Post 94: My thesis adventure is starting to come to an end!

I start a new job on Monday! I got hired to fill a paternity leave in the Ministry of Environment, and I am very much looking forward to learning more about how policy work happens in our provincial government. I'll try to keep some updates coming about how my understanding of what a policy analyst does, exactly, evolves in the coming months. I've never had work like this, but it seems promising on both an intellectual and interest basis!

I lined up the job interview shortly after I arrived back from my trip home (mid-September), and by the beginning of October I had a new job lined up! Even now, thinking over the past month, I'm still struck by how quickly the whole process went!

Rosa nutkana, one of our wild rose species on the West Coast! Look at those rose hips!

I really quickly had to put my thesis into an even higher gear than the pressure that I had been putting on myself prior to my trip home. BUT, so much has come together in the past few weeks! I finished a full draft of my last chapter, then I went through all the previous chapters and completed all of the edits according to feedback from my supervisor (and a few of my own revisions that I felt were necessary), put together the formatting of my thesis into the UVic Thesis Template, and sent off a full draft with a somewhat more rough introduction, missing an abstract, and an unformatted Bibliography.

What a difference it was to put the whole thing together and see it looking great!! Now I'm waiting on my committee member to have a read of the thesis and give me suggestions to strengthen and clarify the writing and the ideas. While I have some tasks in terms of cleaning up the Introduction, writing the abstract, and finishing the bibliography (I had used the write and cite function of Papers, which handles all the journal articles and the grey literature and government documents that I've used, but I have some books that I need to make sure are included in there!)

Whew! What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been! Now, I'm gearing up for my new job. I attended what may well be my last lab meeting this morning, and I was definitely feeling sentimental about it. I am going to miss Eric's wonderful stories and the regular check ins with everyone, and the camaraderie that comes with a lab group. I don't think that the camaraderie will disappear simply because I'm no longer in the office, but something special happens when you get a small-ish group of people together regularly. You build rapport, and a sense of community that's hard to come by! And now it's coming to an end much faster than I had anticipated! (I didn't expect to find meaningful work so quickly, when I emailed a few friends in the late summer!)

So here I am, feeling the feels.

The coming months will be challenging: working full-time in a dynamic workplace, and trying to balance finishing up the thesis. I will be carrying on trying to finish the research contract work, which also wraps up around Christmas. Time management and scheduling my time carefully will be my best friend, I think!

So here's to new beginnings and endings: I'm sitting in my office listening to Sia's "The Greatest," feeling happy and excited and sad. I've loved being at UVic for so many years now. It's starting to sink in that my regular time here is coming to a close. All I can think to say now about the thesis process is that perseverance pays off.

Lovely October sky, with a ghouly ghost saying hello, too!

Wishing everyone a happy and safe Halloween! I hope that I'll have a few more guest posts coming in soon! I've asked a few more people with specific topics to contribute, and we'll see if any of those can materialize.

For my next post, I'll summarize the short presentation I gave about "writing in grad school" last week at our lab meeting.

Post 75: BC's Climate Leadership Plan -- Get Involved!

As graduate students it's far too easy to get lost in the bubble of campus. Depending on your research, you might not even be compelled to leave campus, find ways to connect with policy, find ways to connect with the wider community. So, it's exciting when an opportunity to get involved does appear!

One such is the the Province of British Columbia's Climate Leadership Plan! This plan is now in its second phase, which means that from now until March 25th, you can download and read their "Consultation Guide" and then participate in either their online survey or email them at climateleadershipplan@gov.bc.ca. 

Valentine's novelty tulips spreading their lovely petals and morphing as February continues to pass. 

The focus for the Climate Leadership Plan is for those participating—citizens, professionals, the young and elderly, voters, taxpayers, students—to provide feedback on what actions the Province can take to lower our greenhouse gas emissions and continue to find ways to participate in the emerging low carbon economies. BC was a leader in Canada with our revenue-neutral Carbon Tax, and I think that with the Alberta provincial government having recently released a bold and generally well-received Climate Leadership Plan, our provincial government is trying to keep its leadership position.
If you have some time, consider taking part! This is our future, and I know I look for ways to get involved in the governance and general direction of government more broadly, being someone who isn't satisfied with the idea that voting for our provincial government once every four years is an adequate level of participation in a modern democracy. 

