Post 97: Balance, balance, balance...

You were doing okay, managing work, exercise, and healthy foods and activities, and then BANG! You get the flu.

So much for that balance that you had going.

So, this time I lost about a week. Now I'm feeling like I'm somewhat back on top of being organized. I made three tupperware containers of grapes and four tupperwares of sliced cucumber tonight. I am ready for healthy snacks at work, and do have a very particularly feeling of being pleased, seeing the stacks of containers in the fridge. I recommend doing it: especially if you are inclined to be organized.

Love these sedums: stonecrop. 

Yesterday I was thinking that I'd better get used to anticipating losing 10-20 days a year to illness; sometimes more, sometimes less. With migraines, it's likely more than that, though the medication helps a lot. But there are always the colds, the flus, the stomach bugs, the temporary things you don't anticipate. But taking the anticipation into consideration, I might be more inclined to be more forgiving with myself. I think getting sick is a good reminder to take it easy sometimes. Give yourself a rest because you need it (and honestly, don't feel like doing much else).

And that is all okay.

But, here is my very friendly seasonally-themed PSA:

1. Wash your hands frequently, especially if you are travelling on public transit, traversing the university/a workplace that has you sharing a door handle or guard rail with more than three people.

2. Cough and sneeze into your elbows.

3. Get enough sleep.

Love,

Heike

Post 96: Maintaining momentum when everything else is against you.

I don't recommend to anyone to be a graduate student who needs to seek work in order to keep life trucking along. Whenever you need to be working along side school, it slows you down, even when you are an expert productive procrastinator like me. At some point, the weeks become months become a year or two, and you're tired, grumpy about the process, and you really, really want to be done.

So much work to dooooo! :D

I'm there. I'm definitely happy to see the end of these revisions and to get this project finished. I think that this research is important and worthwhile, and hope that it contributes to some understanding of contemporary science-policy relationships within a rapidly changing world that is trying to respond to climate change, even as it's changing the rules of the game of life.

Happy little lemon flower and green lemon soon to ripen at a friend's place! :)

So this is me writing again about self care and getting good sleep and being kind and compassionate with yourself -- these are things that I am known to struggle with: I am inclined to stay up late in order to get work done, or to have an internal negative talk with myself about not getting enough done in the down time I have (although getting work done during down time isn't exactly giving myself a break and taking down town -- sometimes I can see my own mistakes in reasoning).

Blueberry gyoza at The Noodle Box. Good food = happy Heike.

I've recently started to use an app called "SAM" to help me process some of my unhelpful internal habits around anxiety, in particular. So far, mixed results, but I am feeling a bit better about some things. I did yoga for 40 minutes before a work meeting on Sunday, and that felt good. I'm trying to cycle to work a few days a week to build some exercise into my work routine, and honestly, given the horrendous traffic along Craigflower, Highway 1, and the Island Highway, it is faster, some days, to cycle my 20 minutes up the roads or along the Galloping Goose to get home. So, biking for the win! (I will actually admit some glee to passing my commuters in their cars when I'm whizzing past on my bike. I don't have to compete for traffic, and even if it's raining, I've found it refreshing to ride.)

Healthy Heike also includes lovely afternoon walks. :) 

In the long run, it's best take care of your health and your happiness, and keep life only as difficult as it needs to be in grad school. Long hours of sitting, not getting exercise and not balancing out enough work and fun and down time so that you get sick, overworked, burned out, or have stress injuries, won't help you get your thesis done. There is a requisite amount of time that your bum's got to stay in a chair in order to get writing and revisions done, for sure, but do, do, do keep an eye on your health and your happiness.

Self care is immensely important, and grad school is the perfect place to put your resilience to a test. Be ready for it.

Even now, when I'm close to being done, I'm working full-time, and it's a challenge to get everything done, feel like I'm putting my best foot forward, and managing to keep on top of everything, but then I think of the race between the turtle and the hare, and the turtle does, in the end, cross the finish line. :)

Post 89: Summer Endings, Beginnings, and TCG at UVic

July is ending! Another month done again. Sometimes I really can just sit back and wonder where the time has gone. For me this July passed with the birthdays of at least six family and friends, a lake-swim, lots and lots of work, and most recently, the conclusion of my Thesis Completion Group (TCG).

