By Any Other Nerd

Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes I thought to write this post about 11 months ago--after using Focusmate after a month.  Then that became 3 months out; then 6 months out, but here we are at 1 year and I'm finally getting to it.  How did I get to it?  Well, I used Focusmate, funny enough. Backing up--what is FocusMate you ask?  Apparently, you haven't been talking to me about my dissertation lately (no shade; I don't blame you!).  Focusmate is a service website that allows you to be coworking with other people at times that are useful to you. Focusmate is a website where you can sign up for 25 or 50-minute sessions to FOCUS on something you need to work on and have a workMATE to do that work with.  How does that happen?  Well, after you create an account, you identify 25 or 50-minute sessions in the next week or month that you want to be paired up.  Once you confirm that you want these sessions, you'll get an email reminder with calendar invites....

Estimated Reading Time: 15 minutes Tl/dr : I do a lot but seriously, I (mostly) know what I'm doing... To those that know me, it should serve as no surprise that on regular occasions, I have been accused of doing too much. Like way too much . It's a fair accusation to direct at me because from the outside, yes, it can look like I have 5,001 sticks in the fire and meanwhile, I'm also fishing with five poles, knitting two sweaters, oh and making coffee (because all of this runs on coffee). But in this post, I want to draw out something that I innately understand about what I'm doing. To do this, I hope to make a distinction between what has been commonly named "the hustle" and introduce my own approach, which I consider to be "the tapestry." ( It is, without a doubt, a false dichotomy and that's ok! ) The oracle of all words, Urban Dictionary gives us some good definitions that draw this out : Definition 1 : To have the courage,...

I had just got to work and unpacked my stuff.  I opened my computer and saw that on my own email there happened to be a message from the program chair.  I feel an immediate pit in my stomach.  I take out my headphones and stop my audiobook.  I look around and because I am "he who arrives with the dawn" at work, there is no one else around.  I take a deep breath and click on the email.  There's that pit in the stomach as I see the email from the program chair.  No information given in the email besides the feedback is attached and I should talk to my advisor.   Honestly, this is all the email says: What the hell is that?  My mind races to its ambiguity and it makes me wonder.  Do I need to talk to my advisor because I'm in trouble?  My QP was evaluated but that sounds ominous without further indication.  "Hope you are well!"  Do I need to be well?  Just what the hell am I about to open?    So...

My goals for 2018 are not super-ambitious.  Mostly because the biggest goal on my radar for this year and the next two is obviously completely my dissertation.  And since I'm posting this at the end of January--I think it's clear, I'm not prepared to take on too much.  But since I made goals for  2016   and 2017 , it follows that 2018 needs some direction as well--I think these serve as good balances to my year-in-review posts that I've done for 2014 , 2015 , 2016 , and 2017 .  So, here's what I got! It's good to have goals, right? So I'm breaking them up into physical health/training and intellectual goals because that's just how I do things! Physical Health/Training Half marathon I didn't run any half-marathons in 2017.  I'm a bit sad about that because I really like this distance and the longest I ran in 2017 was about 11 miles.  That clearly needs to be rectified.  Ideally, I want to do another half-marathon in under 2 ho...

Those active readers will remember that I set out with some goals in mind for 2017 .  They were reasonably ambitious and in the end, I have mixed results.  Some I hit, others I missed entirely, and yet others are somewhere in the middle.  I'm ok with this and don't see it as a failure.  I had a lot happen in the past year including both my partner and I starting new jobs, moving, and completing significant steps in my doctoral program.  So the fact that I upheld many of these goals at all made me quite happy. Complete a Triathlon  This did not happen.  I had trouble with getting into a training routine and then also scheduling it.  It was not the smartest idea to try for this during a year in which so much happened. 15000 a day Nailed it!  Every day, I completed more than 15,000 steps a day.  Overall, this was a challenging goal for me and it augmented a lot of what I did in terms of working out.  I forwent a lot of bicycling ...

So I ended up skipping July's check in because I was so busy that trying to write about my goals was near impossible.  I fell off my schedule nearly entirely for blogging because things were that busy.  Thank goodness for canned posts that could go out automatically.   The last 3 months have including a 3-week writing intensive workshop for my doctoral program, the start of a new job for me, the start of a new job for my partner, and a move.  So, it's kept me way more busy than I anticipated, but now that we're through it, we're thoroughly happy where we are.  Complete a Triathlon For this year, I think I'll need to put this goal aside.  I may still try to do one but with so much going on, this goal seems a bit removed until I can get back into a regime of swimming.  I am definitely still running a lot and biking more (my new home and job are connected by a bike path) but it doesn't seem like the right time this year.      15000 a...