Sometimes the best things in life are as simple as a mug of tea, especially when it's one made
by a friend's super-talented mother. Thank you Harriet (and Jenna)!!!

****
Little bit of extra perspective:

A while ago I sent an email out to a few of my peers, curious about some of their 'best' thesis advice or lessons learned along the way. Here are a couple of their tips:

From Jordan, putting the thesis experience in perspective: "The only thing I can think of is something [my supervisor] told me in my first year: A master's is about learning to ask the right questions. I remember his advice being particularly helpful at the time because it offset the immense expectations I'd built up in my head about having to find all the answers in a single thesis project."

From Emily: Annotate the heck out of documents and articles the first time you read them! A master's takes a long time to finish, and the things you read early on in your degree are not things that you remember reading when you're in your second year, starting to write up your research. You go back, and feel like you're reading everything for the first time. Do yourself a favour, and make meticulous notes only ONCE!

Post 45: Just Over the Half-Way Hump Trying to Keep Up the Energy!

Okay. Deep breaths. Square breathing, four seconds at a time.

This semester is proving more challenging than some previous semesters, and enormous amount of work at this point in the semester has no small role to play in that. I definitely like to be busy and feel productive, but there comes a point when everything feels a bit too much like madness and the burden of all my commitments feels overwhelming. Gotta keep something of an eye on balance, because when everything smashes together, it stops being fun, and it stops being what I want to do, and I don't like to coerce myself to relieve the pressure of deadlines and seeing through obligations.

Just last week I was buried in marking for the class I'm TAing, and it felt like last minute scrambling to get it all done. I was also hurriedly trying to edit my third thesis chapter to submit for Friday (got it in at 1:30AM, phew!), and dealing with guilt at not having more done on my other research project regarding climate change adaptation.

Walking towards Cadboro Bay, Mt. Baker off in the hazy evening rouge. 

So at this point in the semester the big challenge is fending off tiredness, making sure I get enough sleep, am still eating well, and still finding the energy to TA well, keep on top of my commitments, and meet all my deadlines. I had really bad stress anxiety last week, which felt horrible, and I'm so glad things are more under control now.

When life hands us the busy-time lemons, it seems like one of the best things to do is admit that things are hard, and try to tackle things on the to-do list so the stress can level off, and the super-stress is no longer useful. It was also really helpful for me to remind myself that as stiff as I think the deadlines are, I can still make time to go for a walk, and to get 8 hours of sleep, and to read in bed for 10 minutes before turning out the light. All of the little (and healthy) behavioural patterns that I usually still do are more than valuable and necessary for supporting me in accomplishing my work goals.

But when those tough moments hit, I am so grateful for the many kindnesses of my partner and friends for helping to keep my spirits up. The daylight savings time-change has also been incredible. I love that it's still light when I leave work now, and I still feel like doing things much later into the evening. It also helps that my iron levels are back up—I can feel the difference now, and I went to the gym on Sunday again for the first time in almost 4 months! YAY!

So here's to celebrating the small successes along the way, and acknowledging just how much I am getting done. It's harder to do than I sometimes think, with the next task ahead of me right away.

All in all, though, it's been a lovely week, especially so when I remember back to last week. I went to a reading and spent an evening with a close friend on Tuesday, and today we had a great lab meeting, Skyping in a grad student in our program, Kira Hoffman, who's at Oregon State University, for the semester, alongside another PhD guest, Christy James, who shares our building here at the university. Thank you, thank you to them both! I love hearing their different perspectives (more on this in the next post), and just appreciate having these conversations a lot.

Another gorgeous West Coast evening. Love these skies!

