Diana Elise was brought up with a very strict sense of what was 'appropriate' and what wasn't. She was generally expected to conduct herself in ways that wouldn't look badly upon her parents, as they were both attempting to make careers for themselves, and having a rowdy, out-of-control child would not be favorable for them - Di realizes now this was more on her mother than her father, though her father never actively did anything to stop it. Di suspects some of her mother's push comes from the fact that a lot of her influence and power came from marrying Gregory, and she tries to overcompensate for it by making sure her daughter doesn't have to rely on the same kinds of connections to forge her own way - though the regular oligarchical kind are okay.
From an early age, Di knew when to leave well enough alone, and never pushed her boundaries, fearful of the consequences. Luckily, Diana wasn't much for the spotlight to begin with, anyway. She much preferred her books to people, and she never went through what she considered to be a 'rebellious phase' in her adolescence. She did have her sister to help her out with the "girl stuff" as she got older - something she was glad for, as she had always expected Rachael to hate her for being the daughter of her dad's other woman - but while she went through the motions, she never quite felt comfortable in that role. The other kids she spent most of her time with thought she was extremely weird, and the only things she did to be considered 'rebellious' (for her) were in a half-hearted attempt to fit in with them: skipping the senior skip day activities to go to the Cape, or going to a house party where parents wouldn't be home. She never quite felt comfortable though, and was happy to do her own thing and be herself, even if it meant everyone else would see her as boring or weird.
When Diana was in her school years, both parents had moved on from the university where they'd met; Gregory was now on faculty at Harvard, and Katherine had opened a private practice. As such, Diana was raised around science, and even though she excelled in most of her school studies, there was never a question that she was going to follow in her parents' footsteps. At the time, Diana never felt like she was being pushed into it, though; rather, she was encouraged to take her time and decide what she wanted to do with her life. It was just that this was all she knew. Sure, there was the brief love affair with political science her junior year of high school when she decided to run for Student Council, but....eh. It just lacked the fun of science. The only fight was what aspect of science she was going to go into. Her parents wanted her to go into medicine, like they had, but she didn't want to be a shadow of them. Besides, her interpersonal skills were lacking at best, and she knew she couldn't have the proper type of compassion to be a good doctor. So she decided to go the research route instead; her parents were surprised, but also wanted to support her decision to be happy.
And sure, college came around, and of course Diana went to Harvard. (She had applied to Columbia early decision, much to her dad's chagrin; she was deferred and eventually accepted, but in that time, her parents had already secured her spot at Harvard with a deposit). In addition to being an extremely prestigious university, there's also a degree of oligarchy, and Diana is sure being a faculty member's daughter certainly helped her get in. (The fact that she graduated third in her high school class didn't hurt, either.) However, she had a huge shock the first semester of her studies when she failed her cell biology test in Bio 101. Never mind that the highest grade in the class was a 70, and her 42 plopped her squarely in the median. The grade was enough to drive her to tears, and she immediately tried to swear off a social life. Her roommate refused to let her though, so her life turned into enough socializing to keep her roommate off her back, while simultaneously developing a dependence on caffeinated drinks (mainly Monster, though she has since graduated to black coffee) and cigarettes to allow her to stay awake enough to get all her studying in.
All in all, it was a very stressful four years of undergraduate work, but Diana got through it with a BA in Biomedical Engineering, with a few courses in genetics for good measure, and a grant secured at UPenn for her PhD work in bioengineering with a subspecialty in Bioengineered Therapeutics. (Her parents encouraged the BA as opposed to the BS because it was more oriented towards the possibility of medical school, and she still hadn't quite taken it off the table for herself yet.) She made it through her first three years without much of a hitch (barring, of course, the insane amounts of studying), and spent the following three on her dissertation (when she wasn't being tortured by TAing Freshmen, of course); she is working on applications of nonviral targeted drug delivery therapies...and sure, she could probably use her parents' connections to get her a job without all the hard work, but that just feels like cheating to her. Rather, she tends to joke that she's like a Hobbit - she just likes to be left in her little hobbit hole, do her work, eat, and drink.
