Letter to the editor (my letter to myself)

Dear Me,

In an effort to begin closing this chapter of my life, I want to start creating some reflection memoirs and psychological distance from this chapter of my life. This has simultaneously been a very good and a very bad chapter of my life. The 2012-2013 chapter will be remembered for the duality that it was. I want to start reminding myself of all that I have done from January 2012 to September 2013. It's really crazy that in just 20 months all of this has happened, and these are only the MAJOR life-changing events...

1. Grandpa died, the first family member to die whom I was close to.
2. Broke up with short-term bf.
3. Quit my job in DC.
4. Fell in love with new bf.
5. Moved to a neighboring city in DC.
6. Found out I had an autoimmune disorder.
7. Moved from DC to Oregon on my own and with only 1 day of planning/packing.
8. Interviewed and found a high-profile job.
9. Collected dissertation data.
10. Moved to Washington.
11. Analyzed and wrote up dissertation.
12. Events leading to my losing nearly all contact with all family (still ongoing).
13. Break up.
14. Exposed to something at work and got sick from being in old building at work.
15. Turned in resignation to quit job (although this was changed to a leave of absence).
16. Moving to neighboring city in Washington.
17. Preparing for final dissertation meeting.

Any one of these points could make someone's life very painful, let alone this many of them in 20 months!! Self, I am so sorry that you had to go through all that. You are such a strong person for dealing with all that stuff, on top of the consequences that each of them brought you. You have chosen courage in pushing forward through all of those things that happened one after another. I'm glad for all those fun things you also did.

Additionally, I've done a TON of fun things with people and during travels that should be properly summarized another time when I can create a good summary of it. Short form of fun from January 2012-September 2013:

• Caving in Virginia, Medieval Times dinner and entertainment, Gettysburg, underground railroad tour, Kinetic Sculpture Race, air and space museum lectures, many museum visits (Natural History, Holocaust, Capitol Building, the monuments), Operation Spy, camping multiple times, renaissance festival twice, Columbia River cruise, weekend in New York (9/11 memorial, bike ride in Central Park, etc.), weekend in San Diego, toured downtown Baltimore and Fells Points, 4 hikes, 2 Orioles games, Ravens football game, attended wedding, Scottish Highland Games, apple picking, strawberry picking, blueberry picking, camping and kayaking at Assateague Island, Maryland city beach trip, 15+ concerts, 2-week trip to British Columbia (Whistler, Vancouver, Victoria, whale watching, 2 strenuous hikes, mining museum, etc.), multiple sightseeing trips in Portland (underground Pirate-themed, glow-in-the-dark mini golf, Voodoo Doughnuts, Rimsky's, Huber's, Portland City Grill, Ground Kontrol) and Seattle, hot air balloon ride, DC jazz in the garden, 2 Oregon beach trips, Washington beach trip, 3 more kayaking trips, 12-hour superhero costume party.

AND that doesn't even include the other things I've done like hang out with people, go to happy hours, board game nights, birthday parties, family gatherings, dinners with friends, writing a book, taking banjo lessons, gardening, running, and other events. How have I even made it through this past couple years? Lol. For me, the level of activity in the last year from October 2012-September 2013 or so has been abysmally low due to spending all my free time on my dissertation. Yet, look how much fun stuff I was still able to do since January 2012. You can only imagine what my usual life is like when I don't have this burden to carry. I have tons of events and fun things prior to 2012 to journal about, but I'll save that for another time because the present is only about wrapping up the 2012-2013 chapter of my life.

For the last half of this memoir, during this chapter of your life in 2012-2013, what were some of the happiest moments you had? 

To summarize and identify the patterns of the moments of sunshine I have seen recently, here is a description of the happiest moments when I felt like myself, happy, excited, and at peace:

Happiest moments of 2012-2013:

• Falling in love.
• Starting banjo lessons.
• Having a garden.
• Sitting on top of Stawamus Chief after the hike (it's still my desktop background because I love how it makes me feel):
  
• The day I decided to quit my PhD program in October 2012 (which I never ended up doing).
• The day I started to visualize REALLY being done with PhD in September 2013.
• Planning for a trip to Mexico, Ireland, Scotland, England, Hawaii, Bahamas, Europe, Australia, Pacific Crest Trail, Tahiti, and many other trips.
• Whenever I sit down to write or think about my fiction novel.
• Buying myself an Xbox and playing Skyrim.
• Watching Game of Thrones (clearly the nerd in me was reactivated).
• Seeing the NW nature.

I feel dizzy after reading all that. :-) I need to really go all out and pamper myself with a luxury vacation...poor self, I'm so sorry to have put you through all those difficult events and on such little sleep! But I'm glad we had so much fun together and made the most of your difficult ending to this chapter of your life (graduate school). I'll make it up to you soon, just you wait...you'll be free from your shackles in a couple days and you will have your life back. I'll treat you to a long beach vacation where you don't have to do a single thing except kayak in any beautiful turquoise waters you see. :-)

See you soon for our luxury vacation!

~Me

Missed connection: Seeking burrito food cart from Portland in the '90s

Usually when I go get fast food in home city, I go down the street to Fred Meyer and get sushi (with brown rice, avocado, carrot, cucumber). I also get the tofu salad wraps with peanut sauce if they have made them (they have a dedicated sushi bar). That store has a delicious selection of organic and health-type foods. But sometimes my "fast food" includes black bean chips and vegetarian refried bean dip. Sometimes it entails a quinoa or pasta salad. So usually when I talk about eating fast food, that's what I go grab. I also used to go out for "fast food" lunch at work and get Wagners, a local bakery and cafe, which makes an amazing vegetarian sandwich with avocado on a whole grain roll. I had so many of those sandwiches!!

I just wanted to share a sample of what I consider most of the time to be my "fast food", because I consider any time I go to the store specifically to pick up a meal to be "fast food". I just went to New Seasons and got this for lunch and dinner. I also like the concept that the food revolution has brought about. When I began my vegetarian path in the '90s, I remember being viewed as an extremist by my parents just because I demanded that my parents buy free-range chicken if they wanted me to eat meat. That was a big thing back then, free-range chicken and gardenburgers. I still remember the pains I went through as a young teenager to get my parents to support my diet. They claimed it was too expensive to buy me turkey bacon and properly-raised chicken (hint: they were unwilling to buy their child good food and support her healthy and "alternative" habits, yet they were perfectly willing to take her shopping to buy new clothes or to drive an SUV around). Although I do admit that as a result of living on our massive hill (the road is impassable when it ices or snows so you really have to get home before anything serious happens), the SUV saved us numerous times. This is just one reason why I'm so different from my family. Just one of hundreds. :)

Here's my fast food of the day:

My Fast Food Dinner

Salad wraps with tofu, carrots, peanut sauce and;

Asian soba noodle salad with tofu, whole grain organic buckwheat, peanuts, pickled carrots, cabbage, parsley, peanut sauce

Fruit tart and;

Spicy roasted eggplant with tofu, red bell pepper, Spicy Sweet Thai Sauce(which I'm going to have with my own couscous)

My Fast Food Lunch

Orzo pasta with kalamata olives, oregano, arugula, lemon juice, parsley, red peppers, feta and;

Sushi with avocado and cucumber (no brown rice today, sadly!)

(I just finished enjoying this!)

When I'm forced to eat from a chain restaurant I choose Taco Bell and substitute beans for beef, but usually I get "fast food" at the grocery store so typically that's what I'm referring to when I go get something to eat. Haha! I just had a flashback to what I used to eat at Taco Bell as a kid (there was only 1 fast food restaurant where we lived in my hometown, and the next closest fast food chains was a 15-minute drive away). I remember always getting a "soft taco with no meat". Man, why couldn't I have thought of the bean substitution back in the '90s? I was probably a malnourished eater because living with my parents, I didn't have the option or the money to go buy the things I wanted. Another reason I wish I had different parents (yes, I know I reference this a lot, but it's a consistent theme of my childhood so I can't apologize for it -- we are dealt the cards we're dealt!). Soft taco with no meat. How boring and unfulfilling. I can remember doing that any time we made the drive to Taco Bell back as a teenager -- I wonder when I started my no-meat kick? I can remember being 13 and doing so, but perhaps earlier. I don't have a particular defining moment when I had an "on switch", so it's hard to identify a specific age and time frame. I may be able to find out my age from reading through my original (offline) journals. I know I was older than 10 and probably less than 13. Split the difference and round up and let's say I started my vegetarian path around 1995 (age 12). I think I started heading down my raw food path around 2005, and my vegan path became much stronger around 2010.

Unfortunately I've had more Taco Bell than usual this year (no more than a handful of times, but it's still too much for me to accept) due to moving in November 2012, January 2013, and again in September 2013, because moving typically makes it harder to cook. I still eat a lot of "good" fast food during the moving periods, but typically I do eat more Taco Bell. It's an identified trend that I've noticed. It's my comfort food because it never makes me sick. In many ways, it's easier to not eat fast food as a vegetarian/vegan because you pretty much can't eat at most chain restaurants. I try not to go to big chains like that when I can, but it happens.

