old song but a good one

I recently had this song turn up on Pandora, and it reminds me of a specific time and place in my life (as many memorable songs do). It's sad and lonely, but so very pretty.



I'm back on a Decemberists kick:



and:

Burn out

I realized that the last few weeks have nearly broken me. Not enough fun and too much work. And I got this email at 6am yesterday morning:

Hi Girls, is there any word on the machine?  Katie should we keep tagging
after all the missed females yesterday?  We are sitting on a 1.25 boxes
right now, I am just getting concerned, WHAT DO WE DO?


I've joined a project and my one task is to get genotypes to the delta smelt hatchery. Of course our genotyping machine has been down, and down for way longer than expected. I've been pressuring whoever I can and screaming and crying, but still it's not fixed. Finally I biked the plates over to another lab on campus and they ran them for me (at $60 bucks a piece!!). Basically it's been stressing the hell out of me because the hatchery needs to spawn fish at a particular time; because I haven't given them updated genotypes, the fish don't get spawned - then people freak out.

AND I've just joined this project and everyone probably thinks I'm an incompetent tool. This is not cool. Plus the ALL CAPS LOCK IS NEVER CALLED FOR.

And forget about teaching well...I gave my students an exam last night (modeled on the ones another professor used while teaching this class), and I realized (while watching them take the test) that I'd put several questions on there that I hadn't covered yet. Fucking brilliant.

So basically I'm flailing at life right now. There is not enough time to get done all that needs to get done. I need help triaging.

Yesterday, between pipetting, excel-ing, GENEMAPPER-ing, CERVUS-ing and stressing out about the smelt I took a moment to look up and thought to myself "this is fucked up. I don't like this." It's the first time I can recall where I've ever thought that about my job. Even over the weekend I was thinking about how good I have it. Is this what they call burn out?

As for climbing, over the past month I've been climbing just enough to start sucking slightly more slowly. That's got to change. Climbing isn't fun when you are just getting (noticeably) worse...or at least it isn't fun when you're getting worse at a super hard crag. So I kickstarted and climbed three days last weekend, and am planning on at least 2 this weekend.

Part of the problem is that I never climb in the gym - I know I should, but if I have time to climb in the gym, then I have a whole day and I may as well go outside. I'm sick of driving to Sac, and I'm not going to make a special trip just to go to the gym. Blargh.

Acknowledgements

slightly edited for what little anonymity I actually have on this blog.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As a student in the GGE I have had diverse and abundant mentors, the most important of which is Dr. BPM. I could never imagine the journey I would embark upon when I cold-called B and set up an appointment to discuss “the possibility of graduate school.” I liked him immediately, and cannot imagine earning a Ph.D. in any other lab or with any other advisor. Graduate school can be a bumpy road, and I can only attempt to appreciate how awesome I had it in the Lab. Every day yielded something new, with plenty of laughs, rants, baked goods, and on the very rare occasion, tears.

My lab mates are the foundation upon which the GVL is built. B has managed to select an ever-evolving group of brilliant, kind, and supportive people who run the lab. Dr. MS in particular has been like a big sister to me, patiently listening to my trials and selflessly (and ruthlessly!) editing every last one of my manuscripts.

I am also very grateful to Dr. KB, a former lab mate who now resides in my virtual world for constant conservation, grammar tips, and recipe swaps. K must be the best copy editor I know, and he has always made time to dole out sage advice despite a busy family life and great accomplishments. He truly earned the nickname “Captain America” and will surely contribute to conservation in North America in any capacity he chooses.

I have been fortunate to have many agency mentors, including SP (California Department of Fish and Game) who manages to stay positive in the face of increasingly difficult working conditions. He is forward-thinking yet practical, a rare combination. WS (California Department of Fish and Game) has tirelessly worked for the reintroduction of the Paiute cutthroat trout despite a litany of legal battles and setbacks. His persistence is inspiring, as are his backcountry steak-cooking, guitar-playing, whiskey-drinking, and amusingly dry sense of humor. I would also like to thank Dr. JH for giving my agency experience and teaching me once and for all that I am not meant for a desk job. I am continually amazed at how he juggles an agency job, a family, teaching, and research. I hope I can accomplish a fraction of what he does, with an ounce of his Zen.

What can I say about Sunshine? She is my closest friend, and is like a sister to me. We have shared this journey and I certainly could not have done this without her. She has been there, back, and there again with me. I am amazed and grateful that she never gave up on me.

Last but not least I would like to thank my family. With the submission of this dissertation I will be come the third Doctor F in my family. In hindsight this legacy seems like a natural culmination of three generations of curiosity, opportunity, and hard work, but I never predicted it, and there were times when it did not seem possible. I hope I have made my parents proud, and am forever grateful for the opportunities and space they gave (and continue to give) me to find my own way. 

Other teachers get emails too

This one is a hoot. I swear there should be a website devoted to crazy emails that students send their professors. It could be like Cakewrecks or Fmylife or Bad Tattoos. Anyway, strap in for a wondrous ride.

