Post 100: The Finish Line in Sight!

I have a defense date! Lovely way to start my one-hundredth thesis post!

And have had for a few weeks now. It was a SPRINT to get the paperwork in on time, and I think I was tired just from the two days of stress about that. My supervisor was waiting for my committee member to give the go-ahead, and for confirmation from an external. This Easter long weekend got in the way, because it takes up two days of the necessary 20 business days that need to be in place to give the external fair shakes at reading and reviewing my thesis, and coming up with questions for the defense. BUT -- thanks to the amazing grad admin my program has, who worked her magic, it worked out!

I defend on May 2, 2017.

Galiano Island succulents. :) 

A week ago I would have said, "I can't wait to defend." But now that the days are skipping by faster than I can keep track of, I know it'll be the kind of thing that comes waaaay too soon! It'll certainly be a challenge not to lose my nerve, because working full-time comes with the added challenge of being busy for the most productive hours of the day.
I'm also attending a conference mid-May, and going to visit my folks afterwards, so May will be quite packed, too.

More Galiano Island succulents. Love these guys!

My to-do list for the rest of April looks like this:

Thesis Prep (presentation, review, practice questions, print and re-read my thesis)
Conference Prep (presentation)
File my taxes
Keep on top of cooking and meal prep
Plan for my trip home
Stay healthy (get enough sleep; eat good food; get exercise)
Stay active (I've been biking to work lots, so that has been really good)
Go climbing 1x per week

And on the don't list:
Stay up too late
Eat chocolate
Eat out too much
Let my room get too messy

I think regularity of schedule will also become increasingly important so I don't let my anxiety get ahead of my. My nerves have already been more tense with my thesis defense getting closer.

Right near a bench, downtown Victoria. Love the colour!

But, I think what gives me courage is thinking of a celebration party later this summer, when I've had a bit of time to decompress from the stress of it all.

Longer-term plans include:
Publishing research contract articles (my own and my colleague's)
Publishing my thesis research (1 article)
Writing a few more posts on this blog, and then closing it down
Starting up a new writing project that I can work on through the rest of the year
Tackling my reading list (it's become quite long)

And, coming up with some trips for shared weekends with friends. I am so excited not to have the weight of this thesis on me anymore. The dream of that has been a big part of the motivation to finally finish. I wouldn't have been happy with myself if I had quit this program, despite feeling like it so many times.

Obligatory cherry blossoms. They are finally here! :)

2017 is already a good year.

Post 76: Sometimes it's okay to take a sick day (or two, or three)!

As the title undoubtedly suggests, I've been ill (again)!! First it was strep throat for 2 weeks in January, where I really was under the weather, and took almost a week off of work, and it's been a solid cold for a good week that really ended this weekend. When you're sick for an extended while, it's just not fun to keep going and to try to be productive, and I found myself in this negative cycle expecting that I would get more done, getting frustrated when I couldn't, and then trying to do more, and get more done, and then not, and so on. One of those things is a blog post on research data management plans, which is coming up next!

Home art project! Cards for loved ones. 

Towards the end of this past week I was exhausted, tired of feeling unwell, and I was feeling quite negative about the fact that I was drafting yet another version of an outline for my last chapter. I couldn't quite get to feeling good about the work that I was producing, because I was drippy and had that head-stuck-in-a-pillowcase feeling and was tired and not. Doing. Well. I met with my supervisor twice this week, and meant to have a third version of the outline done on Thursday, but went home early hoping I would feel better in the evening (which I did not), and then Friday was not substantially better either.

So I took Friday off, and helped my landlady trim the heads off the hydrangeas that line the front walk, and generally enjoyed getting a bit of sunshine and doing something tactile. I got into the spirit of doing easy-going tactile work and for the first time in a long while undertook an arts and crafts project where I made a few home-made cards. SO MUCH FUN! Picture above. (Mum -- I hope you don't see this post before Dad checks the mail! You should be getting your card today!)

Look at that colour! So lovely!

Yesterday (Saturday) I also took a day off to spend time with my partner and with friends, and I walked in the sunshine along the inner harbour, took in the tulips (below), and loved the feeling of my black pants getting very warm from the direct sunshine. And, for the first time this year, I worried about getting a sunburn, and not having packed sunscreen. This is a wonderful thing.

