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 68: Transferrable Skills as a Graduate Student

Looking forward to the summer approaching, and what I hope will be the end of my thesis, has me thinking about applying for jobs and work post-program. There are quite a lot of skills we pick up as graduate students during our programs, and this post will cover a few of them. Later in the semester when things get serious, or after I'm done, and I visit the Career Counselling to update my CV and Resume, I may write a follow-up post, as I'm certain they will have other recommendations that I haven't thought of. Their expertise is in thinking about job and transferrable skills, whereas mine is not. 

We teach. We research. We write. There are at more than three transferrable skills in those three short sentences. Let's pull them apart.

Teaching involves time management, student engagement, presentation delivery, punctuality, consistent attendance and classroom leadership, and generally, marking and evaluation. Perhaps even the ability to have difficult conversations with people, depending on whether students approached you, disconcerted about grades or their performance in the class or tutorial or lab. 

Sunset from my airplane as we drifted into Vancouver at the end of my Christmas Break, late December.

Undertaking research involves a number of components. I'll write from the qualitative data perspective, but among those, a thesis involves reading, organizing, and collating relevant literature, summarizing and analyzing content, undertaking data analysis and reporting and project management for the whole thing. Then there are also conference and lab poster and oral presentations. Managing relationships with colleagues and your supervisor. Undertaking work with supervision. Perhaps there are also lab coordinating duties.

Sunset in Victoria, Odgen Point. 

And of course all the writing (a thesis is like a big report). Editing. Revising. Polishing a professional document. 

What are some of the things I'm missing in here? I'm sure there are quite a few, but these are the ones that are top of mind for me tonight.

There are a lot of resources available to students at UVic who are completing their programs and starting to think ahead towards work, or post-degree options. To carry on and work on a PhD, or enter the workforce, or take some time off and travel, I would still recommend a visit with the Career Services folks. They've been very helpful for me in the past, and do everything from polishing a CV and Resume to interview practice. To anyone in this boat, good luck! I wish you well! :)

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 66: Post-Election Contemplation

The passing of the federal election in October brought a big relief for me: the end of a decade of anti-science legislation and crippling funding cuts, a lack of respect for evidence, and was a step forward for gender equality in Cabinet, which I hope, will role model what we want to see in other areas of society as well. As Prime Minister Trudeau stated, "It's 2015."

We really badly needed a turn around of Canada's role at the United Nation's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) or the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris, France this fall. And I am relatively happy with Canada's role in the negotiations, and holding that the globe should not cross 1.5 degrees Celsius in average warming, though as we know, Canada is warming faster than other countries, and there are big limits to setting global goals for rising temperatures. Canada and the US still took home a Fossil of the Day Award for not refusing to discuss Loss and Damage within the negotiations, and I have very mixed feelings about that.

Our beautiful Parliament buildings during my favourite time of day!

Loss and Damage refers to the circumstances where the Marshall Islands or some of the other Pacific Islands have already experienced loss and damage because of climate change. As with the Marshall Islands, they are projected to disappear completely because of sea level rise. The ground that cultures have lived on and developed on, and inherited from forefathers is set to disappear, and they need to be compensated for that somehow. Louise Metivier, Canada's chief negotiator, didn't rule out that it wasn't important to talk about, but that it should be dealt with outside of the agreement. Given the already complicated nature of the negotiations, I don't know how to assess the fairness of that assertion. It could be that there are already so many things within the negotiations, that to bring Loss and Damage into the agreement would bring extra complication, and certainly legal implications, but it is a serious matter, and the negotiations are where all countries are in one spot to discuss the effects of climate change, and what we want to avoid. As long as the discussion continues, because it needs to, I hope that Canada's stubborn instance on this one point isn't unnecessarily blockheaded.

