PseudoWinter Tidings

Cassian Andor: I'm not used to people sticking around when things go bad.

Jyn Erso: Welcome home.

-Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Rogue One was an excellent movie. I loved it. I loved it so much. I loved that there was no explicit romance in it. I loved that a woman was the commander of an impossible mission and everyone respected her exactly for the leader she was. I loved the martial arts. I loved the scenery: like seriously, A+ rocks. But the above quote was one of the things I loved most about it. In 13 words it encapsulates something I have been struggling with for 11 years.  

Recently I was out to dinner with a friend who asked if I go home for the holidays. I responded by looking at her with an absolutely blank expression. I completely forgot that was a thing that someone would choose to do. Friends of mine are starting to interact with the mortality of their parents, the loss (usually to due to downsizing) of family homes, the general dissolution of stability that happens as people age and become more of a burden than a provider. I am grateful when I can be supportive as they process these things, yet some of my friends’ fresh wounds reflect such old and healed-over wounds of mine that it perplexes me. The Rogue One quote condenses an explanation of the “presence” or “absence” of having a home in the past decade. I can strive towards being present for my friends and family who need me to be their home as it happens, that’s all I can do.

 Aaaaaaaaanywayyyyyy…

After last week’s insanitypants conference I took SUPER easy for quite a few days.

An exciting thing that happened was that Dr. Genderqueer met my Fourth-Cousin-Twice-Removed!! It just so happens that coffee shops in this part of Oroenpaz city are the exact intersection of cool and awesome to make this happen. My Fourth-Cousin-Twice-Removed and I are planning a Punk Rock Shabbat and I am already 1000% on board to record a fantastic version of  “Lecha Dodi” to the tune of “London Calling” by the Clash. Coming soon to a YouTube channel near you, hopefully.

Saturday was unremarkable day because we literally did nothing. It was so glorious. PartnerPenguin correctly intuited that I needed to get some exercise before the day was out so we went to the market. Mum calls markets like these “Dunno Stores” because she has had the experience of asking an employee “what’s this?” they respond “Dunno!” So we went to a DunnoStore and explored 750 varieties of soy sauce, 60 types of kimchi, and an isle of noodles.  I tried partially dehydrated and frozen persimmons. Delish.

One thing I did this weekend was melt down my crystalized honey and put it in a smaller jar. I just needed to share that because it is so beautiful when the sun shines through it:

It’s been really really cold in the Key Route City these past couple weeks. I had hoped that being from somewhere that has Winters I would be ok with the cold every now and then. Nope. Nope. Nopity nope. Can’t deal. Reason 1: I don’t own anything Winter Worthy. All of my clothes are (generously) fashionably targeted for a mild chill on the cold end and a balmy sundress at the other end. Reason 2: My circulation sucks and my extremities have been known to suck the homeostatis-life-force out of those I love by wiggling my toes under their bottom. PartnerPenguin hypothesizes that my heart must be on fire because my nose is so cold. Reason 3: Structures here are not built for cold. They do not have insulation. They do not have double-paned windows. There are not end-caps at Home Depot of that special saran wrap for windows and families do not have a designated hair dryer for shrinking it.

I’m over Pseudowinter and I’m glad that the Solstice has passed. Winter Solstice is one of my happiest days of the year because it means that the sun is going to start winning again and we can get back to business being happy. I had a really good Solstice this year and appreciated being surrounded by folks who are friendly and care. I made applesauce, which is labor intensive but simple to make. It helps me eat apples because I don’t really like apples. 0_o. I guess I don’t like the middle of the road apples or Red Delicious. Or any apples that are mealy. It’s really hit or miss. But applesauce. That’s where it’s at.

