Things I did for the first time this year:
-Visited the West Coast (Seattle and its surrounding areas for Intaglio's brother's wedding)
-Took Step 1
-Did a mini-rotation in the hospital
-Started graduate school
-Spent Christmas without my family here in Madison
-Settled into cohabitation
-This would be as good a space as any to mention the fact that Intaglio and I got engaged over Christmas
-Voted in a presidential election
Accomplishments that made me proud:
-Passed Step 1
-Ran a half-marathon
-Maintained a good GPA the first semester of grad school
-Taking better care of my physical health: Exercise, vitamins, flossing, skin cancer screenings...it's like I'm an adult or something.
Things I learned this year:
-Exercise does wonders for my mental health.
-So does RuPaul's Drag Race.
-Keeping a good lab notebook is both essential and not too taxing.
(I harp on the notebook a lot, but it's been a thorn in my side, as I've alluded to in the past. Even now, it's far from ideal. I'll think I've written down everything I possibly could, and then a week later I'll try to repeat the experiment and realize that, you know, I didn't write down how much LPS I added per well or something infuriating.)
-Reading for pleasure is both a delight and a necessity
-I am not a social butterfly, but I need to be around people. The friends I've made during the course of the MSTP have become more important to me than I could ever imagine.
-"Collect data today like your machine will break tomorrow."
Things I have learned, but am slow to act on:
-Sugar is not good for me. It causes horrible mood swings and depression the following day. Regardless of whether or not this is psychosomatic (and yes, it likely is), my life is simpler when it's removed or heavily restricted.
-It's very easy for me to get sucked into repetitive internet surfing. Checking facebook every four minutes, that sort of thing.
-One must do the thing that is frightening. I've been dragging my feet finding a preceptor for the shadowing program during my PhD years, because I'm afraid of my PI's response, time constraints, research constraints, etc. None of my reluctance changes the fact that I need to find one, and soon. I'm just making it harder on myself.
-Change is most effective in incremental bits. Write this paper for an hour a day! Exercise every morning! Take notes on M3/M4 stuff so you don't lose it all before you re-enter med school! One life coach, trying to motivate a woman to go to the gym, told her to put on her gym shoes every morning for a week. That was it. The next week, she exercised for five minutes after putting on the shoes. Change is much less aversive and much more sustainable when broken into small chunks, and yet I consistently try to dive in head-first.
Resolutions for 2012:
-Keep a gratitude journal (very Oprah-like, but I've found that it does tend to stabilize my mood)
-Eat one dessert a week. This will be the most challenging resolution, and the one I'm most likely to break. It goes against my last point about not diving in head-first, but as far as sugar is concerned, for me it's pretty much all or nothing.
-Lose 10 lbs, keep it off
-Keep the apartment tidy by not slipping into laziness: eg, washing dishes before the food dries on them, folding laundry right after it's done in the drier, disposing of junk mail immediately. Likewise, do homework <48 hours after it is assigned.
-Via the bit-by-bit approach, start writing every day.
-Figure out what my goals are. I don't really view resolutions as goals--they reflect my desire to stop falling short. In terms of longer-term goals that extend beyond "stop the self-sabotage"....I don't really have a clear picture yet. I'd like some goals.
Happy New Year's! Despite my somewhat melancholy-sounding introspection, it has been a great year, and I am hugely grateful for all that I got to experience and learn. Here's to a wonderful 2013!
Monday, December 31, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Week 52
One week left to 2012. I mope about research progressing slowly, so it takes me aback a bit to realize that it has been a pretty jam-packed year.
(Currently listening to the the Phantom of the Opera, the Original London Broadway Soundtrack, please. I used to listen to this 6-7 times a day from ages 8 to 11 or so. Not even joking. It is the surest track to nostalgic warm-fuzzies that I know, and plus, it's drowning out the god-awful 1930's holodex sim murder mystery starring the guy from Criminal Minds Intaglio is watching.)
(God, Michael Crawford is awesome. I don't care if he's in his 60's, having him in the movie instead of Gerard Butler would have redeemed the entire damn thing.)
Right now, I'm feeling a little stuck. Clutter-wise, weight-wise, health-wise, research-wise....well, actually, my PI decided that the last set of results was promising enough to advance. I've come to the conclusion that progression in research is 10% discovery and 90% executive PI decision. Note that I have no problem with this, so long as I am progressing!
It has been a strange couple of weeks. Sandy Hook shook me up a lot more than your average school shooting (awful to type, but true). And I realized that the uniqueness is due to the fact that in a half a year or so, should all forces smile upon us I'll be bound to Ingalio's gun-nutty family. There are a higher than average number of said nuts in Intaglio's family, the sort who, if pressed, would argue that yes, the second amendment is worth it. We need mental health screenings and more regulations, but yes, it is fundamental to our liberty.
Two points, and I'll keep them brief because I'm sick of screaming them impotently over the ether.
1) I agree that we need to beef up our mental health services. No argument. But I hate, hate, hate this being mentioned in the context of shootings. It drives a wedge between the attacker and ourselves. That poor soul, he was so troubled. He was crazy. He was an awful abberation.
No. He was not. In the right context, with the right opportunity, we could be him. Any one of us. The Standford Prison Experiment laid it out, pretty clearly. The real monsters, the ones that drive us to hurt and kill and hate and bloat up to obscene sizes on fat and sugar, are what got us here, the ones that made us a successful species. We are wired to eat. We are wired to fight and defend and kill. (I skimmed a study recently showing that our hands evolved to generate force effectively through punches.) The means to do so have never been so available, so when we inevitably slip, the ramifications are huge.
2) Fundamental to our liberty? Freedom from tyranny? Do you think the government is afraid of your pop-gun, little boy? Don't make me laugh. A standing army, nuclear weapons, state department labs, more than you or I will ever know. No. The only ones who fear your assault rifle are civilians.
Ugh. Anyway.
It's the last week of the year. In the name of starting fresh, I'm hoping to organize and de-clutter 1 or two problem spots every day until New Year's Eve, when I will ring in 2013 with a clean apartment, all debts paid off, and hopefully a similarly clear mental and physical state.
Monday: Pantry
Tuesday: Coat closet
Wednesday: Bedroom closet
Thursday: Under the bed
Friday: Clothes drawers
Saturday: Kitchen cabinets
Sunday: Shoe bench, bathroom
Monday: Dinner table (easiest for last)
Physically, ugh. Since the snowfall, I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that running outdoors is treacherous at best. I tried running on the treadmill at the gym, and after only 3.5 miles, my knee was causing excruciating pain, as it has when I've run on the treadmill at the past.
(Listening to Down Once More, staring Ramin Karimloo. Sorry, Ramin, but you're no M.C.)
Money has been tight this month, but I'm thinking a stationary bike would be a decent investment. Most of the good models are less than $200 on Amazon, and it might be enough to get me through the winter with no repetitive joint injuries.
Diet-wise, I'm still a mess, hovering 10 lbs above where I want to be. Free food remains my kryptonite, and there's an abundance of it this time of year.
Two successes I have to report: I've all but finished organizing my first lab notebook, and my pandemic/apocalypse/power outage kit is nearly complete.
Hopefully I'll have a little more insight on what I need to do to make 2013 a successful and enjoyable year for me and anyone who interacts with me by choice or necessity as the week goes by. On the whole, insight is probably my rarest and most prized commodity I'll do my best to scrounge some up.
(Gave up on M.C. knock-offs, listening to "Whistle" by Flo Rida. It has its place.)
(Currently listening to the the Phantom of the Opera, the Original London Broadway Soundtrack, please. I used to listen to this 6-7 times a day from ages 8 to 11 or so. Not even joking. It is the surest track to nostalgic warm-fuzzies that I know, and plus, it's drowning out the god-awful 1930's holodex sim murder mystery starring the guy from Criminal Minds Intaglio is watching.)
(God, Michael Crawford is awesome. I don't care if he's in his 60's, having him in the movie instead of Gerard Butler would have redeemed the entire damn thing.)
Right now, I'm feeling a little stuck. Clutter-wise, weight-wise, health-wise, research-wise....well, actually, my PI decided that the last set of results was promising enough to advance. I've come to the conclusion that progression in research is 10% discovery and 90% executive PI decision. Note that I have no problem with this, so long as I am progressing!
It has been a strange couple of weeks. Sandy Hook shook me up a lot more than your average school shooting (awful to type, but true). And I realized that the uniqueness is due to the fact that in a half a year or so, should all forces smile upon us I'll be bound to Ingalio's gun-nutty family. There are a higher than average number of said nuts in Intaglio's family, the sort who, if pressed, would argue that yes, the second amendment is worth it. We need mental health screenings and more regulations, but yes, it is fundamental to our liberty.