"Hey there,

I am almost certain I have missed a total of 3 class sessions. However I am certain that I have missed valuable discussions. I will keep my explanation as short and sweet as possible. Though there isn't much 'sweetness' rampant in this story.

I've found myself within a cycle I refer to as the 'sticky cycle'. Essentially, it is the increasingly lower rate of ambition and focus brought forth by my seemingly overwhelming use of medicinal cannabis. My insomnia and nicotine addiction is why I originally applied for a cannabis card. However my past ordeals were eventually rekindled and since I'm dealing with marijuana, the term 'sticky cycle' arose. It's both a literal and figurative description.

The interesting part is my thoughts during the time in which I know I could perform substantially higher quantity and quality of work. This thought in itself stresses me out and, for weeks on end, I will smoke, spend much time in nature and ponder on 'life'. I always leave this cycle with a conclusion I have discovered before, however I feel as if an imaginary orb of inspiration falls into my hands. It's quite powerful. However this orb is like ice; if the conditions aren't optimal, it surely will melt. Mine melted quite a while ago. 

I'm somewhat embarrassed to deal with the problems I have created during my sticky cycle, more so intimidated by the amount of work and the possibility of not getting a grade that I wanted, essentially seeing it as a waste of time to study in it's entirety because I won't have been able to understand and apply all the material that I wish to have learned and have a grade that proves so. 

I've decided to block out everything that I can categorize. I have ignored the setting in which I study, learn, converse. I am trying to avoid energy that is like a parasite, only absorbing your energy, if not making it go haywire. I'm trying to make myself learn to be happy again with being able to focus on what I find necessary to be focused on at the moment. But most importantly, I have chosen to go to school, I have chosen to enroll in this course. I have decided, time and time again, that the only approach to this universe if if one decides to be an active, unfettered part of the universe. This is why I am choosing to ignore 'directions', I try to remind myself that wherever I go, I am still 'here'. It's difficult for me to explain, but my psychedillic experience with mushrooms is what led me to this thought (and not to shy away from this email!)

I must thank you for your kindness. Your offer of help was powerful enough for me to write this email so I can remind myself what the heck I'm doing. Thank you! =D"

I get emails

Now that I'm a teacher and people want things from me, I get some interesting emails. Like this one:

Hello, my name is (redacted). I was emailing you to see if you may be ablr to squeeze me into your NATR 300. Class Tuesday and Thursday from 6-8:05pm. If you can it would be greatly appreciated and I promise to catch up the slack instantly. You will not be disappointed. Honestly I didn't plan on taking this class  until next year but 2 classes I was wait listed for rejected me and if I don't find 5 units I will not only lose my financial aid and unemployment. I know that is not your problem but if I don't fill my schedule my daughter and I will both end up homeless. Thank you very much for your time please emcail me back at (redacted) so if you can help me out I can make it to the next scheduled class. 


 and this one:

I'm having trouble keeping up with all the work in this class...Is it assumed
that we will have a lot of access to the intranet and that we wil have a
computer?  Please tell me why there seems to be much more homework in this
class than any other night class I've taken.   Also, Is there some parts of the
homework that is of more importance like the book questions and the essay's or
is the stuff on-line going in the drop box more important? Must we have it all?
If so I will have to drop because I can't keep up with this pace...

Love.

I love this song:



The video is cool but confuses me a little bit. But that's ok because it has monsters and stuff.

I'm officially going crazy

I just spent >12 hours working on chapter 3. It is now turned into the only person on  my committee who wants to see it again. Once I get her edits and copy-edit, plus format chapters 1 and 2 into dissertation format, I'm done! Fuck YEAH! I'm pretty excited. The only thing is that I don't usually work this much on one paper in any given day and now I'm completely insane. I keep rubbing my eyes and I just called Sunshie and I think I must have spoken 100 works/second.

On a climbing note, I had a crappy day yesterday. I'd made steady progress on Alcatraz and had high expectations. I got deservedly spanked and had some regression. Oh yay. Makes me want to go on another trip and do nothing but climb 5.11s. Really that's more my style. I should probably train more. And by more I mean at all. I've been averaging going to the gym to climb 1 day/month. I just can't warrant driving to Sacramento to climb when I drive to JH at least 1x/week, plust Sacramento 2-3x/week to teach. I like my driving-free days. Especially now that I'm teaching a group of 30 students how not to destroy the planet.

And on the not destroying the planet note, teaching abou conservation and sustainability just makes me feel like crap. Not only am I a huge hypocrite, but I'm talking out of my ass. To be fair, I tell my students I'm talking out of my ass and to think critically not only about what I say (and I welcome challenges), but what the textbook says and what the media says.

As an aside, I've had environmental movies on the entire time I've been working on chapter 3 today. Talk about an extra dose of depressing. I've watched Blue Gold, American Experience: Earth Days, Dirt! The Movie, Colony, the 11th Hour...and I swear there was another one but they're all running together now.

Ok I clearly need to step away from the computer. I think I just banged out this blog post in 3 minutes.