It’s weird to be at this point when I’m considering being done with my PhD. I feel like the last five years I’ve never had a hard deadline to meet. I didn’t have x number of classes to finish or exams to complete. I just needed to get my research to a point where I know how to think about the problem and come up with a solution (and then publish that solution, finding, etc.).
But suddenly, I have a deadline; I have a date (ish). And it’s all very overwhelming, but exciting. I’m both relieved and a bit sad. Because what am I going to do now?
…
I don’t have an answer, but the ideas thrown around seem to all contain one thing in common. Writing. I guess I have a creative side that desires something more than just hard science.
So I’ve spent a lot of time meeting with different science writers and communicators trying to figure out what I’m passionate about. I go to networking coffee events. I’ve even got a science writing workshop lined up this month.
And what I’ve realized is that there is a real need for scientists to communicate with other scientists. Science is becoming very interdisciplinary. Often, a biologist and a physicist need to communicate, but they speak different scientific languages. So how do they communicate? How do they understand papers from the other field?
But even bigger than that is how do scientists communicate with the general public? How do we turn the black box of scientific research into an accessible, tangible reality for non-scientists? That is an important question that I’m not qualified to answer, but I’d like to look into it more.
…
So here I am (almost) at the end of one road attempting to figure out the next one to turn on. I’ll be spending lots of time in prayer and reflection, listening and hoping for God’s voice to point me somewhere. Until then, I could use some prayers for good data, the end of writer’s block, and confidence 🙂
If you haven’t been introduced to Evernote, then consider yourself lacking. I LOVE Evernote!
It has saved my sanity as a working mom, a scientist, and even a faithful Catholic.
I follow TSW (The Secret Weapon) as my approach to making Evernote work for me (i.e. better productivity). But I mainly love Evernote because everything (everything!) ends up in the same place – all of my thoughts, notes, sticky notes, tasks, blog posts, to do’s, etc. You name it, it can be there.
Now, it is digital… But for those that love the pen and paper (I mean, BIS Lenten Journal, FTW), there’s still a way to get it into Evernote. And then it’s there… FOREVER. I hate dealing with clutter. To the extent that I just make piles of clutter because I don’t want to deal with it. Ask RJ, he’ll tell you the truth about my inability to throw paper away (For real, going through the mail truly tests our marriage). But with Evernote, I can shred the paper copy after I’ve snapped a quick photo and saved it. Takes less than 30 seconds. Maybe 15 if you’re fast with technology. Or if you have the Evernote quick note add-on on your phone:
You can make it easy to add a note on your phone…
But I digress from the main point about Evernote. It has truly changed my life, and how I approach a To Do list nowadays. When you have a million things to think about, and those million things can be separated into some categorization (work, home, errands, etc.), then you can further prioritize them using Evernote. This serves two purposes: (1) To help you prioritize, and (2) To declutter your brain. Because let’s be real. As women, having a spaghetti brain is hard. You think about one thing, then you remember another thing, then that reminds you of something else, until you realize that you forgot to bring diapers to daycare. Hopefully your child hasn’t sat in a dirty diaper all day…
But with Evernote, I can make a separate note of everything that comes to my mind and prioritize it in that moment. Bringing diapers to daycare is a Now task, but looking into flights for my cousin’s wedding next fall is a Later task. I can get it out of my brain, onto “paper,” and then forget about it until it pops up in Evernote. And as a mom, operating on little sleep sometimes, it has saved my sanity, memory, and productivity.
As a scientist, I use it in a more sophisticated way. (But it’s the same system, so I don’t have to switch at work and home – if I think about something work-related at home, I can just make a quick note, and vice versa)! I can use it to archive journal articles I’ve read, which includes my annotations, summary, and notes all in one file. I can use it as a virtual lab notebook for data analysis. I can use it to save files that people send me via email during the day. I can declutter my inbox with it. I can take notes in it (or take pictures of my digital notes). I can keep track of my orders with it. I can plan my experiments in it.
I could keep going, but I won’t bore you with all the awesome things you can do with Evernote. You’ll need to explore it yourself, and make it work for you.
That’s one of the best things about it. It’s customizable. You can tag things the way you want. You can make different notebooks for different projects. You can keep everything organized like a virtual filing cabinet. But you make the rules. You make it work for you.
And for my faith-based life, well, I’ve been playing with bullet journaling on Evernote. I keep track on a calendar of which devotionals I do each day. I keep my notes on devotionals or email videos in a single notebook. I save the BIS devotionals that truly speak to me (Did I mention how easy it is to “clip” an email? Just press a button.). I back-up my NFP chart here. I save the things that inspire me.
And since I can type faster than I can write, I can capture a lot more of my thoughts. I can get a lot more out of listening to a Dynamic Catholic video. I can look at things that spoke to me in the past when I’m struggling with my anxiety.