Two points, and I'll keep them brief because I'm sick of screaming them impotently over the ether.
1) I agree that we need to beef up our mental health services. No argument. But I hate, hate, hate this being mentioned in the context of shootings. It drives a wedge between the attacker and ourselves. That poor soul, he was so troubled. He was crazy. He was an awful abberation.
No. He was not. In the right context, with the right opportunity, we could be him. Any one of us. The Standford Prison Experiment laid it out, pretty clearly. The real monsters, the ones that drive us to hurt and kill and hate and bloat up to obscene sizes on fat and sugar, are what got us here, the ones that made us a successful species. We are wired to eat. We are wired to fight and defend and kill. (I skimmed a study recently showing that our hands evolved to generate force effectively through punches.) The means to do so have never been so available, so when we inevitably slip, the ramifications are huge.
2) Fundamental to our liberty? Freedom from tyranny? Do you think the government is afraid of your pop-gun, little boy? Don't make me laugh. A standing army, nuclear weapons, state department labs, more than you or I will ever know. No. The only ones who fear your assault rifle are civilians.
Ugh. Anyway.
It's the last week of the year. In the name of starting fresh, I'm hoping to organize and de-clutter 1 or two problem spots every day until New Year's Eve, when I will ring in 2013 with a clean apartment, all debts paid off, and hopefully a similarly clear mental and physical state.
Monday: Pantry
Tuesday: Coat closet
Wednesday: Bedroom closet
Thursday: Under the bed
Friday: Clothes drawers
Saturday: Kitchen cabinets
Sunday: Shoe bench, bathroom
Monday: Dinner table (easiest for last)
Physically, ugh. Since the snowfall, I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that running outdoors is treacherous at best. I tried running on the treadmill at the gym, and after only 3.5 miles, my knee was causing excruciating pain, as it has when I've run on the treadmill at the past.
(Listening to Down Once More, staring Ramin Karimloo. Sorry, Ramin, but you're no M.C.)
Money has been tight this month, but I'm thinking a stationary bike would be a decent investment. Most of the good models are less than $200 on Amazon, and it might be enough to get me through the winter with no repetitive joint injuries.
Diet-wise, I'm still a mess, hovering 10 lbs above where I want to be. Free food remains my kryptonite, and there's an abundance of it this time of year.
Two successes I have to report: I've all but finished organizing my first lab notebook, and my pandemic/apocalypse/power outage kit is nearly complete.
Hopefully I'll have a little more insight on what I need to do to make 2013 a successful and enjoyable year for me and anyone who interacts with me by choice or necessity as the week goes by. On the whole, insight is probably my rarest and most prized commodity I'll do my best to scrounge some up.
(Gave up on M.C. knock-offs, listening to "Whistle" by Flo Rida. It has its place.)
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Noted!
It is only upon writing a table of contents for your lab notebook that you can truly appreciate how much your lab notebook skills suck. Yeeeesh.
I have a fierce appreciation for a good lab notebook, the product of years of lab notebook incompetence. As a complete lab novice in undergrad, a well-meaning but distracted postdoc handed me a handsome blue hardcover book and informed me that this was my notebook. A notebook? For me? Why, thank you! I proceeded to take the worst notes of all time over the course of the summer. Really, it was my calculations and emotional ranting book. After a few months, the postdoc scolded me for my borderline illegible notes. I was (in my mind, justifiably) peeved. It was my notebook! Who cared if anyone else could read it? I could!
(I probably couldn't, not now, anyway. My rotation era notes were absolutely baffling to me this afternoon, and I'm doing very similar experiments then and now. Eeeesh. I really hope no one needed my notes for my undergrad thesis, because I'm certain they were not even a little bit better.)
We spent a class in one of my seminars going over how to keep a good lab notebook. The professor repeatedly apologized to us for being boring, but I was thrilled. THIS was what I needed, and had been lacking.
I'm not going to say that my lab notebook is perfect (it is still somewhat disorganized, and I often forget to write out the purpose and conclusions), but it's a work in progress and I'm proud that I've been able to evolve.
For anyone who is interested (probably very few), here are my personal Notebook Commandments. Yes, I did print out a copy and post it in my notebook.
1) Write in black ballpoint pen.
2) Start every experiment with a statement of objective, purpose, and plan.
3) Take notes on materials used (lot number, grade, sources: I am NOTORIOUSLY bad at this.)
4) Each repeat of an experiment should be written up separately, but you can refer back to previous ones if nothing has changed
5) State the conclusions
6) Record each experiment on consecutive pages (again, bad: it can be hard to predict how much space you'll need for an experiment, and I often do more than one experiment simultaneously)
7) Draw a single line through incorrect entries. Draw a single line through unused spaces and sign/date it. (This is so you can't fudge your notebook later with added data.)
8) Someone else should be able to follow your work.
9) Tape in all loose papers to your notebook.
10) Consider keeping a separate binder for supplemental materials and cross-referencing it as needed.
I have a fierce appreciation for a good lab notebook, the product of years of lab notebook incompetence. As a complete lab novice in undergrad, a well-meaning but distracted postdoc handed me a handsome blue hardcover book and informed me that this was my notebook. A notebook? For me? Why, thank you! I proceeded to take the worst notes of all time over the course of the summer. Really, it was my calculations and emotional ranting book. After a few months, the postdoc scolded me for my borderline illegible notes. I was (in my mind, justifiably) peeved. It was my notebook! Who cared if anyone else could read it? I could!
(I probably couldn't, not now, anyway. My rotation era notes were absolutely baffling to me this afternoon, and I'm doing very similar experiments then and now. Eeeesh. I really hope no one needed my notes for my undergrad thesis, because I'm certain they were not even a little bit better.)
We spent a class in one of my seminars going over how to keep a good lab notebook. The professor repeatedly apologized to us for being boring, but I was thrilled. THIS was what I needed, and had been lacking.
I'm not going to say that my lab notebook is perfect (it is still somewhat disorganized, and I often forget to write out the purpose and conclusions), but it's a work in progress and I'm proud that I've been able to evolve.
For anyone who is interested (probably very few), here are my personal Notebook Commandments. Yes, I did print out a copy and post it in my notebook.
1) Write in black ballpoint pen.
2) Start every experiment with a statement of objective, purpose, and plan.
3) Take notes on materials used (lot number, grade, sources: I am NOTORIOUSLY bad at this.)
4) Each repeat of an experiment should be written up separately, but you can refer back to previous ones if nothing has changed
5) State the conclusions
6) Record each experiment on consecutive pages (again, bad: it can be hard to predict how much space you'll need for an experiment, and I often do more than one experiment simultaneously)
7) Draw a single line through incorrect entries. Draw a single line through unused spaces and sign/date it. (This is so you can't fudge your notebook later with added data.)
8) Someone else should be able to follow your work.
9) Tape in all loose papers to your notebook.
10) Consider keeping a separate binder for supplemental materials and cross-referencing it as needed.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Gratitude
I really am a truly lucky person. Evidence for the following:
1) Although I bitch and moan about graduate school, I have an exceptional PI. Case in point: On Monday, I gave a (admittedly somewhat unexpected*) paper presentation at lab meeting. Despite having never head of the research group in question and having no personal stake in their success or failure, I proceeded to get extremely attached to the paper. Unfortunately for me, it turned out to be a relatively unconvincing paper. Out of said attachment and embarrassment at having failed to see its (now obvious) inadequacy. I proceeded to defend the paper like it was my senior thesis. When this failed, I am somewhat ashamed to say that I turned to slouching in my chair, crossing my arms and apparently, looking extremely pissed off. I know this because after the presentation, my PI came to me solely to say that the group's critique of my paper was in no way a personal indictment. BLUSH. Urgh. But I did appreciate hearing that. And I do find our lab's journal clubs to be extremely interesting and helpful.
*I swapped spots with the postdoc to present a paper in October, but then the postdoc left, making it a swap no longer. Spitting in the face of logic, whatever part of my brain dislikes journal presentations decided that clearly, I was not scheduled to go again until next semester. Saturday night, Intaglio was getting his Halo on with MJ, one of my labmates. Out of nowhere, I suddenly got an uneasy feeling and over the hail of bullets, asked Intaglio to ask MJ whether or not I was scheduled anytime soon. I was. In two days. Whoo. I was pretty decidedly unthrilled.