There are a number of platform policies that I'm particularly excited about regarding especially the environment:

Phasing out subsidies for fossil fuel companies.
Modernizing the National Energy Board (though I'm certain this will be a challenge).
Investing in clean technology as alternatives to fossil fuels.
Using government capital to model the shift to renewable energy sources.
Review the environmental assessment process and update it.
Cancelling the Northern Gateway Project.
And re-examining the Kinder Morgan Pipeline Review process.

My January window with its view to the drooping heads of dying hydrangeas. Condensation when it's chilly out.

There are several others, too, and I'm grateful for the TrudeauMetre for keeping track of all the campaign promises and how the government is doing on fulfilling those promises.

In some ways we're facing more of the same, and some change. I'm interested in seeing how things will go in the next few months and coming year. Cheers to an interesting 2016 to come!

Post 65: Atmospheric Rivers and the West Coast!

At some point in the last year I learned about atmospheric rivers, or the thin bands of warm tropical air that stream from the tropics up to brush the West Coast. Due to their warmth, they hold a lot of water, and are primarily responsible for some of the major precipitation events we get on the coast.

For quite some time, I thought that one of the colloquial terms for atmospheric rivers—pineapple express—was interchangeable with the more general term, but I was totally wrong! Pineapple express is reserved for especially those atmospheric rivers that we get on the West Coast, because the warm air comes up from Hawai'i, where pineapples are grown! How neat is that? (Not to mention, pretty cute!) 

So, all of this became relevant for me earlier in November where we had some significant rain and wind events, and then over the past few days I was surprised by how warm (almost tropical) the weather began to feel, and so out of curiosity I did a bit of internet searching around, and came across the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Automated Atmospheric River Detection tool (AARD). It is the coolest!

Here's a screen capture of what is currently happening, and explaining the very warm but pouring, pouring rain we're having! 

The current and 1-day forecasted atmospheric rivers from NOAA's Automated Atmospheric River Detection tool.

While I'm certain that Washington and parts of Oregon are getting even more rain (the warmer the colour (red, yellow, magenta), the more rain is coming down, and the cooler the colour (green, blue), the less intense it is, the southern tip of Vancouver Island is definitely in the 3cm band. The y-axis across measures the latitudes, and the left x-axis on the graph measures the longitude, while the right x-axis gives you the anticipated cm of precipitation (usually rain).

The righthand graphs seem to show wind circulation patterns, and I do not understand the middle Binned by Latitude graph, apologies. 

The above images are static presentations of what the model outputs are. Of course, air circulation and wind movements are constantly changing. We probably have some kind of interesting interaction of high and low pressure systems between our westerlies winds at this latitude, and the tropical trade winds, but for a quick look at these air circulation patterns in motion, check out the Atmospheric River (AR) Animation Loop on the right hand side of NOAA's main page on ARs.

As someone who likes to know what's going on, having stumbled upon NOAA's AARD was a real highlight in the past few days for me. It's helped to connect my real-time observations about the weather with my conceptual understanding of atmospheric rivers, and this is wonderful to me.

Productive and fun breaks from thesis writing are to be encouraged, and my excitement about this extra-curricular learning definitely helps keep up my energy for writing! 

Post 64: Voting Continued, and Academic Program Review

Today was the first of four days that a temporary Elections Canada office was set up on campus, and I was excited to give it a go to vote. I had registered online, and knew which candidate I was voting for, so with ID in tow, I headed towards the SUB.

I was happy to see nice bright yellow signage inside, though from the entrance I took to get into the SUB, I headed down the hallway and didn't realize until 2 meters from the door that it was the entrance designated for folks with handicaps. So, turned back, and walked around to the other side with stairs. I got in line, and after a couple minutes, was told that there was about a 45 minute wait to vote.

Getting into the spirit of the election, one stop sign at a time.

BUT -- it's worth it to participate in democracy. I was so pleased to hear some of the snippets of conversation in the line of students before and behind me. Friends were voting together; registered and non-registered students were voting; first-time voters were voting; former students that I TA'd were voting; and other graduate students were voting!! So exciting!! And I was very pleased to hear that it had been a steady stream of students all day.