Oh, and of course this is my dessert (I'm highly addicted to this, and apparently so is every cashier I've talked to so far -- one girl today told me she was going to try to make her own):

Speaking of all this, I had recently been thinking about high school and I remember our favorite food cart vendor that we would always visit for lunch. He made these HUGE burritos with an amazing taste. They were about 9" in length. I miss that cart so much. I wonder if I could track him down...I could visit all burrito carts and see if he's still around, but I wouldn't recognize him. Hmm. "Missed connection with burrito food cart from the '90s"? I could try it!

Nervous ramblings

Advisor commented on my presentation draft last night, and I just finished fixing all his comments. They were minor. I made some fixes of my own, of course, and still have more to make. But I think the actual slides are nearly complete and ready for printing today. Will practice once today and continue adding to my notes for my presentation and then print this out today so that the actual presentation is done and ready, and I will just have my own preparation to work on for the rest of the week. 

I learned in the winter of 2012 that practicing makes a big difference. I didn't used to practice or prepare much for presentations or meetings. The biggest change in my behavior in this aspect came when I was interviewing for jobs in the winter of 2012. They sent me documents to read and I was supposed to prepare a presentation that I would give during my interview. I created the presentation and practiced it for about 4 hours total. I sat in the car (because I was staying with people at the time) and talked out loud to myself for hours. I set the timer for 20 minutes and kept running through the presentation over and over and over. At first, my slides were taking me about 30-35 minutes to get through because I didn't quite know what to say. Finally by about the 5th run-through or so, I got my speech down to near 20 minutes. 

That's my plan for this presentation too. It took me about 45 minutes to run through this presentation on Saturday with a friend, but that's because he was giving me feedback and I kept making notes about things to come back and research so that I could present the information properly. I'm sure that if I run through the presentation once today, tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday, and a final time on Friday, I'm sure I'll have the speech relatively down. Then this will at least take care of 20 minutes of my meeting (I kind of wonder if I should sabotage my meeting and take like 30 minutes to talk, so that there is less time for questions, haha). 

Well, back to the point, practicing really improved my interview in the winter and I got the job. I was able to also rehearse the slides from memory after practicing it for about 4 hours straight, so that made things a little easier for me and I probably looked more composed when talking. I believe that any bonus points will help me (if I appear to be composed, if I dress up, if my slides look professional, if I smile, if I present in a business-like way) so that if I'm on the border of passing, my bonus points would probably bump me up to passing. If I can get some extra credit points for appearances, I will take it because I'm so nervous about this. Plus, if I look professional about the whole thing, that may compensate for a couple questions that I am unable to answer completely (I'm sure there will always be a couple of those in any presentation, so I'm hoping my bonus points will help balance that out).

After making those edits to my presentation, now I'm going to print out my next article to read and go to New Seasons for some food (I'm starving and don't have a lot of time to cook). New Seasons is basically a local version of Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. It's owned by a few local families and carries very similar items to Trader Joe's or Whole Foods -- fresh, local, organic, simple, sustainable foods. I'm staring at my wheatgrass that I bought there last week. :) I need good food.

The final countdown

I can't wait for this week to be over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In the name of all things holy, I just hope this week goes well. I can't take any more of this!!! I was originally supposed to have my meeting today, but had to change it to Friday after a scheduling change in a committee member's schedule. I'm now glad that I have the few extra days to prepare.

Portlandia Season 3 is funny. Appearance by Jeff Goldblum as a doily salesperson. And I love Kyle MacLachlan. The finale is really funny and concerns a blackout. It's funny because power outs are so rare and yet my TV got turned off while watching that episode about power outs, due to an actual power out! (we're having wind and record-breaking rain this year as a leftover from the Pacific typhoon). Great apocalyptic-type finale episode that cracked me up. I forgot about my real life for a while :)

Pretty much losing my mind. I am living a nightmare and I can't wake up. I feel like this will never end and yet I feel like I don't have enough time to prepare and read all the things I want to read before the meeting. I have to talk to advisor today about the presentation so I'm nervous about that. I plan to ask him for a couple questions that I might expect to be asked during the meeting. I did some reading yesterday and felt slightly better and more knowledgeable about my topic after just reading 2 seminal articles, but it just made me wish I'd started preparing sooner! It's a constant battle between trying to prepare and feeling better and then constantly wishing you'd started preparing earlier because it makes you feel better.

I'm at a point now where I can't do anything except think of nothing. I can't think of anything without having a panic attack, so I just can't think of anything. I don't have space in my mind to think about what I wish I had done or to think about next week. I can only think about nothing and just keep myself busy until Friday. I don't have a place in my mind to think about how annoyed I'll be to tell people about my outcome if it's not good. I did try to imagine my meeting going well, but that will only happen if I spend the next 4 days preparing like crazy and reading everything I can. I need to refresh myself on all these topics and be able to answer questions about them.

I wish we just had to give a presentation and not answer any questions. Then I wouldn't care! I also wish the presentation were a bigger chunk of the meeting. It's only supposed to be 15-20 minutes, with the discussion portion lasting about another hour after that. Here is my plan to get through the next few days:

 Monday:

• 9:00-11:00 Read 4 articles
• 11:00-12:00 Make updates to PowerPoint presentation
• 12:30 Talk to advisor, ask for idea of questions that I can expect
• 1:00-2:00 Finalize presentation
• 1:00-2:00 Print out presentation copies for committee (backup in case projector doesn't work)
• 2:00-3:00 Add notes to presentation
• 3:00-8:00 Read 12 articles

Tuesday:

• 5:00-7:00 Drive home
• 7:00-8:00 Practice presentation once by myself
• 7:00-8:00 Practice presentation with a friend
• 8:00-4:00 Read 16 articles
• 4:00- 8:00 Run 2 analyses on questions that I expect (and bring these with me to show them if they ask; e.g., sensitivity analysis to compare missing data replacement/deletion methods, sample information, non-linear transformations)
• 4:00- 8:00 Practice answering 5 questions that I expect them to ask
• 4:00- 8:00 Pack for trip, iron shirt

Wednesday:

• 6:00a-5:00p Travel
• 7:00-4:00 While traveling, read and critique my draft that I sent them, come up with questions they might have, and make corrections that I see
• 7:00-4:00 Read statistical terms and methods
• 7:00-8:00 Read 8 articles
• 4:00-8:00 Practice presentation with self
• 4:00-8:00 Run 2 analyses on questions that I expect 
• 4:00-8:00 Practice answering 5 questions that I expect them to ask

Thursday:

• 6:00-4:00 Read 16 articles
• 4:00-9:00 Practice presentation with self
• 4:00-9:00 Run 2 analyses on questions that I expect
• 4:00-9:00 Practice answering 5 questions that I expect them to ask

Friday:

• 4:00-5:00 Practice presentation with self
• 5:00-6:00 Read 2 articles
• 6:00-7:00 Practice answering 5 questions that I expect them to ask
• 7:00-9:00 Check out of hotel, get parking permit and set up projector
• 9:00-11:00 Meeting for ~1.5 hours
• 1:00-10:00 Travel

So far today I've paid my rent, checked on parking for rental car and printed out map, recruited a driver to the airport and some help getting ready tomorrow, checked my credit score, and signed up for the Great Shake Out earthquake activity (it's amazing how avoiding a dissertation will motivate you to do totally unrelated things just to avoid working on it...). Now it's time to read some articles and edit my presentation before calling my advisor.

Please let no one show up to my meeting except my committee...please! 

Life report card

Today is a day for reflecting on the good choices I have made and focusing on the things that I CAN control.

I e-mailed my Senator this weekend to comment on the ACA. I remember when I used to be involved in change. I desire that again. I intend to get involved in the causes I believe in once this is finished.

I also intend to get my PHR certificate next year so that I'm more marketable. And I intend to stay at this job and request that I am allowed to work on particular projects that will give me the experience that I need to get the job I want to move into. Right now, I have too much experience in a particular area of my field and it's not where I want to end up (but it's where the lower-level jobs tend to be so I've taken them out of need). I don't want to pigeon-hole or type-cast myself by taking any job that is available so that I can't get the jobs I want down the line. If I could go back and give myself the advice that I didn't receive from others at the time, it would be to tell myself to get an internship every summer and also one immediately after graduate school when I was ABD. There are no entry-level jobs in the areas I want to work in, but there are internships for students who are currently ABD. That's something I really wish I had done. Now it's too late to take a step back and do an internship so that I can actually get experience in the area I want to work in. I need to redirect my career to get to where I want to be. I recently saw an opening in California for a job in the field I want to be in, but I'm not in a place to apply to it now.