The wonderful, stylish Dr. Janet Sheppard (see photo below!) who has been a long-time counsellor at UVic, ran the TCG for years now, and there were always long waitlists for graduate students wanting to get into the two weekly groups, which I think speaks to the value and need for a resource for grad students such as this. The format of the TCGs were face-to-face, discussion-style group sessions, with there being an average of about 3-8 members in the groups. It's been a little quieter over the summer, which I've very much enjoyed.

Janet and I at our last TCG meeting! I was feeling very sentimental about the goodbye.

Students attending the group would report on their thesis work: progress made, barriers encountered, worries, concerns, personal and professional relationship/communication stalls, committee trials and successes—everything. Janet guided the discussions, creating a safe space to talk about all of these things, asking pointed, insightful questions, and reminding students like myself to think about not only work-related goals, but also health related goals. And, we all definitely benefitted from the wisdom of the group, with numerous students chiming in with their own experiences, advice, and resources. We'd leave one week's discussion with those goals in mind, and revisit them the following week, checking in about how they went, how the process of being in graduate school was going. I loved it. It hasn't really sunk in that these weekly meetings are ending.

Participating in the group really turned around my perspectives about my thesis experience. It was immensely valuable to learn that the struggles I was facing are universal among graduate students; that the uncertainties and lingering questions and doubt about my abilities were part of the impostor syndrome; that talking about my fears and worries made me feel loads better, and better able to cope with those concerns; that by discussing concerns about graduate research, I would open myself up to the kindness and generosity and insight of my colleagues in the TCG; and, that by participating in the group, I would be able to get excited with, cheer on, and root for students who actually finished their degrees!! In turn, finishing became an achievable goal for me again, which for a while there, I wasn't able to see, anymore.

Mystery tree down in Beacon Hill Park. So beautiful! :)

If I think about it, a lot of my blog posts were motivated by some of the discussions had during the TCG. Certainly, the discussions, shared insights, advice, and kindness of my fellow students have been indispensable for turning my graduate school experience into a productive one. While I'm sad that the group is ending, I'm happy that Janet is making choices to find ways to continue with her passions in a different capacity now. She is a very special person, who's found a way to apply her leadership, skills, training, and insights in a unique application that fits an important niche in higher education. A major force behind organizing the thesis-writing bootcamps that have taken place in the past year, and running the TCGs, I'll miss Janet and her wisdom, and I'm also now so glad that I've kept every one of her weekly list-serve emails. They were always chockablock full of resources, her enthusiasm and encouragement, and of course, everyone's weekly goals and progress. A one-line acknowledgment in my thesis doesn't seem like it's enough to say, THANK YOU for everything. So, on top of an in-person goodbye, I'm writing this post, so my thank you can live a little bit longer.

Water lily out at Thetis Lake! I scared up a number of green frogs getting to this photo. 

With the ending of one thing, comes the opportunity for another beginning. Right now I'm feeling a lot of uncertainty about how Counselling Services (CS) will adapt and modify the TCGs that have been running for so long. Janet mentioned that CS would likely be contacting students who were involved in these groups to let them know about the upcoming changes, but it's also been made clear that the groups as they've happened so far won't continue. It sounded to me like the format will switch to a more satellite organized thing, where staff from CS will check in with self-motivated groups whose formation they'll help facilitate in the fall semester. I'm crossing my fingers that the transition will be a smooth one, but for now can't do anything other than wait. I'll let you know how this resource changes in September, as soon as I hear. :)

I've kept in touch with two colleagues from my TCG, and if nothing else, will pursue check-ins with the two of them. We're on roughly a similar timeline, with the three of us aiming to wrap up our degrees in the fall. Here's to keeping up the momentum.

Post 81: Whole Health Grad Student: Finances Part 2

I've been thinking about a couple of posts that I've wanted to write about thinking of your whole health when you're a grad student. Some of these thoughts have to do with health issues or stressors I've encountered along the way—a consistent reminder that my body isn't just two legs and a torso that walk my brain around on campus—and realizing that my norms of behaviours can dramatically influence my well being.

The first of these types of posts follows up on the financial post I wrote in the fall of 2014: "Post 32: Making Finances Easier: The Graduate Student Tuition Income Offset Plan," where I discussed that graduate students have the ability to arrange for their tuition to be paid in monthly instalments over a semester, instead of one giant lump sum at the beginning of the month. Depending on students' financial situations, it can be difficult to pay several thousand dollars all at once at the beginning of the semester. As well, funding is typically disbursed in monthly instalments, so it can be very useful to align your tuition payments with your monthly income patterns.

