First real work day

Well, I actually started working on my project today. We're starting to prepare the data for analysis. It's not very interesting work yet, but I'm learning, more than anything because basically I know nothing about what I'm doing. Everything here is done in Linex. I have almost zero experience with Unix machines (so little in fact that I don't know if I've spelled the names correctly or not). That's my first task, but it's also one I can't spend all my time on; I pretty much just have to learn it as I go along. Today we copied the data files onto the workspace I'll be using. We went to lunch while the computer did that. Then in the afternoon we started the process of calibrating the data. A program does this for us, so we just had to set the parameters and hit "start." It ran for about four hours today while I tried to read a radio astronomy book they gave me. Neither of us made much progress. I think the computer got through about a quarter of the data and I also read about a quarter of what the professor suggested I read. However, I think the computer probably understood more of its work than I did. The book is extremely dense and not really accesible to an undergraduate student. I pushed through, understanding about 5% of what I was reading I'm afraid. I figure I'll try to read all he assigned to me and it'll be ok if I don't really understand much. I'll at least have read enough terms and ideas that if they ever come up in our work I should be able to recognize them as something I read about and maybe in the context of our work I'll have questions and can learn more. Plus, I know some of the other students also got books on their research areas and they said they were equally as dense and they couldn't get much out of them either. At least I'm not alone.

I feel like I know nothing about what I'm doing. I'm feeling I have less physics and astronomy training than I'd like. But at the same time, they knew what experience I have had when they chose me to come work for them, and the guy that picked us works in the same office as one of my advisors, so I figure they knew what they were getting with me. My professors have been really patient and don't seem at all irratated by my lack of knowledge, even about Linex. They were more annoyed, though even in this case I'd hardly call it annoyed, that the program didn't give us some sort of Linex intro sheet to give us the basic commands and information to start off with. They were sort of like, "huh, we'll have to talk to someone about that so they have one for next year." Their calm, patient attitude and willingness to explain has been great. I think working with them will be fine.

I'm still struggling with the differences between here and Mexico. Today a girl in our group asked if it's hard for me to speak in English now. I told her that it's not too bad. English is my first language so it's starting to take its dominant position again. There are times when I think of the word in Spanish and I have to sort of force my mouth to change its form to say the corresponding word in English. That's a bit strange. After I stopped talking to her, I realized that what's really harder than the language is figuring out who I am again in English. I didn't really realize how much a culture and language, even a foreign one, can affect your thoughts, behavior, humor, and reaction to other people. I feel like I'm coping with not only the normal "how do I fit into this new group?" feelings but also lots of questions about how to fit into a different culture, how to make jokes, what to laugh at, how to respond, how to get the reaction I'd like from people, etc. It's very odd. I didn't experience this so much when I returned to the states from Spain. Perhaps I was too focused on the language there to change so much with the culture. Or maybe Spanish culture isn't as different from American culture as Mexican culture. Or perhaps since I went home to KY where I already had friends and family and an well established role and lots of experience with the people and situations I didn't have the same difficulty. Here I have to start over. Whenever I'm in a new group and place, I know I take a little time to adapt and find my place. Part of my feelings are the same ones I always have, but I think they're amplifed by the cultural differences. I'm trying to talk to the Puerto Rican staff to connect a bit to the latino culture. Maybe this will help the change not be too extreme. I almost feel more comfortable conversing in Spanish with them than in English with my collegues.

I guess Merilie and Gerardo were right; I'm different in Spanish!