How many times do I need to prove to myself that remaining active is pivotal to my general outlook!? Sigh!

The last few weeks, as mentioned in my eeyoreish previous post, has been void of activity. I justified this with the “not enough time” excuse, a very versatile excuse if I do say so myself, but a valid one at that for many of its applications. A couple of days leading up to my birthday (yesterday), I had the idea to really make it a good one by starting to run again, as I had been feeling like a goopy stick of butter as a result of nonactivity. Because I was CLEARLY taking the day off (no question) I would have the time to be active, and because my wonderful momma is visiting, I have more time even after I get back to work post-birthday, as she is graciously grocery shopping and cooking while she is here.

So I ran and I showered (brilliant combination), and had a nice little birthday. Today, I feel amazing. I feel like I can accomplish whatever I want, I feel pleasant in general, and most profoundly, I am telling myself “it’s okay” about the number one stressor that’s rolling around in my brain at the moment. You see, back at Christmastime I told my friends and family that I will not be returning to Ontario until my M.Sc. is submitted and done. This has been a goal that I have stuck to throughout the year, one I have been excited to keep as if my return to Ontario will be glorious, fraught with confetti, accolades, and celebrations galore…except my friends’ wedding in early August is really throwing a wrench in this declaration and subsequent daydreaming of an epic return. I have been very conflicted about going home pre-defense for a few reasons, mainly because A. I don’t want to go home for a week and risk losing my momentum and B. I said I wouldn’t. And this second reason, totally fucking arbitrary, is much more painful to think about!

I think because of my tiny run yesterday, I am feeling a lot better about this stressor. Who the heck cares if I’m not done when I visit home? If I weren’t within defense-time, I would absolutely go to the wedding. I want to go. It’s just this nagging feeling deep in my body that I failed at meeting this “goal”.

Every day I debate what to do and I usually switch my answer every other day. To be honest, because I am having trouble getting contact lenses as I haven’t had an optometrist appointment in over a year, and because my health card just expired yesterday, I will most likely be going home in August to attend the wedding and take care of these important chores/whathaveyous – or at least that is how I have been feeling in the last 36 hours. What I haven’t yet decided is whether I’m going to make it a 5 day trip and visit with almost no one (more likely and very rude) or make it 8 days and go hide out in my cottage for a productivity-inspiring change of scenery and still visit with almost no one (less likely and more rude). I think the more time I spend in Ontario, the more likely I am to treat it as a holiday and I don’t actually want that right now.  And the more time I stay in Ontario as a hermit, the more rude I am to all my friends and family I really want to see – it’s just this damn momentum I want to preserve! I think the solution is to book my ticket to Ontario, and wait to book my ticket back until I am I know how much I have accomplished and how much time I can afford to spend away, as there are textbooks and ancient desktop computers with necessary software that I cannot transport with me. And I think I shall book my ticket home tomorrow, so that I can end this endless debate.

All in all, I believe this stress has been assuaged by the world’s shortest run. I have learned once again the value of activity. I mean, I was a couch potato for probably 20 years or more, so I’ll give myself a few more years to hammer this lesson home, guilt-free. But it is insane how much difference this stuff makes.

Hi all,

Damn, I suck a blogging. Currently, I’m sitting in an internet-less café (How Dare It) and am typing this up in Word because the tingling I-should-blog feeling I’ve had for the past 3 days has finally turned into a full-blown mood, and a blogging mood should not be wasted. [note: posted 2 hrs later]

There have been so many times in the past 2 months that I’ve wanted to write a blog but it’s either a bad idea (I’m angry) or I have emotions that I don’t know how to describe in any way that isn’t completely emo, and there are enough youtube and tumblr accounts for that as it is. And so I have stayed away, even though I have had the best of intentions, and loved you very much just the same, blog!

So as I may or may not have made clear in the previous paragraph, the past couple of months have been quite … rollercoaster-y.

I have been VERY emotional. Some days I feel like I’m 4 feet away from the summit of completing this degree. Other days I feel like I’m at the bottom of a mountain I’m not equipped to climb. Other days I shift between these two feelings minute-by-minute. It is fucking exhausting.

