Labradoris

Happy St. Patrick's day to ya! 

Puppy pickup occurs in just a few days!  We're so excited.

Things at work are a little crazy right now.  I have a client that needs about 5,000 color copies of some forms, and everything has to paperclipped, pre-packaged, and shipped just so.  It's been crazy trying to organize between my own classes, other work, other deadlines, etc.  One thing about being a graduate student, at least in my own experience, is that no day is alike.  It's a neat experience.

Some go a little wack-o as a result, but for the most part, graduate students are a well-balanced group.  OR ARE WE?!  

Tonight Joel is making Irish stew, lamb, potatoes, and all the fixins to have a great Irish meal.  Off to go entertain people... 

Yesterday Joel and I spent almost every waking moment on campus working during the day.  I had a client report I needed to work on, and he was prepping conference materials.  One of our undergraduate RAs (research assistants) expressed interest in watching while Joel did data analysis for one of our studies, so she came to campus and watched as Joel walked her through the procedures.
Afterward, I gave her kudos for being willing to go to campus during Spring Break - not many graduate students or faculty are willing to do it.  She nodded and said, "Yeah...it kinda sucked coming up here, but I'm glad I did."  I smiled in agreement and thought to myself, "Yeah, graduate school sucks sometimes...a lot of the time...but I'm glad I'm doing it."

1. I love my dogs. They are such an awesome addition to my life.

2. I’ve never been so purely fascinated, enriched, engaged, and simultaneously in a constant state of hurt, disappointment, and anger as I have been in this Ph.D. program.

3. I really, truly miss my friends and colleagues from my previous University.

4. One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned in graduate school is how to narrow my focus in order to finish. In fact, it is in direct contrast with how I think and live my life: broadly.

5. I wear 85 SPF sunscreen every single day. I also wear sunglasses no matter the weather. Skin cancer is a real possibility for me. I’ve also never smoked – anything.

6. I hold others to very high professional standards. I think this is a fault sometimes.

7. For the first time in my life, I have managed to keep a New Year’s Resolution the whole year.

8. I dance more than once a day.

9. I quite possibly had the best match for a mentor, colleague, and friend in my masters program, and she’s irreplaceable to me in such a deep, trusting sort of way.

10. My partner is the most encouraging, smart, engaging, supportive, humorous, warmest, and bravest person I’ve ever had the pleasure to be in a relationship with. I often say to him that when we are out hiking with the dogs, I’ve never felt more like I’m in an L.L. Bean or Eddie Bauer catalogue. That imagery is something I’ve desired since I was a pre-teen. Now the real thing is here, and the feeling that goes along with that imagery is indescribable.

11. I feel alive and connected when I am teaching or practicing yoga.

12. Most people don’t understand my piercings or body modification in general. That’s okay. I don’t ask that you do. I just ask that you don’t judge me, because they are there for a deeper personal reason. Speaking of judging others, I don’t judge your personal choices, so I would ask that you don’t judge mine.

13. I miss my family, and they still weigh very heavily into every decision I make.

14. I've learned how to be more patient with the added complexity.

15. I finally, finally have a grasp on statistics. We had to battle it out for a while (years), but this semester, a leap in my conceptual understanding of it has occurred. It took, and continues to take, a lot of work.

16. I actually like his parents.

I was hosting a finals study session yesterday for my students, and a student had a question about strong vs. weak influence tactics in organizations.  I answered the question, and then meandered off on a point when I should have just totally stopped instead.
I said, "Compare it to child behavior and punishment.  If your child does something wrong and you spank them, the behavior stops but your punishment isn't all that great because you just used a strong influence tactic and the behavior isn't likely to extinguish.  Compare that to holding the child back from crossing the street, and kneeling down and explaining to them why they shouldn't do that.  That's a weak (but good) influence tactic.  You are more likely to empower the child to "do good," than to scare them into not doing bad.  Same thing in organizations.  If you want to empower an employee, you would want to sit them down and tell them why their behavior isn't correct and what they can do to improve.  That's a weak influence tactic because you aren't standing there yelling in their face for a mistake -- that'd be a strong influence tactic.  And if you really were comparing this to child behavior and ineffective influence tactics, you couldn't spank your employees.  You'd so get arrested, and then, suddenly, someone else has learned a very different lesson.  HOW NOT TO GET ARRESTED IN THE WORKPLACE."

I just felt myself going there and I...just...couldn't...help...myself.  The students all cracked up, so it was totally worth it.