Another night of not-good sleep. I managed to get the total up to 7.5 hours, but, I was in bed 10 hours. I'm getting enough to be functional for another week, but not stellar. Time for some grades. I've decided I'm going to try to do a monthly report card for "life". I tried to insert a chart here...I hope it doesn't look weird with the formatting:

	9/9	9/29
Sleeping	D	C
Exercising	D	C-
Eating	B-	A-
Mental Health	C+	B-

Improvements I have made since the last report are: Went on a few 1-mile walks around my neighborhood (more exercise than I had done in the months prior to that), increased my sleep average to about 7.5 hours a night and got a couple 8-hour nights, stayed with a friend while working on this project so I wouldn't be completely alone, have been eating very good foods every day (still eating too many calories to lose weight, but I'm maintaining it and eating well so that's great), and stopped drinking beer.

Goals for this month are to increase sleep average to 8 hours/night, start yoga and meditation, start up the activities I like to do again, exercise 15 minutes a day, eat 300 fewer calories a day, and start to be social again after next weekend (I've had to ignore people for the last couple months while I focused on this project).

I'm proud of myself for the good things I have chosen to do in the last couple months. :) It's extremely hard to make good choices under this much insane pressure, so I am very happy with myself for making so many good choices. Particularly with sleep -- rather than get up at 6 am this morning when I was awakened, I read my book for a bit and fell asleep for another 45 minutes. That is HUGE for me. Any increase in sleep is phenomenal and I'm really happy with myself for this positive change that I've made over the past couple weeks. I also continue to be thankful that I stopped working, and would probably be in an asylum right now if I hadn't! Lol.

L has been really good about motivating me to exercise more, which got me out of the house to do my 3 1-mile walks earlier this month. She has encouraged me enough that I want to start doing more too. My goal this week is to do just one 15-minute walk this week. It's going to be a crazy week because I'm heading out of town for 3 days, so if I can just do one walk I'll be happy. Then, this will all be over and I can do walks every day starting Saturday :). In fact, I may do much longer walks...like an hour. In 2012 I was walking 1-2 hours a day and I loved it. I also kept up this walking pattern during my 2-week visit to Oregon, which meant that for a while I was walking ~30-degree hills for 1-2 hours a day (difficult). I will start doing that again soon. I was 145 pounds then (at 5'9" that's pretty good, and it's my goal to get back to 145 again).

I'm also happy with my financial decisions even though they were difficult to make and implement. I moved out of my luxury apartment and saved $835 this month in rent alone. I finagled that leave of absence scenario at work while maintaining my benefits, which has already saved me $675 this month. That will mean by the end of my 2-month leave of absence, those 2 choices alone will have saved me $3,000!! That's how I'll be able to afford my luxury vacation when this degree is out of my life very soon. I'm considering going to DC for the week prior to my beach vacation, but if that doesn't work out, I may go to the beach for a 10-day vacation instead. I'm SO EXCITED!! :-D

Looking forward

Spent 11 hours in bed, slept 8.5. It's driving me nuts!! There's nothing more I can do except get through this next week and sleep in without an alarm. I keep waking up with horrific nightmares (more than usual) -- like, the kind that give you a pounding heart and fear even after you wake up. I don't know what's going on! That happened at least 4 times last night. There's no explanation for it, yet. I'm not doing anything differently...EXCEPT being extremely anxious about next week. I'm going to go with the probability that they are night terrors caused by strain in anticipation next week's events. Even though I'm doing everything well in terms of sleeping (going to bed at the same time, feeling tired when I go to bed, not thinking about bad things before bed, reading before bed, not having caffeine after noon, etc.), these are still occurring. My only hope is to get through the next week and keep trying to avoid thoughts about next week until it is over.

One of the escape strategies (or reward, as some might call it) that I had been using was to get excited about what I could do when this is all over. I will reward myself with a vacation. I had been thinking a lot about where to go and have decided that I will go to one of these places:

Mexico

Santa Barbara, California

In Mexico, I can get ocean-front rooms for the price of renting a room with a view in someone's house in Santa Barbara. Not sure though where exactly I'll go -- I'll have to see how next week plays out before making final decisions and booking the trip. I'm very excited though. I have enough money for a pretty luxurious week-long trip, which I deserve. :)

Unexpected relief

You would never have guessed it from appearances, but yesterday was the best day I've had in months. It went something like this:

• 5:30 am: Woke up. Exhausted. Wanted to go back to bed but had to get up to send an e-mail.
• 5:30-7:00 am: Wrote first draft of dissertation presentation. Didn't finish it by the time I had to leave, so I only finished it halfway.
• 7:30-9:30 am: Started the 2-hour drive back to my home city so that I could attend 2 appointments up there that day. Drove through the West Hills and past my high school on the way to Washington. Got a call that my 9:45 appointment was cancelled (the main reason I was driving up there in the first place) and rescheduled for the following day (today).
• 10:00 am: Had to find a computer to use because I had only planned on staying up there for the 2 appointments that I had that day. Got to public library an hour before they opened. Sat there trying to read my presentation on my phone only to realize that I don't think I can edit PowerPoint on a phone, so I could only read it.
• 10:45 am: Went to McDonald's (closest restaurant to the library) to find out that they had stopped serving breakfast and the only vegetarian option was really unhealthy dessert or a burger without meat. I ordered oatmeal and french fries. In front of me, an employee said to my cashier, "I think I have a bladder infection." The cashier replied, "I just got over one last week." Ummmm............
• 11:00-12:00 noon: Signed up for a library card, reserved a computer next to some guy researching medicare. Worked on editing my presentation until about 11:30 when a Hispanic guy took a call and said, "Hey man. I just got over a bad case of diarrhea last week. It was bad. I was going to come by for a slice, do you want me to head over now?" He spoke very loudly in the middle of a library full of people working silently on computers and old people reading newspapers............
• 12:00-12:30 pm: Had to move to a new computer due to reservation schedules. Worked on finishing my presentation while a guy next to me played one of those games where you hit colored bubbles in a row, and then switched to playing something that looked like an RPG with castles and stuff. He kept commenting out loud to himself, "Aw!", "Psh", "Bitch!", etc. Oh, and then he took off his shoes and was leaning over and picking at his feet. That's what did it for me and I moved to a table far, far away.
• 1:00-2:00 pm: Went to my 2nd appointment that day. Had one of the best and most productive  conversations regarding my life with my counselor.
• 2:00 pm: Cancelled appointment that had been rescheduled and moved it to a day after this school is done.
• 2:00-4:00 pm: Drove back to Portland. It was an absolutely gorgeous drive. I will try to post pictures sometime. I had time to think in the car about things -- my plan for the next week and my plan for a trip at the end of October.
• Felt really great. Felt less stressed about life, felt like my life won't be ending next week, felt empowered to deal with the trauma that I'm experiencing right now with having to face my past every day, felt excited for my trip in October, and felt like I had hope about the future and finding a job I could be happy at (and that won't make me physically sick). I actually felt pretty decent. If that's how I'll feel once this is over, I will be happy. I miss knowing what that feels like. I've spent almost all of my 20s working toward this date, so I have completely forgotten what not having obligations feels like. I feel really good!
• 5:00-9:00 pm: Had a serious craving for tater tots and a Blizzard. Got a decent substitute instead and watched Star Trek into Darkness because I was beyond exhausted.
• Had many extreme nightmares that I woke up from with a pounding heart and fear.

Doesn't exactly sound like the day of my dreams, but due to the current state of my life right now, that day was leagues better than my life at the moment and something about all the events and the weather really lifted my spirits. Lol, it sounds funny to explain how great yesterday was and how my spirits were "lifted" after a day like described above!! I guess it speaks volumes about the current state of my life haha.

Also this week I bought the Game of Thrones ringtone for my phone and it pleases me to no end to hear it when I get a call.

However, today I'm feeling less enthusiastic about going into my last week of this. Partially because I'm unsure if this will be my last week. I am experiencing a lot of anxiety about not finishing next Friday. I fear that everyone will ask me how it went (assuming they will hear good things) and that I will have to say I didn't pass or I won't be finishing due to the amount of changes. I'm terrified of that. I'm also terrified of not knowing the outcome next Friday.

I keep telling myself, "Hold out until next Friday...it will all be over." Well, that might not be true and that's what terrifies me. If I pass with conditions, I will have to do changes and it makes me feel out of control, like if you were in a hostage situation and the enemy kept saying, "Just do XYZ for one more week." So you do XYZ and mentally hold out until next Friday, counting on that day psychologically. And then when next Friday comes he says, "I just need you to do ABC for me now for another week." And when that week is over, he again says, "Okay I just need you to do a few more things for me before I let you go." Well after a while of that, you feel like the end is never in sight and you feel like you'll never get out. That's how I feel right now, thinking about the possibility of the outcome not being 100% known next Friday. I just don't know how much more I can take, psychologically or physically. It feels like one of those horrible dreams where you are running away from someone chasing you with a machete but you can't run or you're running so slowly and it's sooo frustrating because you can't run. It's the feeling of a never-ending nightmare that appears to be ending, but the end keeps getting pushed back for another week and another week. THAT'S what I'm terrified of. I really am doubting if I can take any more of this -- for example, if I pass with conditions that require me to do a bunch more stuff, I really don't know if I can do it at this point.