I truly hope that my Martlet article helped to bring out some more students. The location of the SUB is incredibly convenient, and I'm very happy with how this increases the accessibility for students to participate in voting. The Elections Canada staff were efficient and friendly, and despite the long wait, I thoroughly enjoyed my voting experience. While I wasn't allowed to take a photo of my special ballot after it was sealed in the envelopes (no cell phone use inside the voting office), I did see this after departing from the SUB:

Right on the lawn outside the SUB. 

So. I won't tell you how to vote, but I do encourage you strongly to vote. Bring a friend, and a book. You can probably get some review or reading done while you wait. :)

*******

Flowers on my way to the bus. 

Academically speaking, this afternoon also had me participating in a very new event. We had an Academic Program Review take place for the School of Environmental Studies, wherein half an hour was set aside for graduate students to provide feedback to a committee listening for constructive criticism of the School. This kind of review happens only once every seven years.

We were visited by Barbara Hawkins (Chair of Biology at UVic), Ingrid Stefanovic (Dean, Faculty of the Environment at SFU), and Steve Murphy (Chair, Environment and Resource Studies, at Waterloo). What an amicable bunch! We began by highlighting a few positives of the program, which by and large included a general agreement about the strong community built especially through undergrad at UVic (for those who experienced it), and the willingness of faculty to support and nurture students through their academic training and pursuit of knowledge.

Constructive criticism was varied, including identifying the love/curse aspect of an interdisciplinary department: the fact that labs can be run quite differently, that the different departmental streams (ethnoecology, ecological restoration, ecology, and political ecology) can be quite fractured and lack engagement, and that there aren't enough PhDs on the social sciences side. As well, that in-house course offerings for electives at the graduate level are lacking a bit, as well as a clear delineation about what those courses should be. 

It was really good for me to hear others' insights and experiences in the program to date. We were a range of PhD and first to fourth year master's students. It was definitely an interesting process (if a very short one!) to be a part of. 

Post 63: First Lab Meeting, and New Grad Students!

We had our first lab meeting this afternoon, and it was lovely to have everyone gathered in the same room after really, four months apart!

(Quick sidenote: In the last 10 minutes I have seen a hummingbird, a woodpecker, black-capped and chestnut-backed chickadees, and they are so cute!! I love this office space, right near Mystic Vale!!)

Kristen and Mary were out for an excellent field season gathering data, and Tanya was in the Galapagos for a research project unrelated to her thesis work; Hyeone was in England for a conference and workshop for a month, and we have two new students in the group, Julie and Jemma! Welcome to them both!! It is exciting to meet new students to the program.

Leaves on the Galloping Goose!

With the first meeting comes plans and ideas for what we want to do when we meet for the rest of the semester. We had a couple volunteers to send out draft articles or other writing material to share and discuss among the group, including myself (Gulp! I am already nervous about it, but am also excited to share and receive feedback about my current thesis writing for my Findings Chapter, in which I'm reintegrating earlier work that I did during this project trying to lay out the conceptual component of my thesis, where I'm connecting the dots between the novel ecosystems concept and the mountain pine beetle as an excellent case study of the concept applied, with a few case specific factors about insects (as animals) in novel ecosystems; I realized that there has been very little written on this so far...; and, then the second component of the chapter is being able to situate the empirical findings from the interviews I conducted with scientists for the thesis as well; there is a lot going on in this chapter...). This should be good. I have another two weeks to get a draft of the manuscript ready to go, and I think it should be doable.

Otherwise, it feels nice to check in with colleagues, hear about renovation plans for the building; hear about grant writing in progress and what the new research projects are going to be about, or what skills others will bring to the lab group. Definitely feeling very positive about the start of the semester!

Post 62: When Student Life and Real Life Collide: Voting in the Federal Election

I've been feeling a lot of anticipation, stress, excitement, etc. about the upcoming federal election, and being quite an introvert, and having too much on my plate as is, I decided to do the one thing that I comfortably feel I can contribute: write an article for the school newspaper (The Martlet) about encouraging students to vote, expressing what's at stake, and addressing some of the unique factors affecting the student vote.

