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

Over time, dear blogorinos, I have developed a system for dealing with high-stakes emails, which in the world of M.Sc. really means supervisor feedback. It basically goes like this:

1. Begin by expecting the worst.
2. Once the feedback finally reaches my inbox, develop stomach pit.
3. Read quickly, much like ripping off a bandaid.
4. Abandon email, slowly and quietly process, and go back within a day to re-read and thoroughly consider.

Normally this works swimmingly. It allows me to “get over” the fact that yes, there is feedback in the email (why isn’t my work just perfect already!?), then move on to appreciate it and develop an action plan.

This week, the plan didn’t go quite as swimmingly as usual. On the Thursday before Easter Long Weekend, I had a (self-imposed) deadline to tie up all the loose ends on what I had recently been working on and send my supervisor all of it before I went on a glorious weekend trip (which left me very refreshed, I’ll have you know!). I did just that – sent her 4 files with a detailed list of all the things I had done since I sent her a file one month before this.

Yesterday – one week later – I received a response. Here is what I got out of my “quick read”/item # 3 of my high-stakes email response system. Keep in mind I’m still under the influence of items 1 & 2.

Hey Rebecca

I’ve gone through all your files. You did a lot of work, but you still have tons more to do, sucker! It will take you forever.

I edited everything. In the 2nd Chapter, the one I didn’t know you were working on, there are multiple times I don’t understand what you are talking about. Good job. This needs work. That needs work. This and that need work.

You may recall I said I wanted frequent updates during my sabbatical. Now I never want to hear from you again until your whole thesis is written! Ha!

You may also recall you wrote a detailed list outlining all of your progress and choices. Well, I don’t! I didn’t read that list, which I will now prove to you with a number of statements pointing out, with incredulity, the things that are already carefully explained in my inbox! O, if only I were to read it!

Sincerely,

Jailkeeper

Before we proceed – let me emphasize again where I was in the mental realm. Not only did I want her to edit a large chunk of my thesis (well, the largest chunk I’ve produced yet), some of which she didn’t quite know was coming, I had requested to Skype and discuss defence dates. It was most definitely a “high stakes email” – one that would help me figure out when I can finish my degree. So I most definitely had a pit in my stomach before reading it, and I most definitely read it pessimistically. My “paraphrasing” above is in no way representative of how my supervisor writes or would speak to another individual – not even close – let me remind you I adore her. Simply, her email was disappointing as it did not touch on Skyping nor determining a freedom date and rather pithily pointed out all the weaker aspects (amongst a sea of 1000s of words of new material) which I believe I already explained/described my plan to tackle them. My pessimistic attitude took her response and, during item #4 of my high-stakes email response system, convinced me that what I had read in her response is what is written above. Ah, the mental health of a M.Sc.!

So that’s how it sat with me for half a day. I first read her email sitting in my comfys, just out of bed around 6:30AM, and unsurprisingly felt bummed out afterwards. Luckily and unluckily, I had to mark like crazy, so although I didn’t have time to dwell, it allowed me to avoid a subsequent re-reading of the email. Finally in the afternoon I got to it again, re-read it, and then I opened the edited files. This was something I neglected to do in the morning.

The feedback? There was barely any editing. It was totally manageable. The chapter she didn’t know I started working on was largely unedited. Given how thorough her editing always is, I am going to cut myself a break on this one and believe that this is a good sign, not a bad one. My response to this new development was basically polar opposite to my reaction of her email: I laughed.

Though her email still reads a little more pithily than usual, it is balanced by good support of my writing efforts. Could it be possible she doesn’t want to edit as frequently because she trusts my writing skills? Oh wait, hasn’t she told me I’m a good writer, multiple times? Could it be that there were only 2-3 sentences in my surprise chapter’s methods that confused her? Could it be she’s confused about some things because we did those experiments over 2 years ago and as a 2-month-in graduate student at the time, I didn’t quite have a handle on exactly what was happening? Hang on a second, didn’t I want her feedback on those points to begin with, to clarify what we did back then?

And so, I have learned the flaws of my system. Firstly, I should probably cheer up chum. I am well aware I need to work on pessimism and this experience was definitely a case in point. In addition, while it is nice to give myself time to process important developments, it really only works if I understand what has actually developed. Not just an email I’m dreading to read, but the actual feedback that will propel me into the future.

Sigh. It’s friday. It’s sunny. I’m going to a play tonight. I’ll get through this…eventually…sucker.

