Ups and downs

Grad school has been really tough on me. Specifically, my PhD. I don't remember feeling so many downs, or trepidation, insecurity, deflated confidence issues that these past few years have brought to me. I was the gung-ho person in my masters program, extremely driven, and there was never a doubt in my mind that I was going somewhere, that each step would take me to a better place.

I had a hard talk with my advisor recently because I defaulted on my dissertation proposal goals. I know I set myself back by a few months. It's not too late for me to graduate on the time table I originally proposed, but I have not been meeting with him regularly, giving him my updates... I haven't been myself, pushing towards my goals. I've been avoiding my proposal. He put the hammer on me in this meeting. He didn't understand why I was shuffling my feet. He thinks it's a matter of being internally motivated, but he doesn't know why I'm not.

What happened to me? I know the me who came into this program was very different. Maybe I was too arrogant about my abilities, but I'm certainly not stupid even now (grad school definitely makes me feel like I'm losing it). At least, I don't believe it more days than I do. I talked with Garima about this - how badly I felt after my meeting with him, what I think has happened to me, what's going on? I think I know. There have been so many setbacks in this program - from being cheated out of co-authorship on a publication, being given tasks that were way over my head, missteps in coursework, bungling on my core exams, and then finally, after all of that... exiting into a structureless environment. Feeling insecure about what I'm capable of... being isolated... I have never felt a period of life where it seemed that no one understood what I feel and that I have no one to talk to about this. So alone. Sometimes I even question myself and what grad school has done to my social abilities, my happiness, my sense of self.  Seriously, why all the questions? What happened to me?

I'm insecure. I need to build confidence in my abilities again, but first, I need to be able to let things go. I need to have a thick skin and it's all in the past. I can only move forward. As Garima says, I need to convey that there's no way they can get rid of me. Even if it takes me 10 years (it WILL NOT), I am not leaving here until I have my PhD in hand. They can tell me I'm stupid, but fine - so what? I'm here to learn and I won't always be stupid. At this point, everyone is here to help ME. This is my opportunity to be something amazing. Remember this. And if you ever feel the same dread and sickness in your stomach of failure, take Nicole's advice and go talk to a therapist. It's ok to seek advice on how to cope; you might need to be told that this happens to many grad students. You might need advice on how to let things go, to forget, to move on productively.

The one thing I've been looking forward to more with these daily and dominant struggles, is my running. I've been babying myself and am still not keeping true to my savings goals and shopping like crazy. I have a ton of Oiselle gear at this point and stalk their blogs and website every day. Sigh. It makes me so happy, it's like seeing a light in a faraway tunnel. Someday I will have a community I belong to again. And someday, I hope I will be a formal part of that community!

Running-related bucket lists:

• Run a sub-4 hour marathon. (One that I am proud of)
• Qualify for the Boston Marathon
• Qualify for the Gansett Marathon
• Run Chicago, Big Sur, and Bay to Breakers

Consumerism and the eternal hunger for acquisition

Well, the bad news is that in March and probably April (already, gah!), I will have defaulted on my savings goals.  The good news is that I will be stylin' - some of it will be reinforcing my running goals and the others, just fanning my vanity, ha.  Here's what I bought recently.

 

 I just discovered Oiselle a few weeks ago on theclymb.com and was compelled to check out their website to get an idea of how the fits were.  I have been obsessed ever since!  This is a fun "Stripey" shirt with thumbholes. I've already taken it for several runs and while it's a bit large, it works perfectly for those 30 degree runs!  Unfortunately for my "wish list," it's gotten obese with all the Oiselle "wants" I've added.

Now,  onto the bigger purchases, *cue the doom music*

 

Stella McCartney for adidas, the Ready to Dance gym bag.

Oh yes. I had been eyeing this baby for several months, obsessively stalking it as the lion hunts the gazelle.  Or, the poor graduate student swarms the website every day, waiting for the price to drop within her budget...  Finally, after months of waiting, I decided to just take the plunge since the price wasn't budging below 50% off full retail value.  