Super fun wall paper from a store down on Johnson Street.

Improving your financial literacy, understanding what your options for tuition payment are, and managing your finances well as a graduate student are all important things. Grad school is stressful enough without having to worry about additional stressors like having enough money to buy casual professional clothes, going out for a drink or two with new colleagues/friends/fellow grad students, or, something more fundamental such as food.

With that in mind, I'm going to suggest having a gander at my friend Mike Renaud's blog called Frugal in Victoria: it champions financial literacy, managing your finances well, offers suggestions for finding affordable by healthy options when eating out, and otherwise covers a variety of topics from tenants' insurance to credit cards, to investing, psychology, philosophy, transportation, hobbies, and more. It's a great blog, and I've learned a lot by keeping up with it. Take a look through the Posts by Topic to get a good sense of what the blog is about, and pick a couple posts that look interesting to you. The posts offer a good balance of general financial 'cents,' as well as tips specific to Victoria. Great to check out if you're going to school in town here, or at Royal Roads. :)

Some of the blog's recommendations, such as managing your monthly expenses, knowing where you spend, being aware of the cognitive biases that influence where you shop and what you buy when you do, have been very important for me.

Dew-decorated neighbourhood clover leaves! :)

As a graduate student with a limited income, it's also been very important to me to feel in charge of where my money's going, and have a good overview of what my expenses and savings are, so that I can set myself up for a bit of a break when I'm done this degree. Feeling like my finances are in order is one helpful way to avoid another stressor in this whole thesis experience, and I keep a monthly Finances document where I keep data on my purchases, my income, projects/donations, and hobbies that I spent money on. It's a good system, and I know that I pay my credit card off in full every month (and build my credit rating at the same time!), put a small payment towards my still remaining student loan (from undergrad), and save what I can when I'm able to.

I know that I keep an emergency fund, and a minimum of $1000 balance in my main checking and expense account. Buffers are really, really good for your financial health.

Cheers to being in good financial shape. Writing this post also brings to mind advice from a friend in undergrad: "Don't go to grad school if you have to go into debt to do it." Thanks to generous funding for my program, and work that I've maintained during and on the side of my degree, I haven't had to take on additional loans to complete this degree. I am so so grateful for this, even if working and TAing after my fellowship and grant ran out has extended the time it's taken to finish up. If your grant application doesn't go through, or your savings aren't enough to cover the possible expenses of the degree, or you don't see where you have other income coming in to help fund your way through, it might be a good idea to have another sit down stew with yourself about whether the program you've been offered a spot in is really worth it for you. At least, have a good conversation with yourself about what your financial as well as your educational goals in this experience are.

First salmonberries (Rubus spectabilis) of the year! Thank you David Turpin courtyard!

As I've written about previously, it's also not guaranteed that your program will take you as long as advertised. Many things can come up, from program structure, interpersonal conflicts with supervisors, mismatches in project understandings, funding, health issues, or the impostor syndrome. In other words, sometimes life doesn't pan out the way you envision, and it's good to have as much on your side for fielding the unexpected as possible. That includes your finances.

If you are struggling to keep your finances in order, aren't sure where your money's going, and have panic attacks when you sign in to your online account because of how much (or little) money is remaining, send me a line and I'll email you the spreadsheet I use to keep track of my expenses. It works really well. Alternately, I know that Mike at Frugal In Victoria is also always open to an email, and he thinks about this a lot more than I do.

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 71: Grad School and Migraines

Yesterday I lost about three quarters of my productive work time to a migraine. It's the first in the month of February that I've had, and it was only the second day of the month. Living with a chronic health issue is never easy, and I admire anyone who does so immensely. Especially if they are attending grad school like me. It's take me a while to be honest with myself about my migraines and their relationship to my work—they have more of an impact than I was willing to admit at first. Grad school is one of those places where 'working the hardest' is implicitly a good thing. Obviously everyone works hard, but I recall thinking back to first year, where I was frequently the only or last person in my lab, and I felt good about that. It appealed to my sense of responsibility, and my idea of what a 'good graduate student' was all about. My perspectives on this have certainly shifted over the past 3.5 years.