Today I spent the morning at work with my friend Karen, and in 2.5 hours I rewrote entirely and sent off what I think is a decent interim draft of my chapter that my supervisor and I can discuss in a meeting this week. I felt positive about my work, I was focused, and engaged. And I felt very good for the rest of the day.

So here's to taking a day (or two) off when you need it. There is no sense in pushing yourself when you're already running on fumes. A solid break to get well is a great idea.

Stay healthy!!

Also, here, some complimentary white and lovely cherry blossoms from my View Royal neighbourhood. :)

This tree was buzzing busy with honey bees and other pollinators!

Post 69: Writing, Writing, and More Writing, and Getting Healthy

Spring in Victoria has sprung once again, and I found myself walking towards James Bay this afternoon, startled to see the first pink blushes on a cherry tree. It's the end of January, and some of the eager-beaver cherry trees are bursting with blossoms already. The snowdrops have been out for several weeks, and the crocuses are, I'm sure, not going to be far behind. 

Dusk approaching in James Bay, walking along Beach Drive.

I felt a little bit invincible when I got my first flu shot at the end of November, and I have been proven wrong once again. I suppose it's good to be reminded of my human-ness once in a while. A week and a half ago I got strep throat, which came as a surprise: I thought that it would have been much more painful in my throat, but aside from the inflames tonsil on one side of my neck, I really noticed the aching and the infection seemed to really stress out my whole body, so I had more headaches and migraines than usual. Let me say that I was able to be a somewhat engaged human being with the help of a lot of ibuprofen. BUT -- it certainly was not productive to engage with my thesis, so I find myself a week later, starting at the calendar once again, with a finally cleared head.

Getting back into writing is hard, and I've had to find creative ways to trick myself into it. Mornings are still the most productive writing times, and getting in a good morning of writing is key for keeping up momentum, so it was really really good to meet up with my friend Karen Monday morning and get in a those much-needed AM hours. Because I am liable to find myself distractions and other things to do, I tell myself I only have 20 minutes to write right now, and so I need to do it, quickly. Once I get over that initial hurdle of 20 minutes, which disappear faster than I can blink, I can usually sink into a good writing session, and my brain does seem to get tired after 2 hours or so. Not to mention that my stomach gets hungry.

The Himalayan blackberries (Rubus armeniacus) have none of their usual deep green foliage at this time of year. 

At this point in the degree, it's also a bit odd to feel quite disconnected from campus. I live a 50 minute commute away from UVic, and especially still kind of recovering from strep throat and needing lots of sleep, I find that I am disinclined to make the bus-trek to school. I have lab meetings every Thursday morning, and while the seminar series (which does look very good) has started up again for Wednesdays, my reality is that I work two part-time jobs (family-business help and a research contract I've had for a year), and I am trying to stay on top of my fitness goals, and keep healthy.

Now that I'm down to the last few days of antibiotics and I am truly feeling better, I have been getting more excited about the local MEC Run series. They have a few races over the next few months, and it might be a good idea to register for the 5K at the end of March. I will have motivation to pick up my running again, and run my 2nd race in Victoria before my 28th birthday. Yay!

Birds on a wire! There were twice as many sitting in a row, but they became shy
and flew away as I pulled out my camera.

With the brighter days and longer daylight, I find it so easy to fall in love with the world as it wakes up again from the brief winter sleep we have in Victoria. We've been brushed by another atmospheric river today and for the next day, and it's been a balmy 11 degrees today. Wahoo for spring and daylight, and more thesis writing!

Post 53: Back in Victoria!

Phew! It's been a very busy last month and a half for me. Travel to two conferences, covering my parents' vacation, and finishing up last week at the BC FoodPro West Conference with my sister, dad, and my family's Sales Representative Laura, was quite a feat!

Quick good news story: my parents have had a sourdough bread bakery (the Kaslo Sourdough Bakery) for about 23+ years now, and 2 years ago they started to produce sourdough pasta (Kaslo Sourdough Pasta, or KSP), which is amazing!!! The judges that evaluated the Innovation Award and Product of the Year must have thought so too, because KSP took the Innovation Award and got bronze for Product of the Year!!! Now I'm even more proud of them than I was before! The BCFPA had awesome videos of the nominees, and once they're up, I'll be able to share the one they made of KSP. My dad's voice sounds a little bit funny in the video because he was just getting it back after having tonsillitis! In any case, a SUPER BIG CONGRATS to them! They are so awesome. Here's us at the gala, post-award:

That's me on the left, my dad Silvio beside me, my sister Heidi in the blue dress, and Laura on the right!

