I have noticed recently
that this position
with my hands on
my head and my arms
up is what I do when
I'm stressed out,
especially if I'm
talking to someone
and I'm, like,
getting stressed out
in the conversation about
something I have to do
or things.
I, like, put my hands on my head
and I'm like, mm-hmm, yup, OK,
situation.
Or if I'm sitting at
my desk and I'm really
frustrated by something I'm
trying to write or read,
I just sort of sit there,
and I find myself doing this.
It's been a kind
of stressful time.
So my committee
meeting is coming up,
and once a year, I
meet with my committee.
So this is three professors
from the department
who are not my normal PI,
so not my normal advisor.
And we sit together in a room,
and my advisor is there, too.
And I talk about all the stuff
I've done in the past year
and all the stuff I want
to do moving forwards.
And it's not supposed
to be a test.
It's really supposed
to be helpful
for me to try and
figure out, OK,
what direction am I going in?
And am I going in
the right direction?
Am I way off path?
Do I need to re-evaluate stuff?
And also for them to give
me suggestions of like,
OK, you did that, but
have you tried this?
But I've definitely been
stressing myself out about it,
because really, this is helpful.
This is for me.
But it also sometimes feels
like it's me showing them,
like, here I did work in the
past year tell me it's OK
and that I'll graduate
at some point in time.
I biked by Commencement
on my way in here today,
and it was just
one of those things
where I was biking
by thinking, like,
when am I going to be
over there in that tent?
Two years?
Three years?
No more than three years, right?
But so it's good.
I have a plan.
I know what I'm
going to show them,
and I know what questions
I want to ask them to help
me move forwards in my PhD.
But it's just
still so stressful,
because I feel like it takes
every single thing I have done
or been stressed over
over the past year
and condenses it
into one meeting.
Like every problem I
have had is suddenly
distilled into next Wednesday.
So there's that.
I think, too, I'm
kind of at a point
where I know that I don't
want to stay in academia
after graduate school.
And so anything I want to do
in science, I need to do now.
And I think that time pressure,
that is totally constructed
in my own brain, but
that time pressure
is really starting to occur
to me that I've been here
for about three years now.
And I hope that there are no
more than three years left.
And so anything I want
to do, I gotta do now.
I have no plans of doing Nobel
Prize-winning research here.
I don't think I'm going to
write some paper that's going
to revolutionize the field.
But I do want to do some
nice piece of science
that I'm happy with and
confident in and proud of
and sort of add that to all
of scientific knowledge.
It doesn't need to
be some grand thing.
It could be just a little
tiny snippet of science.
But I want to make
my contribution.
So I've just been
thinking a lot about,
like, why did I
come to grad school,
and what do I want to do?
And if I want to do it,
I've got to do it now.
Of course, I put
all of this stress
onto the committee meeting, too.
Good job, self.
These are the people who
will, at some point in time,
when I go to them and say, hi,
I think I'm done, tell me, yeah,
you're done.
Write your thesis
and graduate now.
Or no, you're not.
You're not done.
And they're all great
people, great scientists.
I like my committee a lot.
I'm very happy with the
people that I've put on it,
but it's still intimidating.
I put these people
on my committee
because I thought that they
were great at asking questions,
and I wanted them to ask
good questions of my research
and my path and my plan.
So I am just preparing
myself for Wednesday,
when they're going to ask
me those good questions
about my life.
And so I've been a
little stressed out.
It's over!
My committee meeting was
a couple of days ago now,
and it went pretty well.
They were helpful,
and they seemed
to be pretty happy
with my progress,
and they gave me
some good advice
and some good suggestions.
And so it wound up
being pretty good.
It was a pretty
good conversation.
Certainly, in my brain,
the worst-case scenario
was that they were going
to be like, you are
a terrible graduate student.
Get out!
But it's not like that
would really happen.
I do my work, and
I'm making progress,
and I'm trying to
get through it here.
And I feel like I
do this every time I
have a meeting like this.
I want to sit here
and go, I passed!
But it wasn't a test.
This wasn't quals.
Quals I passed.
That was a pass/fail.
But this wasn't a test.
This was just a meeting
with my committee
for them to do
exactly what they did
and to give me advice and
give me feedback and let me
know how they think I'm doing.
And that is important.
It made me feel like
I actually might
graduate from here someday.
Year three committee
meeting, vanquished.
Back to actually
doing the work now.
Go forth and do science.
Seriously, I'm wearing this
shirt in another video.
Why do I always seem to be
wearing this shirt in videos?
I love this shirt, but I
promise I have other clothing.
Oh my God.
