A Little Advice

Summer is rapidly coming to an end.  Disturbingly quickly, actually.  The end of summer means starting back to classes and teaching, and also mean brand new grad students ready to jump right in.  Right?  Right.

Some time ago, I stumbled across a call for submissions for the zomg grad skool carnival!!! offering advice to the newbies.  I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit, and a conversation I had this evening brought several of my thoughts to the forefront again.  So, in list form:

1. Don’t forget who you are.  Sounds cheesy, right?  Oh, but I mean it.  There are reasons you decided to go to grad school and things you like to do with your time.   One thing I’ve learned in the past 2 years at PhDland has been to keep doing those things, and to keep in mind the reasons I’m here.  I wish I’d known that a few years ago in MAville, it would have made for a more pleasant experience.

2. Take care of yourself – mentally and physically.  Part of that comes from continuing to do the things you love, whether it’s reading, knitting, watching 80s horror movies, whatever.  I’ve learned that taking a break in the middle of a long day of studying helps me accomplish more, not less.  Sometimes we’re much more productive when our minds are clear and not overwhelmed by our to-do lists.  And really.  One can only read about enzyme kinetics for so many hours in a day, I promise.  For me, the mental health break is often also the physical health break – a little time for exercise.  I’m not suggesting that you train for an ultramarathon or spend hours a day in the gym, do whatever it is you enjoy.  If you’re overwhelmed and can’t even think about taking more than a 10 minute break that’s fine, but take it.  Trust me.

Just as importantly, sleep!  A rested mind is a clear, alert mind, and a rested immune system is a functioning immune system.  And at the risk of channeling mom, “Eat your vegetables, dear”

3. Get out of your department.  Make friends you won’t be staring at every hour of every day.  If your program is anything like mine, you’ll spend a lot of time with your cohort.  You’ll all be in the same classes, attend the same seminars, have weekly lab meetings (often several), and work side-by-side on a daily basis.  You’ll probably even like some of them!  But get involved in some other activities and make some other friends – if nothing else, if gives you someone outside the department to complain to when your office mate drives you up the wall.

4. Go outside!  Even if it’s just for 10 minutes.  Hot, cold, effing frigid, windy, raining, snowing….get out anyway.  Breathe some fresh air, it’s good for you.

5.  Make lists on paper.  It’s so much more satisfying to cross things off with vigor.  Seriously.

6. Always carry your calendar.  Always.

7. Find out where you work the best.  It might not be the same place it was during undergrad.  Back then I worked really well in the union…no idea where that ever came from.  Libraries don’t work at all for me.  Coffee shops do…but only specific ones.  Explore, and (unless required by your department), don’t feel like you have to be in your office/cube all the time.

8.  Help other grad students out – but don’t be afraid to say no.  Helping other students collect data is a great thing.  You can learn new techniques, see how they interact with subjects (if you do human subjects research), learn how people work and what your style is, and you might even get some publications out of the deal. Not to mention all the good grad student karma (not to be underestimated!).  But remember that everyone has a limit and you shouldn’t feel obligated to say yes to every single request.  A burned out grad student isn’t much help to anyone.

9. If you have a significant other/spouse/family, carve out time for them, no matter how busy you may be.  This has been absolutely vital to my relationship.  Some weeks are crazy and all I can manage is a 10 minute chat in bed with The Boy before we both crash.  Lately, I’ve been able to work and study until he gets home from work (usually around 10:30 PM) and then I can shut the computer, put away my books, and spend time with him.  We both know the crazy days will be back so we’re enjoying this slightly-slower time while we have it – you should too.  Communication has been key and we’ve learned that if either of us feels overwhelmed, we need to talk about it before everything comes to a head.  It’s taken two years, but we’re getting into a groove.

10.  Remember who you are and why you’re doing this.  And yes, I realize I repeated this one.  It’s so, so important and covers so many of my other points. Grad school is hard and there will be times you don’t want to do it any more.  Take a short break, do something you love, and remind yourself why you’re here.  Then get back to work.