2) Officially cancer free! The mole was dysplastic, not malignant, but they managed to get all of it off in one blow. I will have to go get yearly skin checks, but hey, that's fine by me. Finally, I can be free of all the queasy images of metastatic melanoma infiltrating brain tissue...at least for a little while.
3) Relatively slow week in the lab-after some drama with the AHIU SDYFDIUHGD!T@$#&*^%#!!! flow machine, my PI said that I could stick to ELISAs for the time being until we get the technical glitches worked out. More than fine by me. I'm making today and tomorrow a reading/writing day...so far I've cobbled together my epidemiology group's final presentation. After that, I'll work on my individual epidemiology project (1000 words, let's see how fast I can write the motherfucker up!), my PowerPoint ethics presentation next week, and my research article/abstract for mid-December (really, just the abstract is due, but it's uniquely hard to write an abstract if the rest of the paper is AWOL).
4) While I still undoubtedly waste too much time on the internet, I'm starting to slip back into healthy, relaxing habits. I've run a bit each morning this week (only 3-4 miles, I'll re-up the distance slowly). I'm getting back into reading for pleasure--I'm working through a book of Barbara Kingsolver essays, and after that I'm going to get started on John Dies at the End, which apparently is some kind of modern cult classic soon to be a movie apocalyptical something. And writing. Not fiction, but honestly, I do like writing papers. Last week, when I was cramming to get some semblance of a draft together before a meeting on Friday (which has to be completely re-written, incidentally), I found myself surprised to be enjoying it. Happy to be back in the third floor of Ebling, happy to be cobbling together something that had meaning, happy to be picking through sources, happy to be involved in something that I could make really, really good with only editing and research.
That's the thing about grad school right now--I feel that I try, I put in effort, I try to make it really, really good--and then I screw up in some non-obvious way, make a rookie mistake that I've never made before, or things just go to shit for no reason whatsoever. I have full agency when I write. I appreciate that.
5) So much more: My sister (IL-RN, now!) working full-time at a well-paying job she enjoys, a closely knit MSTPosse, RuPaul's Drag Race Allstars and the fact that Chad Michaels won, the fact that Gardein protein tastes so much like meat, the fact that I have an amazing partner who sticks with me thick and thin even as I'm fretting unproductively about weight, life goals, money, committment, etc., the fact that my parents are happy and in good health.
Life is good. I need to seek out the small bits of happiness available in almost everything
1) Although I bitch and moan about graduate school, I have an exceptional PI. Case in point: On Monday, I gave a (admittedly somewhat unexpected*) paper presentation at lab meeting. Despite having never head of the research group in question and having no personal stake in their success or failure, I proceeded to get extremely attached to the paper. Unfortunately for me, it turned out to be a relatively unconvincing paper. Out of said attachment and embarrassment at having failed to see its (now obvious) inadequacy. I proceeded to defend the paper like it was my senior thesis. When this failed, I am somewhat ashamed to say that I turned to slouching in my chair, crossing my arms and apparently, looking extremely pissed off. I know this because after the presentation, my PI came to me solely to say that the group's critique of my paper was in no way a personal indictment. BLUSH. Urgh. But I did appreciate hearing that. And I do find our lab's journal clubs to be extremely interesting and helpful.
*I swapped spots with the postdoc to present a paper in October, but then the postdoc left, making it a swap no longer. Spitting in the face of logic, whatever part of my brain dislikes journal presentations decided that clearly, I was not scheduled to go again until next semester. Saturday night, Intaglio was getting his Halo on with MJ, one of my labmates. Out of nowhere, I suddenly got an uneasy feeling and over the hail of bullets, asked Intaglio to ask MJ whether or not I was scheduled anytime soon. I was. In two days. Whoo. I was pretty decidedly unthrilled.
2) Officially cancer free! The mole was dysplastic, not malignant, but they managed to get all of it off in one blow. I will have to go get yearly skin checks, but hey, that's fine by me. Finally, I can be free of all the queasy images of metastatic melanoma infiltrating brain tissue...at least for a little while.
3) Relatively slow week in the lab-after some drama with the AHIU SDYFDIUHGD!T@$#&*^%#!!! flow machine, my PI said that I could stick to ELISAs for the time being until we get the technical glitches worked out. More than fine by me. I'm making today and tomorrow a reading/writing day...so far I've cobbled together my epidemiology group's final presentation. After that, I'll work on my individual epidemiology project (1000 words, let's see how fast I can write the motherfucker up!), my PowerPoint ethics presentation next week, and my research article/abstract for mid-December (really, just the abstract is due, but it's uniquely hard to write an abstract if the rest of the paper is AWOL).
4) While I still undoubtedly waste too much time on the internet, I'm starting to slip back into healthy, relaxing habits. I've run a bit each morning this week (only 3-4 miles, I'll re-up the distance slowly). I'm getting back into reading for pleasure--I'm working through a book of Barbara Kingsolver essays, and after that I'm going to get started on John Dies at the End, which apparently is some kind of modern cult classic soon to be a movie apocalyptical something. And writing. Not fiction, but honestly, I do like writing papers. Last week, when I was cramming to get some semblance of a draft together before a meeting on Friday (which has to be completely re-written, incidentally), I found myself surprised to be enjoying it. Happy to be back in the third floor of Ebling, happy to be cobbling together something that had meaning, happy to be picking through sources, happy to be involved in something that I could make really, really good with only editing and research.
That's the thing about grad school right now--I feel that I try, I put in effort, I try to make it really, really good--and then I screw up in some non-obvious way, make a rookie mistake that I've never made before, or things just go to shit for no reason whatsoever. I have full agency when I write. I appreciate that.
5) So much more: My sister (IL-RN, now!) working full-time at a well-paying job she enjoys, a closely knit MSTPosse, RuPaul's Drag Race Allstars and the fact that Chad Michaels won, the fact that Gardein protein tastes so much like meat, the fact that I have an amazing partner who sticks with me thick and thin even as I'm fretting unproductively about weight, life goals, money, committment, etc., the fact that my parents are happy and in good health.
Life is good. I need to seek out the small bits of happiness available in almost everything
Thursday, November 29, 2012
The story of a mole removal
I had to hustle yesterday morning because, while my mole removal was scheduled for 9:30 AM, my lack of a car meant that I would have to take 3 buses in rapid succession to get there on time.
Out the door at 8:15, waiting for the bus...and waiting...and waiting...uh-oh. It showed up at 8:28, 2 minutes before I was supposed to arrive at the transfer point and catch the 2nd bus. Sure enough, I arrived at the transfer point having missed it by five minutes.
Luckily, Intaglio was still at home, so I called him to figure out an alternate route. Google Maps delivered: Wait 20 minutes, catch a bus, walk a mile, arrive at 9:36. 9:36? I could still hear doctors from the medical school grousing about tardy patients. But if I ran...maybe, just maybe I could make it.
Caught the bus, arrived at the stop, dashed the remaining distance to the clinic as fast as I could with an overstuffed, non-ergonomic laptop bag...arrived at 9:36 on the dot. Whoops! Luckily, the nurse and PA doing the removal were extremely gracious.
And now for the fun part. In general, I have no problem with medical procedures, minor or major. I do, however, have a tremendous hatred/fear of local anesthetic. Numbness in general makes me extremely queasy. I've had two moles removed in the past, both of which resulted in some tears and borderline hyperventilation. But there I was (I thought to myself, in the quivering voice of a martyr), about to get a mole punched out of my arm, totally alone.
It was fine. I only got queasy when the PA started in with the punch, paused, and said, "I think we're going to need a bigger one." They stitched me up, and I was out the door in 25 minutes. So I took the bus back to the transfer point, caught a bus to the university, and...wait, I thought this bus was going to the campus, it's definitely not making the right turn...oh well. I hopped out of the bus, walked another half-mileish back to the lab, made a few adjustments to an experiment, and walked over to the hospital to catch a talk sponsored by my graduate program.
Unfortunately, by this point, my adrenaline rush had worn off completely so I pretty much dozed through the entire talk. And not the discrete nodding in and out of consciousness--I slept heavily to the point where I woke up and looked around furtively for glares because I was afraid I had been sleep-talking.
And then I did homework, had my last ethics seminar class (1/4 done!), and made my way home to celebrate Intaglio's birthday. Not bad.
Of course, my PI wants to write about the review paper that I've been writing...or, you know, not really writing...It's frustrating, because I really need to work on expanding my knowledge base and writing this paper is truly the best means of doing so, but it's just too easy to push it to the side. I'm having trouble budgeting time for things that matter.