I have one week left. By this time next week I will be on a plane back to the NW and will likely know the outcome of my life degree. As I discussed with my companion yesterday, it is very helpful for me to think about what I'm going through as a rape victim would think about going back to the place where she was raped or testifying against her attacker in court. I haven't been raped, but everything I'm going through is summed up by PTSD or traumatic stress. Everything I've gone through in the last 4 years or so is summarized for me on those descriptions about PTSD. The only thing missing was the acute stressor that was a threat to my life (instead, I had a number of stressors that occurred that led to other stressors which led to a consistent lifestyle that acted as a continuing stressor). Everything else is a totally accurate description of my life for the past few years.

So right now in the past month, I am going through my equivalent of a rape victim testifying against her attacker in court. It's not a pretty story (when this is all over I may write it up with the details). But thinking about it that way helps me mentally. Thinking about how you always see those shows about rape victims and everyone counsels them to face the event so that they can move on -- to testify against her attacker so that she can get closure and move on with her life. I am telling myself that advice as well. I NEED this closure. I NEED to testify against my attackers -- my dissertation defense represents this (and not only symbolically, but also realistically in many ways). Facing all of those years of my life that I lost and facing the trauma that I experienced. This is what I'm going through on top of "writing some paper and attending a final meeting", which is probably how outsiders see it. Even most people who have gotten a PhD probably haven't experienced what I've gone through -- of course some probably have had similar experiences I'm sure, but I'm talking about more than just lots of studying and the degree-related stuff (which of course is traumatic in its own way).

I don't want to discuss all of that on here because it's very difficult to explain, let alone explain accurately on text to some unknown audience. But I CAN sum it up by saying that the only thing getting me through this mentally right now is my inner mind telling me that if I were a rape victim, I would tell myself that I HAVE to go to court to testify against my attacker and put him in jail so that I can move on with my life. I need this closure. I need to move on. I'm not exaggerating any of this, so I hope anyone reading doesn't think that I am. I'm just not willing to provide all the details of my experience in order to describe the full story of a trauma victim here. I'm not going to apologize to some fear that a reader might think I'm being unfair by comparing my experience to a rape victim (which is something that I found myself thinking and was therefore afraid to express the only analogy that was meaningful for me). I'm not climbing some dumb "mountain" or running a marathon. This is not college or high school or even a Master's degree. This is trauma. And those who haven't experienced it can't relate (luckily for me and unluckily for her, my counselor did have experience in an emotionally abusive relationship, so she knew many of the feelings that I was feeling from the trauma and was able to tell me how she got through her experience, which helped me think about my experience). I am lucky to have some people in my life who can understand as well as I could hope for even though they might not have gone through the exact same experiences. I also know a few people who have had many of the similar types of psychological trauma from going through graduate school and are understanding because they have been through the general experience of it. Without those people I don't know how deep I might have fallen into the hole.

I just started seeing this counselor a few weeks ago after I had started my leave of absence of work to focus fully on finishing my degree. She told me that I was a strong person for going through this and coming out relatively unfractured. To summarize her comments,

"You need to remember that you are a strong person for going through this and not completely breaking down. You may have some fractures, but you are not completely fractured beyond repair. You will be able to rebuild those fractures again soon after this is over next week. After I left my emotionally abusive relationship, I remember thinking that it was a miracle I didn't end up as a meth addict or homeless or totally lose my mind. But then I realized that I was a strong person going into the situation, so because of that I was able to come out without any serious problems beyond repair. I was in a bad place then, but once I left him the veils started to lift and slowly I got back in touch with who I am, I started to get back in touch with the things I had loved doing, my self-esteem improved, and I started to see myself again." 

I thought that was an interesting way to put it. I left graduate school in a really dark place in 2009 but was able to slowly put myself back together piece-by-piece. I have already patched up many of those fractures. I am a different person than I was when I had just left that environment, depressed and hopeless and lost. I already did so much work on rebuilding myself that last year in the spring when I started to love someone, I felt that my life was almost complete again. I felt in touch with myself and the things that I wanted to do, and I was again excited about the future. However, the underlying stressor was still in my life and starting in October 2012 I decided to make one final push to see if I could get it done, or I would quit. The next day, I e-mailed my advisor to ask if I could make the change in data collection method and to my surprise he said yes. So I went on to get the review board's approval, collect data, analyze data, write 5 drafts, schedule my final meeting, and apply for graduation. Now one year later I am preparing for that final meeting in October 2013. It has been a difficult year trying to get this far, and much of my current fear/anxiety is due to the fact that if I don't pass, I'm afraid I will feel like all the pain I went through to try to finish will have been in vain. All the stress I went through in the last year to basically do the last 75% of my entire dissertation project will have been wasted. That is what scares me. Unfortunately at this point, nothing except removal of the stressor (i.e., either finishing or quitting graduate school next week) can fix that fracture of fear. Many of the fractures that still exist will also fix themselves after this is all over. Once the stressor is removed, I will start to rebuild.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I have been feeling that some of the fractures that I patched up over the past few years have been starting to crack again as I've been working toward this goal over the last few months. Having to fly back to the school and have this meeting has caused me to revisit many of the various unpleasant and even traumatic experiences that happened during my 4 years there. I need to remember that I have patched many of those fractures up already, and minor cracking won't break them down completely again. I'm in a new place with my life, a stronger place. I have achieved things that allow me more strength in getting through this without cracking. I may experience some minor cracks over the next week as I relive many of those painful moments. Mostly I try to ignore and not think about the painful events and I do a good job of it, but even a split second of remembering a painful moment can cause bad consequences. So I just need to be prepared for next week by telling myself that my patching job will hold on most of my fractures. I might feel a little stress and pressure on most of them, but my foundation will hold. And starting NEXT WEEKEND (wow that's close!) I can start to fill in the remaining patches and build the house of my dreams.

The point is that rather than think about next week as a pass/fail meeting that will determine the outcome of my life (which it is, truly), I am choosing to think about next week as my courtroom trial. As the necessary action that I must take to get closure on this and move on with my life. I need to face the trial and go through this experience for my future self and so that I can return to myself and my life. If I don't go to the meeting, I will not get that closure. It is mentally a whole lot more doable for me to think of this as a necessary step in closure than it is to think about it as the outcome that will either cause severe cognitive dissonance for the rest of my life or something that will allow me closure by successfully completing this degree. Rather than think of it like that, I am choosing to think of it as "closure no matter what." It's not a choice of "closure or no closure", as the trauma victim might see the jury's decision (she might feel that she has not received closure if they jury's verdict is "not guilty"), but rather the act of testifying is her closure. Obviously one outcome would be better than the other, but the act of moving forward with her life is closure too. That's what I need to remember for the next week. I am achieving closure no matter what the outcome is. And just like the trauma victim, I do have a chance at receiving my desired verdict (receiving the phd) so I need to take that chance.

Haha, I know this might sound really cryptic because I'm not giving details, but I've just learned from experience that some people in my life are really judgmental and non-empathetic and are terrible at communication and support -- although those people have not been invited to see this journal! But the aversion still remains because I fear that others besides those people will react the same way. Although I have certainly had hundreds if not thousands of great experiences and great relationship moments throughout the past 4 years (including tons and tons of concerts, sightseeing, traveling, learning, meeting people, etc.), I have not talked about the bad experiences that I have had.

There are many reasons for this that maybe I will get into soon after I have more time, because it's important to express what you're feeling as some point. I haven't been willing to talk about it until recently (because it will be over soon), but I will just say this: In order to move forward, you need to fully face and acknowledge what you went through so that you can dissolve that part of your life forever. You will never move forward if you keep an enemy locked up in the basement -- you'll always be worried that the enemy is going to break out. He might even make noises that scare you sometimes when you're going about your daily life, and you'll be forced to remember that he's there, so you won't forget about it. But if you are able to confront and get rid of that enemy for good, you don't have to live in fear or worry anymore. This is what I am doing right now and I have to give myself a lot of credit for it.

I found an article with some inspiring quotes on courage. I realized that you need a lot of courage to go through what I've been through and not come out the other end in a grave. Some of my favorites from this article:

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear — Nelson Mandela

Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them — Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924)

I hope to reach that point soon. I want to look back and say that I had courage. That is the only way that I will be able to move on.