How Not to Get Anything Done

1. Get yourself an old-lady disease that requires you to wake up 2x/night to take anti-virals.  This will ensure that you never actually get a good night’s sleep.

2. When the alarm goes off at your actual planned waking time, tell yourself “just 10 more minutes” for the next hour

3. Stumble out of bed and waddle to the kitchen, cursing your running and tight achilles all the way, and realize you’re out of coffee.

4. Beg The Boy to drive you to the grocery store to get coffee because you just can’t face the day without it…let alone driving yourself to said store to get it.  And you could walk to the convenience store up the street for it, but then you’d wind up buying a donut too and no one wants that.

5. Wander around the grocery store wanting to buy something for breakfast and not knowing which aisle the coffee is in (WHY was it not signed??)

6. Go back home, realize the tomato plants look very wilty and water them, but not before going inside to start the coffee.

7. Catch a glimpse of the washing machine on your way outside, remember you need to do laundry.  Take your time with this one.

8. Pour coffee, pick up muffin you chose for breakfast (is this somehow better than the donut?) and sit down at your desk.

9. Email, facebook, running forum, etc.

10.  Start lit reviewing.  Get nowhere.  Repeat x like 4 hours.

11. Drive across town to meet running friend, run 4 miles.  See other running friend in parking lot, chat for a while.

12. Drive all the way to the other side of town, lift weights.  Realize you misjudged how long all this would take by, oh, an hour, and sit in the athletic club watching TV while waiting for yoga class.

13. Go to an hour long yoga class

14. Drive back home, arrive famished.  Take the dog out, return, stare at the refrigerator, decide on dinner, call mom to chat while preparing dinner.  Finish preparing, put dinner on a plate, head to home office.

15. Eat dinner while checking email, facebook, and running forum.

16. Write blog post.

17.  Finally resolve to actually get something done….if only for the reward of watching one hour of trashy TV before bed.

Then get up and do it all again tomorrow….

Relief

I just finished an project that’s been hanging over my head since December.   One incomplete course finished…one to go.

WooHoo!

Fury Fading to Frustration

He's mad, and so am I

I’ve had some, err, disagreements with the financial aid office since arriving here.  Frankly, I think it’s pretty awful that they can award someone financial aid and then a couple months later bill them for the exact same amount, without any letter, warning, or explanation that the aid is being, essentially, taken back.  This has now happened to me twice.

Yes, I realize perhaps I should have learned the first time.  But my financial situation has changed in such a way that I thought I would in fact be eligible.  And, I adjusted the amount I accepted to be the bare minimum of what I needed in some attempt at being sure it wouldn’t be rescinded.

Well that didn’t work.  Today I received a bill charging me the exact amount of my summer loan, plus a deferred payment plan fee. (Really, FA?  Really?  Another $10 fee when you hadn’t even told me I owed anything at all?)  A Saturday, of course, so my only option is to stew until Monday.  Perhaps they did that on purpose so I wouldn’t storm into the office in all my fury the second I received the bill.  The fury has now passed and an hour later I’m really just frustrated.  How is it ok that they don’t even send a letter or explanation?

There is hope, though.  Ten minutes ago I realized that I received some research funding for the summer that went through my student account – financial aid can’t differentiate that from a fellowship for personal support.  Since it’s research support it shouldn’t count against my FA budget.  So, my “friend” W at the FA office will be having a visit from me on Monday, with the letter that states that the money in question is research support and documentation from the grad school website saying that research support shouldn’t count against the FA budget.

Fingers crossed.

Flood Gates: Open

It seems once I start blogging I can’t stop.  It’s Saturday morning.  The (second) post I wrote yesterday is scheduled to be posted in just under 2 hours and I’ll be scheduling this one for tomorrow.  Is that like time travel?

This morning, I’m thinking about my work load and relating that to years past. It’s a topic I’ve thought about a lot lately as I realize that the amount of work that made me cower in a corner during undergrad is a refreshing break now.  Friday night, a friend called as I was driving home from the gym (yes, I went to the gym!)  We chatted as I drove home, with a brief stop at Chipotle, and continued for quite some time after I arrived home, as I gazed longingly at my dinner.  Finally, at 10:30, I said I needed to hang up, eat my dinner, and get back to work.