My poor dear boyfriend has dealt with a lot of crying outbreaks – for example: I’m*sob* sorry*sob* I’m*sob* crying*sob* again*sob* but*sob* that*sob* commercial*sob* made*sob* me*sob* so*sob* sad*sob* – WHAT IF WE DIE TOMORROW*sooooooobbbb*
…you know, the completely irrational. He just went to visit home for his 2-month summer break (he’s a highschool teacher) and while I miss him, I feel like it’s probably better for his sanity and for my productivity. We’ve also done a 2-year long distance stint so we’ll pwn this short break anyway.
Unfortunately, I’ve started to put a lot of pressure on myself to *be normal again* after I finish my degree, so that the poor dude doesn’t have to deal with this emotional overdrive forever. This pressure is already stressing me out. Do I even know what my normalcy is? Does HE? We started dating only 5 months before I started this degree…it could be my defining feature. Screw.

So I cry and I work and I avoid work. Those are essentially my 3 states. I get lots of sleep, but not too much, I go through moods of eating really well and eating really unwell, I don’t work out much anymore but it’s because I feel like there is no time, not because I don’t want to exactly. I’ve been finding working off-campus to be most useful, I’ve made my morning home in a new (to me) coffee shop, and for 2 days I had a glorious time working in a library that is a 1-hour drive from Vancouver when I accompanied boyfriend to his town-of-work. I also almost-always have some sort of hobby on the go for sanity: in the past 2 months it’s basically been either knitting at night or subbing on a friend’s softball team. Sometimes I forgo the hobbies and work like a boss all day. Hobbying is admittedly more common when dinnertime rolls around.

This past month I had some interesting interactions with my supervisor. She’s given me lots of help with anything and everything I ask, but the tone of her emails is reminiscent of the one I “paraphrased” months ago. It doesn’t help, but I’ve been rather guns-a-blazing with her a bit recently so we’ll call it even.
On the flipside, despite enduring my blaze, she has graciously expressed willingness to work with me in the (near) future, post-degree. Whether or not she’s just being professional I can only wonder, but I appreciate her supporting my future endeavours either way.

So I guess that’s it for now. Over time, I have been given a couple very lovely complements that this blog is great at documenting “what being a grad student is like” and I even had a good friend say “I wish new grad students would read this”. While that is probably a little too generous a compliment, it did prompt me to try and take on the goal of really documenting what the hell this ride is like. Unfortunately the “mood” I’ve been in for the past 2 months has been poorly documented as it is usually comes hand-in-hand with lethargy.

I’ll try to do better, although I resolve to never blog angry. And I hope that sometime soon I might have good news to share….

-Rebecca

If I had to use one word to describe what I’ve been up to in the last couple weeks it would be DATA!!!!!!!!!!! I’ve been fixing up my data, I’ve been thinking about my data, I’ve been writing about my data, I’ve been confused about my data, I’ve been pleased with my data, I’ve been asking my supervisor about my data, I’ve basically been dating my data in a love-sick first-boyfriend kind of way. Not that I’d ask my supervisor about who I’m dating.

As per this post, I had set some goals for the end of March, particularly for March Break whilst I was home alone for the week. While I didn’t end up feeling as miserable during March Break as I predicted, I did indeed pump up my efforts, finished microscoping, and sent a draft of a chapter chunk to my supervisor. Huzzah! As an added bonus, her feedback didn’t say “burn it and start again”!

Last week I was lazier, in part because my boyfriend was back and my mom was about to visit, and in part because I lacked a thorough, motivating plan. Apparently, blogging in italics really solidified my commitment to microscoping. And so I declare this an accountability blog!

These last few days I’ve been trying to work on the discussion section without stats or my tables and figures and it is slow-going. I know all the tables and figures I will be making and have rough versions of them amongst my data sheets, but I haven’t made them in the professional-looking software yet. The only place I can do stats and make my figures is on an old computer in my office and I spend most of my time away from school at the moment (especially since my mom is currently visiting). Plus – what are stats? I need to do some serious reviewing.