Speaking of which, my weight has been hovering in the upper 130s for too long, so I've decided to join dietbet--groups are challenged to lose 4% of their body weight in 4 weeks, everyone contributes money, those who meet the goal split the pot evenly. I think, in order to get back to my goal weight, I need both a tangible reason to focus on it and something that will tickle my competitive spirit.
Life has been good, but I can't shake the drag of inertia. I do miss medical school because it elevated my ability to focus and dedicate large chunks of my days to pure work. I miss that feeling of drive and purpose. Ever since beginning grad school, I've been trying to recapture it with little success. It makes me sad when I think about it too much.
Out the door at 8:15, waiting for the bus...and waiting...and waiting...uh-oh. It showed up at 8:28, 2 minutes before I was supposed to arrive at the transfer point and catch the 2nd bus. Sure enough, I arrived at the transfer point having missed it by five minutes.
Luckily, Intaglio was still at home, so I called him to figure out an alternate route. Google Maps delivered: Wait 20 minutes, catch a bus, walk a mile, arrive at 9:36. 9:36? I could still hear doctors from the medical school grousing about tardy patients. But if I ran...maybe, just maybe I could make it.
Caught the bus, arrived at the stop, dashed the remaining distance to the clinic as fast as I could with an overstuffed, non-ergonomic laptop bag...arrived at 9:36 on the dot. Whoops! Luckily, the nurse and PA doing the removal were extremely gracious.
And now for the fun part. In general, I have no problem with medical procedures, minor or major. I do, however, have a tremendous hatred/fear of local anesthetic. Numbness in general makes me extremely queasy. I've had two moles removed in the past, both of which resulted in some tears and borderline hyperventilation. But there I was (I thought to myself, in the quivering voice of a martyr), about to get a mole punched out of my arm, totally alone.
It was fine. I only got queasy when the PA started in with the punch, paused, and said, "I think we're going to need a bigger one." They stitched me up, and I was out the door in 25 minutes. So I took the bus back to the transfer point, caught a bus to the university, and...wait, I thought this bus was going to the campus, it's definitely not making the right turn...oh well. I hopped out of the bus, walked another half-mileish back to the lab, made a few adjustments to an experiment, and walked over to the hospital to catch a talk sponsored by my graduate program.
Unfortunately, by this point, my adrenaline rush had worn off completely so I pretty much dozed through the entire talk. And not the discrete nodding in and out of consciousness--I slept heavily to the point where I woke up and looked around furtively for glares because I was afraid I had been sleep-talking.
And then I did homework, had my last ethics seminar class (1/4 done!), and made my way home to celebrate Intaglio's birthday. Not bad.
Of course, my PI wants to write about the review paper that I've been writing...or, you know, not really writing...It's frustrating, because I really need to work on expanding my knowledge base and writing this paper is truly the best means of doing so, but it's just too easy to push it to the side. I'm having trouble budgeting time for things that matter.
Speaking of which, my weight has been hovering in the upper 130s for too long, so I've decided to join dietbet--groups are challenged to lose 4% of their body weight in 4 weeks, everyone contributes money, those who meet the goal split the pot evenly. I think, in order to get back to my goal weight, I need both a tangible reason to focus on it and something that will tickle my competitive spirit.
Life has been good, but I can't shake the drag of inertia. I do miss medical school because it elevated my ability to focus and dedicate large chunks of my days to pure work. I miss that feeling of drive and purpose. Ever since beginning grad school, I've been trying to recapture it with little success. It makes me sad when I think about it too much.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
A certain lack of rigor
A disturbing trend I've been noticing since starting grad school is the misuse of my personal time. I work at lab, I socialize, but when I get home, my discipline falls apart. It's awkward to use the word discipline in that context, because the things I intend to do are, well, things I want to do. But almost inevitably, I wind up frittering away every last minute of my spare time on the internet, and going to bed far too late as a result.
I want to read more. I have books picked out. I used to love reading. I don't know why it's so hard to pick up a book anymore.
I want to finish my Afghan.
I want to incorporate cleaning into my day, so the house isn't a pit by Friday.
I want to write Christmas cards and make packages of caramels for friends and family.
But the call of Reddit and Facebook are just too great, even if there's absolutely nothing interesting to look at. The loss of control irritates me, even infuriates me at times. But like the sweets, my good intentions fail to stick. My willpower is too limited. My standards for myself are NOT too high.
Frustrating. I remember my priorities and values, but I fail to act accordingly. I'm not sure how to overcome the gap between intent and action. It's a struggle that's starting to really wear on my nerves.
I want to read more. I have books picked out. I used to love reading. I don't know why it's so hard to pick up a book anymore.
I want to finish my Afghan.
I want to incorporate cleaning into my day, so the house isn't a pit by Friday.
I want to write Christmas cards and make packages of caramels for friends and family.
But the call of Reddit and Facebook are just too great, even if there's absolutely nothing interesting to look at. The loss of control irritates me, even infuriates me at times. But like the sweets, my good intentions fail to stick. My willpower is too limited. My standards for myself are NOT too high.
Frustrating. I remember my priorities and values, but I fail to act accordingly. I'm not sure how to overcome the gap between intent and action. It's a struggle that's starting to really wear on my nerves.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
A week in grad school
Tempeh bacon and warmed chunks of frozen mango with cinnamon. Jogging to the lab at 7 AM to start an incubation.
Too much butter, too much sugar. 7 or 8 dozen bowls, dishes, plates, mugs, teapots, butter dishes, and salt/pepper shakers that used to belong to my maternal grandmother, brought to Madison by my aunt and uncle. A half a loaf of lemon pound cake in one day. Boredom, tears, stress. RuPaul's drag race.
Trying to go vegan for a week or two in order to clean my system, whatever that means. Gardein entrees. Odwalla bars surprisingly don't taste like sawdust. Feeling pretty good. Less of a sacrifice than I imagined.
Intaglio playing Halo 4. His birthday is coming up soon. I should organize some sort of celebration.
Stat exam today. Eh. Mounds of eraser shards after totally overthinking one problem. Got it in the end.
Dermatology screen last week. Diagnosed with a dysplastic nevus, to be removed at the end of November. A little unnerving. Note that it's not a typical dysplastic nevus: it doesn't fit the A/B/C/D/E's. The woman doing the screen noted that it's better to think about moles as a gestalt--instead of fretting about large, funny-looking moles, try to notice moles that don't fit the pattern. My dysplastic nevus is very small and dark, while most of my moles are large and light brown. Trying not to worry. When it metastasizes, melanoma goes straight to the brain. It hasn't changed much that I can tell. It's probably okay. I'm still nervous.
Apartment is neater. Kitchen is still a mess. Laundry needs to be done.
Lab work. Flow cytometer is being unnervingly cloggable. It took one grad student and a postdoc most of today to fix it, which is how I wound up running samples until 7 PM. I really need to figure out how to unclog the machine on my own. (Better to not to clog it in the first place, but it's not like I'm running chunky samples.)
Can't tell if some cultures got contaminated or the cells all just died. Lab meeting tomorrow at 10 AM. Will likely be 11 AM or later. Need to analyze two experiments before that. I'm hoping to salvage something meaningful.
So yeah. No real complaints. I am grateful, life is good.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
2 down!
Ran the Tyranena beer run yesterday. It went pretty well--I cramped up around mile 3 and 12, something that's never happened before, but I was able to tough it out.
Came home, took a shower (I was FREEZING: comfortable during the run, but for various reasons our group wound up milling around outside for 2 or 3 hours, and I had nothing warmer than a running jacket and a Mylar blanket), and then Intaglio tackled the stained carpets with a rug-cleaner he had borrowed from work. The apartment's looking much better now.
Feeling pretty optimistic that today won't be a repeat of last Sunday. I just need to keep active.
This week is going to be a whirlwind: Election, blood donation, something like 90 flow tubes to run tomorrow morning, Stats exam next Tuesday, review paper, skin cancer screening, meeting with a committee member. Among other things. I need to summon the latent powers of time management I developed in M2...hopefully they haven't atrophied completely.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Transition
So, today I ate a cheeseburger, as per my 101/1001. And I ate a ton of sweets. It hasn't been the best of days. Tears, screaming, kicking (of furniture), all before 9 AM, followed by a meeting with my PI and a combined total of 5 hours of seminars. Willpower being a finite resource, I was pretty well screwed (or so I justified eating dinner at the Great Dane with Intaglio: we split sustain-a-burger and a chocolate-nut torte, among other delicious but awful foods.)
The truth is: Grad school has been rough. In medical school, my goal was to get As. After I finished medical school, my goal was to get a great score on the boards. All of my energy was focused toward each single goal; it required a lot of work and tedium, but I was capable of it.