That’s right, get back to work at 10:30 PM.

I commented that I’m sick of having to work all the time (I mean really) and my friend said “Welcome to the Real World, where we work.”

Umm.  Friend, I love you.  Really I do.  But…what?

I replied “Oh, I’ve been in the real world.  Where  I worked 8-5 and when I was home, I was home and not working.”

“Oh yeah.” says my friend.

So today, now that I’ve done my morning run and eaten my post-long-run breakfast burrito, it’s time to buckle down and do some more work.  I go back and forth daily between feeling like this is a manageable amount of work to feeling like I want to just throw it all out the window (quite literally) and quit.  But to sit here and look at the pile of papers – the ones I printed yesterday on the left of my desk and the ones from another day on the right – and think about synthesizing all of those into a review of the literature on Very Important Measurement Piece of Dissertation is shocking to me.  I bet I didn’t read this many actual peer-reviewed papers in all of undergrad.  Of course, my courses weren’t designed that way, but you get the idea.  Now I read half of them in a day, take a few notes, jot down a quick outline and a week later – there’s a whole chunk of the Fit Academic Dissertation Lit Review.

I think we should get to go all “Freaky Friday” with our undergrad selves, so that our grad-school selves can have a refreshing break and our undergrad selves can find out just how good we had it.  Sound good?  Let’s do it.

Oh Jamie Lee. If only you knew!

But first I have reading and writing to do (no ‘rithmitic today, though).

(Can I mention that right now, after having run 8 miles, making and eating breakfast, and putzing around online, I’m trying not to get annoyed that The Boy is still sleeping?)

An Apology to Forests Everywhere

Bad weather really works wonders for my productivity.  Friday afternoon I managed to get myself under control and planted at my desk in my (home) office for several hours of lit-searching and paper-reading.  I’m working on my dissertation proposal, you see.  And after those couple hours, I feel the need to apologize to forests the world over.

Less than an hour worth of printing. I'm sorry, trees. (Highlighter cap provided for reference)

I can’t even bring myself to take a photo of those papers I printed plus the others I read/reviewed that I had printed on some other occasion.  It’s ridiculous!  Shameful!  And no wonder I spend so much cash on printer cartridges.  Maybe one day I’ll stack it all up.  Between classes and research it would be impressive, I assure  you.  Except honestly, the size of the stack might make me cry.

Am I the only one that just can’t read scientific papers online?  I can read news articles, emails, blog posts, whatever else just fine, but I can’t make myself read these things on the computer.  I even have a sweet new set up at home with a 20″ monitor allowing me to work without squinting at my 13″ Macbook screen, but even on that I just can’t do it.  Part of the problem is highlighting and taking notes – I like to scribble all over papers when I read them.  It helps me retain the information and it’s helpful when I go back to the paper.  Is there a way I can do this on the computer?  If there is, someone please tell me!  I’m willing to change!  I’ll figure out the data storage issue – maybe a flash drive dedicated to papers – that’s fine, I can work it out.  I just can’t seem to manage without my highlighter.

This can’t be a problem for everyone.  In fact,  I know it isn’t.  I watch current undergrads save everything on their laptops and take notes in PowerPoint during class (and yes, I realize a large number of them are really playing games, facebooking, or heaven knows what else).  Other grad students in my classes who graduated from college just a few years after me do this as well, and they don’t print out the countless papers we read for class, either.  Was there a generation gap that came along right after me?

