Dreams at the edge of a long winter

On Thursday I finally passed my comps exams and advanced to candidacy. It was the single scariest moment of my life as a student. But it is behind me now, and I can continue forward.  I had never really thought about what else I should do if I didn't pass, because I put all my eggs into this PhD basket, and there was no Plan B. Grad school is a huge investment in time and effort, and the pressure to succeed is enormously stressful.  I had invested six months of preparation, including three months of rewrites, and it was beginning to erode my heath and self-esteem to the point where I felt it would make or break me physically and mentally for the rest of my life.

To try to ground myself the night before and calm my fears, I prayed. I'm not religious, but it's funny how people turn to the idea of higher powers when we're most afraid. I recited a prayer that I heard in the 1970 movie: "Little Big Man." If you're not familiar with the movie, I suggest you see it. Soon.

It's a story about a white boy raised by the Cheyenne in the frontier days. His adoptive father, the chief of their village, prepares to face death by reciting a prayer, the first part of which inspired me to recite it at sunset, and again at dawn:

Thank you for making me a human being! Thank you for helping me to become a warrior! Thank you for all my victories and all my defeats! Thank you for my vision and for the blindness in which I saw further!

With increasing dread, I had only just started to think about Plan B. What if I don't pass my comps? How will I ever have the energy and will to face it again? If I can't hack it, where do I go, what do I do?

The warrior's prayer made me see that defeat is honorable.  And, when defeat is allowed to be an honorable part of life, suddenly all choices in life become valid, all are equal. All are good.

I began to see real options: One, just stay put and keep on working. Two, take a semester off and then resume afresh. Three, quit grad school and go do something else. I had many reasons not to pick Number Three. But it became a good, valid choice once I allowed myself to realize that nothing--nothing!---is worth sacrificing your health for.

By putting my own heath at the top of the list, it gave me the freedom to choose to opt out. On the morning of my comps I was prepared to face the day and accept whatever outcome lay hidden before me.  I know that I stumbled a few times during the exam. But I also know that I answered other questions well.  I may not be the most brilliant grad student that ever faced a dissertation committee, but I love my project and I work very hard.

I had to go out in the hall for the committee's deliberation. While trying to eat a bagel that I couldn't taste, I looked out the window at the snow and the trees and told the Universe that I accepted whatever happened from that moment forward, and I would still do my best to be happy.

And then Donie came out and gave me the thumbs up. I almost couldn't believe it. It was like I suddenly lost a thousand pounds.

And then twice in the same day I had champagne. Really nice champagne. Donie and her husband threw a little party for me in their office that evening. And later that night I shared another fancy bottle with my neighbors, who brought food--and jello shots. I'm not from the jello shots generation, but I'm beginning to realize jello shots are just as important as a good bottle of bubbles.

And finally, at the end of the long week, while splitting wood in the yard it struck me that man, I have it made in the shade. I have a great project where I get to study the Arctic and live in a beautiful little house in the woods where I can see moose and the aurora from my couch, I have good friends and neighbors, a great graduate advisor and committee, and a nice big pile of firewood.  It may not be somebody else's dream, but it's really what I want right now. Where it will all lead is not yet known to me, but I am thankful for the uncertainty.

THERE THEY GO!!

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=750847091678720&set=vb.162212353875533&type=2&theater

or....not. 

Looks like Toby decided to pull over and say Hi to Jojo and her camera (and hopefully some Yummy Chummies)

:-)

Iditarod starts Monday, right here in Fairbanks!!

Home to Nome

Simon and Chris, kinda like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, are on the road (actually mushing trail) to Nome. They left Saturday morning, and in a few hours they hit a blizzard.

But they're Kiwis, which means they probably have some funny-sounding word for blizzard, they face it, they laugh at it, they dig out of the snow and they get up and do it all over again.

They hope to make it in a couple of weeks, well ahead of the Iditarod teams. Joanne and Dale are flying out to meet them, and then the whole show, dogs and all, fly back to Fairbanks.

You can follow their progress here

WHOOPS, I MEANT  here

:-)

we had a friendly game of cards and some nice roast buffalo for their big sendoff

Deep Oprah Sunday

It’s half-past four in the afternoon. I’m sitting in my living room sipping tawny port and listening to “Grantchester Meadows” and watching the sun go down.  Every day it lengthens its arc just a bit longer towards Esther Dome; by April it will sail right over Ester, and by June it will sink into the hills beyond Murphy Dome in a big flaming pool shortly past midnight.

Today was my 'spa day:' sleep late, eat whatever I want, enjoy the returning sunshine, take a nice hot shower, read Oprah magazine, have a drink at sunset, listen to good music.

I still have to pass my comps, and still have to continue gathering germination data through the microscope, work in the lab 20 hours a week, train and supervise the student helpers, and get trained myself on other new tasks. And still find time to water my greenhouse plants, go grocery shopping, clean my house, and split and stack firewood on the porch on a regular basis so I can have a warm house each morning. 

But none of that counts if I can’t look in the mirror each day and be OK with who I am and what I’m doing.  The last three months have been more difficult and stressful than I could ever have imagined. And it’s still not completed.  If I am to remain happy in my choices, I have to forgive myself for the fact that I’m growing older and may not be as swift as I once was, and not to worry if perhaps that’s what my committee is picking up on. I know that how you carry yourself is important. It’s as important to a scientist as it is to an artist or a businessman or a politician.  If I act like I know what I’m doing, perhaps I can convince people it’s true.

Of course the first person I need to convince is me, and that has really been the one thing I’ve been working (struggling?) with my whole life.

I may never really know how other people see me, but I can choose not to care so much. Whenever I see a video of myself I see a person who is deeply, un-fixably nerdy. And I guess this is a trait that people will either find endearing and want to be my friend or to help me, or they’ll find it annoying and either want to avoid me (if they’re normal) or see an opening to be mean (if they’re mean).  The latter could possibly explain why I feel some people just don’t care for me, or at first think I’m one way, which they seem to like, but then they change their behavior and become less friendly.

This morning I stood outside in the sunlight and realized the sun takes the same path in February as it does in October. Which means January is the same as November, February is October, March is September, April is August, and May is July. June is just June. 

I stood for a while just looking at the trees. It’s noisy walking in -25 F snowpack, like walking on Styrofoam, and I don’t enjoy taking walks in the winter because you can’t really appreciate how silent it really is if your boots are squeaking all over the place.  So I just stood and made like a tree.

I realized that as much as I want to sit there thinking about daylength, or air temperature, or climate change effects on seedling germination in the Arctic, it’s only a faint scratch upon the surface of things.  The trees stand as trees have always stood as long as trees have been trees.  Being in Alaska has allowed me to realize that nature contains a truth so deep and matter-of-fact, we will probably never get to the bottom of it. We try to use language to describe nature, but even our words are a feeble attempt to come to terms with what it really is. That thought gave me comfort, because no matter how much more we uncover in our studies, the trees and everything else will always get to retain their mystery. Of course, they don’t care whether they do or not, and that is why I love them.

I LOVE my school!

This pretty much sums up yesterday...

a little help from my friends

Things have not been going so great for me lately. But Simon's dogs are pitching in and giving me words of encouragement (thanks to Joanne). This is Polar (aka P-Boy):

And then there's the Buddha:

There must be some mushrooms growing around his doghouse in the summer.