February 2007

And now for some fun in the saddle:

Saturday February 10:

10:30AM: Look outside, see that it's not raining. Decide that it's a good day to ride bike. Get dressed for cycling...

10:50AM: Realize that I have not put my new tires on. Coach got on my case last weekend for having worn tires, decide wet pavement is good reason to swap them out now.

11:45AM: Have sustained 5 broken fingers, an aneurysm, and a coronary trying to get rear tire on. Am wondering if this means that I need to hit the gym more.

11:55AM: Decide that as long as I have rear wheel off, I may as well clean the cassette (the gears on the rear wheel).

12:10PM: Cassette and rear derailleur are cleaned and lubed. Kitchen sink, formerly white, is now gray and faintly chemical smelling.

12:30PM: Front tire replaced

12:33PM: Decide that as long as I'm at it, may as well clean chain and front derailleur.

1:10PM: Ready to go. Put on shoes, booties, full finger gloves, helmet, cycling glasses, fill water bottles, pack power goo, cell phone, wallet.

1:15PM: Head out door, close behind me. Deluge starts. Raindrops the size of large cats. Realize that I did not pack house key.

1:20PM: Dig through mud, trying to find buried spare keys in yard. I keep spares out, as I lock myself out at least once a month. The last time I locked myself out, my landlord could not get me a key because she had just lost 1/4 of a contact in her eye. So had to get a locksmith to open door, and he couldn't. So he had to drill the lock out. But the drill bit broke off in the door. 4 hours later I had a new lock, and buried keys in the yard. But I digress. As I dig, I encounter at least 45 earthworms, snails, and earwigs, having cocktail hour in honor of the rain. My keys seem to be the social hub. Good thing I'm a vet and not afraid of crawly things.

1:25PM: Standing in front of DVD collection. Bike safely in place on trainer. Cup of hot tea in hand.

Sunday February 11:

Much better! I rode my bike *and* my horse. By Monday (today) I couldn't walk and made funny grunting noises every time I stood up and down (sore quads) but had a blast. Here is a picture of my boy (obviously *not* taken yesterday):

Dependable Strengths

Every so often, one reaches a moment when one must ask... IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME? My most recent disturbing experience (one in a long line of "disturbing experiences" I have had lately, including a poltergeist that seems to live in my car's turn signals, my neighbor being arrested, and the mysterious disappearance of my Starbucks card and iPod headphones, *both* of which are totally crucial to my survival), came this evening.

I was attending a lecture hosted by the Association for Women in Science, called "Dependable Strengths." The idea is that by identifying the set of strengths that are unique to you, those that become apparent when you are feeling, doing, and being your best, you can more effectively manage your life, job, relationships, etc. One identifies these strengths by recalling specific accomplishments in one's life that were "good experiences," and finding out what aspects of oneself contributed to making that a good experience (i.e. teamwork, leadership, bravery, etc.).

As part of the lecture, we were asked to brainstorm "good experiences" (events like vacation in Caribbean don't count, though I thought I'd throw in a photo of my recent winter vacation trip just to argue that maybe they should).

Nor do accomplishments like "completed internship" or "graduated from vet med school" or whatever. The idea is it has to be something that is a relatively discrete and specific event, that you initiated, and saw to completion, did well, and that made you happy and proud (so major accomplishments that you didn't really enjoy don't count either).

So there I sat. Completing a season with the Team in Training came to mind right away. But then I was stuck. Postdoc doesn't count, too long term and broad... Hmm... Have lots of great things going on now, but they are not really complete yet so couldn't include those... and then the sinking feeling set in. We are supposed to come up with five "good experiences," and I can only think of one! IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME? They didn't even have to be recent experiences--even something from childhood would count, and there I was, empty handed. I raised my hand for help, and asked if this project was designed to depress us or was it just me (insert small violins playing for me here).

But fear not, intrepid readers, there is a silver lining. The next part of the exercise was to describe one of your good experiences (or, in my case, your one good experience) to others, and get their feedback on how they would describe you. My feedback included resourceful, positive, self-aware, confident, team oriented, able to see humor in a situation (in reference to the multiple wrecks I had in my first months of cycling), compassionate, passionate, fearless, dedicated...

WOW! Instant depression reversal. And the fascinating thing was that after hearing these things, I was able to brainstorm many other "good experiences," as defined by the Dependable Strengths folks.

I think it's a symptom of our training as scientists, both in terms of the nature of the work and the training process that we become so critical of everything around us, it overflows and we become overly critical of ourselves. We are in a field where we must compete, to prove why we are a better candidate for a graduate program, why our grant is better, why our manuscript should be published, why our diagnosis should be believed. In the process of competing, we must become so critical of anything that we see as a weakness, a deficiency, a vulnerability, that we risk becoming our own harshest critics. This process is so insidious that even for generally upbeat people like myself, we may suddenly become blindsided by the reality of our own ruthless self-perceptions. Hence, when directly confronted with my own reality in coming up with this list, I had to face the demons of insecurity and doubt.

How often do you feel genuinely proud of yourself? I don't mean getting awards or graduating or whatever. How often do you do just a little thing, and feel a great sense of pride? How often do you *enjoy* the entire process--so that even if you are proud of the result, you can say you enjoyed the means as well as the ends? How often do you think you did a *great job* on something, even if others disagree? More importantly, can you recognize when you have done a good job, especially when others disagree? These to me are the skills that are crucial in becoming a successful scientist, and a happy one. It's brutal out there. NIH funding is down to 10% of grants, even less in some fields. Tenure track positions are few and far between. Industry jobs can be hard to get, and job stability is not a certainty. Manuscripts and grants are rejected, projects are terminated, companies downsize. Do you have the strength to recognize that *you* are still a successful, intelligent, quality human being?