 

Kate Spade Charlotte Street Sylvie handbag.  

Oh my gosh... Once the floodgates opened, they could not be contained!  Another closely coveted item, I wanted this purchase (FRV at $398) to drop below $200 and I kept watching it, hoping it would... But it never did.  Finally, it just disappeared from the site and I thought that was it.  But then a few days ago, I was just browsing the site randomly and saw it reappear!  At that point, I decided I would just get it.  And now I wait for its arrival tomorrow...


And for the literary geek in me...

   

 

The Flannery O'Connor anthology by Library of America: I decided to take the plunge on this, as I'm following Yale Professor of English Hungerford's set of online lectures on Modern American Literature, one which features "Wise Blood," and with my own Classic Literature book club in the mist of reading the set of short stories "A Good Man is Hard to Find," this purchase seemed economically reasonable. As an avid [paperback] book collector, I never gave credence to hardcovers, but this book is BEAUTIFUL.  Truly, a lovely, lovely book.  I will be on the lookout for more Library of America editions in the future. Highly recommended to fellow book worms!

Richard Wright's loosely autobiographical, Black Boy:  So what was the impetus for this random book selection?  Well, since graduate school, I've let my literary analytic go to waste.  After a book club meeting that I thought was interesting, but more resembled an instance of the blind leading the blind just grasping in the darkness, I hungered for the expert analysis of someone who knew books!  A fellow book club member suggested an online lecture for interpretation of our Cervantes selection and that's where I discovered more online lectures and finally, wa la! Professor Hungerford's set of lectures.  I must say that this was a surprisingly quick read.  Wright is amazing - a one of a kind man, who is a minority even among minorities.  He was always individualistic and evaluating of life and social norms such that he would never fit in.  It's as Hungerford characterizes the book - one driven by an "identity" plot, where we have the protagonist who does not fit among any of the identities he holds membership to, and herein the struggle creates the story.  As a result, I have Native Son sitting on my night stand, queued up on the precariously high stack of books that I must read sometime soon.

At Large and at Small, Anne Fadiman.  Erudite, obscure in her geeky loves, witty, delightfully elitist.  I love her writing.  Set of essays that celebrates many random things like her and her brother's love for collecting insects, their shared love of ice cream, her fascination with Charles Lamb and Coleridge, and her defense of night owl ways.  (Thank you!  Why must we be made to feel guilty by all normal early riser, early sleepers?!)  It was a total bargain buy, which made me smile and need to get it at once.

Finally, "Mostly Harmless".  Ah, prolific economists in my field.  This somehow led to me searching up Thomas Strauss' info and then stumbling upon a syllabus for his class on poverty, human resources, and economic development.  The funny thing is that this syllabus is 32 pages long!  It now goes on the bucket list of things to read to really know my field.  Also has me thinking about where I'd like to end up by the end of all of this...  Anyway, the book is an accessible application of major studies in research design and econometrics.  It reads quite easily compared to other texts, is cheap, and functions well as a refresher to all that I've forgotten!  After recommendations by someone in my field, spotting Lauren reading it, and finally, Jade!, it was time to get it myself. 

There are more, and I will update as they arrive.  But it hasn't been a good couple of months for my wallet, also because of the fact that I decided to pull the trigger on a bunch of races I had been considering!  One, the Anthem Half Marathon during St. Patty's weekend that Amanda, Erin, and I decided not to run.  There went $95, down the hole... But I guess my foot was in bad condition at the time, so it was justified...

The hunger to run
Here is a meaningful quote that really hits home after this past month of dealing with my navicular tendon and knee injury.  From Runner's World:

My injury was devastating. But I decided I wouldn't feed negative thoughts. I was going to surround myself with positive people, imagine the best outcomes, and bathe myself in awesomeness.