Those are some wonderful January snowdrops (Galanthus sp.) in the backyard! 

Little bit of a backgrounder for those unfamiliar with migraines. Migraines are very different from the more common and ubiquitous 'headache'. As the Mayo clinic writes, a primary headache (a standalone event without an underlying other medical issue to cause a it, which is a secondary headache) is characterized by three main types, the most common of which are tension headaches, followed by migraine headaches and cluster headaches. A migraine has specific triggers, the most common of which include sleep irregularities, stress, alcohol (esp. red wine), missing a meal, strong cheeses, strong scents, significant fluctuations in the barometric pressure (more obviously seen as rapid localized weather changes). There are quite a few others, and I've mentioned the triggers that I'm particularly sensitive to.

With my migraines, I often have not only the head pain (which can be focused on one side of my forehead, behind my eyes, or simply as a generalized head pain), but also nausea, light sensitivity (photophobia), sound sensitivity (phonophobia), and sensitivity to touch. You may have heard descriptions from people who get migraines along the lines of "I get a migraine, and just shut myself into my room with the curtains pulled, lights off, and no stimulation." That's what a full-blown migraine can do.

For treatment, headaches can go away on their own, in the case of mild ones, or at least they can be very successfully treated with ibuprofen, the effectiveness of which has been shown to improve with caffeine as well. Ibuprofen does nothing for migraines.

Cute wooden owl in a Vancouver neighbourhood I passed on an early January friend visit! 

I have a very specific migraine medication that I've been taking for about two years now, and it is wonderful. I no longer lose whole days to migraines and migraine pain, though I have found that my migraines have changed in nature quite a bit. If I'm able to catch the migraine before it really takes off, then the medication usually does a good job of relieving the migraine within an hour. If the migraine's already well under way, like the one that I had yesterday, then I'm not so lucky and it takes anywhere from 1.5-3 hours to go away, and I need to really relax and take it easy.

What I've found trickiest is recognizing that the symptoms I'm experiencing are an oncoming migraine and not just a headache. The migraine medication that I use has a little bit of a price tag, at about $8.50 per pill. The name-brand one I used to use had a much higher cost at about $20+ per pill. So I'm not inclined to make the decision to take one lightly, considering the frequency of my tension/regular ibuprofen-curable headaches I'm prone to as well.

So, I get a bit of brain fog as part of the onset of the migraine. I find it difficult to focus. I usually get a bit frustrated with myself at that point, because I get a bit antsy and have trouble staying with one task. Usually the nausea sets in prior to the actual head pain as well, and I really notice that I start to squint a lot, and the photophobia can set in relatively quickly, too. But the migraine affecting my decision-making is the darndest thing. Simple things become difficult. Remembering where I put my migraine medication, and grabbing a glass of water take a lot of effort, and it's then that I really feel like an extra hand is useful.

This is Mingus. He's been on this blog before. He is a sweetie.

Also, not getting stressed because I'm unable to work is a challenge, too. I had a set idea about what I wanted to get done for the day, and now that needs to shift because I might be out of commission for 3-8 hours. It is a little bit frustrating.

Airing some of this out at a recent thesis completion group meeting in the late fall made one of my colleagues mention that a friend of his completed her PhD despite suffering from migraines as well. He said that she just knew she would have about 4-7 unproductive days a month where she couldn't work, and she'd keep those aside, and keep track of them. That made it much easier for her to manage her migraines and the lost time, because they were accounted for in advance, and expected. So she didn't have the guilt that I usually associate with missing work. I've tried to be a little bit less self-critical about my migraines. I've had them since childhood, and while aspects of my grad school experience have seemingly exacerbated them, they're not going anywhere, so it's been very important to learn to manage them and triggers for them as best as possible. I have to keep going with them!

So it's taken me a while to figure out the kinds of work habits that are effective for living and working with migraines. Prioritizing my thesis as the first (or one of the first) things that gets attention in the morning has been critical to getting as much done as I have so far. My migraines usually set in in the afternoon, when they do come on. Mornings, I've been told, are some of the best times to write, and I definitely agree.

There are lots of barriers to completing grad school, and I am determined not to let this be one for me, especially since I am very close to finishing up with this project. If you are a grad student struggling with migraines or any other health issue, mental, physical, or otherwise, know that you can get the help you need to help you succeed and finish up this big project in your life!!

Post 67: Keeping up Momentum: Perseverance and the Long Haul

At the end of November I found myself in chilly Cochrane, Alberta—there for a work trip with my sister and our long-time family friend Renee. During the trip I made use of a couple of things: the very cold weather to motivate my evening walks to become evening runs (it was so chilly that after 2 kms of a steady jog I was finally warm!), so I think that I ran my chilliest runs at -9C, I think, and -3C respectively. Brr! I'm trying to keep that in mind as I motivate myself to stay on top of healthy habits and getting some movement into the day. With the shorter daylight and cooler temperatures, I've certainly done a lot more walking than keeping up on my running goals.

The spire of one of the many churches in or near downtown Victoria.

That trip I had also made a date with my friend and colleague Cat, who recently defended her thesis in September! (Yay!) And it was such a lovely visit! She is in a really really great place now. She's recuperated from the thesis experience, and stated that she took about a month where she just felt like the immense effort it took to finish writing and defending the thesis meant she really only felt like doing the basics for a while: eating, sleeping, walking, yoga, and taking it easy. I remember how hard she worked during the summer months, and I was amazed at how quickly she as able to write and get her thesis together, and she did a really get job in the end, but I'm not surprised that she took the well-earned and needed break after such intense and sustained output.

Which is what gets me to the gist of this post: thesis projects are longer and more intense than (likely) anything that most students have worked on to date. They do NOT require the same skills that perhaps got students through undergrad: you cannot write a thesis with binge-writing habits that may have helped to complete papers in undergrad. I won't say that this is what I have been doing, because it isn't, but my process has certainly evolved into trying to build good writing habits that keep me sustained over a longer haul, because it is a long haul to write a thesis or dissertation.

January frost out in View Royal. Gorgeous!

As my supervisor recommended for me several months ago: write for a few hours, right in the morning, every day if possible. It's amazing how much can get done with consistency. I would also say that writing every day keeps up the momentum, engagement with the thesis, and just a general sense of encouragement for seeing continued progress being made. I'm trying to keep that in mind as I juggle a chronic health issue (migraines), and two part-time jobs.

Onwards and upwards! Cheers to healthy writing habits with stretches and standing up every so often, and making time for exercise despite working too much. Happy writing to everyone else working on theses and dissertations!

Post 44: Mental Health Awareness at UVic

This lunch hour I attended the first of two round table talks on Mental Health Awareness, put on by UVic's Mental Health Task Force, and it was very, very good. This talk was about Anxiety: When The Worry Won't Stop; the second, on March 18th, from 12:00-1:30, will discuss Living, Learning, and Working with a Mental Health Diagnosis, in MacLaurin Room D 010.

We started off with a really refreshing and brief meditation session, where the fellow that led the session got us all to ground ourselves, and focus our attention to breathing. For some people, it was the first time they had ever done something like that, and it was great to hear how much of a difference it made to them! I don't usually like the sitting/standing still and meditating practices; I am a meditate-in-motion kind of person, and find a lot of calm when I exercise. This is also one of the main reasons why I prefer really active yoga like flow, or ashtanga, as opposed to the slower ones like yin or meditation yoga. But for the start of the workshop, I thought this was great!

Another wonderful evening on campus! My skyline, just before catching the bus home at the end the day. 

Reflecting on the talk, this post will highlight the people and resources that I am able to recall, as well as briefly discuss a couple of the themes that arose. I was amazed by how diverse a crowd the talk drew: there were a variety of resource folks present, and it was a nice mix of internal and external resources I didn't know UVic or the wider community had. The introductions went quite quickly, so I didn't manage to remember any names, but here are the resources that I remember.

UVic Counselling Services: they run a number of workshops on stress and anxiety and managing panic, through a variety of techniques, including cognitive behavioural therapy, ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy), and mindfulness practices. Here's a link for those workshops.  A number of their counsellors can also be visited with individual appointments as well.

UVic Human Resources also had a staff person there, one of their Work Life Consultants; he expressed that if you're someone who is dealing with a mental health illness, then HR can work with that individual to sort out adjustments that can be made so their work relationship at the University can still be a positive and productive one.