Probably the biggest thing that happened this week was I actually found job I’m properly qualified for and I applied the hell out of that job. The pros: It’s a job! Yay! Pays moneys, good benefits, and decent (from what I can tell) co-workers. It would be a good path to getting a PG license; which is a stick I’d be happier to wield at this point than a PhD. The con: 80% fieldwork with 50% overnight travel. I see the con as an opportunity to invest in some great new gear (it’s a job so it will pay moneys!) and get to explore more of the wonderful land of this country. We’ll deal with how to get through the PTSD about large North American mammals when we get there.

I also talked for a long time with some publishing companies at the tail end of the conference last week. At least one of the dudes thinks my skillset is super transferable and would have been interested in hiring me if I lived closer or was willing to relocate. That gives me hope.

I finally went through my LinkedIn account and made it more accurately reflect myself professionally. There is a category to include GPA and I poked back to find my GPA from Big American University was 3.60. I started listing the awards I won, the funding I secured. I started listing my volunteer activities that have been prolific and varied in the past…since the start of high school. Trying to sell myself more accurately. Trying to make myself more available, more present and more whole as a person. This process has been so slow that it has been painful to literally everyone around me so the more I deal with it, the less agony all around.

Breakthrough work

Sparkles and I had another session and we built a beautiful shared analogy. She asked me what I thought of when she said the word “Closed.” After a bit of exploring, I came to the mental image of a restaurant. A little mom and pop joint (probably Italian) like the places my family would sometimes go to on Fridays and I would eat ravioli for comparison. I imagined this place closed, with the chairs on the tables, the floors mopped, the tablecloths fresh, kitchen quiet. It felt safe. It felt so nice that there were no messes. She asked me how I could know whether the place was prospering or barely scraping by. Would it open the next day?

She asked me then to put the chairs down on the floor. What else did the tables need? Flowers, I said. The plastic kind. And compostable, yet disposable tablecloths so messes could be cleaned up. She asked me could I delegate any of the work for keeping messes under control to someone, like a busser. I said yes, of course.

We talked about what hours my restaurant would be open. 5-10pm. Would I have a day off? Saturday. Even though that’s bad business but this is a metaphor restaurant so I took the day per week I’d like off. Could I commit to having “Open” hours and know that they would be constrained? Could I hire people and we come to a mutual agreement about what  I expected them to do, yet let them actually do the thing? I said that I wanted everyone in the restaurant to be allowed to offer a dish for the “special” of the evening. This way everyone felt included.

Sparkles talked me through opening my metaphorical restaurant. She asked me how I felt, I said “disbelief.” I didn’t think anyone would be there but there were already customers. How long would it be until I believed that this would be ok? Two months. Two months would be long enough to establish regular regulars and occasional regulars. That, combined with seasonal, I would probably be ok.

I was so surprised in doing this exercise at how sad I felt. I just cried for a while, even though things were positive. I cried because the safety of being closed and clean isn’t how I can move forward any more. I cried because I know how to delegate tasks but I don’t know how to delegate parts of my day so that I can be the best me there is. I cried because there were bits of college where I thought I’d figured it out and really I was just killing myself bit by bit to graduate with honors: only to never credit myself for the work. I cried because of how scared I am to change and how little faith I have that if I change, others will stay with me.

To lighten the mood, I will close out with two songs that are upbeat in different ways. The first is called “Seagulls” which is a Bad Lip Reading of Empire Strikes Back. Yoda’s little dancing has been making my life this week. 

The other was introduced to me by Raptor. It’s an a capella mash up of Carol of the Bells and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Can’t say I didn’t spread some holiday cheer! 

Weakness as a Human Attribute

I went to a bar this week and wound up hanging out with some new people whom I didn’t really know. For the first time since I’ve had it, one of the men asked to look at my wedding ring. Another guy looked at it, trying to figure out the stone and guessed adventurously that it was tourmaline. I laughed and said “Valiant effort, it’s Benitoite” which rendered a general WTF face from everyone. ::proudly displays hipster badge::

The man who had initially asked about it asked me why I was married. I said that it’s because I am not a very stable person and my relationship stabilizes me. He said “But why did you get married?” “I dunno, I guess societal norms and the changing of labels mattered to me.” He then said

“So in other words, you’re weak.”