Lauren Fleshman, two-time U.S. 5-K champion, after an IT injury forced her to refocus her 2012 Olympic Trials goals

 How true - if only I could have adopted that kind of attitude after all this time.  Gosh, I still remember the morning I got in a fight with John after coming back from the bad 16 mile run... I was bawling because I felt this training was ruined and my goal of hitting a marathon this April was ruined.  In many ways, it was all true.  But it took me a month to believe it was ok.  I will do a marathon this summer or fall, and I will be stronger when I do it.  Which brings me to my next discussion...

George and Sierra have been lobbying for me to do the Grandfather Mountain Marathon.  I gotta say, I mapped out the course after assiduously following the turn-by-turn instructions on the website... I think they don't call it "One of America's toughest marathons" for nothing...  Am I crazy enough to do this?  But on another hand, I love our running group and I want to continue with them after this training session!

And finally, Cherry Blossom 10 miler is coming up this weekend!  I am just insane enough to do a slow and steady long run with Tamara the day before the race.  I'm not really concerned about the race, actually.  But it might be stupid of me to cram in a 14 miler right before a ~5 hour drive to DC and then do a 7:30 am 10 miler the next day... and the ~5 hour drive back.  That might constitute insanity.

Race bucket list:
Boston Marathon, Chicago, Gansett!, Big Sur

Yearly goals: Before 30!

Some of these might not fully happen by 30, but 30 will be the benchmark to make sure I am making progress. :)

1. Successfully defend proposal by February March.
2. Write the two papers - have one on the way to being published. (Prepare to leave this place!)
3. Do everything you can to make 3B a reality: funding applications!
4. Publish two articles. 
5. Get more sophisticated understanding of development literature. (100 total references in EndNote)
6. Review quantitative material.
7. Teach PLCY 220 well; without regrets!
8. Read 12 5 books - 2 must be hefty classics.
1. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
2. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern - Stephen Greenblatt  
3. Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel  
4. The Dialogue of the Dogs - Miguel de Cervantes 
5. The House in Paris - Elizabeth Bowen 
6. Black Boy - Richard Wright 
7. Wise Blood - Flannery O'Connor
9. Attend book club 6 4 times.
1. Classic Lit: 1/8
2. Classic Lit: 3/8 
10. Watch 12 9 AFI Top 100 movies. 
1. Tootsie
2. Raging Bull
3. Annie Hall
11. Run a sub-4 hour marathon. AND run 2 marathons this year.
12. Meet the 60% attendance goal for training program.  training on your schedule
1.  Missed: 5 - 2/6, 2/16, 2/20, 2/23, 3/6
2. Because it's not fair that you got a shoe injury and had to miss all that running!
13. Advance to Intermediate level in ballet.
14. Attend yoga every 2 weeks. 
1. 1/17 - CarrYoga - Alignment Yoga
2. 2/10 - CarrYoga - Flow Yoga 
15. Become more proficient in KiSwahili.
16. Become more proficient in Chinese.
17. Open a retirement account.
• Established a life insurance plan to protect the fam.
• In March and April, you were *really* bad about this goal.  You need to be better about this!
18. Wipe off all balance on credit card.
1. Never carry balance over again - you spent $400 on credit card fees last year! F.U.!
19. Commit.
20. Go on an international vacation with the yummy bean.
21. Be more efficient with your time: 4.5 hours work (3x1.5 hour blocks) + 2-3 hours RA work, maintain social and running life
22. Go to Asheville!
23. Hike Blue Ridge Mountains.
24. Run Al Buehler Trail, Tobacco Road
25. Write 1 letter to: Jen, Nicole, Crystal, Greg, the Bum, Anne, Javier.
26. Keep in better contact with Freddie.
27. Visit the dentist.
28. Maintain better sleep schedule.
29. Drink more water.
30. Be diligent about skincare.

Shuffling on my dissertation proposal

I don't know why it's been so hard for me to get my feet together and move forward on this thing, but it has.  Maybe I'm motivated by fear, laziness, some deeply rooted anxiety, discontent with my life... But it's the first step to getting out of here.

Usually am not a fan of Hemingway, but this is exactly what is going on with me right now.  From http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2008/06/13/ernest-hemingways-top-9-words-of-wisdom/

Also - a side note - I don't really agree with the blogger's interpretation of everything here... 