(For those wondering why I'm in the photo, too: I am their sales representative here in Victoria, and sometimes do demos on the road for them, too.)

I am, however, glad to be back in Victoria and sinking my teeth into thesis work, and seeing my colleagues again. I have missed them, and there are some lovely changes around University House 4, too.

We have a picnic table!! I sat out on it yesterday doing some work already. Today it's a bit grey and clouded over, but maybe it'll still be a great lunch spot. :)

This morning I've already said hi to Mary, Mike, and Kristen, who came in yesterday to get some prep work and organizing done for Mary and Kristen's time in the field starting mid-July.

And after appreciating the lovely yellow blossoms of St. John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum) in the front of the building, I was reminded just how different plants can look in one location and another!! Local climatic and environmental conditions obviously play a significant role in all of this. To illustrate my point:

Victoria's version of St. John's Wort: lush, succulent, huge flowers, big leaves. 

This gives a better picture of the full plant. 

Whereas in the Kootenays where I'm from, with it's much shorter growing season, I'm used to the St. John's Wort looking more like this: 

The scraggly, smaller flowered and leaved St. John's Wort of the Kootenays. 

I almost didn't believe that they were the same plant. BUT -- this reminds of the research project that I undertook with my group during the Redfish School of Change Field School that I participated in; at the time, we visited three different biogeoclimatic zones in BC: the one my hometown is a part of in the south-eastern corner of the province, the Interior Cedar Hemlock zone, the lower mainland's Coastal Western Hemlock, and on Vancouver Island here in Victoria, the Coastal Douglas Fir Zone. We tracked red-osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera) in each of those zones, measuring some of the key physical features of the plant, and were startled to see a HUGE difference: in the Kootenays they were bushes, whereas on the Island they were trees! (We did not, unfortunately, have the capacity at the time to check out soil or water chemistry properties, so limited our research to the physical factors).

The St. John's Wort and red-osier dogwood are good examples that I'll keep in mind to share with students in the future on something like the plant walks that I have done for ES 341 or Ecological Restoration, or ES 200, the introductory course. As I tell them there: "Never trust a plant!"

Post 38: New Year, New Semester, Setting Perspective

Happy 2015! Wishing everyone health, happiness, a small dash of good luck, and many good times with friends and family for the new year.

I got into Victoria with a bit of a bang last night; my flight was delayed by about an hour and a half due to mechanical issues with the plane, and to top it off, the baggage folks ran out of room at the back of the plane, so we had to take on some of the bags at the front of the plane! So in total, the travel time from home was once again, over 9 hours. It is, at the best of times, a challenge to get out of the Kootenays. This post is more personal than any of my previous ones, on account of it just having been New Years and Christmas.

My hometown, Kaslo, as it sits on the banks of Kootenay Lake, slightly hidden from view by the trees.

It's rainy in Victoria—quite a different scene from the white snowy world of the Kootenays that I've been immersed in over the past 2 weeks, visiting my family. The break was great: I did a little bit of work while I was home, but between walking Laika, my parents' dog, shovelling a bit of snow, bringing in firewood, and helping with my family's business, it felt really good to take a bit of time off. I should also admit I was forced to take a bit of a break: my sister's fiancee came back from a visit to his folks out east with a horrible cold, which he gave to my sister, which I seem to have picked up from her. So, bogged down with a stuffy nose, head cold and headaches, I wasn't doing much for a few days, but that was fine, too.

Laika, bounding through the snow, always in action. 

Back in Victoria, I'm staring at my calendar. I have a few days before I lead a 1.5 hour conference session at the TA Conference here at UVic. I also want to wrap up my edits to my third chapter, my methods chapter, in the next week or so. TAing will start in the next two weeks, so it's good timing to be thinking about how to start first tutorials again, and what my relationship with a new class and new batch of students might be like. There are a couple of other small things on the side of that: I have a few hours to make up from my second research project, and for that project, an abstract is due in about two weeks for a conference at the end of May. For the same project, I've also to go download and figure out how to use HyperResearch, a qualitative data analysis program similar to NVivo (look for a post on that coming soon!) It feels like a very different world from one at home where I was walking the dog every day, and finding someone to play cards (mostly Skat), or having tea with my whole family, where I'm listening to my grandparents reminisce about their drives around various parts of Germany or surrounding countries.

