Always expect the unexpected

Grad school

Some unexpected things came up in July. If you follow my blog, you know those “things” mostly revolved around becoming my grandpa’s personal assistant. The most problematic issue for my future in grad school was that too few people signed up for my thesis experiment in July.

My research assistant and I had openings for participants 10 hours a day beginning on June 1st. We could have finished by August 11th, the summer deadline for data collection. Unfortunately, three people experienced simulator sickness, we had to cancel numerous participants because only one person signed up when I needed two to do my experiment, and we had multiple No-Shows. There were too many experiments on campus, too few students enrolled in psychology courses and no funding available for me to provide extrinsic motivation to recruit people.

Some things are completely, utterly, without a doubt beyond our control.

If I didn’t defend my thesis in front of my Committee by mid-August, there were a number of significant consequences.

  • I wouldn’t graduate in August.
  • I wouldn’t get funding for my first year as a PhD student. (i.e., I would have to pay for tuition and I would not get an assistantship.)
  • Without funding, I would have to take out a maximum amount of loans and I would not be able to afford rent for my apartment without those loans.
  • I would have to work on my thesis during the Fall while doing a million other things.

Commence freak out.

I transcribed, coded, scored and analyzed whatever data I had in late July (which was only 1/3 of what I needed based on an a priori power analysis). I dedicated two years of my life to this research.  It seemed like such a waste to defend an unfinished product.  Not to mention, my committee would not be too pleased with me.

Life happened. Plans changed.

The good news?

I talked it over with my adviser and we decided to submit an appeal for an extension. That means I have another semester to finish my data collection, analyze my data, write up my results and defend it to my Committee.

The bad news?

I am definitely unhappy about the prospect of finishing my thesis on top of one of the more difficult semesters I’ve faced so far in graduate school. I’m taking three courses, teaching, working for the Navy and taking on more responsibility within a student organization. It’s too much for one semester, to be honest.

  • Because plans changed slightly, I do not have the time to write a Fulbright graduate research grant proposal. I need to wait until I can really dedicate ample time and resources to achieve that dream.
  • This semester I’m taking two courses that I know are going to kick my ass. I have to pull up my GPA .05 points so I am more competitive for research awards at conferences. This coming semester I can’t expect myself to pull off A’s, but I will definitely do my best.
  • I won’t be able to spend any time away from Hampton Roads unless it is scheduled around school or work-related travel. I’m incredibly fortunate this semester because I’m attending a conference in San Francisco. I am tagging on a weekend visit to LA! I will still miss taking trips here and there throughout the semester to visit my friends before the Christmas holiday.
  • I won’t be able to play on the Internet as often. Most likely, I will have to go back to only using Twitter on the weekends. I can keep up with my closest online friends with email, blogging, Skype, etc. I want to continue to focus on making my current relationships stronger instead of making new connections. Quality over quantity, as they say.

How do I plan to do all this?

I have no mother effing idea, but I think there are two keys to my success next semester: stay organized and remain calm.

  • I have been teaching myself some basic programming, web design, modeling and simulation this summer to prep myself for some of my more difficult courses.
  • I created a new, detailed budget using Mint.com.  I have all my bills set up to make my life easier (automatic deductions).
  • I have an updated, beautiful color-coordinated Google calendar and planner to keep me organized and on track.
  • I have a food planning calendar so I continue to plan my meals a week at a time.
  • I enrolled as a distance learning student for one course, so I can stream the lectures from the comfort of my home.
  • I set distinct boundaries with my grandfather by moving closer to campus.
  • I chose an apartment complex that will help me be successful this semester.  I am within walking distance of a grocery store and my yoga studio and there is a gym in the complex. I am paying a little extra to save time and my sanity.
  • I hope I can stick with my plan to practice yoga regularly, to eat healthier and to stay active.
  • I plan to spend more time in coffee shops, bars and restaurants with my friends who live here. Whether that time is spent studying together or socializing, spending time with people improves my mood tenfold.
  • I plan to continue to blog because my relationships online also help keep me sane.
  • With the prospect of not traveling, I hope my friends will come visit me instead. *hint hint*

Here’s to another busy semester. Here’s to my future. Here’s to never planning more than six month in the future because you never know what might happen.

Zen and the art of stuff

Gen Y, The Way

Ending materialism doesn’t mean forsaking all your possessions. Ridding yourself of everything you own would only prove you are still too preoccupied with possessions themselves. Someone who has developed a healthy inner world would see possessions as neutral. This shift is more about attitude than specific actions. ~ Scott H Young

Growing up, I moved every few years because my dad was in the military.  Each time we moved, we had a big moving sale.  While over time I slowly purged most of my old things, I always felt it was important to hold on to certain things from my past. This weekend I helped my mom clean out my old room before she moves.  When I moved to Virginia Beach two years ago, I knew I didn’t have room for all my belongings.  I boxed up everything I couldn’t use at the time and my mom stored all of it in my old closet.

