As a first-year teacher, Matt Baker feels overwhelmed -- especially when his principal is less than supportive, and a graduate student is sexually assaulted by a labmate.

Author Kate Greathead sets off on a cross-country drive to escape her anxiety, and after years of studying worms, Tracy Chong begins to wonder if they might hold the key to alleviating hunger. 

When Sandi Marx develops cognitive symptoms of lupus, she worries she'll lose the aspects of her personality that she values most, and chemist Toria Stafford's untreated mental illness starts to overwhelm both her science and her personal life. 

Feeling isolated in her new job as a particle accelerator operator, Cindy Joe finds comfort in her unconventional pet, and Patrick Honner starts to doubt his lifelong love of math when grad school becomes a lonely experience.

Writer Matthew Dicks is startled to learn that his dog is in surgery -- and that he agreed to it the night before, and climatologist Simon Donner misses the ride to his field site in Madagascar, and must find his way there on his own.