Also, last weekend I tried out the Irish tea room. It was adorable and the owner had an Irish accent. I had a pot of tea (Bewley's Irish Breakfast Tea) with milk and honey, Butler's hot chocolate, and beans on toast. It was lovely. I also picked up a couple items from their shop (they cater to the Irish, as the shop owners and multiple people who came in had Irish accents). Flahavan's porridge and some mustard with whiskey:

I've also achieved another significant change in my life -- no drinks in the last week. I have also only had 10 drinks in the last 27 days. I want to quit it for good, except for maybe 1 drink on special occasions (about 6 drinks a year). I need to treat my body better and I think that there is some chance of healing if you stop completely. I will make many changes at this turning point in my life, and this is one of them: Stopping all drinking completely. It will be hard because I enjoy the taste of beer, but it is something I want to get rid of. It's not good for you and I seriously regret all my use since I started drinking. I want to be whole again after next week. I will have time to make all the good food I want, to do the things I want, to exercise, to sleep, and to be happy again. I want to live happily ever after until the end of my days (as Bilbo Baggins likes to end his stories).

Thursday

[This was saved as a draft yesterday but I don't feel like editing it, so I'm going to post it unfinished]

What a crazy life this is. I crashed after sending my draft on Thursday. I got some Muchas Gracias and watched nearly all of Game of Thrones season 3. I intended to sleep for a long time, but couldn't. I don't know what is waking me up at night, but it's taking a toll. I got about 9 hours of sleep on Thursday and then only about 7.5 each night since then. Not enough. I'm beyond groggy in the mornings and am only sleeping about 7.5 hours. I'm sure I could keep sleeping longer if I didn't set an alarm or have anything to do, but that will have to wait until after October 4th.

I'm having an extremely hard time staying on task (or as the kids would say, a "super hard time"). I spent some time this weekend planning a trip for late October and decided that I might go to California for a week. It would cost me about $2,000 for the trip I want to take, so I need to make sure it's the best place for me to go. I had wanted to splurge on a really nice beach-front hotel with a great view and just sit on the balcony all day. But the town I'm looking at doesn't really have that -- it seems that the hotels are mostly sea-level, which means no views. The spa hotel was $1,500/night for a 4-person room with amazing views...that's just a bit out of my price range :). I'm considering compromising and getting a room rental through a house sharing site. The rooms are still ~$200/night, but that's not too bad considering.

On the other hand, it would be nice to buy an all-inclusive package somewhere cheaper, like the Caribbean. But with the hurricanes, I'm just not too confident that it's a good choice. And some parts of Mexico might be okay, but it makes me a little nervous.

145

Note from last night around 4:00 PM

I feel like I'm losing my mind a bit. The clouds are sporadically placed throughout the sky, passing in front of the sun every 10 minutes or so for about 1 minute. It kind of reflects my mood. I feel moments of sheer panic about too much to get done when I think about the faces of my committee members and them reading it, and then I make some progress and I feel relief because I feel that I may finish this tonight in time to get some sleep. Then I feel exhaustion set in and I feel that the next 10 hours are going to be very painful. Then I feel like, "Hey, I can only do so much and it's going to be at a decent place when I send it tonight, even if I don't happen to capture every little detail in there perfectly."

Note from this morning around 9:00 AM

I'm totally losing it! I worked until 2:30 AM and then took a 1.5-hour nap and got up to finish the draft. It's such a tremendous task to edit this document. I went through most of the feedback from advisor's 4 rounds of comments, added some of L's and B's comments, and now I'm going through it once myself. I hadn't actually sat down to edit it yet because I was so busy working on stuff behind the scenes. I've been editing sentences and things here and there as I've been going, but I haven't looked at the big picture yet. It's taking forever to edit. I'm only on page 7 out of 145! Lol. It's not even funny though. I'm out of my mind. Last night I laughed at this sentence that my advisor had asked me to clarify because he didn't know what it meant. Well, I reread it and I had no clue what I originally meant either, but then I COULD NOT stop laughing for 10 minutes because something just struck me as funny about it. I was laughing uncontrollably for a good 2-3 minutes and then I kept randomly giggling as I was trying to rephrase it, and I think R thought I was nuts!

"Trenton, Jones, and Smith (2011) found that both hindrance stressors and challenge stressors were appraised separately, but they were also appraised as both hindrance and challenge simultaneously to some degree."

As you can see, it's pretty much one of the LEAST funny sentences imaginable!! Hahahha. That's how you know when you've lost it, when you laugh hysterically at something as boring as that sentence!! Uh oh...just rereading it is still making me laugh...

I have no clue how I'm going to make it through the next 138 pages. Technically my writing ends on page 79, so post-page 79 it should be easy double-checking of tables and references. But still...that means I have 72 pages left. I need to work at a pretty fast pace because I need to send this by noon Pacific time so that the committee receives it before they leave for the day. It's due tomorrow but I had originally hoped to send it sooner. Well, it has proven to be a good idea that I decided to continue working on it for a few more days because I've improved it a lot since last weekend. Like maybe from a 70% grade to an 80% as of this moment. I think I'll have it at about 85% by the time I send it -- a solid B. I expect that the feedback from my meeting and the additional time to make one more round of revisions after my meeting would take the draft up to a 90% or 95%. I don't expect anything more than a 90%. Please just let me get it to a B grade in the next two hours...that's all I can think about.

P.S. - At 5:00 AM this morning when I was furiously calculating simple slopes for my moderated regression, a mouse ran by me and I screamed very loudly. It scared the h*** out of me. I couldn't stop working, so I kept solving my equations while the mouse was staring at me. It was actually kind of cute. It ended up running by me again about 20 minutes later on its way back down to the basement, at which point I screamed again and jumped because I'd forgotten about it. All I can say is, it's going to be a relief to send this, even if I don't feel great about it (which I'm anticipating, but I hope I can not have that anxiety after I send it--I'm going to work on that). I will watch Game of Thrones and sleep. What a day.

Pine and pear

I'm staying in the West Hills and there's an Irish tea room down the street. We're going there this weekend for tea and tea cakes, and maybe some Cadbury hot chocolate. Will report on how it is!

As I have recently been looking at houses and thinking about where to live, I consistently look for places with a view. A view is really important to me. As I've pondered why that is, I realized...it's because of my claustrophobia. I never realized I was claustrophobic until I was about 28. I used to have a severe fear of flying and elevators, and it was suggested to me once that I was afraid of closed spaces. I never bought into that because really my fear was of falling, obviously. But later, I realized (or maybe even had a late development/progression) that I was afraid of not being able to "get out". An old relationship of mine had a room that was in an attic -- you had to climb up a ladder to get into a small attic room that wasn't even tall enough to stand in. Well, it got hot a couple times and there were a number of nights I woke up and FREAKED OUT and had to go downstairs to "get out". Once I was sleeping on a bunk bed that was really close to the ceiling (about 2 feet above my head) and I had the same experience. I woke up in the middle of the night and it was hot and I freaked out and had to go walk around. This all happened within the past 2 years. It was after this that I realized I might have developed claustrophobia. I don't remember any experiences like this prior to the last 2 years, except for the flying and elevator fears.

ANYWAY, what I realized when looking at houses lately was that a view is so important to me because I don't feel trapped. I can see far away. I never realized why a view was so physiologically and mentally important to me until I made that connection to the claustrophobia. It's not just the importance of having something pretty out your window, it's feeling uninhibited and not closed in. You can see for miles on a hill.

Of course, the presence of a view might not be as important in other areas of the country. For example, a particular suburb of Ohio has houses built in the middle of a big flat area with no trees. There were very few trees in a lot of suburbs. The reason for the structure of housing there may be influenced by the amount of farmland there -- you can obviously see a lot farther if you live on the edge of a cornfield than if you live on the edge of a forest. So, it's probably a lot easier to see long distances there. But no matter what the cause is, the land is much flatter (meaning you can see for a long distance) and there are no trees (another factor allowing you to see very far). So the issue of "hill or no hill" might not matter as much in other parts of the U.S. I never felt claustrophobic in Ohio.

But take where I'm at right now in the West Hills of Oregon -- this house is in a forest. I can't even see the sky because this neighborhood has a bunch of houses built surrounded by trees that are all 60-80+ feet tall? (I'm no expert on estimating tree height, but from a visual estimate they are probably 6-8 stories tall by my guess). Here's my old apartment that I just moved out of in Washington -- beautiful backyard, but you can see how it's hard to see the forest for the trees :). That fence is approximately human height, ~5 feet tall or so. You can see how far the tree goes above the fence:

I've been thinking about living somewhere in Sherwood, OR so I could get a couple acres to plant things on. Plus, there's the Robin Hood Festival there in the summer :).

Today I must be productive. I need to:

• Finish updating the data from my recent analyses (30 minutes).
• Finish revisions based on advisor feedback from drafts 2-4 (4 hours).
• Finish revisions based on L's and R's feedback (3 hours).
• Edit the draft twice myself (3 hours).
• [Tomorrow] Send the draft (30 minutes).

The thing I'm struggling with the most is that I still have a ton of things I would like to do to analyze the data perfectly. The problem is, will my committee agree that those are all things that must be done? At this point, I just need to cut bait and stop my analyses. As I've told myself before, if there are things I want to poke into later after tomorrow, I can still go back and do exploratory analyses before my meeting. It's likely that even if I pass, I will still have a number of changes to make to the draft based on committee feedback. I want to be ready for some of those potential changes, so my plan is to spend time between tomorrow and the meeting researching some of the questions that I didn't have time to answer before sending this draft. Honestly, I feel that my draft is at the point where I could use another 1-2 months of solid work on it before feeling okay with it. I wonder if everyone feels like that? I wonder how my advisor's past students felt when sending their drafts (did they think, "Oh I just wish I could get this one more analysis done!")?