3. Keep your eyes on where you are going.

“Never mistake motion for action.”

It’s very easy to get lost in busy work. You may spend much time in your in-box or filing and organizing things. But at the end of the day or week, what have you accomplished? 

Just because you’re moving doesn’t mean that you are moving in the direction you really want to go. To do that you have to do the things that you know are really important and in alignment with your goals. And not getting lost in busy work.

So, improve your effectiveness and productivity. But, more importantly, never lose your view of your big picture. And take the action and do the things you need to do to get yourself where you want to go.

[CH note: I've been using Ashu's work as an excuse and distraction away from what I really need to do.  It's time to get on that, make more time.  Get on a normalized sleep schedule, throw myself into my work and making myself the best person I can be.]

4. Just do.

“The shortest answer is doing the thing.”

How do you get things done? You take action and do them. You may need to do some planning, but don’t get lost in that stage or in over thinking things. Planning or thinking won’t get you any results in real-life if you don’t take action too.

So take action and just try something. Maybe you’ll succeed. Maybe you’ll fail, but if you do then failure can always teach you a bunch of things. The worst thing is not failure, it’s to just sit on your hands and do nothing.

Developing a just do it habit – where you learn to do what you know you want to do despite how you feel or what your thoughts are telling you at the moment – can be difficult. But it’s rewarding not only because you’ll get actual results and – sooner or later – success. It also builds real confidence in yourself, in your capabilities and in your own personal power to achieve what you want in life.

[CH: Stop talking, just do your shit.]

5. Do. Fail. Learn. Do.

“The first draft of anything is shit”

So you have to keep your eyes on where you are going and do the right things to get yourself there. However, you will not always get what you want on your first try. No worries though, if you have the right attitude. 

What attitude is that? The attitude of the much younger you. The kid who learned to walk and ride a bike. A younger you that doesn’t put so much value into a failure. But instead just gets up after falling down, learns a lesson or two from what happened and then tries again. And again. 

By cultivating that way of thinking about failure – instead of the more usual, more grown up one where you may think that the world will come to an end just because you failed – you can over time achieve some pretty awesome things.

You can read more about how failure can be redefined and be of great help to you in 4 Reasons Why Failure is Pretty Awesome.

[CH note: And first product of your shit is going to be shit.]

9. Don’t judge.

“The writer’s job is not to judge, but to seek to understand.”

I think this is not just a great piece of advice for writers but for anyone really. Seeking to understand rather than judging is hard but is something that can help you and the people around you a great deal. And this also goes back to the first tip, the one about listening. To be a good listener you must have the intent to understand the other person rather than judging him/her.

Instead of going into interactions or just life with a bunch of judgements that you apply on everything and everyone try acceptance. This is not easy if you are used to making judgements about everything. And the thing is, by making a judgement you can often strengthen you ego. You get a small ego boost and you feel good for a while. But just like with caffeine this wears off pretty quickly and you soon need to judge again to feel good.

Accepting may not feel so appealing or “normal” but I have found that when I just accept things I feel a relief and stillness inside. You just feel good. I’m still working on this though.

Accepting someone’s opinion doesn’t mean that you surrender and let them “win”. Nor does it mean that you need to just sit back and cannot take any action. You can accept and still take action to change something if that is what you’d like to do. Accepting just means that you let that person think and feels as s/he likes without judging it. When you just accept and let your judgements rest it’s easier to really understand each other and connect. 

[CH note: don't realy like this interpretation - not knowing the context with which this was written, I think Hemingway is telling us not to form impressions and judgments informed by our framework for understanding, but to watch and be receptive to a reality we are unfamiliar with.  You're a researcher, your job is to watch, be observant, and try to understand what is going on with the world and/or data.]

