Five lives

Another one of those "self exploration" exercises has really got me thinking. You're supposed to imagine that you could have 5 lives in which you could explore 5 different careers, lifestyles, the whole sha-bang! So far I have only come up with 3.

The first one that popped into my mind was, of course, to be a martial artist. It's funny how I sort of view this as my secret little quirky passion. Almost like I am a little embarrassed about it. I think it is more because I'm not the greatest martial artist - I just happen to be good enough at some of the styles I've tried to get enough positive feedback to make me want to learn more. I can imagine myself learning lots of different styles, and becoming an instructor. There is just something so intrinsically rewarding about practicing a martial art and passing on that knowledge. It is almost spiritual. It makes me feel at peace, even though most practices leave me sweaty and out of breath. So yeah, if I had 5 lives, I'd probably spend at least one of them exploring martial arts whole-heartedly.

The next one that I decided was to be a research scientist (talk about imagination!). I guess it is a either a good sign that I would spend at least one of my 5 lives doing what I am on the path to doing now - OR a bad sign that this life of science has sapped all of my creative juices so that I cannot even think of much else to do with my life. But I'll try and stay positive and take it as a good sign. I don't imagine myself as a professor - but that could also be because I've been resisting that particular "flavor" of research at the moment. I can imagine working in either a big (maybe even top secret!) government lab, or maybe some other large organization. I picture myself working along side very bright people towards a common goal. I'd like to think that the research would be of the utmost importance and of benefit to humanity. And it would tickle the little kid in me to be using or pushing the advancement of some really cool technology too. It just seems so much more exciting and rewarding than what I do right now (which seems sterile and obscure in comparison).

The third career/lifestyle that I could come up with was to be an advocate or somehow involved in policy change and revolution. Again the major theme would be to benefit humanity and make a positive difference in the world. Maybe I would act as a liaison between the scientists and politicians to prevent silly political whims from pulling the plug on otherwise revolutionary and potentially ground breaking research. Or maybe I would be an advocate for diversity - be it special needs issues, gender issues, racial issues - I think there is a lot to be said for a proper training in genetics in allowing folks to understand what difference and diversity actually mean. The world is becoming more and more of a global venture - it is about time we started helping people utilize diversity for good rather than ... well rather than for what it seems to be used for now, which is bad.

Anyway, I'm still working on what to do with the other two lives. I know I'd love to travel - but I've got to pay the bills somehow, and I've always sort of known that I want to love my career. We spend so much time at our jobs that it just never made sense to me to choose a career that you don't love if you have any say in the matter. But for some people the trade off is worth it - the job only takes up their 9-5 lives, and doesn't get to touch the rest. Maybe I would spend one of my 5 lives like that, just to see what I'm missing.

Musings and martial arts

I'll start off with a quick update on my academic life. I finished writing up a script for my talk this weekend. I don't expect to memorize it, but I just find that once I've taken the time to write down the major points I want to make sure I remember to say, I feel more relaxed, and organized. I use my slides more for a visual cue, and to give the audience something to look at while I'm speaking. I don't like putting too much text on my slides, because I figure either the audience won't bother reading it anyway, or will have a hard time concentrating on either my voice, or the text on the slide while both are being projected to them at once. I try to emulate speakers I enjoy listening to. But I'm sure that I've still got a lot to learn. It is my hope that I will never, EVER, go over-time. It is the one thing that will almost always ruin a talk for me, and therefore, I wouldn't want to make my audience stay longer than they have to either.

Also on the academic front, while I was reading PhD Mom's extremely helpful post on how to write a faculty package I had a project idea jump into my head! So I emailed PA (who is out of town for a conference) about said idea, and was quite proud of myself. The project might not be feasible in the end, but I was just so pleased that a novel idea came to me - one that is quite different from the projects I am used to thinking about. Yay! I may just be able to do this academia thing afterall.

And if not, I could always become a martial arts instructor. This is being a little presumptuous, seeing as I have yet to achieve instructor rank in any of the martial arts I have studied thus far. However, this is the first time that I've gotten back into martial arts as an adult. I took some martial arts classes before I went to highschool (and yes, I am being vague on purpose) - for a few years even. My instructors told me that I had a beautiful punch. And the head instructor would always ask me to go to competitions and represent our club for the forms competition (where you perform the choreographed moves for each rank). I never went. I think I was too shy, or scared or something. Hell, I remember in the very first class I was so scared and nervous that my knees were literally shaking, and I was so worried the other kids in the class were going to notice my pants jittering at the knees. Thank goodness my parents got me into those classes. I can only imagine what a passive wreck I'd be if I didn't have the self-confidence I learned there.

Eventually we started sparring in class. I went undefeated, and yet, I remember having so much anxiety before every match. I think that is ultimately what made me stop going. That and I was starting highschool. Lots of transitions. But I think I would have wanted to continue if I wasn't so worried about having to spar again.

Fast forward about 15 years. I joined a martial arts group here at fantastic university - a different style from my previous training. I joined because the group came highly recommended from a friend, it was convenient, and I missed being involved in a martial art. I didn't realize how much I had missed it until I was back in the fold. I really really missed it. Because of my previous experience I was able to master the basics of this new style fairly quick, and have gone up a few ranks in this group. I am at roughly an equivalent level now to the one I was at when I left my old club. But the biggest difference is I no longer have anxiety about sparring! I don't know if it's just that I'm no longer the lone girl always sparring with a bunch of immature boys, or if I'm just less anxious in general now that I'm older. But I'm actually learning about sparring strategies for people of my stature, and having a really great time. I also really enjoy being able to teach fellow students. Even though I don't often out-rank them by much (or at all), I think because of my previous experience in another martial art, I can see the technical qualities of what we are being taught and therefore am better able to help the newer students figure out how to do the techniques as well. I enjoy it so much that I often wonder if I could follow in the footsteps of my current instructors and become a teacher myself - or even run my own club/school someday! ha! All of these day dreams and I'm still only about half way up the rank system.

What I really enjoy about these thoughts is the fact that I seem to have found a passion again - and a lost passion at that! It gives me hope - hope that I have something I'm good at and enjoy enough that if this academia thing doesn't work out for me, I know that there is something else out there that makes me happy and wouldn't feel like a step down. It may look like a step down to other people, but it wouldn't feel like one to me.

During the last year of my PhD I read Po Bronson's book "What Should I Do With My Life?" and at the end I was pretty dismayed by the fact that I really didn't have a passion. Sure I enjoyed science, but at the time I was feeling pretty overwhelmed and under-enthusiastic. So many of the happy stories in Bronson's book revealed that the person in question had been able to identify a latent or novel passion, and then ran with it. I was still searching.

But I think I may have stumbled back into mine.