Afterwards, we had a mini-celebration with Rob Watt, long-time Mountain Legacy supporter and expert—he's likely the most knowledgeable person in Canada about the historical topographical maps that MLP uses for its research. Between a few really tasty snacks, and excellent storytelling by my supervisor, Rob, and MLP expert, Mary, it was an afternoon that zipped right by, and had my sides hurting from all the laughter. Great way to bring to a close a very good week.

Research-wise, I'm getting back into NVivo, and strategizing how to write my fourth chapter, which will cover my findings from the interviews. More on that soon, too.

Post 1: The Good Stuff

I just concluded one of the final committee meetings of CONFORWest 2014. As the Logistics Coordinator responsible for everything from special event insurance to venue and transportation booking, I feel like for the first time in weeks I can almost relax. My to-do list is shorter than three fingers put together, and the mental weight of organizing is lifting. I feel a guilty sense of pleasure at looking forward to the conference and feeling like there's not a whole lot left for me to do; I know it's not quite the same for some of my compatriots.

So, now it's time to dive back into Interview Transcribing!

Interview transcription is part of the process that sets me up to analyze the data I collected (the answers to the questions I asked for my research). These are my three research questions:

1. How have the mountain pine beetle and the rapid ecological and environmental changes seen in BC’s most recent MPB outbreak shaped scientific practice?

2. In what ways do scientists understand the relationship between their scientific practices and the formation of policy and action, and do they see this role changing (in light of the MPB outbreak)?

3. If scientists are aware of concepts or terms related to novel ecosystems or ecological novelty, what do these terms or concepts offer them? (Conceptually? Practically?)

As copied and pasted from my thesis proposal... way back in September. 

Over the summer I was travelling to Edmonton, Prince George, and around in Victoria, and setting up Skype telephone calls with researchers in Vancouver to complete my interviews. I had 18 questions I asked interviewees, and the qualitative, empirical (read, exploratory) data I got from those interviews is what I'm finishing writing up from the audio recordings. I will theme and code the data, so that I can strive for validity -- this means that I will be able to say with (at least some) certainty: These are the themes/ideas/observations from my data.

                       Me with my visitor's pass at the Pacific Forestry Centre, where Natural Resources
                       Canada displays a huge model of Dendroctonus ponderosae. 

This is to help me avoid making loosey-goosey interpretations that have no foundation. The structure is there for an important reason. Validity is extremely important for qualitative data. It's what helps you from lapsing into pseudo-science, as well as simply shoddy research whose findings aren't supported by the data they're based on. Now, of course there's still the possibility that you will over- or mis-state some of your findings; at your master's, that's what you're learning to do, still, and that's why there's a whole lot of revision and feedback from your supervisor and committee. And the first time of diving into a big project in depth like this will be the hardest, G— reminded me, during a post-meeting discussion started with two colleagues after the conclusion of the meeting. Doing a master's is meant to feel difficult, and there's supposed to be a lot of room for making mistakes and learning; otherwise, you'd already be a professional, an expert, a published author, right? Those mistakes and errors get edited out as you complete your thesis, though. That revision process is also a big part of the learning.

My colleagues and I talked a little bit more about working on thesis, too. M— and I agreed that we came to places where we felt like we had no idea what we were doing. How easy it is to forget, or to get lost, or to just feel like you don't have a carpet to stand on. My partner has been really good at reminding me that every grad student goes through this process, of feeling the uncertainty and insecurity, and it just is damn tough! M— recommended two books for me to read, one being Joan Bolker's "Writing Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes A Day". Some parts of it are supposedly a bit outdated (there's a section on deciding whether or not to use a computer), but otherwise, it's supposed to be really helpful for working through some of the difficulties with tackling your thesis, and understanding/contextualizing that other part: your supervisor and where they're coming from, and how to understand their comments/feedback/advice on your work. I look forward to borrowing the book from the library. M—'s also recommended another book that she owns, and will lend it to me soon.

So, to transcribing, the whole happy go of it!
My next post will be about ergonomics and the latest research on that that I'm still trying to incorporate into my healthy work lifestyle.