So now I’m at a weird spot. I’ve decided to work backwards. I am not as far as I’d like to be in thesis-writing, but I feel like I may be able to catch up by starting the next chapter (without finishing the first). Earlier today I started fixing up my data for chapter 2. My logic is that I will be using many of my references for each section of my thesis (Intro, Ch1, Ch2, Conclusion) so why not write sentences for them all at the same time? Not the same sentences, but visit each reference only once (a girl can dream).

Along these lines, why not do all my stats and all my tables/figures for both chapters at once as well? If I go through the data this week as I refresh my statistical knowledge, I can soon create graphs and p values to no end (until the end)!

I don’t know if this will work. Either way, I will try doing Ch2 stuff for a little while to give Ch1 and I a much needed “time out”. As it turns out, getting hot and heavy right away has made Ch1 and I a little testy with one another recently. Plus I need to give myself some time to read up, which this does.

So this week I will be data-ing and reading. Next week I will be stats-ing and figure-ing. The following week I will be reading and writing as fast as I can. For Chs 1! and 2! and the Intro!

…Can she do it? Is it written in italics? Oh wait–

What better way to re-introduce myself after a month-long blogging hiatus then with this video.

I swear, I may listen to this song every day between now and when I defend. My office mate was singing this tune Friday and this morning…and while it was fun to sing to on Friday, it really resonates on a Monday Morning.

This week I am home alone, and so my goal is to make myself miserable with working hard. Thus, I have resolved I will make each day infinitely better by listening to this song each morning to pump myself up! I suspect however, that if I work as hard as I hope to, “miserable” will shortly transform into “awesomeness” as it normally does when I see the fruits of my labour take shape (or is it get juicy?).

Moving on…or rather, backwards. Since the last post, I feel that quite a bit has happened:

I was lucky enough to go to Whistler for a week with my dad, and despite your *holiday* alarm bells ringing, I will have you know that I used the opportunity to work very hard, cross-train for the 5K (“cross” because I wasn’t allowed to run – thus the rower, bike, and elliptical were my poisons) and snowshoe every couple days. The result of that week? My Teaching Portfolio – it’s alive! This is a project I began in the fall and resolved to have “finished” by the spring and ta da! Nothing beats the motivation of future prospects. I say “finished” as a portfolio is always a work-in-progress, so what I really mean is a version that is complete enough to be published online. If any of you readers want to take a look and provide comments or feedback (as a reply to this blog post) I would happily welcome it!

Also completed: the St. Patrick’s Day 5k! I can’t believe I did it. And yes – I did it! I ran the whole thing, minus the forced walking bottleneck about 5 minutes in, which conveniently coincided with when my physiotherapist told me to take a walking break. My time was 36:18 and I am very, very proud. Last Monday morning I went to my physiotherapist to treat my exhausted ankle. It was swollen and sore, and ended up getting taped for 4 days. It made me feel like a REAL athlete. I’m so athletic I get my muscles taped. Bitchin’!

I recommend the St. Patrick’s Day 5k to anyone who is interested in starting to run. It’s not very competitive and instead is focused on having a good time. There are indeed prizes for fastest times, but there are also costume contests, and an irish-themed party afterwards. We had irish stew, cupcakes, lucky charms cereal, and more. It was amazing how much food they provided, especially since this is one of the cheapest races to sign up for! We were also given Granville Island pint glasses with the race logo and year printed on one side. You can pay to fill it up and have a true St. Pats celebration if you choose. The tag line is “Come for the race, stay for the party” – and boy is this true – a group of strangers challenging themselves and then celebrating together (community, anyone? One of my favourite things).

I definitely want to keep going with the running since I’ve come so far, and have picked out my ideal next race. The only snag is that this race coincides with the time I plan to defend, but conveniently I can register up to 2 days in advance of the race! So I plan to train as if I have signed up, but if the race ends up adding stress rather than relieving it during a very important time, I simply will not go ahead with it.

So those are my two very exciting developments. I’ll admit, I’m glad I can disappear for a month and come back with accomplishments under my belt. I will not let another month go by until my next update, but hopefully I can keep this pattern of achievements going. I believe I will – just last week I actually started writing. I’ve been in the “writing phase” for a while as I put it, but that included making an extensive outline for my supervisor, analyzing samples and planning. Now I’m actually writing the darned thing.

