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 14: Housekeeping, Catch-Up, David Suzuki, and Support

It's getting to be the end of the semester, and I'm enjoying marking final projects. I'm also finding myself doing the little things that are setting me up to continue this project through the summer: letting Student Aid BC know that I'm still in school (which allows me to not worry about having to resume paying back my remaining student loan debt), registering for the summer semester, and renewing my ethics application, just in case I need to collect a bit more data from particular research participants.

Monday evening I had the most delightful catchup with some of my colleagues. It's so wonderful and encouraging to hear how they're doing on their projects, and to be able to connect in our misery. I continue to hear from others that they feel more negative about their work than their supervisors do. By and large the feedback that they receive from their supervisors is positive, and I have the same experience with my own supervisor. While I have not yet given any written work to him, any time we chat it is a great check in, and I feel more encouraged and excited about my work. My worries about my inadequacies take the back burner for a bit, and completing this master's begins to feel possible again, and it felt the same with Monday's discussion. Thank you, thank you, dear colleagues, for sharing your experiences. (I will note, not all grad students have the same experiences. One fellow is almost finished writing his third chapter, and is well on schedule to complete his degree and defend by around July. Another also mentioned that she was feeling positive about the writing process and while unsure of a timeline to finish, was enjoying the process of doing her writing now.)

                                         Another West Coast beauty: one of the saxifrage species!

Tomorrow morning I get to sit through a practice-run of one of colleagues who I feel most close to, Ms. Jenna Falk. I helped her with the field research and manning the blog for our work, which was early in her degree a couple years ago with the Mountain Legacy Project, and it's wonderful to see her project come together as it has. Her defence is Friday, and I'm certain she will do great!!

The great weather here in town has also really really helped. My mood has picked up, my attitude has brightened, and I feel much more clear-headed about the tasks I've set in the coming weeks.

Being a grad student, I feel so lucky to be able to call on wonderful, intelligent folks for stimulating conversations and ideas exploration and, really, advice, too. My experience of this graduate degree has most thoroughly been enriched by meeting people like Richard Smith and his wife Nancy, who came to Victoria last week for a talk hosted by the Environmental Studies Department and the SEA group and a number of other organizations in town. I read this article by Smith before attending his talk, and well, talk about a conversation starter. Essentially, we keep capitalism, or we keep our planet. (I vote for keeping the planet, though that is a big, big, challenging project, considering the force that capitalism is.)

It's also super great to see others writing about their exciting work, like my colleague Kira Hoffman - a particularly talented woman who will join the list of upcoming great ecologists! I recently very much enjoyed her post and pictures on both her blog and this article.

I'm also volunteering tonight for the talk David Suzuki is delivering on campus. It's moments like these that I have to pinch myself to make sure I realize how lucky I am to meet some of the movers and shakers I've looked up to for a long time. Not that I want to say that I do this blindly -- we're all people and subject to our fears and lapses in reasoning, Suzuki included, but in this project of sharing ideas and making something of this adventure of life, I admire and want to recognize the great contribution of the lifetime of work that Suzuki has produced. I'm looking forward to meeting this wonderful person. I am also grateful to my dad, who years ago gave me one the David Suzuki Reader and made me aware of this person and his ideas; undoubtedly, that gift contributes to my excitement for tonight.