Light.

Light.

I've written before about this quote:

"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."- Leonard Cohen

I haven't done the best job about letting light in. Or showing my cracks. 

I continue to feel isolated in my own world.

I still exhibit too much avoidance/anxiety/procrastination in my life. 

Pushing my comfort zone with calculated risk doesn't seem to be my thing. And it needs to become a habit of mine.

Light..

Where does the smile go? It doesn't come out often enough. I don't go out often enough. 

It's an indicator that I might still be fairly depressed about things in my life. 

The easy distractions still get to me. 

I ruminate.

Don't laugh.

I numb my emotions. 

I don't always have a lot of energy. Or feel like being out in the world.

I want to feel more light more of the time. Laugh more. 

Light...

Maybe there is some light at the end of my tunnel, even if it appears millions of miles away.

Can you see venus through the rings of Saturn? 

That's how far the light at the end of my tunnel feels a lot of the time. 

At least it's visible now. I truly didn't think it was before. 

I must keep writing. Doing. Asking. Talking. Deciding. Finishing. Learning. Lightening.

Drive.

Motivation and drive to get things done has been on my mind lately. As well as the things that still get in my way. Several things I have run across have spoken to this lately:

• Biochem Belle (@BiochemBelle) had this  fantastic post about creating ideas, silencing your inner critic for a time, giving yourself space to generate ideas before nixing things in the bud outright (a tendency I certainly have).
• I also recently subscribed to Annie Murphy Paul's 'Brilliant Blog' and her post about a sense of community being important for learning.
• Kerry Ann Roquemore's series on academic perfectionism. I mentioned this series before even though I'd only read the first of the posts. I read the rest and it speaks to my struggles with perfectionism and how I've at least started to take some positive steps towards addressing it.
• I also just watched 'I'm Fine, Thanks', a documentary I was introduced to via itstartswith.com, @sarahkpeck's blog about getting things done and living life well. I had tears in my eyes in recognition during the whole thing. 

All four of these things really resonated with me strongly. Here's why:

• Perfectionism also takes on the guise of my inner critic that shoots down dieas before they even fully form and have time to breathe. Or before I even try.
• Perfectionism is isolating. One thing I've been taught again and again is that learning happens best with other people. For feedback, for support, for new ideas and for getting used to a new environment. Perfectionism keeps you on the sidelines. "It's not the critic who counts...." comes to mind. Perfectionism keeps you out of the arena.
• One things I've lacked as a postdoc is drive. Perfectionism is truly devastating. It's one reason for my disconnection. It's also the reason I procrastinate on things; if they're not going to be perfect, why start? It really is a self-defeating way of thinking. My tendency is to avoid people as an introvert, but they are essential to an effective learning environment.
• When I watched 'I'm Fine, Thanks', it has made me see that I have been defined by a vision that has been defined by others. Namely, grad school, postdoc, then faculty position, then tenure, etc. Oh and a significant other, possibly a family along the way. The straight line to success that doesn't really exist. I feel stuck & disconnected in my current position. I don't have a good history with relationships. And I don't quite have a good idea of what my vision is. I'm starting to question and push that direction, but my feeling right now is that I'm not sure bench research is what I want to be doing forever. The director of the movie decided to make his dream of making a film come true; I like asking and finding answers to questions, but my current setting is not conducive to that.

With this blog, I'm trying to address perfectionism by just writing it pretty loosely and not worrying too much about 'tight' writing. And then putting it out into the world and realizing that it's not fatal. I do strive to be good enough. And coherent. And sometimes clever. 

Perfectionism is deadly. Don't participate. Get past it. Address the underlying insecurity that drives it. Academics do seem very prone to perfectionism. It will lead into depression and other bad places. If you're a perfectionist, join me on the road to recovery. 

Ask.

This is my list of words that I'll be returning to again and again in 2013:

Ask.

I've heard this idea from a number of places. Have a word you can return to to check in with and make sure you're actually going after your goals for the year. 

Ask is my word because asking is how I can reconnect with the world. What questions do I need to ask?

• How do I_____?
• Would you like to ____ with me ('go out', e.g.)?
• Can you teach me________?
• I am applying for _________.
• Where can I find _________?
• Can I help you___________?
• Have you read__________?
• Did I do this the best way I could have?
• Do you think you can give me some feedback?
• Will you publish my paper?
• I'm curious about________. 
• Do I have to be a postdoc forever?
• Have I formed better habits around_____?
• I would like __________.

I don't ask things of people or myself nearly enough. I settle for the status quo. I of course will ask questions in the lab and hopefully ask good ones. For too long, I've just not asked due in large part to a fear of vulnerability. I learned to hide behind 10 layers of brick wall in my mind and rarely let anyone in...not even me at times. What do I want? I've almost never had a good answer for this question. 

You may have noticed I have some other words below 'Ask'. These are other words to focus on this year. Finish, doing, deciding, writing and it will be good enough. Not perfect. I made this image the lock screen on my phone and I put it into Evernote as a note so hopefully I'll look at this often and be reminded. Asking terrifies me a lot of the time. I'm that person who won't even bring up bad service at a restaurant to the server; or often ask why something is one way vs. another. 

So my main word for this year is to ask. Of others. Of myself. Of the internet. 

Do you have a word or words for 2013?

Academic mastery vs. real world mastery.