I’ve mentioned before on my blog that I moved six times between 2000 and 2008.  I was never one to stay in one place very long.  Now that I am in a good place in life and love my location, I plan to move into a new place and stay as long as possible.  This new space requires some major downsizing on my part.  It’s time to simplify on a whole new level.

Minimalism vs. Materialism

My Google Reader is filled with great posts about Minimalism. It is a huge movement in our generation.  Rightly so.  Sometimes we become attached to stuff and we allow the stuff to control us. As Chuck Palahniuk wrote in Fight Club: “[…] you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things that you used to own, now they own you.”  I think some of us see our friends and family struggle with needless debt while they keep up with the Joneses and we don’t want to be there in ten years. Sometimes we also hold on to old things because we do not want to let go of the past. We grip tightly to that book or toy or outfit or whatever it is because we cannot allow ourselves to move on.

As I get older, my values change and evolve. What I valued at 10 is not at all what I value at 27; therefore, the things I value now are not the things I valued at 10.  I am also a Pisces.  I am sentimental sometimes to a fault.  I sometimes feel that when I let go of the thing, I will leave part of myself behind. I know memory is often fallible. I feel if I give away a gift from a friend of family member, I will forget those memories created around the object. I will no longer have a salient cue to remind me of those experiences I had with those people who are so important to me.

I believe moving from one end of a spectrum to the opposite side of the spectrum can become a form of attachment in and of itself because we become obsessed with the idea of not being, doing or owning something. So how can we find the middle ground between Material and Minimalism? I don’t think I will ever be a pure minimalist for various personal reasons.  I do know I have to look inward, reflect and ask myself, “What do I keep and why do I keep it?”

How I simplified and still kept my Pottery Barn dishes

 

Barrie Davenport from Love Bold and Bloom wrote an excellent guest post on this topic at Zen Habits: How to Simplify When You Love Your Stuff. She says to consider some “parameters” when thinking about things and to ask yourself if:

  • It brings beauty into your life and stirs your soul.
  • It supports a passion or hobby.
  • It helps bring family and friends together in a creative, meaningful way.
  • It educates and enlightens.
  • It makes life profoundly simpler so that you can pursue more meaningful things.
  • It helps someone who is sick or incapacitated.
  • It is useful and necessary for day-to-day life.
  • It’s part of a meaningful tradition or a reminder of a special event.

Spot. On.  Thinking about my belongings in the context of those parameters makes perfect sense to me.  After some deep breathes, tears, smiles, laughs and long talks with my mom, I decided to keep about 1/4 of the stuff in that old room.

  • I kept my nice Pottery Barn dishes because I will use them for the dinner parties I plan to host in the future with my friends and family.
  • I kept a set of gorgeous pottery someone very special to me brought back from Japan.
  • I kept some of my old books I cannot imagine leaving behind yet.  Most of these books were gifts from loved ones.  Each book represents how much I value relationships, education, learning and growth of mind, body and spirit.
  • I kept a small box of love letters, cards and notes I’ve collected since 1997.  They stir my soul and will always be beautiful reminders of the incredible love in my life.  An old card from my grandmother saying she is proud of me, a letter from my Dad signed with Love when I was in middle school, five handwritten pages from my mother before I went to college and a love letter from someone I almost married are worth more than gold.
  • I kept this Mr. Punch poster that Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean autographed.  It is a beautiful piece of art to me because Neil Gaiman is my favorite writer, Dave McKean is one of my favorite artists and The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch was one of the first graphic novels I loved as a teenager.
  • I also picked out a few stuffed animals that carry with them cherished memories of times with my family and friends.

The rest of my things are going in a yard sale, on ebay, to a shelter for victims of domestic violence, to the library and to the local fire station.*

It feels good to know more about what I value as an adult.  It feels good to leave certain aspects of the past behind me.  It feels even better knowing my mom only has five boxes to move from that room instead of twenty.  I know I need to let go of certain things so I can move on.  It is OK to have stuff when I understand why I have that stuff.  I can hold on to a thing that makes my soul shine a little brighter, when it makes me smile, when I can share it with my friends and family or when it reminds me of the most important people in my life.

It’s all about balance and introspection, isn’t it?  It’s all about Zen and the art of everything.

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Not sure what to do with your old toys?  Call your local police department, fire department, domestic violence shelter and children’s hospital to see if they accept toy donations.  You never know when a child or teenager might end up in a tough situation without something to comfort him.  You can also check out these great charities: Project Night Night and Stuffed Animals for Emergencies (SAFE).  And a quick tip: Your kids aren’t going to want your toys from the 80s.  Have you seen the bad ass toys kids have now?  Right.  I promise your Barbies will be happier if they end up in the hands of a child who just lost all her things in a fire and your own child will be happier with a newer, more anatomically correct Barbie.

Boundaries and balance: When do you say No to family?