However, she also knows that in order to be successful in life, she needs to have interpersonal relationships, and so she's started to lighten up a little. She'll go to a bar, have a couple of drinks, have a conversation, and maybe get a phone number for a date. It never went anywhere before, though, because Diana sets impossibly high standards for not only herself but everyone around her, and she's always dissatisfied. It's a combination of that and the fact that anyone she tends to run into at a bar is more interested in her for her looks, and any time she tries to bring up intellectual pursuits people end up tuning her out, and she's just not that interested in making connections with people who aren't interested in her on a level other than that of her looks. (She figures this is also why at some level she doesn't bother to look pretty most days.) She's aware that this is a psychological issue, and has started to work on it, just a little, mainly through the help of her new and unexpected relationship.
Diana moved out of the UPenn graduate dorm after passing her quals, and she split the bills with her parents for a one-bedroom apartment near Washington Square, right in the heart of the city, at least for a while. While she was excited to be on her own, she was also worried about the loss of the social life she'd tried to maintain (at least a little). Help came in the form of two of her close friends working a mile down the road from her apartment, and through them, her (now ex-)boyfriend. Dating Mick was not something she had planned on doing - she wanted to finish her PhD work before worrying about a relationship - but she learned a healthier work-life balance because of it, and how to cohabitate with someone that isn't just a roommate, and even though they're still not together, Diana learned a lot of important lessons about herself from those two-plus years...mainly, that she didn't absolutely need to be with her first love forever. It was a good lesson to learn.
LIKES: coffee. her hair. running.
DISLIKES: glasses. being blind. people who refuse to see beyond her looks.
As she gets older, Diana has started to loosen up a little bit. At first, being in college and the first few years of grad school were extremely overwhelming and she pretty much shut herself off from socializing; rather, she focused on making the grades to ensure she'd be successful. Now that she's moved on to her dissertation, she has started to spend a little more time outside of the lab, though she's still not sure she's got the 'being social' thing down. Despite that, she tries to have a kind word for everyone, and finds it very hard not to try to make a good situation out of a bad one; the only problem is she's not very good at conveying herself sometimes, so it often ends with her saying something stupid. Her excuse is that she's not a "word person". This "not being a word person" thing also translates to her overusage of the word "like" in everyday speech, which makes her come across as kind of an airhead at first. Once she opens up a little bit and the conversation gets deeper, though, she tends to get better at conveying her thoughts.
Overall, Diana doesn't like to ruffle feathers. She gets very overemotional in situations she feels out of control, and is well-known to be a crier. Confrontations intimidate her, and she'd rather sit back and let anyone else take the lead. She doesn't consider that shyness so much as she just...doesn't want to do it. She'd call it more apathy than anything else, but it's really because she is that shy, and constantly afraid of messing up. She's worked too hard to make herself play the part of the put-together twenty-something student that she doesn't want to chance ruining that. Sure, that may have contributed to the fact that she's lacking in social skills, but she figures she'll have time for all that later when she graduates and gets a real career.
Diana also has some serious self-esteem issues, and she's the first to admit it - at least through a thinly-veiled joke. She doesn't think she's much good at anything other than science (and even her PhD work is starting to make her question that), and is constantly comparing herself to her friends and family. She tries to just pass it all off with self-deprecating humor ("But I'm boring" is a favorite in her collection), but it bothers her a lot more than she's ever willing to admit. She tries to just smile through it though, because it isn't like she has anything to fall back onto, and she already cries enough as it is at stupid things. A breakdown because she doesn't think she's good enough is the last thing she needs at this point in her life. She's recently started making time in her week to see a therapist, and she thinks that's starting to help her as well.
Having started to recently branch out socially, Diana is terrified that all this interaction will cause her to delay her progress in her PhD program and she will either take far too long to do it or not be able to defend her dissertation when the time comes though. Still, despite these worries, she has a social circle which is dead-set on making her get out more, and while simultaneously being terrified, she's found she's actually enjoying herself, so it's a plus.
Has a gluten allergy which she developed her sophomore year of high school. Between that and Mick's vegetarian diet, they sometimes end up eating separate meals.
Formally diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder in November of 2015. She attends therapy fairly regularly but does not take her medication as she should, since it makes her feel like her body's rebelled against her. She can't help but admit she does feel better on it, though.
Her smoking is an ongoing battle; She quit for nearly a year, then started up again, quit, and has been smoking intermittently through her dissertation defense. She'll try to quit for real where she doesn't go back...someday.
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