This past Monday, I had the honor of attending my sister’s Ph.D thesis defense. She’s been on this path since she was in college, but this hour-long talk was the culmination of six years of serious work. We’re talking late nights and weekends in the lab, lots of experimental failures, and plenty of going back to the drawing board. While I’ve followed her throughout this journey, most of our conversations centered around particular events during a given experiment. Monday was the first time that I heard the narrative behind her research and understood how it all fits together.

Illustration: Moncho Massé

Today is the last day at my job. I gave five weeks notice, put together a hand off plan, met with all the stakeholders, and created a step-by-step manual on how to do my job when I’m gone. This work comes naturally to me as a process-oriented, Type A human. The most difficult work came later when person after person asked me the same two questions: “What happened?” and What’s next?”

Illustration: Nishant Choksi

Illustration: Evelin Bundur

Illustration: Denise Eliane

Photo-Illustration: Stevie Remsberg; Photos: Getty Images

Image: Lauren Lee

I appreciate and admire Roxane Gay so much. My copy of Bad Feminist is filled with marginalia and I follow her on Twitter to keep up with her latest essays. She writes in a way that examines her subject from all sides and illustrates the complexity of situations that may seem black and white. Her written work is wonderful, but I rarely hear her speak. When I found this video, I watched it three times in a row. Gay’s struggles with saying ‘no’ resonated deeply with me. Here’s a snippet:

Image: LoveIs Wise