I'm still terrified about the meeting, but mostly focused on this draft. I've already developed a plan for how to spend my time over the next 2 weeks and budgeted time on my calendar:

• I'll spend about 40% of the time researching remaining questions and redoing analyses to bring with me on a flash drive to the meeting, in case they have questions. My thought is that I'll put some blank slides at the end of my presentation and then include some of these analyses and data at the end of the file so that if they bring up questions, I'll be able to show them some of the work that I did to answer that question (e.g., a table with some more in-depth demographic summaries of my sample, such as ANOVA comparisons among the different sample groups to show that they are similar enough to one another, or a sensitivity analysis to show how my missing data treatment method had similar effects to other missing data treatment methods).
• I'll spend 40% of the time reading recent research on my main topic, rereading articles on my main topic, and reading articles on all the tangential topic areas related to my main topic (similar fields that might overlap with my main topic).
• I'll spend about 20% of the time preparing my presentation, practicing the presentation, practicing answering questions they might have, and coming up with notes to bring with me to the meeting as a reference for discussion.
• I'll be missing a full day in the next 2 weeks for a doctor appointment (2 hours), driving back home (2 hours), driving to airport and waiting for plane (4 hours). 

...so I'll really need to keep on top of my long days if I want to feel prepared for the meeting in 2 weeks. I REALLY hope no one shows up to my meeting... :(. I'm anticipating 10-hour days. I was working 12-14 hours days back in DC, so I think 10 is relatively reasonable and will hopefully allow me to take care of myself and do some errands between now and then:

• 6:00-7:00 Get ready, breakfast
• 7:00-12:00 Research statistical questions, redo analyses
• 12:00-1:00 Lunch, 15-minute walk
• 1:00-6:00 Read research, practice presentation
• 6:00-8:00 Dinner, errands, mail, other life tasks
• 8:00-9:00 Reading before bed, researching travel plans and houses
• 9:00-6:00 Rest

Chez moi

I just love the City of Roses. I always feel so at home and happy here.

Driving is not stressful (something I never knew could be stressful until I'd been in other places). Watch the Portlandia about the 2 drivers at the intersection, waiting for the other person to go. SO TRUE. Today I was driving home from the store on a 20 MPH local road in front of a school. The oncoming traffic was blinking up ahead and was going to turn left (would cross in front of me). He was about a third of mile in front of me and sat there with his blinker on, waiting for me to pass before turning left. It's not like I was speeding or anything (20 MPH), but he wanted to go after I went. He was waiting for about 10 seconds while I slowly crept past him. The same thing happens with pedestrians -- often, you will be walking down a street and will be about 20 feet away from an intersection, but the cars will stop and wait for you just in case you decide you're going to cross the street. You're not already at the intersection or anything, so they're preemptively waiting for you to cross the street (if you decide to). It's very nice. But it also makes sense why that Portlandia episode was created because people do this all the time. It's like no one is in a hurry, everyone is lazily driving around like it's Sunday afternoon in July and they don't have anywhere to be. At least, that's my experience. I really appreciate the general trend because it gives pedestrians the right of way. It's a cultural no-no to try to beat a pedestrian through the crosswalk with your car. I always felt ashamed of doing this. However, in DC, I had nearly forgotten what that was like. I came to expect no guarantee that I had any right of way, and I became very cautious (which is probably a good lesson to learn, but it definitely made me very stressed out after being in so many near-misses with others cars).

One of the family friends who had also moved to DC had joked, "After living in DC for a few years I went back to Portland and was driving through yellows and about to lay on the horn, when I realized what I was doing!" (no one honks, and people shake their heads in disgust if you run a yellow lol) She said it took a while to get accustomed to the style of driving here again. But I really value the lack of stress when driving here. Portland is a big town that feels like a small town in many ways.

Last night I was watching Doomsday Preppers in the background while doing some work, and a couple of the episodes were set in California and Washington. The level of drama in that show (by the producers and the narrator) is comical, but I like to see some of the creative things they come up with. It does also disturb me sometimes when I hear the children saying, "I just graduated high school last year. I took a year off to help my dad prep. It's probably the best thing I could be doing with my time." Hmmm...you took a year of your childhood to prepare for a potential future disaster and that's the best way to spend your time? The logic there disturbs me because many people on the show have totally ditched their previously "normal" lives for preparing for disaster. Not that preparing is the disturbing part, but the level of preparation is disturbing. It reminds me of the definition of a disorder -- must greatly interfere with your functioning in daily life. Well, arguably, prepping is similar to a hobby -- people spend time and money on hobbies so what's the difference between a hobby and prepping?

Well, I think it's great that people have these cool farms and plans in place; in fact, I am often inspired by some of them. One of my current dreams is to buy my own house with a couple acres and grow my own stuff there. I'd love to have a horse, a garden, potentially a couple animals, and be more self sufficient. I love the idea of being self sufficient, which is why I love that show. I really get inspired seeing some of those people's independent farms and things like that. This one lady had a place in the California country and it looked like such a nice retreat. Chickens, goats, garden. She spun her own wool and bartered for things. I don't want to go that far (mostly because I prioritize other experiences in my life more highly, not because I'm against bartering). I actually love the idea of bartering (like at Burning Man) but I just can't spend all my time growing things for bartering if I want to travel, kayak, have a horse, see friends, have a job, etc. There's only so much time, so you have to choose what you want to do with your time. If I were a millionaire and didn't have to work, I can see myself becoming one of those people full-time...riding horses on my acreage with a view of Mt. Hood, growing organic food, chickens, goats, a couple border collies, making little crafts, playing the banjo on my front porch while overlooking the Willamette Valley...it sounds wonderful :).

The woman (one of the women -- there are many of those farms on that show haha) with the self-sustaining farm on the show inspired me to look up houses last night. Portland had a lot more ideal choices for me as far as land where I would like to live -- some gorgeous undeveloped land with great views. I need to start figuring out where I want to live. Do I want to try to work in Portland, even though it will be much harder for me? Do I want to live in Seattle? Geez. How do people ever make a decision where to live?! I saw a number of cool places in Seattle on some of the islands, but the rest of them I'm not sure about (I don't want to live near Tacoma). I'm not sold on the idea of living on Bainbridge or Vashon, just because I feel like it would be much harder to be social (having to get home on the ferry and trying to convince your friends to visit you). I know someone who lives there -- maybe I should see what she thinks. There were some awesome houses on the water, which is another big selling point for me so that I can kayak easier.

I don't know, I need to do some serious thinking about this soon. I need to figure out what city to live in, where I want my career to go, what I'm going to do about this job, and how I'm going to make money. I desperately want to buy a house and settle down. It's a struggle at the grocery store to not buy a window basil plant because I'm really missing having a garden! I will spend a lot of time thinking about this in October.

In more pressing news, I'm struggling to finish my draft. I felt so awful (flu-like yesterday) and am really trying to focus on getting some of the questions answered before I go about finalizing and editing my draft. I reran my analyses yesterday to try out some different statistical methods, but I think I just need to stop doing that. I need to move forward with whatever I have written up now, and then after I send my draft I can go play around with the data between now and my meeting. I need to clean up and send what I have now. It's so, so hard to know how "good" to make the draft. I need to finish up all my last-minute statistical things by 2:00 and call it a day. Then I need to go back through and update my paper based on changes found from the new analyses. Then I need to work through advisor's changes from drafts 2-4. If I can do all of that tonight before bed, I will feel okay. Tomorrow I will work all day on doing some hardcore editing (L's comments, three rounds of my comments, checking for typos, APA style, etc.). My plan is to get up and send it at 8 AM on Thursday morning.

P.S. - had some Tillamook Oregon Strawberry ice cream last night...what is it about Tillamook that is so good? Is it because I grew up on it? I don't know...I love it so much!!! I love visiting the Tillamook Creamery too. Best ice cream....mmmmmmmm. I also had some Tillamook Medium Cheddar last night...reminded me of my childhood. That's basically a staple of my diet from childhood. It's hard not to keep eating the Oregon Strawberry -- I'm totally not a fan of ice cream by itself, but this stuff has changed my mind 180 degrees. I can't wait for dessert tonight!! :)

Welcome to the forest

In Portland. The drive was uneventful. Drove through a couple rain clouds that were stunning.

This morning I went to a doctor for an assessment of my work-related physical symptoms. Had a couple tests done and then got a flu shot. I felt like crap before the flu shot, and now I feel like I have the flu on top of that! I wish I could just sleep...

