This is for Katie

Poor Katie at Minor Revisions has been having a rather rough time as of late. Luckily she has a friend who convinced her to finally go to the hospital and get her busted up ankle looked at. But in addition to being more or less mobility-challenged for now, Katie also has some stress inducing job interviews on the horizon!

So Katie needs some help to pass the time until her ankle heals, and to help distract her from the anxiety of waiting for the job interview to happen (among other things - go read her blog to get the full update!).

Since Katie almost always has updates on her blog when I'm in need of a distraction, I figured the least I could do was return the favor in her time of need.

And so, although I don't really have anything in particular to blog about, here goes:

Today when I left home to head into the lab I noticed that one of the trees near where I live has gone fiery orange! I love seeing the first signs of fall - it has always been my absolute favorite time of year - perfect temperature, and beautiful colours! Normally the first leaves that change are pretty subtle - but this whole tree looked like it was on fire! It made my day! :)

I've also been re-reading Po Bronson's "What Should I Do With My Life?" I had mentioned in a previous post that I had first read this book while wrapping up my PhD. And since the counsellor that I've been seeing to help me figure out what to do with my career gave me homework (figuring out what part of the world I most want to save/what cause I most want to devote myself to), I thought maybe that book might trigger something.

Anyway, I can't believe how much of that book I had forgotten! I remember a select few stories - but upon re-reading I realize that some of the stories that are most relevant and insightful to me now are ones that I had completely forgotten. So I'm glad that I decided to read this book again, but also a little unsettled that I could forget so much.

Anyway, one of the first few stories that I've re-read in the book talks about a woman who had been looking for her cause her whole life, and finally realized that it had been staring her in the face the whole time. She had been a kidney transplant patient as a young adult - did the long waiting list, dialysis, and suffered through a transplant that her body rejected before finally getting one that stayed. And her mother had even lost a kidney when this woman was younger. Her cause turned out to be related to organ transplant patients, and advocacy and policy for those programs. She left a cushy, but unrewarding job at a big law firm (she had gone through law school in search of her passion), and was unemployed for a year, while volunteering and awaiting her dream job. Luckily things worked out for her, and she did manage to land that dream job.

But what really struck me about her story was that she had a cause in her life all along, but was oblivious to it for so long. It made me wonder what causes I could also be ignoring or not acknowledging in my own life. I tried to think about what made me feel passionate as a kid. I was always a green earth environmentalist as a kid, and I still do have very strong feelings about sustainability. But there is something even more personal in my life that despite all my training in areas like genetics I have avoided beyond a very preliminary interest. My younger brother has a developmental disability. It has a name (which I won't reveal here, for the sake of pseudo anonymity), but it is similar in some ways to Down's Syndrome. There is quite a bit known about the genetics and cognitive abilities of people like my brother, but I could never have gone into actual research about his syndrome because I could never consider my brother a "subject." And I also never thought my brother needed to be "cured."

But because of my parents involvement in issues and advocacy for people with special needs, I have basically been a very informed, experienced advocate myself. For my entire life (well, ever since I can remember anyway). Could this be a cause that has been staring me in the face? I'm not sure how it would fit in with my science training - but I have developed a pretty nice set of skills through my training that can be transferred to non-academic settings.

Well anyway, just some food for thought - and hopefully as I continue to re-read Po Bronson's book there will be more to come.

Mid-career crisis - aka being a postdoc

I've started seeing a counsellor to help me deal with all the career woes I've been having for, oh, the past few years (basically since I started thinking about what to do after my PhD).

I think my biggest problem has been that I read and absorb so much information and advice, but then I don't actually do anything with it (except maybe order some more books, or attend more seminars about careers).

Well anyway, it has come to a head, and so I figured I needed some help sorting things out, especially now that my hormones are all bonkers. I have Mr. Daybyday, and friends and family to talk to, but some of my career insecurities and aspirations are just so personal, that it's easier to talk to a stranger about them, and feel less self conscious. It's kind of backwards, I know - but I think that my biggest hang ups (in terms of moving forward in career decisions) come from fear of revealing what my true desires are - I worry that they might seem foolish, or too lofty, or just plain odd. And seeing as I still don't know for sure what I want to do with my career, I'd rather not have to drag all my loved ones through this indecision turmoil while I figure it out.

In talking with my counsellor, I was quite sure that despite my present worries about the future, I would not have done much, if anything, different in my past. In particular, I cherish my experiences from grad school. I was so very fortunate to find myself a fantastic mentor, who became like a second father to me. Not everyone is so lucky when they find a PhD advisor. I still got pissed off at him a few times along the way - so it was by no means a fairy tale story, but overall it was great, and I consider him a wonderful friend now.

There were mostly great people in the lab, and in the department - but a few really awful ones too. We had one student with excellent grades, but absolutely no social skills whatsoever! It was the creepiest thing ever! I don't even want to go into the details for fear of undoing all the hard work to repress most of those memories. We had another with such bad hygiene that when someone finally tried to talk to them about it, they freaked out, and quit (and moved to another country within the week!). And we had one more who just increased the tension in the lab about a million fold, because they wanted to exert authority over some of the newer students, and I wouldn't let them brow beat the underlings (pick on someone your own size!). But they all came and went, and much nicer people stayed the course, to make it a pretty supportive and family like group. My academic "little brother" just defended his PhD last week - and I'm just so proud of him!

There's lots of things I would do differently now, having all the experience and knowledge that I have gained - like not getting so worked up the first time I had to TA a course. But it took all those stressful and awkward experiences for me to become the much wiser person I am today. Not that I'm actually wise - but much wiser than I was.

I've often said that if I could go back I would have taken course A instead of course B (because, for instance, the second year course B that I took was a complete waste of time in which I learned nothing) - but I doubt that it would have made much difference. And despite my present turmoil over what to do with my career, I am pretty happy with my life and how things have turned out.

It's hard to think of what I would have done differently if given the chance - because I've been pretty fortunate. I think I just would have spent more time with my grad school friends while I was still physically there - because of all the changes in moving to Fantastic U for this postdoc, I miss the people from my grad school experience the most.

Less groggy

Sorry for the lack of posting lately - morning (afternoon and night) sickness took me out of commission for quite a while. But thankfully (I hope!) the worst of that is behind me.

I started feeling a bit better last week while my family was visiting. I still couldn't manage to go out with them to eat - but I was starting to stomach some regular food again. I ventured out with them for about two hours one day, but had to come home and rest afterwards.

I gotta say, I never realized how different day to day life can be when you're pregnant. Now that I am pregnant, I find out all about the fatigue and nausea - but it just never occurred to me before how much these two things can influence life when you are pregnant. And then I hear tales of some women who didn't even realize they were pregnant until they were about 6 months along!

Anyway, it was a really great visit with my family, and my mom came with me to my first ultrasound appointment (Mr. Daybyday was very upset that he had to miss that one because of work - but he'll be at the next one). I was so relieved to see that the baby really was a baby (so it wasn't a molar pregnancy) and that it was in the uterus where it was supposed to be (not ectopic). But the most amazing part of the ultrasound was when I saw the little one's heart beating! Suddenly the pregnancy felt so real! Not that the nausea didn't feel real, but seeing the little heart beating really brought home that there was a living entity inside me! I imagine that feeling the baby move will have a similar effect on me when it happens.

So yeah, I felt well enough to come back into work this week. I still don't have my full appetite back, despite being hungry ALL THE TIME - but I was able to handle food smells in my building without too much trouble yesterday.