The two age categories that students predominantly fall into had the lowest voter participation rates in the country during the last federal election: 18-25 year-olds were at 38.8.1%, while the 25-35 year-olds rate of participation was 45.1% (according to Elections Canada).

To me, that means that the concerns, issues, and vision of the future that people my age have are not represented at the federal stage, and indeed, when I look at a number of the policies, goals, and record of the country, I don't see what I value there, whether it has to do with addressing the gender wage gap, coming up with a comprehensive strategy to address climate change mitigation and preparing to adapt to the climate changes that the current emissions scenario has us committed to (In 2013, Canada won the "Lifetime Unachievement Fossil Award" for it's incredibly uncooperative, and unhelpful, and deliberately counter-productive role in international climate change negotiations, which is so disgraceful), decriminalizing marijuana, addressing the high cost of pharmaceuticals in Canada, developing a national clean-tech and renewable energy strategy, having a National Science Adviser and more... there are so many issues that I care about that I don't see being worked on or addressed!

A golden poppy (Eschscholzia californica) in my neighbourhood. Lovely splash of colour!

Anyways. I am putting out a big call to friends and their networks: please vote, and get your friends to, too. We comprise 20% of the nation's population, and we can have a significant impact to the vote this time. We need to vote. And -- for the first time, all opposition parties have proposals for proportional representation on their platforms! It's become clear to me that first-past-the-post is an electoral system that belongs in the dinosaur age, and I am very excited to see electoral reform on the national stage. We are one of few modern democracies that still use first-past-the-post.... Citizens for Public Justice put out a great brief of this issue here, and I wanted to include these bits from their conclusion:

"Canada inherited its first-past-the-post electoral system from Great Britain over 200 years ago, at a time when significant sections of the Canadian population, including women, Aboriginal people, and non-property owners, were disenfranchised. Throughout the first half of the 19th century and for 50 years after Confederation, the strengths of our electoral system were evident: it fostered competition between two major parties and provided the successful party with a strong, albeit artificial, legislative majority. Territory, embodied in the direct link between the Member of Parliament and his (for they were all men) constituents, was the most important aspect of a citizen's political identity and the pre-eminent feature of prevailing notions of representation.

Canada's political, cultural, and economic reality has vastly changed; the current electoral system no longer responds to 21st century Canadian democratic values. Many Canadians desire an electoral system that better reflects the society in which they live—one that includes a broader diversity of ideas and is more representative of Canadian society. For these reasons, the Commission recommends adding an element of proportionality to our electoral system."

We need a new system.

So after writing that article (I'll keep you posted on what happens with it...) here's something else I've just seen that I'm really excited about (and with any luck, I'll be able to still include it in the article):

Voting Buddies!

A group of students at UVic are targeting specifically students and younger voters with this campaign: one student to find a voting buddy, and share it on Twitter with @votingbuddy, or submit your photo to Tumblr with #votingbuddy. Tag three other people, and grow the voting buddy movement. This is so wonderful! Voting should be fun, should be done with a sense of community, and it helps when others are involved. Love it!!

A screenshot from their website - so great! (http://votingbuddies.tumblr.com/)

Now go out and vote, and take a friend!

PS. Elections Canada is still the best resource to go to for your voting information. See them here. And then, since they aren't able to promote the vote themselves, due to the legislation in the Conservative Fair Elections Act, please help them share their info by Tweeting it, if you Tweet!

Post 61: Staying Healthy Amid Change!

Fall is in the crisp evening air already (everything seems about 2 weeks early in the province this year, from edible fruits like raspberries, blackberries, and apples, to the leaves changing colour!); how quickly the seasons can change!

The activity around my office has been picking up, whether it's runners dashing by on the Alumni Chip Trail, colleagues returning from field work and populating their offices here, or the bustle of my phone delivering text messages from friends saying "Are you back?!" (Haha, I've been back from my travelling for a while now, but have been keeping a low profile to keep working!)