Hopefully by the next time I post I will have a significant portion of 1 chapter done (as per usual I will no jinx myself by saying what exactly) and be finished on the microscope. Oh, to be finished microscoping! My neck and general sanity dream for this day!

Until then…dreams of massages and running and general tomfoolery. Have a good few days, all.

Ten days after my anxious last post, and I’m still feeling good. In fact, I think I’m feeling even better.

I feel this great because I’m still in the positive feedback cycle of awesomeness! I was even forced out of it for a few days – as I was skilled enough to re-sprain my ankle – and happily climbed back in my hamster wheel once my physiotherapist-determined healing time had passed.

Things I have learned in the last ten days:

-Don’t clean the shower from within the shower. You will re-injure your injuries.

-Working hard on weekends feels amazing; is worth it

-Working hard all the time feels even better

-The recumbent bike feels like a cop out work out.

Well, those are the hamster-wheel-related things I’ve learned. The middle two points refer to a major success that came together just this past weekend. Nearly two weeks ago now, I had a really motivating Skype date with my supervisor, after which I recovered from here. We decided during that meeting that I would create a shortish (~6 pages) thesis outline containing all the meat – i.e. my data results and discussion points for each of my chapters. At the time, I said something along the lines of ‘will have it done in a matter of days’, which wasn’t what happened exactly. One week passed and I had only started working on the Intro Chapter by that point, so I decided to determine a deadline.

Now, I give myself deadlines all the time but then I let time fly by and deal with feeling guilty after. This time, I decided to experiment by telling my supervisor that I was going to send her my outline by Sunday. Now that lit a fire under my butt. And it worked really well.

Today I feel great. I achieved this (albeit, second attempt) deadline and worked hard at it. I hadn’t worked quite so hard on a weekend for a while and it actually felt really good, when usually the thought of doing so leads to feeling overwhelmed. What’s better is that a sizeable chunk of the time I spent sitting in my wee office was devoted to my data/graphs – I actually furthered my analysis of some data. I wasn’t just passively writing it up. Scientific [good] times had by all!

Anyway, the purpose of this tale is to say: I tried something new, a little more ridged, and it worked. Well! Now I sit here and wait for her read through and response…and by sit here I mean continue to work hard so that I can continue this positive feedback cycle. I’ll let myself do some fun tasks for today as a reward, though. Teaching Dossier here I come!

Hey…so…

I’m suffering from an intense overload of grad student-ly emotions: stress, relief, shame, motivation, confidence, vulnerability, bitchin’-ness.

That’s right: I just Skyped with my supervisor. And now I’m losing my mind.

Well, that’s not quite accurate, though I am feeling post-conversation nervousness. And to compliment the cocktail of emotions listed above, lets add overwhelmed and avoidance-y, considering I have made my next move a blog post whilst I turn on “Say Yes to the Dress”. Seriously people, I need to unwind for 30 minutes.

To begin explaining/working through the emoti-cocktail, let me just say that I may have unique feelings about my supervisor: I feel that I have won the supervisor lottery. She’s been very supportive throughout various roadblocks I’ve encountered, can usually motivate me, and give me confidence. On top of that, I just love her! I actually consider her a friend, or as “friend”-ly as we can be given our professional relationship.

Despite my adoration for this woman, I can be rather terrified of her at times. After all, she is my supervisor and as dictated by the universal laws of graduate study, I feel totally inadequate on average. Today we had a skype date for the first time of the new year. It had been a while, and I felt like I had to say something impressive.

What occurred was a gentle tread into what I really wanted to talk about: graduation! [Please read the g-word as if it is sung by angels whilst heavenly light breaks through the Vancouver clouds]. Weee! I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, though the light is about the size of a pinprick. I have definitely enjoyed my time here and am grateful for all the challenges and opportunities it has brought me, but I am ready to finish this up and ask “what’s next?”.

Well, we did indeed tread into this topic and I was slightly disappointed by what I heard…a graduation date was suggested that was a few critical months beyond the time I dream of it happening. And because I think my meetings with her must [presumably] resemble confession, I brought it up. I not only brought it up, but I laid out my best laid plans, what I hope my next step to be.

