Student SPHere 2008-09

I’ve always envied people who, on New Year’s Eve, can go through the year and really think about where they were, where they are now and how far they’ve come. What they’ve failed and succeeded in. How they’re going to take on the next year differently, better.

I am not that person. It’s too mushy, too difficult and takes too darn much of my increasingly precious time. (I tried to make resolutions on Jan. 1. And again sometime in February. Maybe even in March. No luck.) So even though I probably could have learned a lot from a formal reflection on 2008, I’ll probably flop through 2009 in much the same fashion.

Yes, this is something I should probably work on. And what better time to do it than when I’m approaching The End of my first year of grad school? So, for my remaining posts this semester, I don’t promise I will do it well – but I’ll give it a shot.

In my first year of grad school, I learned...

...you have to choose your battles. You can’t knock every assignment out of the park or prepare for a month for every exam (OK, so maybe that one’s never happened). You have to skim some readings and do others, nonchalantly, in the back row of another class. And you can’t beat yourself up about it, as long as you’ve got at least a couple priorities and you know what they are.

…it’s easier to stay on a roll than get on a roll. If the physics behind inertia didn’t make sense to me in high school, I can proudly say that now I’ve got it covered. I’m an all-or-nothing person, so I have to just get busy and stay busy, filling every spare second with something – because when I stop, I don’t want to start again. I know this is the fast-track to burnout, but I’m working on finding a happy little hill that lets me roll down at a relatively leisurely pace.

…it’s not easy to walk the talk. It’s amazing how public health school can be so NOT conducive to being healthy. I have about an 80-pound bag full of crap that I carry around every day, so my lunches, for example, have to small, portable, non-perishable and high-calorie enough to keep me awake and moving. You know what kind of stuff generally fits into that category. Other grad school conveniences? Caffeine! Avoiding exercise! Not getting enough sleep! Luckily I caught this one early and justified to myself that my health needs to be a priority – how am I going to help other people be healthy while I’m to my elbow in a bag of Cheetos? I try to pack a real lunch in a real lunch box with a little ice pack. Avoid soda/coffee. Run, swim, 30-Day Shred in my living room. Sleep seven hours a night. All with varying degrees of success.

…people are more important than books. Or tests. Or pretty much anything. I could write a novel about this. Probably a series. From studying to running to swimming to wearing 80s garb to a piano bar together, the people I’ve met this year are fabulous. Hands down. And I know they’re going to be there in the future, whether they’re hooking me up with a sweet job when I finally graduate, months after they do (I’m counting on you!), or listening to me whine about how I gained 10 pounds, got two flat tires and think I should just sell all my worldly possessions and travel the world by donkey.

…not knowing what I’m going to do with my life is OK – and actually kind of fun. My adviser gave me a great piece of advice (which may have just been to make me feel better, but I’m going with it): to take advantage of all kinds of opportunities that seem to have nothing to do with one another and not be embarrassed to have a resume that screams, “I GET DISTRACTED BY SHINY OBJECTS.” If I have run-of-the-mill experiences all in a neat little line, I’m going to get a run-of-the-mill, straight-line job when I finish school, and vice versa. I’m definitely more of a fan of the vice versa, and I’m learning to embrace that (even if it means selling my stuff and hunting down a donkey).

All in all, I'd call it a success.