Now, my time is split between lab and work, at minimum 50-50. On top of that, I'm supposed to be writing a review article, and, at the risk of sounding like Teen Talk Barbie, immunology is hard. Which is why I'm reading papers and writing this review article, but right now it just feels like one more thing to tick off my list. One more thing preventing me from doing research, which reminds me--the controls have been fuzzy, the cells aren't growing as fast as they should be, and no one has worked with viral particles before in our lab. Coming home each night, my goal is always to work, or at least read, but realistically I just wash dishes, do laundry, tidy up, or wind up poking around reddit. And then I go to sleep. And then I get up and run, and then the day begins.
Intaglio is in the same position as me; he's gone from working on his prints full time to less than 50% of the time, as he now works in the frame shop and teaches classes on the weekend. So at the end of the day, we're tired, we're dispirited, and we're not really in the mood to feel sympathy for anyone but ourselves. We haven't been gentle with each other. We haven't really been interested in each other's struggles.
We made up, but the damage to my diet was done. Nothing to do but start fresh tomorrow (and have Intaglio take the remaining Ghirardelli squares to work). When I disappoint myself like I have today, I often feel like that's the only thing to say. Tomorrow I'll be closer to the person I want to be. Just because it didn't happen today doesn't mean I can't make it happen tomorrow. True, I suppose, but today it just feels false. That's why there's tomorrow.
The truth is: Grad school has been rough. In medical school, my goal was to get As. After I finished medical school, my goal was to get a great score on the boards. All of my energy was focused toward each single goal; it required a lot of work and tedium, but I was capable of it.
Now, my time is split between lab and work, at minimum 50-50. On top of that, I'm supposed to be writing a review article, and, at the risk of sounding like Teen Talk Barbie, immunology is hard. Which is why I'm reading papers and writing this review article, but right now it just feels like one more thing to tick off my list. One more thing preventing me from doing research, which reminds me--the controls have been fuzzy, the cells aren't growing as fast as they should be, and no one has worked with viral particles before in our lab. Coming home each night, my goal is always to work, or at least read, but realistically I just wash dishes, do laundry, tidy up, or wind up poking around reddit. And then I go to sleep. And then I get up and run, and then the day begins.
Intaglio is in the same position as me; he's gone from working on his prints full time to less than 50% of the time, as he now works in the frame shop and teaches classes on the weekend. So at the end of the day, we're tired, we're dispirited, and we're not really in the mood to feel sympathy for anyone but ourselves. We haven't been gentle with each other. We haven't really been interested in each other's struggles.
We made up, but the damage to my diet was done. Nothing to do but start fresh tomorrow (and have Intaglio take the remaining Ghirardelli squares to work). When I disappoint myself like I have today, I often feel like that's the only thing to say. Tomorrow I'll be closer to the person I want to be. Just because it didn't happen today doesn't mean I can't make it happen tomorrow. True, I suppose, but today it just feels false. That's why there's tomorrow.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Birthday
Today began with a 10.44 mile run, carried on to a quiet day in lab and class (mostly spent doing homework, the machine I needed to separate out cells for an experiment was being cleaned), and finished with dinner on the east side. Went home, and then made a trek to the east side for dinner. I started out with a bbq jackfruit sandwich, while Intaglio had a vegan "crabby-cake" po' boy. We swapped two bites in upon realizing that the other had the better dish. Dessert was this monster:
(That is a drumstick pie slice from Monty's Blue Plate Diner. Peanut butter silk, whipped cream, and a layer of chocolate ganache. It was, as you can probably tell, HUGE. We split it. It was still far too much, but we polished it off regardless.)
Today was also my first day of 101 in 1001. Much to my surprise, I was already able to tick one item off my list, as Intaglio gave me a snuggly flannel robe for my birthday. It's going...reasonably well. I dutifully recycled all my recyclables and tracked my spending (1.35-yogurt, .9-banana, 1.25-plain popcorn, 6-bus). As it was my birthday, I didn't stick with the one sweet per week rule (my mom sent some Ghirardelli squares and speculoos spread in a care package...you can probably guess what happened next), but such was the plan.
How am I feeling? Pretty good. I'm 25, I weigh 136.8 lbs, I can run 10 miles, I can grow cells. Not too shabby.
I'm still quite nervous about emailing my potential thesis committee (I've been psyching myself up to do it for two days now), marginally nervous about the two midterms next Tuesday, and kind of wary about the food challenges ahead of me. My goal is to eat no more desserts/sweets until next Tuesday, but this weekend is stuffed with food-laden activities. Parties and gallery openings tend to be diet kryptonite for me: I get nervous, and I eat; I get distracted, and I eat; I prepare food, and I eat. In the past, I've seen no other solution than to skip the party (or to go and resign myelf to gaining weight). But now this conundrum just strikes me as tiresome. I'm hoping that posting in this blog will keep me honest and provide me with motivation as I hack my way through the requisite 66 days it takes to change a habit.
But as I said, I'm feeling good. Lucky to be 25, lucky to be a part of an amazing training program, unbelievably lucky to have a wonderful family, a great partner, and awesome friends. This year will be a great one.
Today was also my first day of 101 in 1001. Much to my surprise, I was already able to tick one item off my list, as Intaglio gave me a snuggly flannel robe for my birthday. It's going...reasonably well. I dutifully recycled all my recyclables and tracked my spending (1.35-yogurt, .9-banana, 1.25-plain popcorn, 6-bus). As it was my birthday, I didn't stick with the one sweet per week rule (my mom sent some Ghirardelli squares and speculoos spread in a care package...you can probably guess what happened next), but such was the plan.
How am I feeling? Pretty good. I'm 25, I weigh 136.8 lbs, I can run 10 miles, I can grow cells. Not too shabby.
I'm still quite nervous about emailing my potential thesis committee (I've been psyching myself up to do it for two days now), marginally nervous about the two midterms next Tuesday, and kind of wary about the food challenges ahead of me. My goal is to eat no more desserts/sweets until next Tuesday, but this weekend is stuffed with food-laden activities. Parties and gallery openings tend to be diet kryptonite for me: I get nervous, and I eat; I get distracted, and I eat; I prepare food, and I eat. In the past, I've seen no other solution than to skip the party (or to go and resign myelf to gaining weight). But now this conundrum just strikes me as tiresome. I'm hoping that posting in this blog will keep me honest and provide me with motivation as I hack my way through the requisite 66 days it takes to change a habit.
But as I said, I'm feeling good. Lucky to be 25, lucky to be a part of an amazing training program, unbelievably lucky to have a wonderful family, a great partner, and awesome friends. This year will be a great one.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
The List
Here is my 101 Things in 1001 list. I start October 2nd, my 25th birthday.
Competent adult activities (8)
-Recycle all recyclables for 1001 days
-Finish and organize my disaster/pandemic kit
-Finish my Afghan
-Knit another blanket
-Organize my recipe box
-Organize my important documents
-Find my social security card (see above); procur another should it prove to be AWOL.
Turns out it was back in Maryland all along!
-For 30 days in a row, wash all dishes at night so as to wake up to a clean sink.
Food activities (14)
-Make baklava
-Make cheese
-Make sourdough from a starter
-Harvest black walnuts
-Make nocino (green walnut liquor)
-Try Calliope ice cream
-Try a Humble Pie pie
-Try oxtail
-Make two new kinds of preserves
1) Apple butter: the secret appears to be apple cider vinegar and apple cider liquor
-Cook 8 kinds of vegetables I've never cooked before
1) Turnips: In chicken braised with Fall vetables, 10/11/12. Not offensive at all, but not tremendously flavorful.
-Bake a really, really fancy cake
-Go vegan for two weeks (for my own sanity, they do not have to be back-to-back weeks).
-Eat a cheeseburger. Sustain-a-burger (grass-fed patty) at the Great Dane, 10/3/12
-Have a brunch party
Health (16)
-Run a half-marathon
11/3/12: Tyranena 1/2 Barrel run
-Run a full marathon
-Go to an actual GP; discuss concerns with said actual GP openly without fear of looking like a hypochondriac
-Floss teeth 1001 times
-Write out my living will and POA
-Limit sweet consumption to one (epic, memorable) dessert per week. Take picture of said dessert.
-Do at least one pull-up. (This may be next to impossible--should this prove futile, I would like at least to do more than hang there and kick.)
-See a dermatologist, get them to identify and treat problematic moles (as opposed to the current plan, which is to freak out about any mole looking unusually moley.)
11/7/12: Diagnosed with a dysplastic nevus, scheduled to be removed 11/28/12.