There was, I suppose.  I started college in the Fall of 1999 and I don’t think a single one of my professors lectured with PowerPoint – it wasn’t that long ago, people.  If I remember correctly, my first professor to lecture with PowerPoint was my Human Physiology professor in the Spring of 2001.  Printing out those slides was amazing, especially for a class with so many figures.  She also taught my anatomy class and again, incredible.  The first class I had that used Angel or Blackboard to upload notes before class…another physiology class maybe?  That one was in 2002, I believe.  It was definitely done quite a bit in my Masters program, which was 2003-2005.  I used it when I taught during and after my Masters and I think this is where the switch came in – I never printed things out and brought copies to class for my students.  Not of anything – syllabus included.  Each semester I would make sure the syllabus was up on Blackboard a few days before class started and then I would send an email to my students, welcoming them to the course, alerting them to the Blackboard site, and asking that they please view and print the syllabus to bring along to the first class.  It worked like a charm, saved paper (for me, anyway), and I didn’t have to spend hours making photocopies.

As much as I don’t like to admit the age gap, those students that I sent everything two via Blackboard are the Masters students in my classes who never print anything (well, not the exact students, but the same age).  So in truth I’m not surprised that undergrads don’t print anything either and maybe we’re on track to make a dent in the ridiculous amount of paper we use per year.

Me, though?  Until I figure out a way to highlight and take notes on the computer…and get new glasses…I’m afraid I’m hopeless.

Another Semester Down

Last week marked the end of the Spring 2010 semester and let me tell you, it could not come early enough.  But it is here – hooray!  Of course that doesn’t mean that I’m anywhere near being done with work, but even with a long to-do list, deadlines, and two weeks of data collection beginning tomorrow, I feel like a weight has just been lifted off my shoulders.

To celebrate, I took three days (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) entirely off work.  Thursday I ran errands and did some cleaning at the house, Friday I traveled to another city with friends, and Saturday I ran my longest race ever.  I have a mysterious foot injury that made the race significantly less pleasant than I had expected based on my training, but it was great to get away for a few days.  Today I’m back home and back to the grindstone, but I feel refreshed.

And with that, it’s time to jump into summer.  Here’s what it looks like:

Academic Goals:

• Complete incomplete class #1 and incomplete class #2 (a project for each, left over from when I was on chemo)
• Get hospital IRB approval (and renew at university) and get started on data collection!
• <gloomy music> study for comps <\gloomy music>
• Submit SW manuscript #1
• Submit SW manuscript #2
• Submit PF manuscript #1
• Submit KS manuscript #1 (goodness that’s a lot of writing)

Fitness Goals:

• Rest and/or rehab the left foot
• Attend Monday exercise class weekly
• Attend Yoga at least once weekly, preferably twice
• Run a minimum of 25 miles per week
• July half marathon
• September half marathon (sticking this in as a summer goal since training will be in summer!)
• 5k PR (this might not be compatible with the other running goals, we’ll see)

Ambitious lists, now that I have them written down.  Time to get started!

To-Dos

On again, off again.  That seems to be the trend with this blog.  I’ll try to do better, though I’m not sure anyone is reading this anyway!

The semester is drawing to a close and of course that means my schedule is insane.  There are papers to be written (for class and for research), exams to be taken, and plans to tie-up.  I’m so looking forward to summer, even knowing that I’ll be spending the entire thing studying for comprehensive exams.  Hopefully I’ll also be living up to my “fit academic” tagline and getting in a lot of exercise, really capitalizing on the wonderful Northern weather I didn’t get to enjoy last year.

First, The Boy and I must plan a trip down South to attend a wedding.  Or, according to the wedding website, to participate in it.  We’re trying to plan exactly how we’re going to do this, on a holiday weekend, quite far from home, and allow me time to get to a conference the following week without spending an arm and a leg.  We also want to spend time with some friends we have seen very little of since moving to the GWN (Great White North).  So, The Boy keeps coming to me with these questions.  Maybe we should camp.  Maybe we should stay in a hotel.  My mom can’t watch the dog, can your friend?  Maybe we can take the dog.  But if we take the dog, what do we do with her during the wedding?  We should get a hotel room.  No, maybe we can board the dog.  We’ll camp, and board the dog.  But what if it storms when we’re down there?  And it’s a holiday weekend, maybe the campsites are all booked.  We should check into whether any reservations are still avaiable.