And if I write it down, as I do in the morning, then I can just snap a quick picture and save it for later. No big deal. Maybe I read something in the Magnificat that speaks to me – snap a picture and read it throughout the day on my phone.
It truly helps organize my life into one app that I can access anywhere.
And it’s free. You can upgrade to fancier versions, but even the basic version has so much potential. I’m not getting anything from singing Evernote’s praises in this blog. I just love it so much that I want you to know how much it works for me. Because we could always get more done, but we can only remember so much and do so many things in a day. So reserve some of your brain power for prayer, and let it all go in Evernote.
They say that women aren’t able to think about nothing. We don’t have a “nothing” box that we can retreat into. Well, Evernote is helping me get closer to that. I have less to think about, less to remember, and more time to focus on the tasks at hand. Even if it is bringing diapers to daycare…
I’ve been pretty MIA on the blog front these days, so I’m sorry for those of you who keep checking up on me.
I just returned from the Biochemistry Departmental retreat with a big desire to write again, so here it goes.
Everyone needs a retreat. What type of retreat might vary for each of us, but we all need one. And then we need a retreat from our retreat. (Very much analogous to a vacation from your vacation, if you’re familiar.)
I just spent a single, exhausting night up in the mountains with a bunch of scientists. My science brain was on the whole time. So I feel tired, but oddly invigorated. Perhaps it was listening to my advisor present my research in such a way that I was actually proud of the work I had done. Perhaps it’s because I like solving problems. But I think it really reminded me about how much I love science. And I got the chance to feel those emotions again, without the pressure of research and career goals.
And as I was driving back with my thoughts, I cannot remember the last time I went on a personal retreat for my own faith. Because sometimes it’s hard in this world to remember how much God loves us. To actually feel His love.
And then I returned from the retreat to my usual day-to-day life – a one-year-old that won’t nap, work obligations, house cleaning, etc. I realized that I wanted time to reflect on the retreat. I wanted time to think about what I took away from it, what I learned, and how that will change my career directions. But I didn’t have the time or the lifestyle for that. So you’ll have to wait on that blog post.
How often does that happen? We return from a retreat (or adoration, an awesome homily, workshop, talk, or whatever) with renewed desires, only to have our normal life take over. The grand goals and emotions we had during the retreat take a back seat to our primary worldly obligations. And it gets pushed aside. The handouts that you were going to reread and reflect on end up in the pile of junk mail before getting recycled. It becomes an afterthought. Then it’s forgotten.
So how do we remember (or not forget)?
We go on another retreat. We experience it again. And again. And again.
Until perhaps, we can recall the emotions of the retreat for moments during our lives. At 3am, when a teething baby just won’t sleep, we can recall the utter peace we feel in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. When another experiment fails yet again, we can remember why we love science to begin with.
And if we don’t have that, it’s easy to get discouraged. It’s easy to forget.
So we all need a bit of a retreat sometimes. Maybe it’s just a few minutes for some people, maybe it’s a whole weekend for others. But we should all find the time to feel renewed and reinvigorated. Until the next retreat.
It’s the end of the summer… in academia, at least. The new fall semester begins today, and with it, return the undergraduate students and the flurry of faculty back from their summer schedules.
Summer is supposed to be the time that we focus on our research and make great strides toward publishing our data. [I’m rolling my eyes just writing this…]
Let’s just say that this summer hasn’t been up to par.
The research has been in a slump, and with our technician leaving at the end of June, I’ve been swamped with trying to stay on top of the preps that need to happen.
Plus, it’s summer! And I’m much more interested in taking Lily swimming than being stuck in a lab. (I know, I definitely don’t have what it takes to be in academia.)
But I’d appreciate some prayers that this Fall proves much more productive. Because I’m going to be a 5th year! Yep, you heard that right. I’m officially old when it comes to graduate students. So I really need to churn out some data because mama needs another paper before she can even consider graduating.
UPDATE: Perhaps the summer has been more productive than I thought. My paper has FINALLY been accepted. We’ve only been working on it since before Lily was born…
RJ and I just returned from a trip to the Bahamas (sans Lily!). It was awesome, relaxing, and emotional for me (because who would have thought that I would be more attached to Lily than she is to me!).
I want to share this with all of you because I want to challenge you to do the same.
We were on a private island – CocoCay. We sat down after getting our lunch at the buffet. Thinking nothing of it, RJ and I make the sign of the cross and pray before we eat our meal. For us, no big deal.
There was a man sharing the table with us. We had just begun eating. He leans towards us, and says, “No one does that anymore. You don’t see it very often. Thank you.”
It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about, but after I did, I had tears in my eyes because that is the first time that a complete stranger has mentioned our praying in public. And I didn’t even get his name.
So I challenge each of you reading to encourage the people you see praying in public. Say thank you. Give them a thumbs up. Go over and talk to them. Because we should all support each other. After all, we’re all sons and daughters of God, and a little encouragement is truly powerful.
Sometimes we have to really let it go and let God.
I’ve always struggled with trust in God. I hate the fact that I can’t fully let go (Thanks, anxiety). One day I hope that I won’t struggle as much, but recently, I really hated what God was trying to give me.
It’s been a year and a week in the making, but suddenly, everything makes sense. I can’t share fully the extent of the new changes, but they are definitely for the better. And I never thought that they would actually happen.
I actually had thoughts of God abandoning us. Forgetting us.
But He didn’t, and that’s what’s amazing. The minute I let it all go – He came in, and changed it all.
I’m sitting at work at 4pm, waiting to leave to go pick up my daughter. And with how busy I am (or should be), you would think I’d be scrambling to get stuff done. And I was, up until about 5 minutes ago. Now I’m waiting, feeling anxious to leave but unable to because I would feel the guilt if I left early.
Isn’t it odd how even when we are waiting in silence we are still so restless?
Even when I don’t have a million things to do, I try to find something to busy myself. Like here at work, I have 30 minutes before I usually leave, and I’m trying to find something to occupy myself for that time. But I can’t get too invested because I’ll have to leave it unfinished until tomorrow. Still, I can’t just sit here and do nothing.
But perhaps that’s what God has been trying to teach me these past many months (and I mean, many). Maybe I should be waiting in peace rather than restlessness. Instead of finding ways to be anxious, I should be at peace when everything is taken care of. I know that I’ve always struggled with that. I always have something to worry about, and when that something is fixed, I put another worry in its place. I worried about hosting a speaker a few weeks ago. Hosting him was actually really great, and I learned a lot. Now I’m worried about the fact that I’m behind in my PhD work. At home, I’m worried about my daughter not sleeping – is it because she’s too cold? Worry after worry, I find myself drowning in this waiting for the worst thing to happen. God doesn’t ask me to do that. He asks me to wait in peace, and trust in His plan for me. That doesn’t mean I won’t suffer, but I shouldn’t suffer from my own anxiety.
Believe me, a lot of my issues stem from this anxiety. I’ve always been an anxious person, even before I had a baby. But everything is heightened now – like anxiety on steroids. And waiting is so much harder now.
Isn’t it odd how that happens? I’m always unhappy with the waiting for the next stage. I was frustrated when I had to wait to get married. I was upset when we were waiting to start our family. I was uncomfortable waiting for Lily to be born. Now I’m frustrated with waiting on results, waiting even longer for my PhD. I wish I could go back and tell myself to be happy with the waiting. To be at peace with the waiting. Because things change, but not always in the way we expect. (I mean, I used to actually get a full night of sleep and be able to focus entirely on science without being sleep-deprived.) So maybe I should have focused more on gaining the grace I needed while I was waiting, instead of being angry that things weren’t happening the way I wanted. I once heard a woman say that she wished she had spent her weekly time in adoration during her single years praying for grace in her future marriage rather than wishing she was already married. She has six children, so she needs a lot of grace. I should have listened to her.
The times of waiting are opportunities for growth. I may feel like it’s stagnant, and the day to day is unfulfilling. But God is asking me to grow somehow. I don’t really understand how, but that’s what the quiet moments are for.
Right now, no one is screaming at me. No one is stressing me out with a deadline. And the lab is oddly quiet, a strange stillness in a world that is constantly moving. I’m coming to appreciate those moments of quiet, but I really need to focus on not worrying through them. Rather, I should focus on the beauty of the slowness at the end of the day, waiting for the blessing of seeing my baby girl in a bit.
It’s Good Friday, a day I like to keep solemn and prayerful. Definitely a quiet day. But gone are the days when I can spend the entire day in solitude. Gone are the days of Catholic elementary school when Good Friday was a school holiday (If only I had appreciated that at the time…). Today I have a number of things on my To Do list, and I can’t put them off for the entire Paschal Triduum.
My PI (boss) wants data analyzed yesterday. My yeast culture refuses to grow to a reasonable density. And everyone else seems to be working like it’s a normal day.
These are the subtle attacks on the faithful in academia. No one openly tells me that I can’t pause my work to go to Stations of the Cross, but the fact is that no one else is taking a half day or working from home. And that makes me feel isolated. And fearful that perhaps my boss will think I don’t work as hard or take science as seriously because I’m not totally invested in my data analysis today (For the record, it got done with the help of God and a supportive husband watching the little one today).
It’s days like this that isolate the faithful in academia because we prioritize our faith over our work. We don’t see Good Friday as just another day. It’s far more than that. But we’re surrounded by people who don’t fully understand.
So I’m reflecting a bit on this today. And praying that I can be extra productive next week 🙂
when I can spend the entire day in solitude. Gone are the days of Catholic elementary school when Good Friday was a school holiday (If only I had appreciated that at the time…). Today I have a number of things on my To Do list, and I can’t put them off for the entire Paschal Triduum.
Catholic Mama, PhD 