-Record what I eat for a month
-Take a picture of everything I eat for a week
-Get glasses with my new prescription (if only so I can walk through the HSLC atrium without squinting warily and hoping I'm not unintentially ignoring anyone).
-Take 1001 vitamins and 1001 caltrate pills.
-Get a fasting lipid panel done.
-Try meditation
-Try yoga
1/23/13: PowerFlow
-Get my weight to below 135 lbs; never let it get above 135.
Fun stuff at home (11)
-Play a game of pub trivia (10/8/12, postdoc's farewell dinner at Capitol Tap House)
-Try to cross-country ski or snowshoe
-Do karaoke (and keep a list of acceptible songs somewhere, so I don't blank out and forget what I'm capable of singing.)
-Try paddleboarding
-Go berry-picking twice
-Visit a comedy club
-Go on a day-long biking adventure with Intaglio
-Tour a brewery
-Go downhill skiing. Try not to break anything.
-Go to a concert
-Go swimming in a lake. Or a cold, fast-moving river (damn you, Naegleria fowleri)
Travel (8)
-Go to Chicago
-Go to Milwaukee
-Go to New York City
-Go to the West Coast
-Go on at least 3 full-day hikes
-See the ocean. Ideally, tide pools.
-Visit a state I've never been to before
-Climb a mountain. (Are there any WI mountains?)
Money (6)
-Keep track of all my income and expenditures (do not give up halfway through the month because it's depressing).
-Save $3000 per year
-Figure out exactly what my savings accounts are and where I should be putting my money.
-Spend one month figuring out exactly how much I spend on food at work, and, following that:
-Go one month without buying any snacks or meals at work
-Fill up each of our 3 piggy banks: cash the coins and go do something AWESOME.
Career/School (12)
-Find a good preceptor for 903; meet with them faithfully 10 times per semester.
-Keep grad school GPA as close to a 4.0 as possible (yes, it doesn't matter, yes, research is more important, yes, anything less than an A has and always will irk me.)
Fall 2012: 4.0!
-Write one review paper
-Write (and publish) two scientific papers
-Write (and do everything in my power to get) an F30 grant
-Pass my prelim with flying colors
-Give a talk.
-Devote two hours a week to reviewing First Aid/BRS/notes
-Organize my current lab notebook
-When the time comes to start a new notebook, keep it spic and span
-Learn how to use a citation manager
Mendeley...it's a work in progress...
-No facebook for 2 weeks (my productivity will skyrocket, right? Right?).
Silly personal goals/Satisfying my 13-year-old self (9)
-Write that novel. Even if it's a half a page a day and it sucks. It probably will suck. Write it regardless
-Get inked
-Read at least 30 books of fiction
1) The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood, finished 10/31/12
2) Beatrice and Virgil, Yann Martel, finished 11/20/12
3) The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut, finished 12/28/12
4) John Dies at the End, David Wong, finished 12/29/12
5) Someone Will Be With You Shortly, Lisa Kogan, finished 1/17/13, technically not fiction but this is my goddurned blog!
6) God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Kurt Vonnegut, finished 1/17/13
7) Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout, by Lauren Redniss. Finished 2/5/13. Also non-fiction.
-Dye my hair
-Get that "Now Panic and Freak Out" t-shirt I have privately coveted for months.
-Ditto an "Innsmouth Swim Team" t-shirt. Even if I have to get it printed myself, dammit!
-Watch the Spongebob Squarepants movie
-Read 5 books that I have, for one reason or another, been terminally reluctant to read.
-Go to an amusement park or water park
Interpersonal (10)
-Send Christmas cards
-Send Christmas cookies
We did Christmas caramels with attached Christmas cards 2012 (flavors: vanilla, espresso-orange, sesame-ginger, maple-walnut)
-Help out/volunteer at 10 university/MSTP events
1) 10/12/12: Morning escort for MD/PhD candidates
2) 10/12/12: Chaperone for bowling and pizza night for MD/PhD candidates
3) 10/13/12: State street tour and lunch for MD/PhD candidates
4) 11/8/12: Volunteered at the Salvation Army Dental clinic
5) 11/30/12: Morning escort for MD/PhD candidates
6) 11/30/12: Bowling/pizza chaperone for candidates
7) 12/1/12: Lunch at Sunroom cafe, cheese tour (eg, Fromagination), impromptu capitol tour to touch the lucky badger's nose (yes, I pretty much did the same thing with the second set of candidates that I did with the first!)
8) 1/18/13: Afternoon escort for MD/PhD candidate
9) 1/19/13: State street tour for MD/PhD candidates: Lunch at Mia Za's, cheese/ice cream tour
-Donate blood
1/23/13
-Send Valentines
-Send 10 care packages/gifts unaffiliated with a major life event
-Write a thank-you card for Every. Single. Favor/Present/Gift. No exceptions.
-Go on a trip with my family
-Cut out discretionary spending for a month or two, and then buy someone a really, really nice gift.
-Bake 6 birthday cakes
1) Intaglio's birthday, 11/28/12: Lemon poppy-seed cake, lemon curd mousse filling, lemon cream-cheese frosting...the cake layers were soaked in lemon syrup, too. Intaglio really likes lemon. Covered with almond flavored fondant to look like a popcorn box.
2) Zen's birthday cake, 12/14/12: English toffee cheesecake, consisting of a graham cracker crust with plain toffee bits, a layer of brown sugar cheesecake flavored with almond, a layer of chocolate toffee pieces, another layer of cheesecake, and a sour cream top. Decorated with red and green sugar.
Miscellaneous (7)
-Get a new bathrobe Completed 10/2/12 thanks to Intaglio!
-Get the carpets steam-cleaned
Completed 11/3/12, also thanks to Intaglio
-Organize the top of the closet
-Throw out all socks that no longer have their mates.
Done. I'm pretty sure I never, ever need to buy socks again.
-Procur 7 new pairs of earrings
1) Red glass engagement earrings from Intaglio, 12/25/12
3 pairs of earrings from my family (also Christmas 2012)
2) Yellow single gemstone
3) Pearl with spangly metal bits
4) Steampunk flower (made of copper wire and gears)
-Organize the cabinets
-Get a new TV
HAH! Finally. 11/29/12, Intaglio's 29th birthday present.
Competent adult activities (8)
-Recycle all recyclables for 1001 days
-Finish and organize my disaster/pandemic kit
-Finish my Afghan
-Knit another blanket
-Organize my recipe box
-Organize my important documents
Turns out it was back in Maryland all along!
-For 30 days in a row, wash all dishes at night so as to wake up to a clean sink.
Food activities (14)
-Make baklava
-Make cheese
-Make sourdough from a starter
-Harvest black walnuts
-Make nocino (green walnut liquor)
-Try Calliope ice cream
-Try a Humble Pie pie
-Try oxtail
-Make two new kinds of preserves
1) Apple butter: the secret appears to be apple cider vinegar and apple cider liquor
-Cook 8 kinds of vegetables I've never cooked before
1) Turnips: In chicken braised with Fall vetables, 10/11/12. Not offensive at all, but not tremendously flavorful.
-Bake a really, really fancy cake
-Go vegan for two weeks (for my own sanity, they do not have to be back-to-back weeks).
-
-Have a brunch party
Health (16)
11/3/12: Tyranena 1/2 Barrel run
-Run a full marathon
-Go to an actual GP; discuss concerns with said actual GP openly without fear of looking like a hypochondriac
-Floss teeth 1001 times
-Write out my living will and POA
-Limit sweet consumption to one (epic, memorable) dessert per week. Take picture of said dessert.
-Do at least one pull-up. (This may be next to impossible--should this prove futile, I would like at least to do more than hang there and kick.)
11/7/12: Diagnosed with a dysplastic nevus, scheduled to be removed 11/28/12.
-Record what I eat for a month
-Take a picture of everything I eat for a week
-Get glasses with my new prescription (if only so I can walk through the HSLC atrium without squinting warily and hoping I'm not unintentially ignoring anyone).
-Take 1001 vitamins and 1001 caltrate pills.
-Get a fasting lipid panel done.
-Try meditation
1/23/13: PowerFlow
-Get my weight to below 135 lbs; never let it get above 135.
Fun stuff at home (11)
-
-Try to cross-country ski or snowshoe
-Do karaoke (and keep a list of acceptible songs somewhere, so I don't blank out and forget what I'm capable of singing.)
-Try paddleboarding
-Go berry-picking twice
-Visit a comedy club
-Go on a day-long biking adventure with Intaglio
-Tour a brewery
-Go downhill skiing. Try not to break anything.