I like 'The Big Bang Theory'. I can see myself in the main characters of the show (not Penny as much, but I'm not an attractive blonde girl from Nebraska who sometimes turns out to the be smartest one in the room when it comes to life in the real world). 

Which brings me to the point of this post (which again, I'm sure has been hashed to death by others in a more engaging way). 

There's an episode 'The Friendship Algorithm' where Sheldon talks about learning how to swim over the internet. He later learns to rock climb by the same method. 

When Sheldon does attempt to actually rock climb, he makes it part way up the wall until he realizes he's 'high up' (5 feet, at most!), gets really scared and can't move up or down. And eventually faints and falls off the wall...'hanging there like a huge Salami' as Barry Kripke describes it. 

Funny scene, but also speaks to an issue I know I struggle with. Being in my own head too often. And when confronted with something practical I need to do, I freeze in fear. If it's something new, it needs to be studied to death first (it is kind of amazing that Sheldon gets anything done, but perhaps because he's a theoretical physicist, his work truly is all in his head and he just needs to write it down in publishable form). 

I may be doing better but I'm still too perfectionist for my own good. It's hard to separate striving for excellence with trying to be perfect. Obviously, the former is fine, the latter is crippling. Jason Moore shared this series on academic perfectionism addresses the issues I definitely still have- almost at an unconscious level. I do it automatically with writing, it's part of the reason I write here. to get over it (it's partly helped). I haven't read the whole series, but the first installment nails the problem...I can't wait to read the rest of it. It is targeted towards faculty, but think the issues apply equally to grad students and postdocs. 

The level of certainty I seem to need in things is higher than for most other people. Like Raj on 'Big Bang', I have trouble talking to women (at least ones that I don't know..I'm OK w/ female friends). It's perfectionism + needing certainty of outcome for me to proceed. 

Trying to live purely intellectually is what I've done for so long that it's hard to learn a new way of doing things. Or to do what Sheldon doesn't, try to get over fear, get out of my head into the messy uncertain world and try as many new things as possible. It's where my resolutions are centered this year. I have no doubt I'm in for a world of mistakes.

Lifehacker was once again helpful with a timely post about taking small steps towards addressing anxieties and fear. As I do with this blog, I guess it means exposing myself to the real world. 

So this year, I am working on being the master of my academic work, but also to not be as paralyzed by the real world either. Through small steps. Let's see how I do...
          

Learning deeply.

I recently finished reading "What the Best College Students Do" and it fits in with what I've been writing about in my blog. I've had a few weeks since I finished it to think about it, so I thought I'd share my thoughts about how it might apply it to my own life as well as how this might impact my teaching practices and how I think about them. I am writing this from memory, so any content I talk about is what I am recalling (best way to review a book, almost certainly not).

The book is definitely not about how to get good grades. Ken Bain focuses a lot more on what he calls 'deep learning'. It is basically learning from a vulnerable and authentic place, a theme I've run across again and again in my readings this last year. 

This is contrasted with those he calls 'surface learners', who just learn what they need to get the grade or pass the exam. In other words, getting good grades to please someone else, not themselves. Sounds very familiar.

The profiles of 'deep learners' in the book include a lot of very prominent people, including Stephen Colbert and Neil deGrasse Tyson (two of my favorite people), but also other people who are not as well know but who he considers to be deep learners. What they all have in common is a curiousity about the world and a particular perspective and passion they found to follow through with. I found myself wishing I had that kind of clarity when I was younger. Sadly, I, like many others, were fixated on doing well in school as an end. Of course, that's not really the point of getting an education. 

The book starts off with a course taught at a college in Texas called 'integration of abilities' that sounds like it would have been torture for me to go through. The whole idea was to get in touch with the rhythms of your own mind, perceive the world in multiple ways, break things down and build them up again. Basically getting in touch with what matters to you, linking your interests in disparate things together. From there, you go off and learn what you need to do to succeed. 

In the book, he highlights research about having a 'growth mindset' as opposed to a 'fixed mindset' (the former is far superior I'm learning in my own life now). Bain also goes through studies of how the brain best learns, what is a good use of our time (reading, writing, e.g.) and having self-compassion (basically accepting things that happen, not ripping yourself apart, and moving on). 

In sum, I would say the best college students take a Bayesian approach. They incorporate new data, new knowledge into their current model of the world. All these people also seem to take chances and be very self-assured. They also try, fail, try again and learn from their errors. They embrace failure as a way to learn. Almost the opposite of perfectionists.

As for how this will affect how I teach, or create the learning environment for students, I think it is a challenge to create a deep learning environment. But there are some things I will incorporate such as giving students chances for ungraded trial and error before a graded task is assigned. Also, having students keep a journal of their class appears beneficial as well. However, I think there are limits to what individual teachers can do; there do need to be cultural and institutional shifts that focus less on tests and more on truly measuring learning (the two aren't necessarily the same thing). 

In my personal life, this is the message I've been trying to incorporate into my mind for the last year. Be vulnerable. Embrace failure. Try and try again. Do new things as much as possible. Ask whether you learned something new each day. Take chances. Bomb and realize that it's not that bad; it is survivable. I still feel like I'm trying to find what I truly care deeply about, or at least need to get out from under the large amount of shame I carry around with me most days which really does drive my disconnection from the world (I'm reading up on this more- reading Brene Brown's book 'Daring Greatly'). I really want to come in from the cold and am slowly wending my way back into connecting and possibly learning deeply.