Dr. Lara Robinson, a professor from the Psychology department was there, and offered a number of important advice points, and shared that she takes on a couple of clients each semester at a reduced rate, addressing anxiety mental health issues. She also mentioned that the Psychology department has ongoing studies and research relating to wellness and anxiety, so send her an email if that sounds interesting at all. From what I remember, she mentioned that you could pair up with graduate student at a very reduced rate ($10 per session) to address ongoing problems.

Darryl (sp?) who works with/at the Anxiety Clinic in Victoria also had a very strong presence during the discussion, and it was very clear that he was well versed in the science of treating anxiety disorders and issues. He described anxiety issues as "bad mental habits," which is, I think, a very good way to think about anxiety.

Lovely bouquet i put together last year; my partner loves lilies, and I loved the bright colour contrast. :) 

One of the Residence Life student coordinators was there to share his perspective on both living with and dealing with anxiety himself, and training his crew of residence advisors to help provide resources and support to students. ResLife comes into contact with about 60-70% of the first year student population at UVic, so they have an immense impact with students. I spoke with him right after the talk and it sounds like ResLife is making a big effort to make sure students are aware of their resources when it comes to dealing with mental health, and that was really great to hear. Here's a link to some of the activities they put on in residence.

There was also a lovely gal from the Meditation Club on campus there! They put on regular meditation sessions to encourage and support students with decompressing from the stress of academia. And that is probably one of the main themes that arose during the session: the importance of grounding exercises, meditation, and bringing awareness to simple things like breathing. Darryl from the Anxiety Clinic mentioned that a panic attack can be triggered by shallow breathing, which we do when we're really stressed out. So the square breathing technique can be really helpful: breathing in for 4 seconds, holding the breath for 4 seconds, breathing out for 4 seconds, and holding the breath for another 4 seconds before inhaling again.

There were a number of people from different places across campus in the crowd, some faculty, some students, some grad students like myself, as well as parents that deal with anxiety, and parents with children who deal with anxiety. I was also very pleased to see great representation from Campus Security there! One of them mentioned that they are increasingly getting calls from students, faculty, and staff that deal with anxiety and mental health issues across campus. This reminds me that I recently read about the Nelson police chief wanting to establish a Mental Health Car like the one that Vancouver has, to better address the increasing calls they see there, which I think is a phenomenal idea!

Grumpy cat pal that I encountered on one of my evening walks in Oak Bay! :)

One of the most important themes of the discussion was around normalizing these kinds of mental health issues. A lot of people deal with them, and universities breed anxiety, even for people who don't otherwise have full blown disorders or may only have one panic attack, or deal with low-level anxiety that doesn't regularly interfere with their work or daily life. So when encountering someone who's dealing with anxiety, listening to them, admitting when we don't know much about what their experience is, or being authentic and sincere when empathizing with them, and referring them to places where they do have resources is probably one of the best things we can do.

As educators, I think one of the main things we can do to reduce the stigma of mental health issues is to encourage transparency around these issues. I know in one or two of my tutorials this semester I mentioned that if students are struggling with anything (mental health, personal life challenges, other health issues, or just bad scheduling, such as 3 assignments in 2 days), they can let me know and I will do my best to accommodate their need. I've had a couple students contact me with such requests, and it seems to have made a really big difference for them.

Talking about, acknowledging, and accepting in a non-judgmental way that people can suffer from and with these often invisible issues was another of the main themes that came from the discussion, whether it was a comment from a student who has been dealing with anxiety for years, or one of the resource people acknowledging that people build these behavioural habits, which become messy when avoidance and poor relationships and communication enter the mix, too.

Whew! This post has already become a lot longer than I'd thought, so I'll end it here! I'm glad I went to this workshop, and I now know a lot more about some of the anxiety resources we have across campus and from without, and I hope that should I be in a teaching position in the future, I'll remember to at least at one point during the semester (preferably at the beginning), mention to my students that if they're dealing with a mental health issue or other issues, they can let me know and I can try to accommodate the unexpected challenges that life throws our way sometimes.

Post 42: Whipping through marking... what a festival! And a week's mish-mash! And a StandStand Review!

So many assignments to get through, so many words to read, writing lots of comments/feedback, and trying to be fair while assessing student work.

Now don't get me wrong: I love my students to bits, and it's very very fun getting to meet them all (and trying to remember all their names!). They are a delight. And while it wipes out the majority of the energy that I start the day with, especially teaching 3 hours in a row, it has been great so far. I really do enjoy marking, but as this is my first time TAing an introductory-level course, and there are quite a few factors that are different in TAing one such course, as opposed to an upper level course.

