Yay! I've met my end of March goal :D

One of the positive things that I incorporate into my life these past few months is exercise. I've been trying to exert more effort to add physical activities to my day. My goal was to reach 122 Ibs by end of March. Guess what? I weighed earlier and I'm 121.6 Ibs. Yay! My weight when I started was 129.3 Ibs and that was four months ago. It was definitely a slow process but I don't mind it! Go me! To all of us, we can definitely do it!

Been away... hopefully for the better

I've been away again for a long time. Maybe I was hiding. Maybe my mind is so cluttered I cannot form my words. I've done a lot of thinking. I've started many posts but didn't end up finishing them or didn't have the courage to post for the world to see. I've read about differences between men and women in relationships, in how they think, etc. In these gender generalizations, although I'm a woman I always identified myself as more of a masculine type. For example, when I have problems, I keep them to myself instead of chatting about it with girlfriends or other people. So yes, I was "caving" these past few months. And yes, I can open up right now because I have sort some issues and make some sense out of them.

I want to be a better me. After graduate school, I have lost a big chunk of my self-confidence that I felt lost of who I was before graduate school. As I started my postdoc, I felt elated and relieved that I am finally done with school. However, as I get settled in my new position, waves of fear and anxiety set in and I felt drowning into them. I did not face my fears head on during graduate school that they continue to affect me now.

I choose to face them now. I choose to be reunited with who I really am. I choose to dream again.

Here and There

My top guilty foods of

5. Soda
4. Mocha Cappucino
3. Buffalo Wings
2. Doritos
1. Cake


I'm thankful for the following things today:
- sleeping and waking-up with my sweetie.
- taking morning shower with my sweetie
- having my coffee prepared by my sweetie
- being dropped off to work by my sweetie
- being able to work at my current institute
- being able to be productive (one of the times I feel pretty good about it)
- chatting with people at work
- attending a party
- having supportive partner...

Random thoughts about my work habits

• I have high level of anxiety on finishing up research-related activities, particularly working with my PhD advisor.

• After thinking about my working habits, I've realized that the causes of my anxiety are
• fear of rejection/failure: I'm having difficulty admitting to a mistake, esp. my research
• fear of success: I cannot sustain my accomplishments

• I tend to procrastinate, put things off until the last-minute and then tell myself that it's fine that the the quality of my work is not the best because I only did it within a short period of time anyway. I rationalize it that the task gets done anyway and that is what is important. For awhile, I actually felt good that I was able to finish tasks without putting a lot of effort (i.e. time)

• I am not enjoying how things are going anymore.
  
• I don't like feeling paralyzed/numb/stiff as well as the increase in heart rate due to stress
  
• I don't like the feeling after I finished an activity - I felt drained and very much low energy
• I don't like feeling unsatisfied with my work because I know I could have done better
• I don't like feeling inadequate

• I would like to
  
• feel confident of my work
• enjoy my accomplishments (not just the outcome but also the process itself)
• feel that I have improved as a researcher/scientist

• Life is a continuous challenge. I want to try to
• not procrastinate anymore (big time), that is, whenever I am given a task, I should a clear idea of the expectations of the task. Then, I should be able to identify the steps that needs to be taken to finish the task
• improve skills by practicing
• do a more focused work - try to eliminate distractions
  

What do you do?

Today is one of those days when I started the day with so much energy hoping to mark things off from my list of things to do for the day. Yet, I felt myself dragging as the day goes on. I don't know when things started to go wrong. Is it when I remembered that I still didn't receive the "favor" that I ask from my previous groupmate and it has been three weeks already? Or is it when my calculations going nowhere? The entire day, I feel the numbness circulating my entire being. I really find this irritating. What do you do for days like this?

I am interested to know how people manage multiple projects simultaneously. How do you organize your time for data gathering, learning new skills/techniques, reading journal articles, etc, etc?

I guess I still have learn to find my "balance".

I'm BACK!

I am back and hopefully with more vigor.

The last time I posted in this blog was right after my defense and that was a little over two months ago. What have I been doing since then? Well, a week after my defense, I moved to Postdoc City and started my postdoc position right away. It had been crazy finishing up, packing, unpacking, adjusting to the new city, and adjusting to the new research advisor and group. Last week, my doctoral institution had just conferred my degree. It is now official, hooray! I feel it wierd that it just felt gold (but not really in an ecstatic way). I was thinking that maybe after all the hard work that I have put in, then the satisfaction should be greater or something :D

In my next posts I would like to tackle the challenges of being a postdoc. I am big on balancing different aspects of life so maybe I will also write about the different areas of my life.

Right now, I would just like to say that it felt good to post again.

Yay! Defense is done.

of course, it didn't come easy; some bruises here and there.

I feel so relieved that thing thing is finally out of my way. Right now, all I want to do is rest and maybe party the rest of the weekend....

Go me!