Keeping a relationship together over the long haul

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lydia-netzer/marriage-secrets_b_1459770.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=3293498,b=facebook

Edit: 6/17.  This is what I must strive for:

"But there is a third kind of marriage. The third kind of marriage is not perfect, not even close. But a decision has been made, and two people have decided to love each other to the limit, and to sacrifice the most important thing of all—themselves. In these marriages, losing becomes a way of life, a competition to see who can listen to, care for, serve, forgive, and accept the other the most. The marriage becomes a competition to see who can change in ways that are most healing to the other, to see who can give of themselves in ways that most increase the dignity and strength of the other.  These marriages form people who can be small and humble and merciful and loving and peaceful.

And they are revolutionary, in the purest sense of the word.

Because we live in a culture in which losing is the enemy (except in Chicago, where Cubs fans have made it a way of life). We wake up to news stories about domestic disputes gone wrong. Really wrong.  We go to workplaces where everyone is battling for the boss’s favor and the next promotion, or we stay at home where the battle for the Legos is just as fierce. Nightly, we watch the talking heads on the cable news networks, trying to win the battle of ideas, although sometimes they seem quite willing to settle for winning the battle of decibels. We fight to have the best stuff, in the best name brands, and when we finally look at each other at the end of the day, we fight, because we are trained to do nothing else. And, usually, we have been trained well. In the worst of cases, we grew up fighting for our very survival, both physically and emotionally. But even in the best of situations, we found ourselves trying to win the competition for our parents’ attention and approval, for our peers’ acceptance, and for the validating stamp of a world with one message: win. And, so, cultivating a marriage in which losing is the mutual norm becomes a radically counter-cultural act. To sit in the marital therapy room is to foment a rebellion.

...

In marriage, losing is letting go of the need to fix everything for your partner, listening to their darkest parts with a heart ache rather than a solution. It’s being even more present in the painful moments than in the good times. It’s finding ways to be humble and open, even when everything in you says that you’re right and they are wrong. It’s doing what is right and good for your spouse, even when big things need to be sacrificed, like a job, or a relationship, or an ego. It is forgiveness, quickly and voluntarily. It is eliminating anything from your life, even the things you love, if they are keeping you from attending, caring, and serving. It is seeking peace by accepting the healthy but crazy-making things about your partner because, you remember, those were the things you fell in love with in the first place. It is knowing that your spouse will never fully understand you, will never truly love you unconditionally—because they are a broken creature, too—and loving them to the end anyway." 

From http://drkellyflanagan.com/2012/03/02/marriage-is-for-losers/

Edit 6/18: The beauty of fortitude and patience in honoring a marriage for a lifetime:
http://www.wimp.com/missinghusband/ 

I love this. 

I totally agree with this.  And that's why I stopped bringing my computers to Abernethy.  Productivity increased! 

Another goal

Spend 30 minutes a day either running, reading for leisure, or just relaxing.  Pact made with Jen.

 from JL.  Love it.

Things to keep in mind

Sometimes, when you least expect it, people exceed your expectations.   Just when I think I can predict exactly what's going to happen when I'm in a certain mood, people change my mind and my thought-course.  Thanks, John.  

It's mid-February.  I am unhappy with myself, so it's time to reiterate my goals. 

1.  Start running again.  At least 3 times a week.  It helps you feel better, helps dissolve frustration.
2.  Be more optimistic.  I am prone to negativity - it helps me align my expectations, but in the field I'm in, I need to stop running away from challenges, shutting down, being insecure about my capability.  I need to be more inquisitive and critical, expand my academic network, explore more literature, keep abreast of the field's development.  Need to start constructing the dissertation committee...
3.  Get on a better sleep schedule.  2 am is going to be the goal.  
4.  Start working more.  I'm talking at least 8 hour days.  You need to be more productive -- there is so much to accomplish this semester and you are only realizing part of your potential by continuing with this abysmal sleep schedule!
5.  Start keeping track about the good things about your relationship / realign yourself.  I don't know what happened, but all the passion and love you felt for him eroded...  It's still there, but it needs to be revived.  Looking back at all the wonderful things you did together last year, let's do that again this year.  This year, sweep out all the cobwebs and get on solid ground for good.
6.  Pay attention to your appearance.  Your hair is an unkempt mess, you slob.  Start blow drying it again and spending a little bit more time thinking about what you are wearing.  

