I hate writing

The cold I thought I was getting over a week ago came to fruition that evening and has been with me since. I stayed home from work to try to get better and felt okay this past weekend in Chicago, but since then I've felt the same cloudy tired blahness every day. My teeth hurt from the sinus pressure, I break out into coughing fits that give me headaches. The other night I went through half a box of tissues, although things seem to have dried up since. In the middle of a long cold like this I begin to wonder if I'll ever be back to normal, if maybe this cold will stick with me forever and I'll be forced to drag through all the rest of my days sniffling and coughing and holding my head.

Maybe I need to be hitting the whiskey -- I seem to recall that working when I was younger, and in my prime.

Anyway, in the midst of this illness I had grantwriting group, where I was simultaneously slammed and complimented almost to an embarrassing level. Slam: Your sentences are hard to read because they have too many words and clauses and subclauses (this is what happens when I have to cram 10 arguments into a single page). Compliment: This problem may stem from your extreme thoughtfulness as manifested in the fact that you are the best reviewer here and your comments are always wildly helpful. I was a little stung by the writing comment, as I've always considered myself a good writer, but I have always tended toward sentences that require a diagrammer's mind (like mine) to fully grasp in one read. But I was pleased with the reviewing comment because if there's one thing I think I'm actually good at in this world it is editing and, more broadly, figuring out how a piece of writing could be more compelling. I get to do some of that in teaching and advising and working with other colleagues, and those are the times I feel most useful as a human being.

Going down the spectrum of feeling useful is when I have to do any of my own writing. This week's task was to fix those Specific Aims we tore up last week and add a whole Research Design section. Fortunately the National Institutes of Health are soon moving to a shorter application length, meaning I only have to crank out 6-8 pages instead of 14. But the first thing I did yesterday when I finally got going was to completely re-write the Specific Aims page, by which I mean I wrote up Specific Aims for an entirely different study. I think it's a more interesting study (writing up the research design for the prior study sounded so boring I just couldn't do it), but it didn't move me forward terribly well. I need to write up some semblance of a Research Design to turn in tomorrow at group. I'm procrastinating, and my teeth hurt.

Because even further down the spectrum of feeling useful? Planning actual research. I know I managed once upon a time to pull it off, but often I have no confidence that I can do it again. It involves talking to people, building connections, relying on others, filling out paperwork. Everything that makes my stomach churn with anxiety.

Werk

I opted to work from home today, since it was snowing, and it was an open day sandwiched between days full of meetings. I managed to finish this paper that has been plaguing me lightly for years and heavily for a couple of months, and I was feeling good, and then I checked my messages and I was immediately depressed under the suffocating weight of everything that dissatisfies me right now. Home life is good, students brighten my day and make me feel like I know stuff... and the rest puts me in a funk. If change is coming, I'm inclined to resist it less and less.

I need to write papers and get them on my CV as fast as possible.

Ugh, editing

So, I got my dissertation back from my advisor on Monday, and I was pleased to see that there weren't really any major overhauls I needed to do. But that means that instead I just have a bunch of piddly shit to slog through. Of course there are a few areas where I actually had to dig up a few articles, which is such a pain because it's a ton of time for like one paragraph. I hoped to get this out Friday, but I still have a giant list of things to do.

Not to mention redoing a ton of graphs because my advisor and I have complete opposite ways of reading and interpreting graphs (there's this one graph in a paper we have coming out that I always have to redraw because it's completely backwards to me).

I start work tomorrow, which should mostly be a day of logistics, like I-9 forms and email setups and stuff. I'm pretty excited. I'm not that excited about commuting for about 6 weeks, but I'll probably try to swing it so I can come in later and leave later after the first few days.

Assistant Professor

So, it's official! I have a job! Coming May 12...

Alisha H. Creel, (almost PhD)
Assistant Professor
Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

Course: Social and Behavioral Aspects of Public Health (pre-fall, July 7-August 13).

Basically it's hard salary, federal benefits, one class, 3 years of startup research money plus a postdoc/RA, and really great colleagues.

Overall, the job search turned out great! I uncovered a real diamond with this job (had no idea how great the place was before I found out more about it during my phone screen). My luck never ceases to amaze me -- I end up in great places, far beyond my own work to get there.

In dissertation news, I promised the full draft to my advisor on Friday, and it looks pretty likely to happen. If I have time to get my tire fixed (idiotically popped it on a curb), we'll probably escape to NJ for some vacay. My excel spreadsheet is pointing to the second week in June as a strong possibility for a defense date, so let's hope that pans out.

Endless tables

Making tables is a fun break from actual writing. Until you get to the 5th iteration of the same tables.

Other than that, things are going great. Announcements soon, once things are finalized.

On the other side

I feel like I need a complete life detox after being here. The schedule I’ve been keeping certainly gives me more energy, but I don’t think I can keep it up at home. It’s easy to get up at 6:30 when you go to bed at 9:30 or 10 out of total boredom. It’s not so easy when there are fun things to do and people to see at night. But I’ll be very glad to get back to a place where I can actually exercise – between getting mugged and this town being full of annoying people trying to sell me crap, I haven’t been walking as much as I thought I would when I arrived. And my diet has just been awful. Breakfast is always chips, an egg of some kind (often fried), sausage, and bread. Occasionally fruit. And it’s hard to eat healthy foods without a refrigerator and an oven/stove and without consistent means of getting to the supermarket. I’ve been watching Chef at Home and thinking of all the fruits and vegetables and other healthy foods I desperately want to eat.

So, I’m determined to actually go to the Farmer’s Market this summer and to eat well and exercise. And I want to do lots of things outside this summer and get out of the house and not be cooped up with the television. I also want to get to the office and be productive, because I want to get this dissertation hammered out along with whatever I do for work and the eventual jobhunting and conference abstracts and suchlike.

I’ve been fussing a bit about work for the summer and money. I’m waiting to hear from a few people about small amounts of work, which would be fine. I really want to visit Boston and ABQ, but I need to make sure I have the cash for these things (and that any accompanying passengers do too). I will hear about the CDC grant in late summer, probably. I’m extremely ambivalent about the grant. I’ll be thrilled to have a stipend and to be able to say I got it on my resume. But I don’t really want to come back here in the fall; I might be able to deal with spring, but even that makes me feel a little queasy. I try to put on a good face for people who ask when I’m coming back. I wouldn’t mind a two-week trip, but another two-month trip sounds just awful. I’ve also lost some enthusiasm for the idea of doing in-depth interviews about the radio program. I’m not sure we’ll really get the depth of information we’re interested in. And if we don’t have good results from the experimental design there’s really less justification anyway for expending more energy in this direction.

My travels here have solidified my feelings that I’m not really interested in a straight-up communication position. Comm is okay and all, but I really want to stick with public health and be able to see comm. as one tool out of many to improve health. I’ve seen so many huge systemic problems at work here that I can’t possibly pretend developing some radio programs is going to satisfy me entirely.