-Go to a concert
-Go swimming in a lake. Or a cold, fast-moving river (damn you, Naegleria fowleri)
Travel (8)
-Go to Chicago
-Go to Milwaukee
-Go to New York City
-Go to the West Coast
-Go on at least 3 full-day hikes
-See the ocean. Ideally, tide pools.
-Visit a state I've never been to before
-Climb a mountain. (Are there any WI mountains?)
Money (6)
-Keep track of all my income and expenditures (do not give up halfway through the month because it's depressing).
-Save $3000 per year
-Figure out exactly what my savings accounts are and where I should be putting my money.
-Spend one month figuring out exactly how much I spend on food at work, and, following that:
-Go one month without buying any snacks or meals at work
-Fill up each of our 3 piggy banks: cash the coins and go do something AWESOME.
Career/School (12)
-Find a good preceptor for 903; meet with them faithfully 10 times per semester.
-Keep grad school GPA as close to a 4.0 as possible (yes, it doesn't matter, yes, research is more important, yes, anything less than an A has and always will irk me.)
Fall 2012: 4.0!
-Write one review paper
-Write (and publish) two scientific papers
-Write (and do everything in my power to get) an F30 grant
-Pass my prelim with flying colors
-Give a talk.
-Devote two hours a week to reviewing First Aid/BRS/notes
-When the time comes to start a new notebook, keep it spic and span
Mendeley...it's a work in progress...
-No facebook for 2 weeks (my productivity will skyrocket, right? Right?).
Silly personal goals/Satisfying my 13-year-old self (9)
-Write that novel. Even if it's a half a page a day and it sucks. It probably will suck. Write it regardless
-Get inked
-Read at least 30 books of fiction
1) The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood, finished 10/31/12
2) Beatrice and Virgil, Yann Martel, finished 11/20/12
3) The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut, finished 12/28/12
4) John Dies at the End, David Wong, finished 12/29/12
5) Someone Will Be With You Shortly, Lisa Kogan, finished 1/17/13, technically not fiction but this is my goddurned blog!
6) God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Kurt Vonnegut, finished 1/17/13
7) Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout, by Lauren Redniss. Finished 2/5/13. Also non-fiction.
-Dye my hair
-Get that "Now Panic and Freak Out" t-shirt I have privately coveted for months.
-Ditto an "Innsmouth Swim Team" t-shirt. Even if I have to get it printed myself, dammit!
-Watch the Spongebob Squarepants movie
-Read 5 books that I have, for one reason or another, been terminally reluctant to read.
-Go to an amusement park or water park
Interpersonal (10)
-Send Christmas cards
-Send Christmas cookies
We did Christmas caramels with attached Christmas cards 2012 (flavors: vanilla, espresso-orange, sesame-ginger, maple-walnut)
-Help out/volunteer at 10 university/MSTP events
1) 10/12/12: Morning escort for MD/PhD candidates
2) 10/12/12: Chaperone for bowling and pizza night for MD/PhD candidates
3) 10/13/12: State street tour and lunch for MD/PhD candidates
4) 11/8/12: Volunteered at the Salvation Army Dental clinic
5) 11/30/12: Morning escort for MD/PhD candidates
6) 11/30/12: Bowling/pizza chaperone for candidates
7) 12/1/12: Lunch at Sunroom cafe, cheese tour (eg, Fromagination), impromptu capitol tour to touch the lucky badger's nose (yes, I pretty much did the same thing with the second set of candidates that I did with the first!)
8) 1/18/13: Afternoon escort for MD/PhD candidate
9) 1/19/13: State street tour for MD/PhD candidates: Lunch at Mia Za's, cheese/ice cream tour
1/23/13
-Send Valentines
-Send 10 care packages/gifts unaffiliated with a major life event
-Write a thank-you card for Every. Single. Favor/Present/Gift. No exceptions.
-Go on a trip with my family
-Cut out discretionary spending for a month or two, and then buy someone a really, really nice gift.
-Bake 6 birthday cakes
1) Intaglio's birthday, 11/28/12: Lemon poppy-seed cake, lemon curd mousse filling, lemon cream-cheese frosting...the cake layers were soaked in lemon syrup, too. Intaglio really likes lemon. Covered with almond flavored fondant to look like a popcorn box.
2) Zen's birthday cake, 12/14/12: English toffee cheesecake, consisting of a graham cracker crust with plain toffee bits, a layer of brown sugar cheesecake flavored with almond, a layer of chocolate toffee pieces, another layer of cheesecake, and a sour cream top. Decorated with red and green sugar.
Miscellaneous (7)
-
-
Completed 11/3/12, also thanks to Intaglio
-Organize the top of the closet
Done. I'm pretty sure I never, ever need to buy socks again.
-Procur 7 new pairs of earrings
1) Red glass engagement earrings from Intaglio, 12/25/12
3 pairs of earrings from my family (also Christmas 2012)
2) Yellow single gemstone
3) Pearl with spangly metal bits
4) Steampunk flower (made of copper wire and gears)
-Organize the cabinets
HAH! Finally. 11/29/12, Intaglio's 29th birthday present.
25, 25, 101
I haven't blogged since last winter. Let's see: Finished M2, took Step 1 of the boards, passed Step 1 of the boards, Intaglio moved in, did a preliminary rotation in internal medicine, started in the lab, started grad school in earnest. Life update complete!
It's been a strange transition. I've never been one to handle life changes with what one might call exceptional grace. There are no clear answers in the lab. Did that assay work well enough? Are these controls good enough? Am I doing enough work? Am I doing the right experiments? Are my priorities straight? Who's to say? My PI seems okay with my performance, is that enough? Am I spending enough time on my classes, or should I throw those to the wind and focus more on research?
25% of the way through grad school, turning 25 in two days, and in many ways I feel more tentative and wide-eyed than I did when I first started med school. Maybe even more so than when I started college. It's somewhat disheartening. And, when I get disheartened, I tend to respond in the same way I have since I was in middle school: grouchiness, elevated sugar consumption, foot-dragging on intimidating tasks, generally teetering on the verge of being unbearable to others.
In the interest of getting it together, accomplishing things, and generally acting like a 25-year-old and not like a freshman overwhelmed by OChem, I started to set goals for myself, some more ambitious than others ("Jog 6 days a week", "Send that damn email to your PI about your thesis committee already", et al). Coincidentally, a friend in my cohort started the 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge. I read her list, and poked about online looking for examples of this challenge. Some seemed like fun, some seemed a bit trite (Collect 10 colors of nailpolish? Why?), and some seemed worth doing.
With that in mind, I put together my own list: some meaningful, some fun, some trite. I'm planning on using my own 101 as a sort of compass, a way to track achievement outside the lab. I'm also planning on posting here more; there's a lot I like about grad school, but the relative isolation and shrinking of my day-to-day social circle was a bit of a shock. My hope is that by making it a habit of posting here (with pictures! I found my memory card for my camera), it will both draw me out of my shell and, well, encourage me to do things that are worth writing about.
It's been a strange transition. I've never been one to handle life changes with what one might call exceptional grace. There are no clear answers in the lab. Did that assay work well enough? Are these controls good enough? Am I doing enough work? Am I doing the right experiments? Are my priorities straight? Who's to say? My PI seems okay with my performance, is that enough? Am I spending enough time on my classes, or should I throw those to the wind and focus more on research?
25% of the way through grad school, turning 25 in two days, and in many ways I feel more tentative and wide-eyed than I did when I first started med school. Maybe even more so than when I started college. It's somewhat disheartening. And, when I get disheartened, I tend to respond in the same way I have since I was in middle school: grouchiness, elevated sugar consumption, foot-dragging on intimidating tasks, generally teetering on the verge of being unbearable to others.
In the interest of getting it together, accomplishing things, and generally acting like a 25-year-old and not like a freshman overwhelmed by OChem, I started to set goals for myself, some more ambitious than others ("Jog 6 days a week", "Send that damn email to your PI about your thesis committee already", et al). Coincidentally, a friend in my cohort started the 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge. I read her list, and poked about online looking for examples of this challenge. Some seemed like fun, some seemed a bit trite (Collect 10 colors of nailpolish? Why?), and some seemed worth doing.
With that in mind, I put together my own list: some meaningful, some fun, some trite. I'm planning on using my own 101 as a sort of compass, a way to track achievement outside the lab. I'm also planning on posting here more; there's a lot I like about grad school, but the relative isolation and shrinking of my day-to-day social circle was a bit of a shock. My hope is that by making it a habit of posting here (with pictures! I found my memory card for my camera), it will both draw me out of my shell and, well, encourage me to do things that are worth writing about.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Back
Med school has started, and with it, the panic dreams have begun. I generally have three types of panic dreams:
1) The (really) realistic: The other night, I dreamed I was filling out paperwork for my PhD application. I generally tend to wake up bored.