Today, Earth & Ocean Sciences Graduate Student Council hosted the first ever EOS Graduate Student Research Roundup from 2-4 PM in our main building’s lobby. As one of three Coordinators (the presidential role) for EOS Grad Council, I oversaw the planning of this event – I felt like it was my “baby”. This event was advertised for 3 weeks or so, and had a great response from student and faculty, who replied to the advertising emails with “Great Idea!”. It was a good start.

Yet here I sit, writing this blog before 4PM. I had 2 posters of my own on display and oversaw the event, so I would be there ’til the bitter end – and I was. What happened?

It is one of Grad Council’s goals to make connections with faculty and fellow students. As a Department, we are fairly segregated – the oceanographers in one building a 5-10 minute walk to the main Department building, geophysics in another, and so on. So you can go about your grad-studently life without having to connect with other groups – hence the reason we have this goal.

There’s an “urban legend” among some Grads that emphasize the disconnect:
Once upon a time in the early 2000’s, a graduate scholar was to give a scientific presentation for a the Department-wide seminar series but feared the wrath of faculty and their intelligent questions! And so the scholar decreed that no faculty were permitted to attend! And ever since, the decree has hung over the heads of faculty, who have not attended grad student initiatives ever since, and this way it will be forevermore!
While I believe that this event took place, I’m going to go ahead and quash the idea that there is some Disney-like evil charm preventing faculty going to events.

However, this evil charm may as well exist because we had low faculty attendance today. We had an excellent amount of grads at the beginning, we had some undergrads who wanted poster tips (and were very eager nice ladies if I do say so myself!), and we had a couple faculty smiling faces come by which was incredibly appreciated. But literally – just a couple. 2 or 3. Those who wrote “Great idea!” emails did not attend.

The lack of faculty became quite noticeable after the initial rush for free coffee and donuts. In response, even poster presenters began to leave the event to go do other things since faculty weren’t there. By 3PM there was a very small group of committed students waiting for the odd faculty to come see the event. By 3:30 or so the group gave up. Gave up and packed up.

I was disappointed in the low faculty numbers but the packing up was what really bummed me out. The low point was when a student even turned away a very enthusiastic professor who came in the 2nd hour on his own. He was really engaged and talking to a student (me) when others started packing up around us, I suppose because he was the only attendee at the time. When he turned around to talk to the next student about their research – whatever it may be – he was turned away!

I’m not intending to separate myself from this group, because I sat to write this before 4PM. I’m part of the problem. That’s the thing, we can’t truly be upset faculty didn’t come b/c we didn’t last the event either. What about faculty who came after 3:30PM? We’ll never know.

And what about the faculty who did? We would hope that the enthusiastic faculty members who came this time can encourage their colleagues to go next year. Except this one enthusiastic professor will most likely remember that he was gently told to leave. Now what kind of review do we expect from that?

Despite this narrative of disappointment, the grad student attendance was so satisfying, and the faculty that came were so pleased, that I believe this event will indeed become annual, as it was intended. Thus it is imperative we work on the model so that it will become better attended next year.

Lessons learned:
-The main thing is that I should give a voice to what I care about. Even if I’m on my own in my opinion. I could have made the choice to stay at the poster event to ensure it lasted until 4PM. When our faculty was “rejected” I should have said something like “well it’s not 4PM yet, who wants to tell _ about their research?” indicating that I would not participate in packing up.
-Clarify the commitment expected from participants – mainly that if you present your poster, you commit to be there until the (potentially bitter) end.
-Toy with the idea of shortening the event to 1 or 1.5 hours. If it is 1 hour, it should overlap for a 1/2 hour with 2 classes so that we can increase accessibility to teaching profs and students in classes.

On to the next, I suppose? How do you deal with group-effort disappointments?

I am currently working on my Teaching Philosophy for my Teaching (e-) Portfolio, which I am preparing for opportunities on the horizon – both during and after I graduate.

I have been working on my portfolio since the fall, and I have found it so rewarding. Yes, I intend to use it as a tool to obtain employment, but in my organizational work, drafting, and writing up some of the smaller sections of this document, I have identified the major pillars of what I believe in, and how this is reflected in my teaching. Coming to recognize the pillars of my teaching practice has basically written my Teaching Philosophy for me, short of my actually sitting down to write it out.

The main two pillars are Community and Connections.

I believe so strongly in forging a tight knit community. One of the major vehicles in doing so is volunteering, something I am also very passionate about. I just googled “volunteerism” and found this wonderful sentence:

Volunteering is the most fundamental act of citizenship and philanthropy in our society. -Volunteer Canada

That’s so beautifully said. One may not give impressive checks to an organization, but their time is just as, if not more, valuable. Spending time for a cause is a wonderful act of citizenship!

