Journeys for Knowledge

Growing up in California, my experiences with winter and cold have been mild at best. Now that winter has descended upon Cambridge I find myself responding to the climate in rather unusual ways. Every morning now starts with a game of “How will I Handle the Cold Today”. For example, I still try to wear T shirts every day, knowing full well that it’s far too cold outside for it, and to solve the problem of my ears getting cold, I now walk to lab with my large computer headphones on, which work fairly well as earmuffs.

Of course when I choose to, I have proper winter clothes such as a long coat and wool lined pants to keep me very warm. The special thing about these clothes is that they were all inherited from my grandfather, who unfortunately passed away this past June. Even in the last days of his illness, he remained proud that he had a grandson that was going to school at Cambridge. Even if he couldn’t remember that it was me, his connection to England from his past was so strong those memories stayed with him till the end. I am reminded of this everytime I wear his clothes, because only in his clothes do I look like I truly belong in England.

Of course I have inherited far more than just clothes my grandfather over the years, particularly his passion for science. Ironically despite studying zoology himself, he wanted his children and grandchildren to become doctors, and applied a strong amount of pressure on me to enter medicine. Luckily I was passionate enough about physics to convince him to see things my way, since either way I would become a doctor of some kind. As much as I would want him to still be alive, he passed away knowing all of his grandchildren were free to pursue their intellectual passions, whether that was medicine, computer science, statistics, or physics. My time at Cambridge is not just about bettering myself, it’s about carrying on his will to be the best doctor of physics I can be, so I can present the same opportunities to my children.