The Way

Boundaries

So here I am… taking on the role of caretaker (again).  But this time, I’m not OK with it.  This time, the person who needs care is perfectly capable of caring for himself.  This is a person with whom I’ve set clear boundaries in the past so he exhibits as little control over my life as possible.  Setting boundaries is something with which I struggled most of my life.  I was unable to set boundaries with myself.  I took on too much.  I pushed myself too far.  I was never good enough.  I put others before myself.  I was unable to set boundaries with others.  I allowed others to take advantage of me.  Sometimes people hurt me and used me because I could never say No.  I have learned over these last two years in grad school how to find balance, to say Yes to myself and to say No to others. I discovered how to be giving and kind and loving and hard-working without harming myself.

Yet, here I am… once again… attempting to balance what is right for someone else and what is right for me.  Here I am drawing a line in the sand.

When I arrived home after my week in Glasgow, I discovered my mom was in town.  While I was out of the country, my grandfather was hospitalized due to a severe kidney infection, high blood pressure, low pulse and vitamin deficiency. My mom came up to get some things in order before I returned. Namely, she set up automatic bill pay, arranged some finances and hired someone to take care of the yard and clean his house.  She also finalized some things for the condos she and my grandfather purchased because she wanted to make sure they would be ready by September when she moves here.  After a week of madness, she had to return to Alabama.  She has two more months at work before she can retire, she’s trying to sell her house and she’s a single parent.  She has a life.

I’m the only family member who lives here. My mom did what she could over the phone, but I’m it.  There I was in a rehabilitation center every day for three weeks while his kidneys healed, his blood pressure stabilized and his strength returned.  This was a familiar scene given what I went through with my grandmother last summer.  It was also unfamiliar.  My grandmother was bed-ridden.  She needed someone to be with her. I was very close to my grandmother.  My grandfather is not dying.  He just got sick, stopped eating and didn’t feel the need to take care of himself anymore.  I do not have a very positive relationship with my grandfather, for various reasons I wish not to discuss in detail here. In short, I do not want him to have any control over my life. To put it another way without going too far: He is an alcoholic.

He comes home tomorrow. He is not allowed to drive and he refuses to hire an assistant. Heaven forbid we spend any of that money he’s been saving since he was 15.  Lord knows, there’s no reason to spend money to make life more convenient for someone else when you can have it hanging out in the bank when you’re 82 years old.  So here I am taking care of a house, managing bills, buying groceries and keeping track of medications for someone else.  He is perfectly capable of doing these things for himself.  The reasons why he won’t take care of himself are some of the same reasons why I am not close to him. But… he is family.  Because I am the only family he has here, he expects me to play this particular role for him.  I’d be happy to do the things I was doing before, but I have to set boundaries so I can be OK.  He knows I will not cook for him and I will not clean for him.  I do not have the time or desire to do either for him.  Hell, it’s a struggle to do those things for myself.  I think most of my friends and family know it is less about my time and more about his control.  Daily I receive text messages from family members who know the situation: Take care of yourself.

Balance

I have responsibilities just like any other adult.  I pay my own bills and manage my own life.  I have one of those good 9 – 5 government jobs.  I am a graduate student and am trying to finish my Master’s thesis this summer.  I can barely balance those things.  I haven’t been to yoga or the chiropractor in months.  I keep gaining a pound here and a pound there as the summer progresses.  I want to make time for friends, but I find myself relying more and more on the Internet as my sole form of communication.  I was supposed to move next month, but now I have to wait until September. I was so looking forward to making a fresh start and finding a more balanced routine again.  I was looking forward to leaving behind the one person that I feel continues to hold me back emotionally in my personal journey.

I know I must maintain balance in my life because I value it and I need it. Balance and boundaries go hand in hand.  If we don’t establish clear boundaries with ourselves and with others, we can’t possibly find balance.  Without boundaries, the rocks keep piling up until it is too tall to support itself. I was so good with balance.  I could stand in Tree Pose for hours if you asked me.  I always loved the balance board when I was in physical therapy for my hip injury.  Each day, I was able to equalize my footing as my right hip became stronger. But right now, I feel my feet slipping from underneath me.  I feel wobbly.  I know I am about to lose my footing and will need to grab hold of something before I fall.  Right now I’m questioning whether my boundaries are ill-defined.  I know if one rock falls, the tower scatters.

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I read this draft and realize all of this may give you the impression that I’m selfish.  Who wouldn’t want to do these things for a family member? Remember, I am not talking about my child or an ill parent.  This is someone fully capable of being a grown up.  I did take care of someone once… although I think bathing someone who can’t leave the bed is a little different than cleaning a bathroom for someone who just doesn’t want to clean.  We can easily say what we would do if we were in a situation when we are not in that situation. It is understandable if that is your impression. My friends, family and I know the truth.

Photos: Line in the sand & Balancing rocks

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Have you ever been responsible for another human being who wasn’t your child?  Have you said No to someone so you could ensure you would be OK?  Have you said Yes to someone and hurt yourself in the process?  How do you balance managing own life and someone else’s when it isn’t our desire or responsibility to do so?