Hi chickadees,
Tomorrow kicks off my final year of graduate training.
After making it this far, I've been pretty stunned at how difficult this path has been. There isn't an easy way to articulate how challenging earning my doctorate has been without slipping into stupid clichés or hyperbole so grandiose as to be impossible to take seriously. To say "it's been so much harder than I thought it would be" is accurate but utterly fails to communicate that guys. Seriously. I cannot BELIEVE how hard this shit has been.
All that being said, I'm trying to turn to face the future instead of holding onto my exhaustion from the past four years. It really helped me to set my intentions before learning whether and where I would be going on internship, and so I thought I might try doing the same things before I actually go to my first day of internship tomorrow.
So what are my hopes for internship?
1. Finish my dissertation.
So I can gtfo of this grad school bullshit.
This will necessitate:
a) Cessation of my avoidance of statistical analyses
b) Running my statistical analyses
c) Running them a few more times after I discover I did them wrong in some infuriatingly minor way, e.g., some stupid check box defaults to being unchecked each time you run a new analysis even though you ALWAYS WANT IT CHECKED STUPID STATS PROGRAM WHY DON'T YOU LEARN (see also: what happened with thesis)
d) Writing up the results of my analyses
e) Sending dissertation to committee
f) Do ALL THE EDITS
g) Defend!!!!
h) Win!!!!!!!
I didn't use up the entire alphabet listing all the subcomponents, which means this is clearly doable.
2. Remember that every single experience every day is teaching me something, and that is valuable.
Even if it's how not to be or how not to do things, that still counts as something I'm being taught. Even if I hate it in the moment. A lot. Due to my immense capacity for hatred-in-the-moment, maybe also:
3. Focus on the fact that this is one year, the last thing ever, and I just need to do it and then things will get exponentially easier from then onward.
Translation: I will hopefully thereafter get paid somewhere reasonably closer to commensurate with my training and experience. After I get licensed, it will be even more awesome.
4. This will be a good year, especially if I decide it will be.
This is a truth I have definitely not mastered or fully integrated into my brainspace at all, which is why this is probably the most important goal of all (after dissertation--definitely all things AFTER dissertation).
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| srsly. |
The nature of so much--really probably all--experience is determined by the perspective and attitude one chooses. There's no truly objective interpretation of reality, and so we as humans inherently have to choose our style of reality interpretation. I have a pretty strong tendency to over-attend to things that frustrate me or make me sad. As an added perk, these are often things I have no power to change. This stance obviously doesn't serve me very well. I'm hoping to shift that with gentle, persistent practice.
I heard a great anecdote on one of my favorite NPR podcasts the other day, attributed to Native American wisdom. It was about an old man telling his grandson that he had anger and hate and love and kindness all living inside him, fighting each other all the time. When his grandson asked which side was winning, the grandfather's answer was, "Whichever side I feed."
I definitely need some practice feeding the happy, positive, grateful side of myself. There's so much in my life to feed it, if I just remember to do it.
So here's to a good year. I'll be glad to tell you all about it.
Wish me luck!
{Heart}
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