Some of the most brutal battles are waged by nerds

Had a great day with Jade and Lauren on our "girl date."  Funnily enough, the details of these plans were not known to me until I got into Lauren's car for our excursion.

We first went to the Ackland Museum, which I discovered, is home to an obscurely-exhibited, unassuming Degas sculpture!  UNC, you win some points for this. 

While at Cafe Driade, we discussed many stressful topics, more than often relating to our program and career objectives.  Sigh.  Jade remarked about the difficulty of standing as a self-sufficient, fully matured academic whose research has been conducted correctly and approved of by the community.  This is a fear I've often thought of, as I imagine myself in the post-intellectual-incubator world, "What if I misspecify or run my study incorrectly?  What if my research gets lambasted by the community?"  Well, no matter how far along you are in your academic career, this is bound to happen.  This situation is well illustrated in Martin Ravallion's blog, about the evidence on microfinance impact.  Two researchers publish results for a study they've conducted on microfinance programming, finding it to achieve positive gains for women.  Another set of researchers attempt to replicate the study, and they are unable to do it!  Of course, Ravallion provides reasons as to why (it seems the replication was flawed), but it just goes to show, whenever you are investigating hot topics at the cutting edge of research, it can be difficult to know how to analyze complex data.  There will always be people who are ready to criticize, so you must be ready to defend!  Lucky for me, I'm still in the incubator, but I've still got a ways to go.  Sigh.

Note to self: Read those papers and try to understand them.
Second note to self: You are too geeky for finding the follow up remarks and the whole debate fascinating!

One Month Progress

* Have kept up with the running schedule for 2 weeks now.  3xs/week minimum.  Awesome.
* Churning on ideas for dissertation research.  Methods papers are getting easier as I review HPM material and read them for Ashu's class. 
* Concerted efforts to stop sabotaging relationship.
* Only one absence in Swahili.  Yes.

Never ending pet peeves:
* Douchey show off guys at the gym who run a lap and then sprint past you as you're logging 2 miles.  Idiots.
* Forgetting my gym socks.  Bleeding feet.

 Hey, it looks like a heart!

Thoughts on 2011

what have accomplished in 2011?

- went back to africa, traveled the world a little bit. 3 weeks in nairobi, kenya. 2 weeks traveling around india.
- completed course requirements, passed my comps.
- in a loving relationship. still trying to conquer my demons, but had a lot of good times.
(our correspondences back and forth, long emails while i was in india, he was in states and china and then i was in africa. flying to boston to be with him during his bike accident, gainesville - garlic & ginger, reggae shack, gatorland, visiting miami, key largo (drowning myself by smiling, chasing after barracudas), saying goodbye at the gainesville shack of an airport, telling him i loved him for the first time, beginning our sleep-chat tradition. making him look like a rapist on the harvard bridge, playing set with him. med deli fatayers. nc state fair - winning banana marley. loving every minute of l'espalier with him. hitting up multiple chinatown spots for multiple dinners.  bittersweet goodbyes as he always sees me off at logan.  the small moments - falling asleep in his arms, waking up in the middle of the night and reaching for him, waking up with him beside me, taking naps, hearing his voice on the phone, kissing him or biting his neck, staring at his adam's apple, holding his hand, feeling almost every minute that i am consumed with passion for him.)
- began learning swahili. summer spent in gainesville, did a semester at unc.

what do i want to accomplish in 2012?

- be good to my body. get back into running - get into racing form, sleep better, drink more water, and rely less on sugar and coffee.
- tend to my mental well-being. make my reading goal of 1 book/month. stop procrastinating, get on top of my work. be better to john. write him one letter a month. get active with stuff in nc and keep in better touch with friends from afar.
- school goals. get better at stata. pass my field exams. submit my dissertation proposal. conceptualize my research in africa. complete and secure nsf funding and one additional source. gain more knowledge in my area.
- family. help freddie find his way. improve chinese speaking ability. same goes for swahili.