Non sequitur, I highly recommend reading Lord of the Rings to you if you haven't yet. It's good. I love the detail with which he created that world. I have to say that I still love the movie tremendously and it's adding to my experience of reading the book. I'm able to imagine scenes from the movie as the book progresses, which has turned out to be helpful due to the fact that I'm half conscious when I'm reading the book before bed. I may have to reread it again once this degree is out of my life.

On the way down here, I listened to a couple podcasts about deaths due to prescription drug abuse (they said that the annual mortality rates from prescription drug abuse are the same as annual breast cancer rates?). Seems like it's a big issue. My guess is that it's psychologically less of a concern to the public than breast cancer because:

• We can't control breast cancer (or at least in 2013 we think we can't control it or prevent it), so it's a scary outcome. However, people can choose to put pills in their mouths, so the general concept of prescription drug abuse is leagues more preventable than breast cancer. I suspect this is why it's less of an "outrage" to the public, because it's not some doomed fate disease. 
• I also think it's more of a blame-the-victim cognition that's leading to less public concern about prescription drug abuse. Because drugs have been associated with "weakness" or "poor person's disease" or something along those lines, I think most of the public just doesn't think that they will end up becoming a prescription drug abuser anytime soon. On the other hand, half the world (maybe more) can get breast cancer. Breast cancer is likely a more high "risk" scenario for most of the public, which motivates their concern. 
• As far as outrage goes, it would seem much more outrageous to me that we have the same death rates for prescription drug abuse and breast cancer, yet one is preventable. That seems pretty ridiculous to me.
• In other words, I believe there is more psychological distance between any one person and prescription drug abuse as opposed to breast cancer. And I believe that even though we probably have all used prescription drugs at some point, the controllability of the situation (controlling how many drugs to put in your mouth versus controlling how much cancer to give yourself) might mediate our anxiety about cancer. Maybe this is what leads us to be more concerned about one than the other. I'm partially delirious and feeling like I have a fever, so please don't hold me to these initial hypotheses. :)

Just my initial thoughts, anyway!

Warning: Long rant against misuse of data in politics below!

Also listened to an update on the healthcare exchanges available in October. I'm curious to look more into the economics of this. For instance, most poor people sounded really whiny when they called in to complain about the possibility of getting $125/month healthcare (because they are paying $0/month now, so the increase seems large to them). $125/month is AMAZING! However, they probably aren't seeing the value of what they are getting because of their dire financial circumstances (even though I thought that they would be subsidized, so I'm not quite sure how valid their complaints are? I keep hearing that if you make under $45,000 you would get some help, so I'm not sure what all the details are here).

Motivationally and psychologically, I like the concept of forcing people to get healthcare or charging them a penalty to avoid the negative impact that uninsured people have on the economy. I'd like to get more into this later, but I'm sure most people can agree that any time you really stop to think about insurance you'll feel frustrated due to some decision making aspect. It's easy to convince yourself that you can use the money each month on something more "useful" or more "likely" to occur. For example, it's very "frustrating" to think about pouring $1,000/month into a landlord's pocket, rather than investing money into your own home. What are my options in that situation? I could become homeless and save close to $1,000/month and store that money in the bank until I can buy my own house, or I can rent the place.

Another line of thinking: "I've never even been pulled over by a cop and never been in an accident. Why do I have to pay $70/month or $50/month in car insurance?!?" This would be my line of questioning due to my history, which I definitely don't put stock in and don't really ask myself anymore. I know that I don't have enough savings to cover the loss of an entire car in one fell swoop, so paying a little to "rent" my insurance each month is fine with me. Also, I have now dropped my comprehensive and collision so there is even less incentive to feel ripped off due to my "never having been pulled over or in an accident" record.

I can tell you that my experience with the current insurance system of today was horribly frustrating and wrong. One of the worst parts about quitting your job (in the past) was that you had to apply for private health coverage (like Aetna) or take COBRA coverage from your employer. Health insurance killed me last year financially because I couldn't get private healthcare (they said I had a preexisting condition) so I HAD to take the COBRA option, which just so happens to be equal to whatever your employer was paying for your healthcare plus some more. Geez, I wish I'd had the option to get $125/month healthcare last year. As of the current state of things today, you can't apply for cheap state coverage unless your COBRA runs out.

When I quit my previous job I was unemployed (I quit so I had no unemployment benefits) and there was no option of reasonable healthcare for me...no private insurance, no state option because COBRA was offered, so I was stuck with COBRA. I had to pay $475/month in health insurance premiums + copays + $500 deductible! I spent nearly $600/month on healthcare! If I quit my current job, this is still one of my major concerns because I would be forced to take the COBRA coverage of $675/month + copays + premiums...~$800/month!! That's crazy. My healthcare would be as much as my rent. I don't know if this will change with the new law, but I hope it will. So this topic is very important to me and I hope that there is a way to avoid COBRA coverage as an unemployed person. Otherwise, I may be stuck in this job just because I can't afford the healthcare premium of COBRA, which is really stupid.

It may be possible for me to get private healthcare under the Affordable Care Act if they can no longer reject me for a preexisting condition. I hope this is the case. It's an enormous list of preexisting conditions. The problem with the polls being reported in today's media is that most people aren't aware of the value that the ACA provides. One of the New York Times surveys sampled from 1,000 people (out of 316 million Americans) -- a pretty darn small sample size, and I seriously doubt that it was representative in that it included people who had experienced first-hand the benefits of the ACA. Personally, prior to 2012 I had no clue that I myself would be rejected from private insurance due to a preexisting condition that doesn't even interfere with my daily functioning (I'm not disabled, I don't have cancer, and people wouldn't even notice my condition). I thought that sort of rejection was reserved for "really sick people". FYI in case you've never had to deal with this, here is a list of conditions that could have gotten you rejected from private healthcare before the ACA!!! It's crazy!! I mean, they could have at least charged me a higher rate and accepted me...I would have totally been okay with that. But to reject people flat out with these things? It's a big list...

This list included the following conditions:  alcohol and drug abuse, chemical dependency, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), Alzheimer’s disease, angina pectoris, anorexia nervosa, aortic aneurysm, aplastic anemia, arteriosclerosis, artificial heart valve or heart valve replacement, ascites, brain tumor, cancer (excluding skin), cancer (metastatic), cardiomyopathy/primary cardiomyopathy, cerebral palsy/palsy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic pancreatitis, cirrhosis of the liver, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, coronary insufficiency, coronary occlusion, Crohn’s disease, cystic fibrosis, dermatomyositis, diabetes, emphysema/pulmonary emphysema, Friedreichs’s disease/ataxia, hemophilia, active and chronic hepatitis, HIV positive, Hodgkin’s disease, hydrocephalus, intermittent claudication, kidney failure, kidney disease, and kidney disease with dialysis, lead poisoning with cerebral involvement, leukemia, Lou Gehrig’s Disease/amyotophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), lupus erythematosus, disseminate, and lupus, malignant tumors, major organ transplant, motor or sensory aphasia, multiple or disseminated sclerosis, muscular atrophy or dystrophy, myasthenia gravis, myocardial infarction, myotonia, paraplegia or quadriplegia, Parkinson’s disease, peripheral arteriosclerosis, polyarteritis, polycystic kidney, postero-lateral sclerosis, psychotic disorders, silicosis, splenic anemia, True Banti’s syndrome, Banti’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, sickle cell anemia and disease, Stills disease, stroke, syringomyelia (spina bifida or myelomeningocele), tabes dorsailis, thalassemia (Cooley’s or Mediterranean anemia), ulcerative colitis and Wilson’s disease.

Individuals were also identified who reported that they had “ever been diagnosed” with the following conditions:  coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction, other heart disease, angina pectoris, stroke, emphysema, cancer, and diabetes.

Individuals with five common conditions — arthritis, asthma, high cholesterol, hypertension, and obesity (BMI > 35) — were included in the second measure, as were individuals who had “ever been” diagnosed with arthritis, asthma, high cholesterol, or hypertension.  These conditions were found to result in a denial, an exclusion of coverage for that condition, or a higher premium for individuals in all but one of the seven underwriting guidelines we examined.

In addition, individuals who were currently being treated for neurotic and related disorders, stress and adjustment disorders; conduct disorders; emotional disturbances; and including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were included in the second measure, as were individuals who had ever been diagnosed with ADHD.  These types of mental health conditions were identified in the underwriting guidelines as conditions that would result in denial, waiting periods, condition exclusions or higher premiums.  Information from ASPE-conducted interviews with insurance commissioners indicated that individuals in treatment for mental health conditions were generally denied coverage in the individual market.  Given the conflicting evidence, a conservative approach was used and these conditions were included in the second and not the first measure.  Had these conditions been included in the first measure, the estimate of likely to be uninsurable individuals would have increased from 19 percent to 29 percent. (ASPE DHHS, 2011)

Honestly, to my awareness I don't even know what condition on that list I have, so I don't know why I was denied. Their claim was that my rejection was due to "multiple risk factors." To my memory of the list from 2012 when I applied, the list was much longer and included more common problems when I was rejected. However, Aetna has stopped publishing their list of pre-existing conditions due to the ACA making rejection based on them illegal, so I can't find the original list from them. I seem to remember non-cancerous cysts and things like depression also being. I think the vast majority of people I've ever met have had one of those conditions above at some point, and if they had ever had to apply for private health coverage they would have been rejected. No wonder insurance companies rejected people with all these things...that's basically every disease!! Lol. I'm sure it's very profitable to insure people who don't have any of those things -- you reap the premiums from healthy people who don't get sick! Let's just choose to not insure the people who are sick and we'll get rich.

