...hey

It's been a crazy year.  I dropped off the map with this blog, in part because I didn't have any new zero-waste adventures to share, but mostly because I got hit with some mental health issues at the end of last semester.

I may blog about that more at some point, but the summary is: grad school is really, really stressful and sometimes that messes you up. It is always stressful, but especially when you are trying to balance three research projects and an NSF proposal and unnecessarily early concerns about thesis project selection.  For me, that stress overwhelmed my ability to cope and keep working at the necessary rate, and so my brain and body started going into a shutdown mode around Thanksgiving.  I finally got help in January, and am in a much, much better place than I was 6 months ago, but this blog managed to drop off my priority list. 

I may widen my blog post topics in future, we'll see, but for now I'm feeling celebratory, so here are a few things that happened this semester that I'm happy about:

• I FINALLY FINISHED MY PAPER FROM MY UNDERGRAD THESIS!!! (Reviewer comments don't exist yet, shhh) but submission will happen this week. AHHHHHH!!! 
• But seriously that paper has been a shadow over my life for the last two years.  I started the project almost exactly four years ago (minus two weeks).  And it is finally almost gone.
• I learned how to set boundaries.  In my personal life and my professional life, I am finally learning how to tell people NO and say how I want to do things.  I am learning how to tell people that they hurt me (that's in my personal life only, thank goodness).  This has been a lifelong lesson coming.
• I'm grappling with my faith and my identity. I started claiming my faith under somewhat hostile circumstances, at school and in my head (and at church, though that was more subtle).  Twelve years later letting go of those things means redefining who I am and where I stand with God. 
• I'm finally managing to actually send messages on this online dating website.  No one has replied, but getting myself to be proactive about dating is a major step for me.

 So woohoo! Here comes summer and adjustments and new and continuing dilemmas, but today is a good day.

Hello there sunlight

About 2 hours ago, I submitted my NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Proposal.  I'm excited about the project, which I will actually start next week, and I have a halfway-decent chance at getting the Fellowship. 

I'm now climbing out of the hole that application made in my life - the sunlight greeting is an exaggeration, I will admit, but my life has been far more work than fun for the last few months.  The NSF hasn't been the only big work thing looming over my life, but it was the biggest deadline.  Now that it's over, I can do things like grocery shopping (not wasteless unfortunately, but now I have food in my cabinet again so I'm accepting that for the moment). 

I definitely started myself off onto the wrong foot this semester.  I've been running nonstop since I went to France for a conference in August, to the point where even taking time to have dinner with friends or cook or relax on my own felt hard.  I got a few moments - weekends or days away where I intentionally left the computer behind - but overall, I have been a little ball of stress.  And it's affected my life in a lot of ways.

For one thing, I haven't been shopping the way I want to.  In some ways, that's been good because I've been using up things in my cabinet.  On the other hand, I've had a CSA share in my fridge for 2 weeks and I should probably deal with that, but I haven't felt like cooking for a while.  I finally ran out of things in my cabinet and had to go to the neighborhood grocery store, rather than to the CoOp I'd rather shop at but which is far away.  And, particularly in the last week I've just been eating out.  My wallet's not thrilled with me, nor is my conscience. 

I also learned that when I don't get to spend time with friends, especially when I'm stressed and really do need to talk, I become a giant crankypants.  The day before a midterm several weeks ago, I nearly yelled at one of my officemates (of which I have 6, which is a whole other issue) and had to cut myself off midway through a loud, frustrated outburst in response to him.  At which point I walked to a nearby park, sat down, cried, and realized that I was not ok.  I've been spending more time with friends and with myself, but I need to give myself permission to continue doing so.

In short, I've learned that work will expand to fill the time I give it.  I'm hardly the first person to learn this lesson, I know.  But it was hard to be in the middle of it, knowing that I needed to relax and slow down but feeling trapped by the need to get everything done.  I could have asked my advisors and collaborators to give me a week or two off, but I wasn't willing to.  My classwork is mediocre, so I feel like I have to prove myself with research, but the lack of hard deadlines within that is messing with my head.  I'm impatient to get things done, and wanting to impress, but I need to stop biting off more than I can chew.  Otherwise, I'm gonna burn out. 

Anyway, that's me.  Hopefully regular posting will now resume, and there will be one less thunderous looking graduate student on campus. 

Summer Goals Recap

I had 5 goals for this summer. How did I do?

1. Work hard and efficiently at research.  This is why I'm here.  Subgoals:  Get the paper from my undergrad project submitted and through revisions (that depends a bit on collaborators and reviewers).   Get the paper for my current project finished by the time I go to a conference at the end of the summer (in France!)

The first half of this, I think I did alright on.  There were definitely some questionable days, but I'm overall pretty happy about how I did.

Subgoals: not met.  I mostly blame collaborators on the undergrad project, because they didn't get back to me for the entire summer until 3 days before I left for my conference.   For my current project, I'm getting close, and since I have to turn a write-up into my department next Friday, I'm pushing to finish the actual paper by then and just turn it in to the department as well.

2. Get my NY residency squared away and transfer all my mail, etc, up here.  I'm no longer a dependent on my parents for tax purposes, so I'm ready to transition away from MD being my primary residence.

Yeah, didn't happen.


3. Get my savings in order.  I set aside some money throughout this year, but didn't do anything with it besides stick it in the bank.  I have a mutual fund that is wanting for contributions, and I want to open a retirement account.  Subgoals: talk to HR since they sent me a letter about retirement plans, and research said plans.