“Yeah, I guess I am.” I replied. But it didn’t hurt. It was actually one of the most freeing things I’ve ever said to a stranger at a bar. I am allowed to be weak and I am allowed to have a partner who strengthens me. I am allowed to ask for help. I am allowed to not be the strongest person in the room. And the freeing thing was that I didn’t give a fuck. Why should I? I’m human, and I’m allowed to show it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about validation this week, and especially how it relates to people being able to be people in science. I’ve been trying to figure out how to express precisely how I want others to behave in my house, in my office cubicle, that make me feel safe in those places. What makes those spaces mine? Now that I have all this newfound ownership and privacy, how do I maintain it? I have been setting hard boundaries to differing success and trying to take away which important messages do I want out of life.

Work

This week a lot of things cleared up at work. I was able to have a really level-headed conversation with the scientist who “supposedly” had beef with me. As I suspected, we are both humans and we were both frustrated with the situation. Midwest Momboss caught my nonverbal cues and quietly stated to observe/moderate the discussion. I felt the opposite of alone. As long as I have access to in-person discussions of stuff like this, I have regained a little hope that the people who work with me are mature enough to work things out. I do not have blind faith or absolute trust in that. Two weeks prior of unproductive frustration have made me weary about being naïve that the “adults” will just take care of things. I don’t want them to.

I was invited to give my TEDx talk again in front of various higher ups at TLoTH. During this meeting, the Heads of my department were really nice to me. Head 1 didn’t say too much but was very supportive of my critique of their system. Head 2 (who I’ve mentioned, in a different context) was very energetic about how to incorporate more diverse undergrad students. He admitted that the department hadn’t been thinking about pipeline that far back and that it could do a better job.

One interesting passing comment was another department Head commented on sourcing undergrads for student programs. He said that he would look only at students from top universities because they were “obviously” the only students worth looking at. I was already in a little bit of a delicate situation in terms of how freely I could speak my mind so I did not address him. But I think mentalities like that are exactly WHY places like TLoTH have diversity issues. They do not think critically in how the universities population does or does not reflect a diverse range of backgrounds. The topic of public universities being truly public is a touchy and political issue. And of “top” universities, most of the ones he listed were private, therefore unattainable for all but a select few outside of those who can “pay” for it. Private (and public) schools who choose to invest in “diversity” students loose tens of thousands of dollars per semester on these students putting a lot of pressure for those kids to perform to certain GPA standards. Coupled with lack of role models and often lack of a support community on campus and at home, students in these scholarships have it pretty rough. If they are not feeling confident in fulfilling these basics (who would?) they might not be confident enough in themselves to apply for student positions at places like TLoTH. Thus leaving your applying student population homogeneous and small.

There are more sides to Imposter Syndrome in academia than one can understand after merely reading four articles on HuffPo. Start with reading Brene Brown, at least.

I care about the outcome. I care about how the pipeline is treated and I care about the system as a whole. That’s why I get invited to managers’ meetings. I’m certain (and have been encouraged from people reading the blog) that I will make a career out of caring about whole systems. This is why Big American University invested in me; I’m trying to make a decent return on investment.

Work (continued)

I would like to take a moment to say that I am extraordinarily proud of myself for my advancement to master two incredibly difficult programs with very little guidance. By which I mean one of these programs doesn’t have a users’ manual and the other has a user’s manual from 2000. But I am human (and the quant program [written in Excel] is quite possibly broken) I got to a roadblock. Because I am me, I asked for help.

I invited a scientist whom I have met a few times but never had one-on-one time with. He is a wealth of knowledge and I expected he could show me how to troubleshoot my problem.  It boiled down to a very simple issue where I had done the right thing in the wrong window. I also didn’t know the shortcut for copying the whole column in Excel. Neither of these things were a big deal and they were easily fixable and then I could move on to play with the data sets.