What if the car insurance companies said the same thing? Do you think people would be outraged then? What if you tried to apply for car insurance and you were rejected due to a "pre-existing condition" because you rear-ended another car when you were 20 years old. Do you think people would think that was fair to flat out reject someone based on that? No it's not fair to flat out reject someone...just charge them more and be on your way!

Seriously, they were allowed to reject people for being treated for a stress disorder or ADHD or asthma? Wow. I very seriously hope the polls regarding the ACA today are sampling from people who are aware of these issues, because I fear that most of the polls coming out about the ACA are not surveying people who are knowledgeable about this. If they had surveyed me 2 years ago about my "agreement with the ACA law", my opinion would be very different than if they surveyed me today after actually seeing the value that the ACA has for me and others and how greedy the insurance companies are. I seriously doubt that most people are aware of the fact that they themselves would in fact be denied private health coverage if the ACA didn't go into effect. I certainly wasn't aware, but it was an expensive lesson for me that cost me thousands of dollars in the 6 months I was unemployed last year.

The issue here is that it's invalid to survey people about something they know nothing about. Would it be valid for me to be included in a random survey about specifically what I think about the football regulations of today and what I would change about them? No, because I have no experience with football or watching it! It may be valid to survey me and ask, "Are you a football fan?" and use that as a summary statistic, but don't ask me what I think should be changed about football, because I know nothing about it. Similarly, don't ask uninformed Americans what they think about the ACA when they have no clue how it would affect them (because most people will continue to get benefits through their employers and will never have to face the situation of getting individual healthcare), and then use that poll as "information" to support your politics. It's wrong to be making public policy by asking people's opinions who have no clue about what value the ACA provides. At least FORCE them to read about the ACA before giving an opinion...I hope the poll agencies have though about this... I heard a study found that young, uninsured people tended to initially "not support" the ACA when questioned, but when they were given a quick overview of what the benefits of the ACA actually are, they changed their minds and supported it. I can't quote the source of this, but I'm pretty sure I heard it (so it must have been on the radio recently). This is my point, that the polls being used in the political arena to gauge "support" from the American people are likely wrong and unreliable. It's possible that the polling agencies providing this data that the politicians keep quoting is reliable and good, but how do we know? How reliable is a question if someone says "no support" at first but then switches to "support" after hearing basic facts? We want their true opinion on the law, not an uninformed opinion. Give me information about football and then I will make my opinions -- I won't make my opinions based on my complete lack of knowledge of the sport.

Well, that's all I have today. I'm way behind schedule due to the additional testing at the doctor this morning, so I'm going to try to get some progress on my draft before I pass out. Hopefully the flu feeling goes away after I get some sleep!

P.S. - I should note that I am a firm believer in providing SOME support to people in need, but am also a firm supporter that we should try to wean them off the support ASAP. For example, give people unemployment benefits but phase them out or make stricter requirements. Since understanding more about the specifics of the unemployment benefits equations, I have become more conservative on the issue. At a previous job I had coworkers who worked in the unemployment division. There was one person who had a Master's in finance and had a lot of experience, but he had been laid off. He was able to claim unemployment for a long time because he "wasn't able to find a job" -- in reality, he wasn't able to find a job that replaced the job he held before getting laid off, which was a very high-level position. In other words, if you are a CEO and get laid off and can't find any CEO job openings to apply to, you can claim that you can't find a job. In reality, I think the standards need to be lowered so that people are forced to take a reasonable alternative. There are some rules governing this, but it is outrageous to think that people won't take a job that's a step down just so that they can pay their bills and get off unemployment. I'm particularly against this mentality after what I've gone through in the past few years -- I took jobs that weren't my ideal job so that I could get experience during the recession. They only paid about half of what I was "worth". I believe more people would get jobs if they expanded their horizons and took similar and related jobs. Sometimes you just have to do that to get by. It's something I learned as I entered the workforce in 2009, which was one of the absolute worst years to enter the workforce in at least the last 100 years. I think my generation and those younger than me will be affected by that reality for a long time to come.

The finish line

Thunderstorms again today!!!

Today I've made a number of good choices in eating:

• Fruits: Carrot juice, cranberry juice, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, peaches, mango, apple, red grapes, plums, cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, avocado, cranberries, raisins.
• Vegetables: Artichokes, brussel sprouts, asparagus, onion, kale, carrots, broccoli, cucumber.
• Other things: Whole wheat spaghetti, tomato sauce, tofu, garlic, green tea, almond milk, flaxseed wild blueberry muffin, pistachios, cashews, hummus, mango sorbet, red potato, whole wheat couscous, olive oil, flaxseed, oatmeal, kidney beans.

I'm having serious motivational problems. I'm feeling a little bit like, "Where's the light at the end of the tunnel?" What can you expect with the level of learned helplessness that I have felt over the past few years. With such a horribly long binary outcome such as "PhD or No PhD", it often feels like you never make any progress until you get to the end of the line. It feels like I didn't complete all my doctoral coursework, my Master's, my comprehensive exams, 2 research grants, 3 organizational consulting studies, or anything else, because I have not yet achieved the desired binary outcome of "PhD". It's a sad thing, learned helplessness. It's something I've referred to before, but is an integral part of psychology for me right now.

Learned helplessness is an integral part of anyone's life, too. Think about a rower who is rowing a 5k race. One she begins rowing she will have full strength in her muscles and adrenaline helping her to get the boat moving. She will see the immediate progress away from the dock (where the starting speed was zero, so comparatively her speed increase is dramatic). She will continue this way for a while -- maybe 500 meters or so. But then her muscles will start to tire and her mental outlook has to shift from adrenaline to maintenance. This will continue for a while. Somewhere in the middle she will experience a decline in her output and might start experiencing weaker pulls of the oar. She will be putting out less and less power experience smaller incremental feelings of satisfaction with each stroke. Right around halfway through the race she will face a huge mental challenge due to the fact that she probably feels so tired already but mentally has just realized that she still has to repeat half of the race -- the final half. The third quarter of the race is painful due to this mental shift. "How can I duplicate the effort I just put out?" Her form will start to come apart if she is not careful. But eventually she will make it through that third quarter and will start to hear the coxswain starting some final countdowns. She will get motivated again and probably get some more adrenaline to help push. She will see that her boat is close to some other boats and become more motivated that she needs to put everything she can into the finish. Then, near the end, she will probably worry here and there that the other boat is ahead -- she can't look at them because she has to focus on herself. She might feel at the point of exhaustion, but she keeps going. It's a mixture of fear and exhaustion when she crosses the finish line and finds out the results of the race.

Well, I'm about at that end point of the race. I've completed the first quarter (coursework), second quarter (Master's), third quarter (comprehensive exams), and now nearing the end of the race where I am at the point of exhaustion and have started to feel an immense fear of failure. There's really nothing you can say to reassure yourself at this point. You just have to finish. You have to try. Even if you think you won't win, you just keep putting the oar in the water in the off chance that you happen to cross the finish line first or maybe even come in second.

I think I'm experiencing a lot of the learned helplessness due to a little PTSD from graduate school, but also feeling very burned out and wanting a vacation, fearful of the outcome of my meeting in 3 weeks, sad about what I'll do when this is all over, and lonely (due to having to sit in my room all day with my computer). Here are the steps that I'm taking to deal with my poor situation:

• Be around someone. I may go down to Portland tomorrow to stay at R's for a week, just so I can be around someone else, even if I'm not "hanging out" or doing something fun socially. At least I won't feel totally isolated for the next few weeks.
• Eat well (see above). I'm eating very well now and I'm sure it's helping me.
• Sleep 8 hours a night. I got about 7.5 hours last night.
• Work hard on writing this draft and studying. The more I fix on this draft, the better I will feel about the meeting. And the more articles and books I review before my meeting, the better prepared I will feel. That is all I can do. Work hard and study until the time comes. That is my best strategy for finishing this thing.
• Exercise. I won't exercise until I send this draft (hopefully Wednesday), but after that, start walking 15-30 minutes a day. That's nothing major, but it's doable with my schedule right now.
• Trying to plan vacation for October! Current options are San Juan, Cannon Beach, Mexico, California, Hawaii.

I know I keep saying these things over and over, but what else do I have in my life right now except my laptop, food, and bed? These are the things in my life right now! It will change...very soon. My life will change on October 4th.