Here’s what I heard in return: “………Rebecca, I KNEW you were going to do that. I KNEW it!” and then she proceeded to say lovely things which boosted my confidence and kiboshed the disappointment I felt just moments before. So apparently she is either the equivalent of my high school girlfriends that can predict my every move, or my aptitudes and interests indiscreetly scream at those who know me. I’ll take either.

Okay, I’m feeling better now. I needed to process the chain of events during this meeting, and this blog is such an excellent tool for doing so. Moreover, Say Yes to the Dress just ended and now it’s time to tackle my day on campus.

Thanks for reading a pretty candid look into my emoti-cocktailed MSc. journey.

There are a lot of things I think of as I say/write/type “pushing forward”. It stimulates reflection on the past, and visions of the (immediate) future.

I spent this past Wednesday at the Aquarium, volunteering for the school program I am involved with. Due  to a busy semester and a bit of re-prioritization (I gotta graduate sometime!) it was only my 3rd time doing the program in about 10-12 weeks of programming. All day I was very aware of the stark contrast between my experiences on Wednesday and this time last year. One year ago (1-2 months into this weekly volunteering job) I was terrified to take a small group of students and lead them on my own. Each week I would hope to team-teach or shadow someone because I just didn’t feel comfortable. On Wednesday I was team-teaching, and found it very challenging. It’s interesting how your attitude can completely change once experience or “expertliness” is added to the equation. Now that I feel comfortable teaching the program, it’s more challenging to share the dissemination of knowledge with a partner.

Could it be that I’m already an old curmudgeon at this program? If that’s true, I think my fellow volunteers are guilty of this as well. More likely, I felt uncomfortable because I’ve rarely been around this term or because we didn’t discuss our approach very much before jumping in. My approach was to let the newer volunteers do their thing and hold out on the urge to add or (on one or two occasions) correct. I found that sometimes, when I would chime in with a new idea or comment, I would meet some resistance from my partner. It was very interesting. I remember well being nervous of leading, and now it seems I wanted more talk time. At some point in the last year, I pushed through the comfort zone of fading into the background.

Beyond my volunteering experiences, “pushing forward” also makes me think of my recent teaching opportunity – the one in which I gave a 50-minute lecture to 200 undergraduates. I had discussed the possibility of teaching with one of the Instructors a month before, and we had decided to revisit the idea next semester. Lo and behold, an opportunity arose out of the blue, and I had only a week and a half to prepare (though really, what would I have done with more time?). I decided I simply had to dive in and just get ‘er done. It was scary, but it was time to take the next step. And I received such positive feedback as a reward.

Finally, I think of “pushing forward” through the next thesis hump which is to: start writing and continue?/finish up experimenting and analyzing. I’m currently frustrated with an important data set I feel like I can’t resolve without another huge push, and I want to start writing but get overwhelmed. I feel like in order to write more than I’ve got, I have to read, and I am afraid of reading.

So all in all, I this thesis data/writing push is what’s next/now on my agenda; hopefully I can draw from my previous push-throughs as inspiration. I’ll let you know how it goes….

The ISW Handbook for Participants (2006) describes 4 major qualities of effective teachers, one of which is:

Content expertise – having knowledge of the subject area, clear goals and objectives, effective selection and organization of course content, enthusiasm about the course.

I jumped for joy at this statement because the summarized title does not match the description of attributes whatsoever. “Having knowledge” of content does not deem one an expert – or does it? Because that’s much less intimidating to novicey ol’ me. The rest of the description has to do with “pedagogical logistics” (like it? I just made it up): effective use of learning objectives, curriculum design, and enthusiasm. Skills that have to do with the process of using content, not the content itself.

What’s neat is that the text says “over the years, many learners have been asked for their perceptions about the qualities of effective teachers they remember”. So I wonder: did the learners come up with broad qualities (i.e. “content expertise”) and the pedagogy specialists broke it down into attributes? Is that why there’s such a disparity?

I love this disparity! What great insight into how a “content expert” in one’s eyes is really just an individual with a great pedagogical toolkit in another’s.