2) The based-in-reality premise but factually nonsensical: This morning, I had a boards preparation dream. I was taking a class from a guy who was making us do a team-building exercise that involved hauling heavy ropes around. Then we took a practice exam, but most of the questions were about pop culture. I asked a few of my peers how this was supposed to help us prepare. No one had any good answers. I woke up feeling a need to review the glycolytic pathways.
3) The ????????: The night before that, I dreamed I had become embroiled, through my own free will, in a plot to steal...a something from the medical school. Really, I don't know what it was, or why I did it. (I referred to it as a "prank" at some point.) All I know was that the something was in a small chest near a row of lockers, and I was with two other guys who were in on it. So we opened the chest and stole this...thing, whatever it was, and promptly got caught. My parents came to try to defend me, but I actually got irritated at them, as I was, you know, blatantly, incredibly guilty. My PI was trying to cheer me up and said, "Well, you'll probably never be able to practice as a medical doctor, but you'll still get your PhD." Surprisingly, this failed to brighten my mood. At some point during the dream, I was in a water park in Florida, and went down a long, twisting water slide that, to my surprise, ended not in a pool but in the Gulf of Mexico. I woke up feeling incredibly guilty, and it took me a little while to realize that nothing had actually happened.
So yeah.
In other news, I've now officially submitted my boards application. At some point in my life, I'm sure I will learn to graciously accept that I must pay fees to take exams, that although I do not want to take these exams, I do want to pass them and move forward with my education. That point has not yet come. I spent most of yesterday fuming about how I HAD TO PAY $535 for an EXAM THAT I DO NOT WANT TO TAKE. Woe is IL-X!
Non-science/-medical news: Two things are of note.
1) I ate vegetarian sushi, and I liked it a lot. This shocked me to my very core.
2) Intaglio is in the process of teaching me chess. I think I am improving, based on the fact that it now takes me much longer to lose.
1) The (really) realistic: The other night, I dreamed I was filling out paperwork for my PhD application. I generally tend to wake up bored.
2) The based-in-reality premise but factually nonsensical: This morning, I had a boards preparation dream. I was taking a class from a guy who was making us do a team-building exercise that involved hauling heavy ropes around. Then we took a practice exam, but most of the questions were about pop culture. I asked a few of my peers how this was supposed to help us prepare. No one had any good answers. I woke up feeling a need to review the glycolytic pathways.
3) The ????????: The night before that, I dreamed I had become embroiled, through my own free will, in a plot to steal...a something from the medical school. Really, I don't know what it was, or why I did it. (I referred to it as a "prank" at some point.) All I know was that the something was in a small chest near a row of lockers, and I was with two other guys who were in on it. So we opened the chest and stole this...thing, whatever it was, and promptly got caught. My parents came to try to defend me, but I actually got irritated at them, as I was, you know, blatantly, incredibly guilty. My PI was trying to cheer me up and said, "Well, you'll probably never be able to practice as a medical doctor, but you'll still get your PhD." Surprisingly, this failed to brighten my mood. At some point during the dream, I was in a water park in Florida, and went down a long, twisting water slide that, to my surprise, ended not in a pool but in the Gulf of Mexico. I woke up feeling incredibly guilty, and it took me a little while to realize that nothing had actually happened.
So yeah.
In other news, I've now officially submitted my boards application. At some point in my life, I'm sure I will learn to graciously accept that I must pay fees to take exams, that although I do not want to take these exams, I do want to pass them and move forward with my education. That point has not yet come. I spent most of yesterday fuming about how I HAD TO PAY $535 for an EXAM THAT I DO NOT WANT TO TAKE. Woe is IL-X!
Non-science/-medical news: Two things are of note.
1) I ate vegetarian sushi, and I liked it a lot. This shocked me to my very core.
2) Intaglio is in the process of teaching me chess. I think I am improving, based on the fact that it now takes me much longer to lose.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Museums and the Medicine Nerd
Just returned from a week-long jaunt to Washington, DC to visit my parents, Dr. and Mrs. IL-(X-1), and my sister, IL-N. I arrive back in the snowy north with lots of warm fuzzies, new snow boots, a t-shirt of a turtle wearing a top hat and holding a briefcase, and an extra 1.8 pounds (true fact: adding cayenne pepper to simple chocolate cookies makes them physically addictive).
My boyfriend, Intaglio, came along. He is an artist. As such, we visited a large number of art museums and galleries. Despite my lack of artistic training, I was able to glean a few insights from the many pieces I viewed:
1) There sure is a lot of art around.
2) Yup.
My participation on these outings was, on the whole, limited to carrying the camera case and periodically exploding into paroxysms of rage that were generally triggered by 'pieces' consisting of blank canvases.
But on my very last day in Maryland, on a clear blue day, we happened across the National Museum of Health and Medicine. It has recently moved, having previously been housed on the now-defunct Walter Reed Hospital campus in DC. It's not set to become fully operational until May, so only two exhibits were open: a basic overview of normal and pathological anatomy, and field medicine during the Civil War.
And they. Were. Fantastic.
It was nothing at all like the shameless sort-of exhibitionism and thinly-veiled gawking of the awful Body Worlds show (that's worthy of a post in and of itself). Each exhibit was the perfect balance of scientific fact, illustration, exhibition, and human interest. A lot of it was review (but a cheerful sort of, "Oh, I remember this!" review, not "Ugh, not this again" review), but there was plenty I did not know. For example, both the respiratory professors and the infectious disease professors neglected to teach us about scrofula, which is the cutaneous manifestation of tuberculosis. Given how they often seem the prefer the shock-and-awe approach to medicine, I can't really see why:
Image taken from the Visibly Human Health and Disease in the Human Body website, National Museum of Health and Medicine
And, as someone who has, on occasion, forgotten to use hand sanitizer when beginning an examination of a standardized patient, I can personally attest to the fact that once you have seen the Civil War surgery exhibit, this will never again slip your mind. Ever. There are only so many references to sepsis and pus-filled sponges that one can take.
However, I was most impressed with the Civil War era successes in medicine. Take the reconstruction of a soldier whose face was eaten away following the formation of gangrenous ulcers due the use of a mercury-based medicine:
All images taken from Trauma and Surgery: Medicine During the Civil War website, National Museum of Health and Medicine
When you consider the technology they had to work with, that's really not too shabby!
But yes, I am back now, which means more grant proposal and schedule-wrangling. Onwards!
My boyfriend, Intaglio, came along. He is an artist. As such, we visited a large number of art museums and galleries. Despite my lack of artistic training, I was able to glean a few insights from the many pieces I viewed:
1) There sure is a lot of art around.
2) Yup.
My participation on these outings was, on the whole, limited to carrying the camera case and periodically exploding into paroxysms of rage that were generally triggered by 'pieces' consisting of blank canvases.
But on my very last day in Maryland, on a clear blue day, we happened across the National Museum of Health and Medicine. It has recently moved, having previously been housed on the now-defunct Walter Reed Hospital campus in DC. It's not set to become fully operational until May, so only two exhibits were open: a basic overview of normal and pathological anatomy, and field medicine during the Civil War.
And they. Were. Fantastic.
It was nothing at all like the shameless sort-of exhibitionism and thinly-veiled gawking of the awful Body Worlds show (that's worthy of a post in and of itself). Each exhibit was the perfect balance of scientific fact, illustration, exhibition, and human interest. A lot of it was review (but a cheerful sort of, "Oh, I remember this!" review, not "Ugh, not this again" review), but there was plenty I did not know. For example, both the respiratory professors and the infectious disease professors neglected to teach us about scrofula, which is the cutaneous manifestation of tuberculosis. Given how they often seem the prefer the shock-and-awe approach to medicine, I can't really see why:
And, as someone who has, on occasion, forgotten to use hand sanitizer when beginning an examination of a standardized patient, I can personally attest to the fact that once you have seen the Civil War surgery exhibit, this will never again slip your mind. Ever. There are only so many references to sepsis and pus-filled sponges that one can take.
However, I was most impressed with the Civil War era successes in medicine. Take the reconstruction of a soldier whose face was eaten away following the formation of gangrenous ulcers due the use of a mercury-based medicine:
When you consider the technology they had to work with, that's really not too shabby!
But yes, I am back now, which means more grant proposal and schedule-wrangling. Onwards!
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