While Community is a word I use to illustrate what I value, Connections is a word I use to illustrate my primary goal as a teacher. If I foster a connection between students, between myself and a student, or between students and course content, I should feel like I’ve done well. This is how I aim to honour what I value in the classroom, as I envision a community as a beautiful web of connections.

Wow…thanks, blog, for facilitating a really easy Teaching Philosophy drafting session.

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!

I’m sitting at my desk, sipping my morning latte, reflecting on how I generally “do” at living.

I’ve realized that I’m an all or nothing person. If I feel good, I work harder, I’m excellent at planning and thinking ahead, I’m more motivated, I’m more active, I care more about my and others’ well-being. It’s really the most worthwhile positive feedback cycle to try to break into – but getting in there is the hardest part.

Just over two weeks ago, I sprained my ankle fairly well. It was a level 2 sprain on a scale of 1-3 (according to my physiotherapist), somewhere in-between healing in a matter of days and not being able to walk. This sprain came at a really, really irritating time as I had just signed up for my first ever 5K race the day before and am still “training” for it. Despite this, it ended up being a huge blessing as I’ve found myself in numerous situations when I thought “man, I wish I could run today” but hadn’t seen my doctor yet and was limping, so I didn’t. Until these moments, I didn’t quite know that I VALUED running! I’ve only started exercising again this past Sunday, and I’m glad I waited until I felt confident that I wouldn’t injure myself further. Actually, Sunday was one of the best runs I’ve had because I put absolutely no pressure on myself to “finish it”. I felt no hesitation to get outside as I knew that I had a free pass to stop after just 5 steps if I felt actual pain. I felt no pain, and completed the whole run. Yesterday I went on another run and while it went well, it was a lot harder to get myself out there b/c I felt that internal pressure to complete the whole run.

Anyway, I apparently enjoy exercise. Who knew. I, at least, did not know this for the last 25.5 years. Since I’ve been exercising again post-injury, I’ve felt so much more calm, more motivated (which my skyping date helped with tremendously), and I do something for my body – cardio or push ups or whatever’s on the schedule on my fridge – every day. Probably the best part is that I’m excited to go into hiding with books, papers, and my laptop and start writing. Academic reading is not something I’ve ever felt excited to do.

Back to the shadow I cast on this upbeat post – it is so hard to maintain this positive cycle. I have always fought with this, and it’s so easy to slip out of. As soon as I slack on one of the aspects, the whole thing seems to fall apart. Activity seems to have a slightly more influential piece in this puzzle, however.

I imagine it as a game of kerplunk – during which you dump a pile of marbles on top of a randomly stacked pile of sticks. Like Jenga, you pull out the sticks one by one, and if you pull out a stick that makes all the marbles fall through, you “lose”. All these things I “do” for my life and well-being are the sticks, but it seems that as soon as I pull just one stick out, it seems to cause a cascade in which I ultimately lose my marbles. Sad!

Does anybody else experience this? I assume a lot of people feel similarly, but I don’t think I’ve actually asked anybody this specific question before.

I obtained my undergraduate degree, a B.Sc. in Environmental Science, at the University of Guelph.

I love Guelph. I say “Guelph” meaning the University, mostly, but the city itself and it’s people are wonderful too. There are a lot of people with really big hearts in that city. Back when I lived in Guelph, I volunteered/worked for an organization called Guelph Environmental Leadership (GEL). A good portion of my job was spent with a portable GEL booth set up at public events or outside local stores. I met so many environmentally-conscious citizens – really thoughtful people who thought locally. A lot of my peers and the professors I met during my studies were equally as awesome.

Anyway, I was just researching some things on the internet and stumbled across this article, linked from the UoG webpage. I had to shake my head in a kind of motherly satisfaction: of course Guelph is the only city in its region with a student volunteer centre. Of course UoG is having a free one-day conference aimed to connect students with volunteer opportunities and inspire the general public to take positive social action. Of course this is something Guelph does, because positivity and outreach suit Guelph naturally.

I am so happy to have stumbled across this article. I have now discovered that one of my great true loves, Guelph, is intersected in a beautiful Venn-diagram-like way with one of my other great true loves, Volunteerism.

Ugh. Perfection!

Here is a link to the Student Volunteer Connections website, in case anyone out there is interested. I just signed up for their weekly newsletter. Inspiration does not have to be found locally.