For one, this is some of the first times that students are taking on the assignments that they're taking on. So for example, some of them don't yet know that hand-written work is not acceptable for university assignments (and some seem to have ignored that it was stated in the syllabus).

Ah yes, speaking of: a good many students don't read the syllabus. So you have to keep reminding them to go back to that thing, which is really the contract for the class.

My Dotmocracy in action: Students in my fourth tutorial voting for small scale food production
as their theme to research for the semester. 

On that note: repeat everything at least twice, especially important information, or you'll find out exactly who wasn't paying attention when you said it that one and only first time.

My students are learning how to engage with the research process right now, and we've gotten the first assignment out of the way: making a bibliography of 8 quality sources (on the topic we've specified), and explaining why each source is authoritative.

A lot of students don't yet know what makes a source authoritative (which makes sense; if they did, they wouldn't be here), and while some of them get half way there, it's clear they don't yet understand what peer-review is, and how to dig into how good journals really are, or what reputation a newspaper's specific journalists have... well, that is the fun sleuthing that they are starting to learn. From what I've noticed, many seem to have trouble differentiating assessing a source's credibility, and for now are simply writing a summary of the article. (Hence the reminder to go read the assignment outline). So I think we'll be revisiting some material next week.

For this second major assignment, we're asking our students to put together summaries of about 150 words on each of the 6 articles they've chosen from their original 8 (or swapped out with better sources from peers or researched new ones). For these, they will answer the question: "What is the author arguing/talking about?"

Awesome participation as my students wrote themes from their initial stab at researching their theme;
this one on the 100-Mile Diet. 

I'm really hopeful that they'll do well with this one, because quite a few of them have already been doing summaries for the first assignment, which means they won't do well there, but hopefully they will on this next one.

Through all of this, I've had the most excellent company for marking! I've teamed up with Edward White, the TAC from Sociology, (whose workshop on surviving marking I completely enjoyed last semester at the TA Conference, and blogged about here) whose delightful company has made getting an early start on my marking a real delight. This week on Wednesday he spoiled my colleague C— and I with the most delicious rice pudding: super rich, creamy, and with real vanilla... MMMMMMM! We snacked on this through the afternoon, and I wasn't hungry until 8PM! Plus, it's really great getting his seasoned reasoning and opinion on how to mark certain work. It's been great.

*****

Aside from the marking, I've really been enjoying the Christmas gift that I bought myself way back in the fall. It arrived just before Christmas when I was home in the Kootenays, so I got to open it when I got back: it's called a StandStand. And I love it!! (Or I really did, once I had added a bit more glue to one of the little knobs that holds the three pieces together when its dissembled; it kept falling out. BUT -- it was a very simple fix, and after a night's drying, was ready to go again.)

My work desk with my StandStand deployed! :) 

I simply don't have the money for a standing desk like the TableAir  ($2200) or NextDesk (which rings in at about $1500 for the base model). For those interested, on top of a great summary of the health problems that come from sitting too much (sedentary lifestyles), Mark Lukach at the Wirecutter has had a ball testing out standing desks alongside his coworkers, which you can read about here. I am aware that Colin Nederkoorn has come up with a 22$ IKEA DIY, but I am neither near an IKEA, nor have the time to wander out and get these materials, so in the fall last year, spending about $65 on this Kickstarter project seemed like a good idea.

The StandStand has been really really great! I love how portable it is, first and foremost, and because it's so lightweight, I can easily switch between standing and sitting, which research supports is a good thing to do (too much standing = bad; too much sitting = worse). It's suuuuuper easy to assemble and dissemble, which I also really love. My little StandStand has been really great, and definitely an investment suitable for my lifestyle and income right now. :) (Though I am glad to see the price of standing desks falling; one of the most affordable, the Stand Desk now comes in at about $500. )

And the best part of it is that I'm starting to get a lot more comfortable using it. I've started to pull it out when I'm with my colleagues at work, and I even used it this past Wednesday when I was marking with Edward. :)

The semester is already whizzing by; I can't believe it's already January, but I have 80 lovely students to keep me from dwelling on the time. Back to marking I go!

One more awesome photo: a mixture of lichen and stonecrop from a romp in
East Sooke Park this past weekend. I love the colours!