Accomplished.  I opened a Roth IRA, and had a phone conversation with a Vanguard rep who talked over some of their offerings with me.  For the most part, it wasn't anything I hadn't seen on the internet, but it was nice to actually talk with someone and hear things laid out for me specifically.   I haven't contributed to my mutual fund, but I'm not sure whether I will, since it's not tax-deferred. 


4.  Sort some personal stuff out that's currently keeping me from dating anyone, and some other stuff that's screwing up my relationship with my parents.  These might be the same stuff; I'm not yet sure.

Sort of.  I've identified some of the issues with my parents, and I'm working on strategies for improving that relationship.  Related to dating...well, I'm making progress.  I think I'm nowhere close to getting everything sorted, but I'm starting to be ok with going forward and continuing to work on myself, rather than stall.  That could be good or bad, we'll see.


5. Eat or preserve everything in my CSA share each week.

Not perfect.  Maybe 1/3 of the weeks something's gone bad before I could eat it, but it's gone pretty well aside from that.   I've done very little preserving, but that will be changing in the fall since I plan on freezing a lot of things.  

CSA Week 4: Socializing via vegetables

Everything from last week got cooked! Including very delicious roasted kohlrabi, thank you Miser Mom for inspiration :)

This week we got:

• radishes
• a cucumber
• 3 garlic scapes
• scallions
• a dill plant
• (lettuce) traded for another bunch of yukina savoy
• choose 3 mustard greens -  I picked yukina savoy, chard and kale

This week the share didn't include as much food compared to the first three weeks.  All the bunches of greens were pretty small, and two shared meals took out almost everything for the full share.  I cooked the radishes and made garlic scape hummus again for my vegetarian friend Sloane on Tuesday night. Then my share partner Chris and I sauteed kale & scallions and boiled yukina savoy on Wednesday to go with dill & basil chicken.  The cucumber is headed for a July 4th picnic today,  the lonely chard went home with Chris, and that's the end of this week's share.

When I signed up for the CSA, I planned on cooking with Chris some weeks, but didn't really think about sharing my veggies beyond that.  In reality, it has given me so much more than vegetables.  I've fed friends at least once, and typically twice, from every delivery.  And that's been a huge blessing in my life.

There's the frugality reasoning - even when I add a protein and grain I'm coming out ahead of a restaurant meal (frequently a friend will bring one or the other, so I'm providing even less).  But the primary reason I love sharing my CSA is that inviting people over for dinner lets me spend time with them.  As a somewhat-socially-anxious introvert, it gives me an "excuse" to ask someone to come over.  Sometimes its hard to call someone and say "hey, can we hang out?" unless I know them well and have something specific to talk about.  Saying "hey, can I feed you dinner?" feels like a lower bar somehow.  Plus, acts of service is a big way that I show people I care about them, so I get to love on my friends.  In return, I typically get quality time with them, a major way that I feel loved.  So not only is the CSA good for my health, its good for my heart too.

My "No Moving Home" Fund

Despite knowing the importance of an emergency fund, and growing mine this year, I am pretty confident that I won't need it.  After all, grad school is a stable source of income and support, and I have good medical insurance (seeing as I'm still on my parents' plan for now).  So I thought of my emergency fund as a nebulous thing that I wouldn't need for 5 more years, just in case I can't find a postdoc position or there's a gap between defending and my start date.

But this semester I started thinking about whether I'm going to stick all the way to the PhD.  Maybe I'll leave and just teach? Maybe something else will come up?  Classes have sucked and I know that's a big influence, so I'm not going to make that decision until I have my Master's in hand (another 1.5 years), but the thought is there.

Simultaneously I've been thinking a lot more about my relationship with my parents lately.  And how much I do not want to move home (visiting can even be a challenge).  And then it occurred to me, that this was the reason to have an emergency fund.  So that I can continue to live on my own for several months while I transition to a new position, if my path changes that drastically.  In the same way that some folks build up an "F You" fund so they can leave their job with some security, my emergency fund is my backup plan to stay independent if I choose to pursue non-academic goals.

I feel like the money I'm socking away "just in case" has more of a purpose now, and that gives me more reason to stick money in the account. There's probably some discipline to saving with no purpose, but I'm glad to have an idea of where this might go.

Summer Goals

Classes are over; I've (mostly) recovered from the trial-by-fire final project from one of them.  After a research presentation on Wednesday and moving on Friday (!), I'll be set to roll into summer.  40 hours of research a week, and chilling out the rest of the time? Seems good to me.

Except I won't totally be chilling out.  I've got Things to do.  Here are my goals for the summer, both work and personal.  Some are lofty, some are mundane.  All are probably too general, but for now...

1. Work hard and efficiently at research.  This is why I'm here.  Subgoals:  Get the paper from my undergrad project submitted and through revisions (that depends a bit on collaborators and reviewers).   Get the paper for my current project finished by the time I go to a conference at the end of the summer (in France!)

2. Get my NY residency squared away and transfer all my mail, etc, up here.  I'm no longer a dependent on my parents for tax purposes, so I'm ready to transition away from MD being my primary residence.

3. Get my savings in order.  I set aside some money throughout this year, but didn't do anything with it besides stick it in the bank.  I have a mutual fund that is wanting for contributions, and I want to open a retirement account.  Subgoals: talk to HR since they sent me a letter about retirement plans, and research said plans.

4. Sort some personal stuff out that's currently keeping me from dating anyone, and some other stuff that's screwing up my relationship with my parents.  These might be the same stuff; I'm not yet sure.

5. Eat or preserve everything in my CSA share each week.

I plan on posting about 2, 3, & 5, for sure.  The CSA starts in 2 weeks; I'm probably most excited for that.  2, 3, & 4 are about me trying to figure out how the heck to be an adult.  Should be a fun Summer! :)