Biology exams and I worked really, really hard for it.



In March and April I applied for the Laidlaw Research & Leadership Scholarship and found out in May I'd been awarded it along with 17 others from around the college. We had Leadership days in June and November, and they funded the first five weeks of my research this summer and generally kept in contact with us. It's nice - it's a cozy group and a well-organised scholarship. They definitely expect us to be engaged, much moreso than Schols or the Naughton scholarship, which is both good (rewarding) and bad (tiring).

I had to do the interview during the exam period in May and I am absolutely awful at interviews - I just could not figure out what they wanted me to say  - so I 100% did not think I'd got it...but somehow I did. 

The Laidlaw scholars (-1 person who was missing that day).

Hanging out with fellow Laidlaw Scholars Luke and Mollie after the June Leadership Weekend.

I still have the Naughton scholarship for another year and a half but didn't have any events with them this year - hopefully I can go to the annual retreat in 2019 and the ceremony for the 2019 awardees. 

The fourth scholarship, or bursary, is the James Watson Award, which I got for getting the highest exam grade in my year of people who went into Genetics, and which pays for me alongside five other people in my year who got similar scholarships to go do research in America on a J1 next summer(!). I'm working on my visa stuff at the moment and hoping to go for 11 weeks, including 1 week of holidaying and 10 weeks of working on the population genetics of the X chromosome with Prof. Emilia Huerta-Sanchez, before coming back to do my remaining 5 weeks of Laidlaw research in Trinity. It's great that there are 6 of us going together (though to separate places), especially because one is my fab lab partner Eimear!

I was selected for two additional scholarships/bursaries that I couldn't accept. The first was the Wellcome Trust Biomedical Vacation Scholarship, which would've paid for my summer research except I'd already got the Laidlaw scholarship just before I heard back from Wellcome so I turned it down so someone else could get it. 

The second was a big bursary that I won't name, which is a scholarship of 5000 euro per year for two years for disadvantaged students, and for which I applied and was selected under the 'TUSLA care experience' and 'disability' categories (so I was thrilled), until they sent me the Ts & Cs after the congratulatory email which said you couldn't have another scholarship and I had to tell them I had the Naughton scholarship already and lose this one. 

Obviously it turned out fine in the end and I'm happy for it to go to someone who needs it, because I found out a few days later that I'd got Schols and a month later about Laidlaw, but at the time I was very tight on money and did not appreciate being told I'd got it only to then have it taken away for a criterion I didn't know when I applied. 

CONFERENCES & ADVENTURES

I actually went to barely any this year! I decided to knuckle down and focus on my studies once I got into my beloved Biology, so haven't been gallivanting about like I did in first year. The one thing I did go to was the Schrodinger at 75: The Future of Biology conference as a rapporteur, and then the mini-symposium a month later to give a talk on what I'd learned. Blog posts: Day 1 and Day 2. 

Leon and I spontaneously went for a two-day holiday in Waterford during the summer, which you can read about here. 

READING & EXTRACURRICULAR LEARNING

I completed 26 books this year out of my goal of 24 (initially 18). Of those:

• 13 were pop science books, on the topics of genetics, microbiology, theoretical physics, cancer, evolution, conservation, human behaviour, and sexism.
• 1 other non-fiction book, Bad Blood by John Carreyrou
• 6 Brandon Sanderson novels (I'm surprised I only got introduced to him this year - it feels like longer) including the Mistborn trilogy and two Stormlight Archives books
• 1 book for review from Netgalley (Implanted by Lauren Teffeau)
• 4 other novels

Best non-fiction book: I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong, about the microbiome. Review here. Bad Blood was also very good.

Best novel: Mistborn Book 1 by Brandon Sanderson.

Unfortunately, I read almost nothing after September once college had begun in earnest, especially because in mid-October I moved so I no longer had an hour-long DART commute twice a day but instead my commute was mostly walking with a 15-minute Luas ride, which is much less conducive to reading. That's happened a good few years in a row now - I read a decent amount in spring and lots in summer, but barely anything in winter.

My Goodreads 2018 book challenge.

Leon and I finally got the proof of address we needed and joined our local library - this was our first haul:




In August I got my first ever physical ARC after blogging for 6 years, which was exciting. Look how pretty it is - and I got some swag and a note too. Here's my review of the book. 

@ publishers: send me physical ARCs! eARCs are cool and all but physical ones are sooo pretty.

I've been doing a lot of Duolingo to keep up my French - I recently completed the skills tree (and am now going through it all again on the next level) and was on a 184 day streak of practising every day as of 31st December. 

This year I taught myself to program in R (via Datacamp) and did a lot of fun graphing with ggplot2, as well as learning Python from Rosalind. We then did a submodule on Python in college in November and I learned tons more and had to unlearn some bad habits, but both were cool. Having learned them early came in handy over the summer since most of my day-to-day job involved coding. 


WELLBEING

I am not great at self-care despite my academic successes, so that's a big thing I need to work on in 2019. In 2018, I did swim twice a week for a good few weeks over the summer (and then stopped once college started up again and got too intense), and took up painting to relax. I also read a good bit, but with a lot of that I had exams in mind and remembering the details while reading, so it wasn't fully for enjoyment. 

I tried taking up knitting again this year and got a bit further but didn't stick to it in the end because I kept messing something up and not being able to fix it and having to start again. So if I try knitting again fixing knitting mistakes/figuring out what problems are unfixable should probably be a priority. I found that I really enjoyed the two genetics blog posts I wrote in the last few days of 2018, on the genetics of hybrid domestic cats and crested newts respectively, which I think was because it allowed me to talk about genetics and evolution, which I love, but was on a topic that is not remotely examinable in my course so I didn't feel pressured. 

In 2019, I need to figure out how to manage all those self-care and organisational tasks and how to keep everything incuding 'small' things like brushing my hair or teeth or showering or keeping the fridge stocked or remembering to eat food running all at the same time. I'm also doing the #100daysofwalking challenge in 2019 because I am so very sedentary. I did really enjoy swimming, so if I can manage to find time for it around lectures and Commons and study I would like to do that too, maybe a day or two of swimming a week plus walking several times a week after the challenge is over. Another big thing I want to work on is punctuality - I am late for lectures way too much and I feel embarrassed about it so I want to change. In order to do that, it would probably help if I stopped staying up past 2 am. 

I also want to do more advocacy, I think, around autism and possibly other things. I've been very afraid to 'come out' as autistic - much more afraid than for coming out as bi - and honestly it still may be something I regret in terms of lost employment or other opportunities. It's already been used against me. But I do want to speak up, so... 

ART & MUSIC

I took up watercolour painting after dropping into the local art shop on the spur of the moment and buying a watercolour set for 20 quid, which has been a great investment as I've gotten tons of use out of it, from relaxing to making Christmas cards: 

I learned how to paint these from Youtubers including The Creative Glow.

I also got my ukulele fixed and played a little, but not enough. 


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So in 2019, things I'm hoping to do (and am already doing, since I'm finishing this in mid-January) include walking, self-care, punctuality, advocacy, and continuing to develop academically but with less stress about doing it for external reasons.