Except.

The dude somehow dragged out this encounter to be 45 minutes long. That’s annoying on it’s own but he spent the WHOLE time (from my perception) insulting me. This was at my desk, mind you. The thing that he said, several times, which really irked me was:

“I thought you’re from Big American University. Aren’t you supposed to be smart?”

He said this exact thing at least twice. He was laughing that nervous laugh of the socially awkward making what they think is a joke but they kinda are aware it might be harmful. But maybe not understand why. I responded: “I don’t think that has anything to do with what we’re talking about right now. Can we please focus on how to fix this issue?”

After the encounter I went outside and cried for a bit and felt better. I do not think this man’s intent was to be harmful. It’s possible that he’s used to treating students in this fashion and no one has ever commented. But I fucking raised hell. Quietly. To my mentor. Because that’s how we play at TLoTH.

Friends

This has been the Week of the Grad School/Early Career Freakout. What pains me about my friends experiencing feelings of deep inadequacy is that they are not taking advantage of services offered by their universities/employing institutions to help them cope. One of the most perfectly scientist ways someone put it this week was:

“I hadn’t considered [seeking help] before. I mean, depression isn’t clinical until it goes on for more than two weeks, right?”

We, for the most part are so uneducated about mental health as a valid and legitimate aspect of our health that we cannot even identify when we are in a crisis. We fear that if we are now in a crisis, then what the hell was it before? And I didn’t get help before, and I was “fine” so why can’t I just suck it up this time and deal with it. I have been reading Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking and she says it perfectly. “PLEASE BELIEVE ME. I’M REAL. NO REALLY, IT HAPPENED. IT HURT.”

I am happy to provide validation, support and love to my friends. But I learned there is a point I will draw a line. When a friend who I care about reflects on periods of past depression and says “yeah, like thinking ‘I fucking hate myself. I am worthless and never going to do anything with my life.’”

Though this disturbed me as I heard it, I was proud of myself. I said “No. Not here. I do not abide by that thought process and I will not entertain it in this discussion. Hard boundary.”

I have never done this before, but I realized that it was the right thing to do. It’s completely OK for me to protect myself. It’s OK that I don’t engage with self-loathing. I feel like this is one of the hardest lessons I have learned yet from living on me own. But I don't feel like I'd learned it very well previously, so I count it as a victory.

Creative Hobby

Rehearsals for the two little plays I’m in have been going pretty well. I submitted a proposal to the board of the theatre to direct a play. It is a very difficult and potentially boring play. I have never directed anything, let alone a 3 hour main event. I convinced a guy I’ve never met to be my producer. I’m stoked. I hope I get it.

Active Hobby

Went back to Derby practice on Sunday. Ow. Things I didn’t know existed hurt. My workout buddy was in a world of pain but she toughed it the fuck out for the drill we were in together. I’m proud of her. After that, I learned how to weave (at a very slow pace) both backwards and forwards. We did this one exercise where we all held onto each other’s hips and built up momentum to go around the rink. I didn’t really have to do anything and I just got to go really fast and yell “WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”

I am not at all interested in this cold bullshit called "winter" that seems to be descending at a rapid pace. The only thing I am very much looking forward to is ice-skating. I haven’t ice-skated since I was a little kid and that’s the only thing about winters I have missed. My best friend growing up trained to be a figure skater and made it a couple steps away from the Olympics. Before she got really into it, we went to lots of lessons and played at the rink together. I was pretty good, even though I liked ice hockey more than figure skating. I am very much looking forward to going around the rink senselessly for an hour at a time, even if I don’t have a friend with me. Sure as hell beats running in my book.

Eeeeeeeeennnyway. I’mma close out now with a song. This video is worth every second so please bear with it. The announcement at the beginning is a time/space capsule in its own right. Videos like this capture some of the absolutely brilliant magic that is live music. I truly hope you enjoy.