I'll admit I'm a bit stuck on my memories of home, so this post will have quite a few photos of my time there. Laika, my parents' dog, is fantastic company. I got out almost every day because she needs a walk, and she paid me back by staying up with me later than most people in my family (my parents are bakers, and rise very early). She was an almost constant companion. I really enjoyed my time with my sister and her fiancee, and my brother and his girlfriend and her son, my grandparents, and my parents. Everyone. I miss them a lot when I'm not home, and while sometimes it's easier to forget that I miss them, it's that much harder when I go back home. And of course, there are always the mountains and the landscape of the Kootenays. What a phenomenal corner of this province I was lucky enough to grow up in (and here chime the sentimental bells...).

On a mini-hike up a ridge about 5 km outside my hometown; looking across Kootenay Lake.

I'll say it's a bit difficult coming back while still getting over a cold. I spent the day in today, tidying around the small apartment I share with my partner, putting clothes and presents away, catching us up on some dishes, accepting vegetable soup from his mother, and doing a little bit of reading. It's been a quiet day, but I haven't yet felt up for more. Perhaps tomorrow will be a day for getting more work done, and for facing the rain. Here's a photo from earlier in December here, with Oak Bay Avenue light up by Christmas lights (below). I hope they stay up for a good bit longer, as Victoria usually faces a good stretch of grey this time of year, which is arguably the toughest to face.

Oak Bay Avenue, at night, with Christmas lights!

But, I am very fortunate to have had great company to pick me up starting at the airport, where my lovely partner, Mike, came out to greet me.

So here's to starting off 2015 right, and readying for a great conference presentation taking place in under a week!

Post 17: Bike to Work Week

Bike to Work Week is COMING!!!

What is it? A week that celebrates, encourages, and supports new and seasoned cyclists who are on our roads. This is an event that happens all over the place: not just in Victoria, but across the country. Victoria has an amazing system of collaboration and support with all sorts of prizes and events during the week.

This year is extra special because it's the 20th year anniversary for the Victoria Bike to Work Week group.

                                           Cycling down near Oak Bay in Victoria, BC! :)

So aside from feeling awesome and encouraged about riding a bike—or tricycle, or a reclining bike—there are tons of opportunities to grab goodies and enter draw prizes and get a free tune-up at the Celebration Stations all throughout the week. They are held twice a day, in the morning and the evening, catching cyclists on their way to and from work. Or, you can do as I did last year, and minimally lengthen commute routes to hit a couple that aren't normally on your way to campus.

This year there's also a new Celebration MEGA-Station on May 31st (Saturday), from 1-4 PM at Centennial Square, to celebrate and recognize all the people and organizations that help to make (and have helped over the past 20 years) BTWW a success.

There are a number of courses on offer before the event, if you are interested in boosting your skills or confidence level, for kids and adults both.

It's been a cause of joy for me to see the weather warming and improving rapidly in Victoria, and I've already been cycling around more. Goodness knows I'll need to boost my bike-fitness a little bit more to brave riding up the steep Foul Bay Road hill to get to campus.

Otherwise, I've been laying out my thesis, and trying to account for the important pieces that I'll need to write, and that work has actually been fun. It's amazing what a load it is off my mind (and chest) to start putting things on paper. There's a lovely creative process there: once I put down the things I've been carrying in my head on paper, then I'm free to massage more out of what's there, as well as have new ideas or elaborations work out from what I've already got. I suppose this feels like more familiar territory that the terror of 'doing research' in the abstract, and questioning what that means all the time.

I'm trying to sign up for the Thesis Completion Group that's run through Counselling Services on campus here, over the summer. I'd tried to in the fall, but it was already full then; we'll see if a few spots have opened up for the coming months.

Cheers to writing and planning and data analysis with the sun providing an abundance of softer, natural light in my office!

****

Quick update post-event:

BTWW was fantastic! We had a great turnout, with 5 first-time participants, and we certainly outdid ourselves by having a much bigger team than last year. I also had a lot of help organizing and keeping track of everyone's statistics with 2 of my colleagues, and they did a great job, too!

We saved about 321 kg of C02 from everyone biking over the week, and we biked a cumulative 1566 kms over the week, with 138 unique trips. Way to go! Fantastic BTWW 2014. :)