Of course, you understand, “we” means “me.”  As is ME, not him.  I can’t seem to explain that I.DO.NOT.HAVE.TIME. without causing big drama.  Somehow it always falls to me to organize it all, with our rental car, our lodging, our friends.  I don’t want to do it.  For once, I want him to do it.  My suggestion that he email our friends about all of this went over like a ton of bricks, so that seems unlikely.

There we go, another thing for the to-do list.

That Will NEVER Happen to Me

Somehow, this evening, I got to thinking about things I always thought would never happen to me.  Why I thought I was immune to these things I’ll never know.  Maybe it’s just the teenage or 20-something way.

First there’s the obvious one: breast cancer at 28.  Breast cancer at all, really.  Or even cancer at all.  But it happened, and it happened at 28.  No need to rehash that again, I just did it yesterday.

Other things:

The freshman 15

Ok, so it wasn’t 15 and it wasn’t (all) freshman.  You see, freshman year I was an athlete.  I put on some weight, couldn’t tell you how much.  But some of it was muscle – never lifted so much in my life – and some of it was fat.  You’re telling me 2 egg salad sandwiches for lunch on a daily basis isn’t healthy?  Who knew?  Even so, over the course of College: The Bachelor(of science) Years got me a good 30 lb weight gain.

So I guess then that’s true.  I didn’t get the freshman 15.  I got the college 30.  W00t!

Thankfully I also managed to lose it…but not til 2007, 4 years after graduating from college.

The chemotherapy 10 (+)

Sticking with the weight gain theme.  Before I started chemotherapy I read so many places that women tend to gain weight during chemotherapy for breast cancer.  Not just gain weight, but gain fat and lose muscle mass.  Not good!  But not me, right?  I’m an athlete.  I mean forget that getting cancer at all spun that theory right upside down, whatever.  I’m an athlete, I exercise, I’ll maintain my weight and my muscle mass just fine, thank you.

Yeah.  Ok.  Want to know what my upper arms look like right now?

Bingo wings!

Ok, so it isn’t that bad, but they’re flabby!  Flabby, I tell you.  Not like they were post-college-30 (thankfully I did lose that) but flabby all the same.

After my first adriamycin/cytoxan infusion I lost 4 pounds.  Down to 131 lbs (at 5’10″) I told myself that I’d be happy to stay between 130 and 140.  Well I did it – barely.

Grey hair

Yep, got that.  My mom started going grey in her late 20′s.  That will never happen to me! I thought.  Once again, wrong.  I swear to you, my post-chemo salt and pepper hair is much saltier than my pre-chemo hair.  And that leads me to the other thing…

Coloring my hair!

Yes, ladies and gents.  I always said that when my hair did go grey I would gracefully accept it and never try to hide it, never try to be anyone but myself.  Well you know what I decided?  I can be myself with red hair just as well as I can with salt and pepper hair.  So…as soon as I have enough to make it worth the $10…

Wow.  You know what’s really sad? I just went to the Loreal website to find a picture of the hair color I’ve used in the past and found out they’re discontinuing it!  Noooo!  Now I’ll have to find a new one…sigh…

Anyway, do you know what I’ve found through all of these things that would never happen to me?  I’m still me.  And these things are all manageable, though some more easily than others (hello box of hair color!).

Today I went to a new (to me) exercise class.  The social worker at my cancer center told me about it back in June or July, when I was recovering from surgery and hadn’t yet started chemo.  At the time I decided not to go.  The athlete in me was “better” than that class.  After all – the women were all likely to be (much) older than me, less fit than me, and in different places in life.  All of that is true.  Now, however, I’m ashamed to have ever let those thoughts tell me that it wasn’t the right class for me.  I attended a healthy lifestyles education session on Saturday morning, and the woman who leads this exercise program came and gave a short talk.  She was absolutely hilarious and made it sound like such a great time, so I decided I’d try it this week.  So worth it.  The ladies there were so welcoming to me, though I did have one awkward moment when one woman asked why I was there.  (Um…because I had cancer?)  Everyone laughed through the whole class and I was able to modify the exercises to make them a little bit more difficult.  I left the class feeling energized and in a great mood – perfect.

So in all of these things that would never happen to me…maybe there’s some good to be found.