Everyday as more students dot the landscape on campus, as the campus tour guides mosey their groups across different paths and lawn patches, it's also a good reminder that there are that many more germs on door handles and on the bus, so wash your hands! Sleep well! Eat well! Regularity in schedule is also probably not a bad thing, in terms of heading to bed at a reasonable hour, and heading up to work at about the same time. We're into the home stretch now!

My fourth chapter is finally starting to fill in a pleasant way. It's becoming a bit easier to look at its organization, what else is still missing, and to think constructively about the chapter as a whole. Two days ago I spent 2 hours with a colleague learning how to use Adobe Illustrator so we could graphically put to vision the image of my chapter themes. That was very exciting, and I appreciate her help immensely.

My new cat-friend, Mingus!

As a grad student, it's been immensely rewarding to build these relationships with like-minded people—colleagues who are generous with their time, their compassion and passion, and commitment to learning and self-improvement. There's definitely a lot I love about being in this vibrant, productive learning space.

As the stresses of the semester pick up again (the summer can be quite relaxed, and certainly less regimented without weekly lab meetings, though I anticipate those will start up again soon), it's important to stay active, get lots of sleep, and keep on top of building good habits.

In order to do that for myself, I have started using two different apps. Runkeeper was recommended to me by my current housemate. I use it to keep track of my exercise, whether running or cycling, and it's great! It fits well for my competitive nature, as I try to beat my pace times, and see how I perform on different routes. I love 5-6km runs, so this is a great tool for helping me keep track of the distance, too. AND, helpfully, it keeps setting me reminders for when I want to be doing exercise, in case I forget what day I wanted to keep active on (my schedule does have some week to week shifts).

I've also started to use Habitica, with which you role play a little pixelated character, and get gold and mana for keeping up on your healthy habits, all of which are personalized. I have both work and exercise related goals in there, some as small as holding a plank for 2 minutes, or getting 2 sets of 10 pushups completed at some point during the day. Or, a Pomodoro for thesis writing. It is great.

We need to stay healthy in order to maintain productivity paces and work, and I'm trying a couple of different things to help get and stay there. So far so good!

Post 60: Writing is a Constant Act of Courage, and of Failing

Sometimes random traverses on the Internet can be awfully rewarding when the traverse yields something that speaks to exactly the problem that you're dealing with. And I felt that way when I stumbled on to this really short interview recording with The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of their staff writers. Several parts of the interview really resonated with me, and have stuck with me weeks after I first watched it earlier in August, so here's the blog post for it, because if it's stayed with me this long, it might be useful for you to hear his words briefly, too.

While he's describing his process and experience of creative writing, a lot of what he says really speaks to my experience of thesis and academic writing, too. Coates discusses the need for persistence in writing. He states that he believes that "writing is an act of courage—it's almost an act of physical courage." Considering how much anxiety I sometimes have when I sit in front of my computer, thinking about how much I continue to fail when I'm trying to describe the figures and images and connections that I see in my mind, but seeing how little of that fails to emerge in my writing. So I have to keep at it. This project is important to me, and bigger than me, and it deserves to be written.

Coates continues on to say: "You never really get—I never really get, to that perfect thing that was in my head, so I always consider the entire process about failure... and I really think that's the main reason why more people don't write."

Ta-Nehisi Coates screenshot from the interview segment.

He also emphasizes the importance of revision, which is a lesson that I took away from the writing program at the end of my undergrad. Writing is a lot of work. It can be really rewarding, but it is A LOT of work. I will be glad to wrap up this degree for sure. So for now, it's one sentence at a time, one paragraph at a time, revising and revising and writing and writing and revising and revising. The process needs to continue.

And of course, I have the support of my supervisor and my committee member to provide helpful feedback and revision directions as needed, so I can trust that process, too.

And a lovely photo of late summer crocuses that surprised me in the field near my office on campus: