tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22062208948558982302024-03-05T21:03:02.413-08:00Ruminations of an Aspiring EcologistThoughts from a female graduate student in ecology & evolutionary biologyKarinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16757213778638431428noreply@blogger.comBlogger838125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2206220894855898230.post-36776436170659666302024-01-01T20:31:00.000-08:002024-01-01T20:31:58.667-08:00Looking forward to 2024<p>I want this to be a less-is-more kind of year, like a life edit. I want to work less. I want to commit to less. I want to have less stuff.</p><p>In that vein, today I'm ending a hobby streak that I've cultivated over the last few years. I'm releasing myself from that commitment to make room for something else. </p><p>I also stepped back my involvement in a volunteer role I've had for several years. I know it's the right decision for me this year.</p><p>In no particular order, here are some things I'm looking forward to:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Total solar eclipse on April 8. We saw the one in 2017 and it was spectacular. </li><li>Family trips this spring & summer</li><li>Two weddings</li><li>Hiking every month with Adele (for real this time—it's scheduled)</li><li>A solo trip or two</li><li>Weekly family meetings (we're starting these this year)</li><li>Hiring new people to distribute some of my responsibilities at work</li></ul><div>There are a couple of dark clouds looming for this year. I fear it may be the last for our darling 13 year old dog. She suddenly aged a lot in the last year, and we found out she has degenerative myelopathy, which is untreatable. She still seems happy and she's getting around (slowly), but I know it will get harder for her. </div><div><br /></div><div>The other looming cloud is the presidential election. I will feel better from taking some concrete actions with other people, like sending postcards to voters or something like that. I'm not sure yet what form that action will take.</div><div><br /></div><div>I feel like I spend a fair amount of time inside my own head, even when I'm spending time with friends or family. I hope this year to do a better job of being present in the moment, instead of distracted by what's going on in my mind. </div><div><br /></div><div>Let's see what 2024 has in store.</div><div><br /></div><div>Happy New Year!</div><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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These last 5 years have been traumatizing for so many people in so many ways—illness, displacement, discrimination, disasters. </i></p></blockquote><p>The Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February epitomized that darkness. I feel like I was right, and the name for this is <a href="https://jessicawildfire.substack.com/p/youre-not-a-fearmonger-you-have-sentinel">sentinel intelligence</a>. </p><p>But I am mentally in a better place because I've let go of the expectation that we are on this inevitable upward trajectory. Clearly, I can't take that for granted. </p><p>It can be easy for me to get overwhelmed by the world (it's like my default state of being). I'm the kind of person who wants to do so much, to help so much. But overcommitting and trying to boil the ocean leads me to be both unhappy and ineffective. So, in the last couple of years I've gotten better at at least asking myself <i>what is the most important thing that <u>I</u> need to do?</i> It means letting go of a lot of things and being more realistic and gracious with myself about what is possible for one human to hold.</p><p>So with that macro-reflection on 2022, here's the micro-reflection on my most immediate sphere of influence.</p><p><b>Home & Gardening</b></p><p>The big thing since I wrote my goals in early February was finishing the kitchen, which was already 80% done. By the end of February, we got it to about 95% and did the last finishing touches in time to host Christmas with Jon's family. We're loving it! </p><p>The basement renovation has some issues and the contractor is going to revisit them in January.</p><p>Unfortunately, I did not get my garden motivation back this year and it has mostly been a wreck that I feel guilty about. </p><p><b>Family</b></p><p>We did several small family trips and a big one. I saw all of my cousins this year for the first time in ages. Adele got to use her passport for the first time! We hosted a great Christmas meal. </p><p>Adele is 9 now, in 4th grade, and so much fun. What a great little person. </p><p>Unfortunately, one of my aunts passed away. An old family friend who was close with my sister also died from pulmonary embolisms, <a href="https://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2009/02/my-sister-died-day-after-my-grandmother.html">like my sister did</a>. Both sad events.</p><p><b>Covid</b></p><p>After avoiding it for 2 years, it made it to our household. First Jon got it in the spring. A friend came over feeling a little under the weather but not thinking much of it. Adele and I didn't hang out with him, but Jon spent the whole evening playing a game with him and 2 other friends. The next day, the friend tested positive and thankfully told everyone. Jon was definitely going to get it. Thankfully, he started isolating in our room, we ran air filters, he wore a mask whenever he left the room, and he tested daily until it was negative. Neither Adele nor I got it from him, and he recovered in about 8 days. That one friend infected most people in Jon's friend group.</p><p>Then Adele came home from sleep away camp with it. Near the end of her session, we were notified of an outbreak. We had her test the night she came home, but I forgot to check it promptly. I looked at it an hour later and saw the faintest line. She tested again in the morning and it was more clearly positive. This was particularly stressful because I was about to travel for work and we were just a week away from our big family trip. Thankfully, Adele had a fairly mild case and tested negative the day before our trip, and I managed to avoid covid again thanks to filters, masks, ventilation, and isolation. </p><p>We're all up to date on boosters and got them very soon after they were approved. Adele was boosted about 6 weeks before she got covid, and again this fall. We all got our flu shots, too. I continue to wear a mask indoors in public settings. We have eaten in restaurants several times now, which I don't love, but they mostly haven't been crowded and have been fairly well ventilated (see below). Jon isn't wearing a mask much anymore. Adele is wearing a mask sometimes at school, though often comments that few or no other kids are. The whole class is supposed to mask for the next week when someone in the class gets covid, but apparently that has been a bit lax. She likes these small KN-95 masks so I just try to make sure she always has one available. </p><p>I also bought myself a few things for assessing and mitigating risk, especially while flying:<br />- Travel air purifier. I loop a rubber band around the handle and hang it from the arm of the airplane seat to point more filtered air towards my face.<br />- FloMask: I got this for wearing on the plane because it has a tight face seal (as long as I don't have to talk). <br />- Aranet4 Carbon Dioxide Meter: This lets me easily get a sense of how well ventilated a space is because poorly ventilated spaces accumulate high levels of CO2. Turns out some of the most poorly ventilated spaces I was in this year were cars recirculating air. Use that outdoor air setting. </p><p>I had quite a few "close calls" for covid exposure, even beyond Jon and Adele. There were several times when I hung out with someone who tested positive the next day. However, in most cases, people were testing in advance (i.e. they had tested negative earlier in the day even though they were positive the next day) and usually we were doing lower-risk activities like being outdoors or inside with masks (or at least I was wearing a mask).</p><p> <b>Travel</b></p><p>After 0 flights in 2021, I ended up flying six times this year, and four of those were cross-country flights for work. By the fourth trip, the mask mandate was gone so I bought the FloMask and CO2 monitor to better protect myself. On that trip, I was seated next to an incredibly talkative unmasked woman who didn't pick up very well on my cues. I had my headphones in listening to an audiobook on negotiation with my eyes closed and I only occasionally opened them to take notes. She still wanted to talk to me. I said as little as I could. </p><p>We drove quite a bit to visit family this year, and Jon & Adele did a train trip while I had a glorious long weekend alone.</p><p><b>Career</b></p><p>In February I wrote:</p><blockquote><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><i>I think it's going to be an intense year.</i></span></p></blockquote><p>And indeed, my work this year has been dominated by a <a href="https://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2022/11/how-to-show-appreciation-for-help-with.html">Very Hard Thing</a>. What distinguished the intensity from other intense periods of work in my life was the sheer amount of strategy and tactics it required. For several months, I spent hours each week in conversation with my boss/colleague about our next steps. It's a special kind of exhausting to contemplate existential decisions for months on end and then navigate political landmines for months more in pursuit of this Very Hard Thing—all behind the scenes while also keeping up with the day-to-day.</p><p>Most of the pieces of fallen into place, some from luck and some from very careful effort and hard work. But we've made some missteps and miscalculations along the way, too. I should have read those negotiation books sooner. Trying to move quickly on some things might have backfired and cost us more time in the end. And we should have tried to even more in parallel rather than in series. But we'll never know how things might have gone differently.</p><p>As ever, one of the most frustrating parts of my job is when my boss/colleague and I aren't on the same page. In this high-stakes process, there has been a lot of that. We have agreement about the destination, but sometimes very different ideas about the best path to get us there. At our worst, we exhaust and frustrate each other going around in circles. But at our best, our different approaches and strengths are complimentary and we're a dynamic duo. </p><p>What feels great is knowing I am making huge, positive contributions in my work, for my team, and in pursuit of our life-affirming mission. I was central to two particularly pivotal efforts in pursuit of the Very Hard Thing. First, I extensively researched and documented some numbers to make the case for the Very Hard Thing (and uncovered some dirt along the way). Then, I was able to confidently and calmly field most of the questions in a high-stakes meeting that unblocked a months-long stalemate. On top of that, I introduced a new organizing model that I think can scale with us as the team grows.</p><p>Frankly, I am kicking ass at my job. I've been here almost 5 years now and the metaphorical trees I planted and nurtured are fucking fruiting. </p><p>While working on the Very Hard Thing behind the scenes, we've also had some clear successes this year. We finally added two people to the team! Unfortunately, neither of them is doing the kind of work that takes a load off of me, but I'm confident we'll get there next year. I did manage to minimize my effort in some areas that have required a lot of time but aren't the most important right now compare to the Very Hard Thing. I said no a lot, but in (I hope) relationship-affirming ways. </p><p>Since I'm still keeping track of my working hours, I can quantifiably say I've worked hard. I logged 2084 working hours this year, which works out to 41.7 hours/week for 50 weeks of the year. That's 77 more hours than <a href="https://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2021/12/looking-back-on-2021.html">last year</a>. Thankfully, it's nothing like the hours I worked in <a href="https://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2013/11/13507-hours.html">grad school</a>. I'm working hard, but I also think I'm smarter about it. The Very Hard Thing took up 20% of my work time this year. </p><p>In the process of playing catch-up on one part of my job that I somewhat neglected for most of the year, I realized that I find some of that work quite addicting. It means I'm really motivated to do it well (and I'm doing a great job), but I do have to be mindful of how that kind of work impacts my overall mental health and stress level. A less addicting companion to that work is data analysis. I don't get to spend a lot of time doing data analysis, but I do really love getting immersed in it and visualizing data. My foundational R skills from grad school are still useful. I had no idea I'd be using them like this! I just have to be mindful to stop at "good enough." I'm not publishing any papers, just looking for insights that will allow us to do things differently. </p><p><b>Shaping the World I Want To See</b></p><p>Aside from my career, what else have I done this year to shape the future I want to see instead of just eating popcorn at the horror film? I should probably do a better job of tracking these things and be more strategic about it, but here's a few:<br /><br />- Brought leftover meals from school to a local mutual aid group ("food rescue")<br />- Donated to a pro-choice mother running for office<br />- Donated to medical expenses for an international student<br />- Purchased items for a mutual aid group responding to the urgent needs of recent immigrants<br />- Submitted a statement against proposed anti-trans school policies<br />- Submitted a statement in support of creating a new hiking trail in a neighborhood with few trails<br />- Donated to local environmental organizations doing restoration and environmental justice work<br />- Helped with tree planting at Adele's school<br />- Volunteered with a habitat restoration project<br />- Donated to our local food pantry and nonviolence organizations</p><p><b>2022 overall</b></p><p>I really can't complain about our lot in life. We are financially secure, working satisfying jobs, loving school, spending time with friends and family, and reasonably healthy. More so than a year ago, I'm excited about the year ahead and I look forward to writing about it soon. Tonight we'll ring in the New Year with just the three of us hanging out and playing games. We are so fortunate.</p><p>Happy New Year!</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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The kitchen had 20+ year old oddly configured low-end cabinets. Replacing those and changing to an under counter fridge with our existing fridge in the basement would give us a lot more useful space for a modest investment. It was only about a month from when we seriously discussed the idea to when we started the work. I hustled on planning and acquiring everything we needed, and we did most of the work in one very focused weekend so we already have a more functional kitchen space. However, the tiling turned out to be beyond our capacity to DIY so we're hiring someone to do that. We also took a risk on a craigslist fridge that turned out to be a total lemon so we've just ordered a new one. </p><p>We have some other ideas for home improvement projects but I'm not sure we'll get to them this year. Finishing the basement and doing the kitchen is probably plenty. The kitchen so far has basically been my main hobby this year.</p><p><b>Gardening</b></p><p>The basement renovation really messed up the backyard. I've got some serious repair to do there. It mostly makes me sad and overwhelmed to think about but I'm hoping that come spring I'll feel more inspired.</p><p><b>Family</b></p><p>We've got a few fun family trips planned this year: Jon & Adele, me & Jon, me & Adele, all of us with Jon's family, and all of us with my parents & some extended family. It's been great to see family more often again in person. </p><p><b>Career</b></p><p>I think it's going to be an intense year. It's started off with some good and exciting events and in a lot of ways I feel like the seeds I planted years ago are coming to fruition, but it also feels like a fragile time. Things have <i>finally</i> come together to grow the team which should increase our resilience but there are key ways in which we remain very vulnerable. </p><p>I read on Twitter at some point last year, "You accept the work/life balance you think you deserve." I've been thinking about that a lot and setting boundaries on my work hours. I got more strict about the speaking invitations I'll accept and I won't do more than one per month as a general rule. I might even need to be more strict than that, e.g. no more talks until September. I should probably finish a separate post I started about saying no to things and the questions I'm asking myself when I'm asked to do something.</p><p>I am trying to embrace the idea of experimentation when I spend time on something for work that doesn't pan out and I think we've got a pretty good culture of that now. I find it more liberating than beating myself up over "time wasted". </p><p>The breadth of things I do for my job is kind of ridiculous. No one would ever advertise a job this way. It's like I have about 4 different jobs, so at any given time I am probably completely neglecting at least one part of it which doesn't feel great, but I think I've managed ok to focus on what's most important. I hope that some of this will change when we hire new staff. </p><p>I wrote quite a bit about navigating "high conflict people" in <a href="https://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2019/12/looking-back-on-2019.html" target="_blank">2019</a> in the context of emotional labor at work. Unfortunately, that continues to be a major obstacle. We're trying to be better at heading them off and setting boundaries and expectations. </p><p><b>Travel</b></p><p>I've got a couple of work-related trips coming up that involve flying, which I still feel weird and anxious about but at least the omicron wave is subsiding. I haven't flown in 2 years. Then we've got a handful of family trips planned via planes, trains, and automobiles later this year. </p><p><b>Covid</b></p><p>I'm glad that under 5s will hopefully be able to be vaccinated soon. My not particularly educated guesses on other things:<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Our immediate family will continue to wear KN95 masks in indoor public spaces for the rest of the year<br /></li><li>We'll generally continue to spend time unmasked indoors with friends and family who we know are up to date with their covid shots, as we have for the last few months. </li><li>A second booster will be recommended at least for adults</li><li>Kids 5+ will get a booster too</li><li>There will be 1 or 2 more disruptive variants (like delta or omicron) and during those times we'll do more rapid testing and/or limit our indoor unmasked time outside our pod. </li></ul><p></p><p><b>Everything else</b></p><p>I hope I find some inspiration for some later in the year, but I don't have any monthly goals for the time being. I'm just going to wrap this up now before I think too hard and then don't post it for weeks or months. </p><p>Here's hoping that 2022 ends brighter than it began.</p><p><br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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This is not the year. 2022 won't be either. </p><p></p><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">I don't think we'll get the vaccine until the second half of 2021 at the earliest.</blockquote><p></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"></p><blockquote><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><i>Based on how slowly the vaccine rollout is starting, I'll be surprised if we get it before September. If we do, it will be thanks to effective organization of our local government.<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></i></p><p></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"></blockquote><p>Jon and I were both fully vaccinated by mid-May, so I was overly pessimistic about the vaccine rollout for adults. I was also wrong about the local government role in the speediness. Once we got our shots, I was feeling optimistic that kids 5+ would be able to get theirs by late summer or early fall, so I was a little discouraged that it took so much longer than for adults and teens. Adele was vaccinated shortly after she became eligible in November as an 8 year old, and Jon and I got boosted at the same time. </p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><i>All things considered, I think it's unlikely for either us or The Neighbors to pick up the covid.</i></span></p><p></p></blockquote><p>None of us got covid. </p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><p><i>I am definitely concerned about our parents staying safe. I really hope that they are all able to be vaccinated soon. It will be a relief once they've all had two doses.</i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Thankfully, all of our parents are fully vaccinated on a timeline appropriate to their age. They're boosted now too.</p><p>For the entire pandemic, largely because of the people I follow on Twitter, I feel like I've been pretty consistently at least a week ahead of the latest concern wave or covid trend, and sometimes it's a lot more than that. Twitter has consistently given me the best window into what's coming around the bend on this nightmarish covid road. Like delta—how could you <i>not</i> expect that to be a disaster in the US if you followed what happened elsewhere in the world? I found out about rapid over-the-counter covid tests in June and we've been using them for months when they were barely part of public awareness. I started using a KN95 mask (rewearing them several times) in indoor public spaces months ago. On December 17, I saw the vertical line trends for covid cases in London and Norway driven by omicron and we stopped spending time unmasked indoors with even vaccinated friends unless we all rapid tested negative first. My highest priority was keeping us covid-free until Christmas so that Adele didn't miss another family gathering (she had the flu real bad in 2019 and would have been devastated to miss it again). Just like those other places, our area has also had a vertical line of new cases. Rapid tests aren't perfect, but used right before gathering, they are better than no information at all. We have enough disposable income that we can afford rapid tests, at least when we can find them. </p><p>My point isn't at all about personal responsibility. That only gets us so far. I only share the above because it's so frustrating to me that these messages and warnings either never made it to the people in power or they never thought it important enough to share widely. </p><p>For months now, we should have been <i>at minimum</i>:<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Making better masks (non-counterfeit KN94s, KN95s, and N95s) more widely available (e.g. subsidizing the cost, distributing them at schools and indoor events), running campaigns about how to wear them appropriately and reuse them safely, and requiring them in certain circumstances (e.g. airplanes).</li><li>Making rapid tests widely available, more clearly communicating their value/strength relative to PCR testing, and requiring them in certain circumstances (as above). Furthermore, we should be making it easier for new kinds of rapid tests to be approved which would help with cost and availability. If you're interested in learning more about how we should be expanding our use of rapid tests, follow <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab" target="_blank">Dr. Michael Mina on Twitter</a>. </li><li>Aggressively supporting vaccination in other parts of the world (e.g. by sharing the vaccine "secrets" so they can be easily and quickly manufactured in other countries that have more limited vaccine access), further incentivizing and/or mandating vaccination in certain circumstances, and investing in the long, tedious effort of reaching and convincing those who are not yet vaccinated (especially pregnant women). </li></ul><div>Masks, tests, and vaccinations make <i>everyone</i> safer. We aren't safe until we're <i>all</i> protected, and there's far too many people left at risk (especially anyone ineligible for vaccination like kids under 5!). Framing this as largely about individual choice about vaccination is irresponsible, incomplete, and short-sighted.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, there are some other big things that we should change too:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Universal healthcare not tied to your job. Just make it simple. </li><li>Paid sick leave for all workers (including for vaccine side effects). </li><li>Subsidize childcare. Appropriately compensate and protect childcare workers and educators for the valuable work they do. </li></ul></div><div>If a pandemic hasn't made clear the value of these things, what will? Our system of healthcare and work is so deeply broken. </div><div><br /></div><div>Ok, long covid rant/reflection over.</div><p><b>School</b></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><p><i>I don't think Adele will return to school in her building until the next school year. However, there's a possibility that they'll start a hybrid schedule in the spring. I'm not optimistic though. </i></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><i>I do hope they can return in person in August/September. </i> </blockquote><p></p><p>School resumed on a hybrid schedule with 2 days/week in person in the spring, with full time in person since the fall. No one in our pod had to isolate due to classroom exposure. The kids and staff are all masked and it sounds like everyone is pretty compliant. The school also often ate lunch outside, has good ventilation, and did some random testing (not nearly enough IMO, but apparently it did catch one case).</p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><p><i>Thankfully we've got our shared arrangement with The Neighbors. [...] I'm not optimistic about summer camps being a viable option so we'll probably maintain the arrangement with The Neighbors for the next 8 months. </i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Adele did attend a few weeks of day camp while The Neighbors went to see family for a month. I intentionally scheduled her camps for the beginning of the summer because I saw how the delta variant was spreading in India and southeast Asia and surmised that as summer went on the cases would grow rather than continue to decline even with many people being vaccinated. Later in the summer we shared childcare again with The Neighbors. This school year we take turns carpooling to school with them and sharing after school supervision (i.e. play time).</p><p><b>Career</b></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><p><i>I hope that by the end of the year, I will have at least a couple of new colleagues because we've been able to grow the team.</i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>NOPE. :::laugh/sob:::</p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><p><i>However, that involves convincing my boss that it's a good idea (his idea) to grow the team. I've been trying unsuccessfully for almost 3 years, so this might be a fool's errand. </i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>I did manage to convince him, so now we're on to the other hurdles. Sigh.</p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><p><i>I also hope my salary will at least be restored to its pre-pandemic cut level. </i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Yes, thankfully.</p><p></p><blockquote><i>If I travel for work, I'd be surprised if it happens before September. </i></blockquote><p></p><p>I did not travel for work.</p><p></p><blockquote><i>Jon's work might have more changes this year [...] I think he'll work from home for all of 2021.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>No major changes, except he got a big raise which was a wonderful surprise. For the last few months he's gone into the office just 1 or 2 days a week so he's still working mostly from home.</p><p>I kept tracking my hours again this year which totaled 2007. I have about 10 annual holidays so 2007 hours divided across 50 weeks is 40.1 hours/week. I did take some vacation time (didn't tally how much) here and there. I'm working hard but making sure that I set boundaries, and tracking hours really does help me with that.</p><p>I still love my job. Some of this year was a roller coaster, but more ups than downs. I'm beginning to see some fruits of a long campaign to get us thinking on a longer timescale. </p><p><b>Home</b></p><p>We've worked one biiiiig project this year:</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>We want to renovate the basement. For real. We've been talking about it for years. I think we can do it this year. </i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>The basement is almost done! We hoped it would have both started and finished earlier, but I'm told this is par for the course. </p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>We probably also have to find a separate shop space for Jon's tools. </i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Shop space hasn't come together yet unfortunately.</p><p>We took out a personal loan for the basement project but are now (I hope) are very close to refinancing to lower our mortgage interest rate and pay off that loan with a cash out refinance. </p><p><b>Volunteering</b></p><p></p><blockquote><i>I am a little sad to end a 9 year commitment [...], but mostly I will feel relieved to be finished.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>I wrote about this at length <a href="https://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2021/06/reflections-at-end-long-term-commitment.html" target="_blank">here</a>. I intentionally haven't picked up any new commitments and I feel great about that.</p><p><b>Family</b></p><p>2021 was a far better year for seeing family!</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>I hope to see my parents again by the end of summer, hopefully after they are fully vaccinated. </i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>We saw my parents four times this year which is way better than the zero times in 2020! </p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>Adele would love to go fishing with Jon's dad </i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>This didn't happen but I hope it will next year.</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>Hopefully we'll be able to host Thanksgiving this year for Jon's family! </i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Yes! We were thrilled about this, especially Adele. Jon has a big family. Part of our motivation for trying to get the basement done this year was so that we'd have much more usable space for this gathering for almost 20 people. The basement wasn't finished in time, but it was finished enough that we ate down there at a big long table. Everyone did a rapid test earlier in the day before coming over and we did the same again at Christmas. Getting tests for everyone was a bit of a scramble, but we managed.</p><p><b>Friends</b></p><p>Vaccines made this a better year for friends!</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>I hope by the end of the year we'll be able to have friends over again (not just The Neighbors). </i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>One Jon and I had 2 shots plus 2 weeks, we started seeing friends indoors again unmasked if they were also vaccinated + 2 weeks. </p><blockquote><p><i>I also have a tiny glimmer of hope that we might be able to spend a few days with my good friend and her family at their family cabin this summer (we'd sleep separately in a tent and nearly all our time would be spent outdoors).</i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Adele and I did go to the cabin and it was lovely! I had my own space but she slept with their kids. We rapid tested before arriving and again midweek because by that time delta was spreading and we had visited a museum the previous week where we were the only people wearing masks. </p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>I won't be terribly surprised if we have another stretch of time where a friend lives with us again </i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>We had a friend (the one who <i>almost</i> lived with us in 2020) show up on short notice. We thought she might stay for weeks or months, but it was unfortunately just a few days. </p><p>With the basement still under construction, guest space is more limited so we haven't had anyone stay until just yesterday when our friend who lived here last year came back to visit.</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>I plan to continue the monthly calls with college friends and grad school friends. </i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>The college friends one is sporadically attended but I'm still glad for it. The grad school friends one continues to be a great source of joy and friendly advice.</p><p><b>The World</b></p><blockquote><p><i>I hesitate to speculate much, but I want to hope that the new administration will be well on the path of undoing what damage can be undone in a year. It's going to be a tough few years ahead.</i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Well, the January 6th insurrection didn't exactly set 2021 off on the right foot. That was terrifying and infuriating. </p><p>We started this year in a deep hole, and we aren't as far out as I'd hoped. I have no regrets about supporting Biden since life choices in life are rarely about perfect and almost always about better, but I am especially disappointed that we aren't further out of the covid hole. Especially ever since omicron appeared, it's felt like we're at least two steps behind and the political excuses for our lack of preparedness have felt deeply irresponsible. You can't fight a pandemic with hope and vaccines alone, especially when so many people have essentially joined an anti-mask, anti-vax death cult. There's so much more we can still do rather than throw up our hands and say "how could we have predicted this?" But I wrote a lot more about that above.</p><p><b>Monthly goals</b></p><p>I didn't do the best job with these and unhelpfully didn't do a good job keeping track of what I <i>did</i> do. But here's my recollection.</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>January: Find a contractor for renovating our basement. We can't do much else until we do this.</i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>We made progress in January, but the bids came in way higher than we'd hoped. After trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to get more (and more reasonable) bids and hemming and hawing for a few months about the cost, we decided to go for it with the contractor that had the second-highest bid but inspired confidence. Ultimately we asked ourselves, a year from now, are we doing to be happy we did this, or regret it? Although there have been many, <i>many</i> problematic and/or annoying things along the way and it's not over yet, we don't think we'll regret it. It's a huge improvement. So, I guess this was "done" but not in January.</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>February: Read about how other people organize memorabilia to come up with a sustainable system that I will start implementing. </i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Um, I honestly can't remember if I made <i>any</i> progress on this in February. I just have so many sentimental things (papers especially) that I have a hard time parting with. We purged a lot while packing up the basement, but we'll need to do another round when unpacking from storage too. I did find that watching organization shows motivated me to get rid of more things, but not in February. But a system? Not really done.</p><p><i>September: buy nothing</i></p><p>I hadn't planned this one in advance, but I found myself over the summer doing a lot of online shopping as entertainment. Some of it was related to the basement renovation but none of it particularly necessary. This was just for me personally (not the household), and the goal intentionally wasn't <i>spend</i> nothing. So I could buy myself consumable treats and I got a massage, but the goal was not to buy any new <i>stuff</i>. It felt like a good mental reset.</p><p>I think there was a month that I unsubscribed from 30+ things again (maybe in March?) but I can't remember.</p><p><b>2021 overall</b></p><p>2021: better than 2020, I guess? It really took a nose dive in January, had some high points during the covid lows, and is ending the year on another low note.</p><p>I know there's probably just a few of you reading this blog, but I still enjoy writing it on these rare occasions. Thanks for being part of my life. </p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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Unexpectedly, the activities, conversations, and relationships also helped me through my different career transitions. When I felt stuck, either in my volunteer role or my professional one, lessons from one informed the other. </div><div><br /></div><div>It has been very emotional for me, and I've taken this commitment seriously. Maybe too seriously sometimes? In all those years, I never missed a meeting. Pre-covid, I traveled twice per year for in-person meetings, and have averaged 1-2 virtual meetings per month since covid. In the last year since I started tracking how I spend my work and volunteer time again, I've spent at least 80 hours on this commitment. Two whole working weeks! </div><div><br /></div><div>I was asked more than once to take on the overall leadership position. I struggled with the decision because there were many reasons I wanted to do it, but I also had some big concerns and fears. I hemmed and hawed, part of me <i>really</i> wanting to say yes but also terrified of the commitment, responsibility, and potential consequences of failure. Ultimately, I declined. I felt like I let some people down, but felt good for setting realistic expectations for myself. </div><div><br /></div><div><div>The last few years haven't been easy. The organization as a whole struggled with fraught leadership changes and this volunteer body was shaken and churned by it too. After the biggest incident, I was distraught just imagining how much more difficult it would be if I was in the biggest leadership role, and never more grateful to have declined something. </div><div><br /></div><div>The thing is, I wasn't so wild about the leadership we <i>did</i> have. However, they were <i>willing</i> when I was not. So I did my best to embrace them as the leaders they were, and support them as best I could because they were willing to do something that I wasn't. I did not agree with some of their actions in neither style nor substance, but I just tried to support as I was able and focus on what I could substantively influence.</div><div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>These last few years I also struggled with feeling less effective as a leader in the position I <i>did</i> have. I feel a bit of failure in the functional collapse of the committee I previously led. I wish that I had been a more proactive mentor to the younger leaders who took it on, but I suspect they ended up leaving the commitment entirely due to larger issues that also frustrated me, rather than the specifics of the committee. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's generally important for me to feel that my time is productive and my efforts meaningful. As a volunteer body we struggled with all kinds of processes and decisions. I grew impatient with talk that didn't lead to action, and even <i>less</i> patient with talk that imagined work for others to do without lifting a finger to help. This has got to be my biggest volunteer pet peeve—all ideas and no action. I was constantly trying to steer my committee and the body as a whole to find the sweet spot of things that we could do that did not require extensive support from the overburdened staff. I did not always succeed.</div><div><br /></div><div>Even as one of just a few people under 40, I became the most senior volunteer by my long tenure, since most people don't stay on for the maximum number of terms. At some point in different staff and leadership transitions, quite a few of the older documents were "lost" so I spent some time recently compiling everything I could find for posterity. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am so relieved to be free of this responsibility. I've been counting down for months, really the last year. I've been ticking off the "last this" and "last that" all year, so much so that Jon laughed when I told him tonight was the last call. It was slightly disorganized, somewhat poorly attended, and there was a brief mention and recognition of my last meeting. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the Before (covid) Times, when people termed off, there was a lovely recognition of them at an in-person dinner along with a card and gift. Maybe there is a card and gift yet to come in the mail, but I feel a little sad not to have something like that. It's ok though, because I didn't do this for a gift. I did it for the joy of sustaining something I care deeply about. I look forward to supporting the cause for the foreseeable future in a way that doesn't require any leadership or major time commitment on my part and I'm not jumping into any new volunteer commitments either. I'm planning to savor this new time and mental space while it lasts.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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Our low-risk points of possible exposure are carryout delivery, grocery or other store pickup, occasional (~1x/mo) and brief (<10 min) in-person grocery or other store trips, unlucky outdoor transmission from strangers while walking/hiking/running, outdoor transmission from friends while hiking and talking (masked) for up to 2 hours (up to 1x/mo), or extremely unlucky outdoor transmission from masked, distanced conversations with friends or family (~3x/mo, up to 30 min at a time). When it's nice enough outside to open all the windows for ventilation (for her protection and ours), I'll ask our housekeeper to return. She wears a mask and we close ourselves off in rooms that she doesn't enter. The Neighbors spend about an hour at a doctor's office once a month for a recurring treatment. Otherwise, their points of exposure are very similar to ours, with less carryout delivery and possibly more time in the grocery store. Right now I can't think of any other known exposure risks. If the kids return to school in person, that will unquestionably be the biggest exposure risk. If we can succeed in renovating the basement, workers in the basement would be another risk.</p><p>All things considered, I think it's unlikely for either us or The Neighbors to pick up the covid. But, if one of us gets it, probably all seven of us will get it. This is why we all take the bubble so seriously. </p><p>I am definitely concerned about our parents staying safe. I really hope that they are all able to be vaccinated soon. It will be a relief once they've all had two doses.</p><p><b>School</b></p><p>I don't think Adele will return to school in her building until the next school year. However, there's a possibility that they'll start a hybrid schedule in the spring. I'm not optimistic though. Thankfully we've got our shared arrangement with The Neighbors. I do hope they can return in person in August/September. I'm not optimistic about summer camps being a viable option so we'll probably maintain the arrangement with The Neighbors for the next 8 months. </p><p><b>Career</b></p><p>I hope that by the end of the year, I will have at least a couple of new colleagues because we've been able to grow the team. Hopefully, that would mean a bit of change in my scope of work that would leave me slightly less stressed. However, that involves convincing my boss that it's a good idea (his idea) to grow the team. I've been trying unsuccessfully for almost 3 years, so this might be a fool's errand. I also hope my salary will at least be restored to its pre-pandemic cut level. </p><p>If I travel for work, I'd be surprised if it happens before September. </p><p>Jon's work might have more changes this year because he found out on Dec 31 that his boss (whom he loves) is leaving. At this point it's too early to tell. I think he'll work from home for all of 2021.</p><p><b>Home</b></p><p>We want to renovate the basement. For real. We've been talking about it for years. I think we can do it this year. We probably also have to find a separate shop space for Jon's tools. </p><p>I spent the first few days of 2021 organizing a lot of my stuff in our room. It was a mess. I don't think I had really tried to tackle it in a big way in over a year. I semi-organized a lot of papers into boxes that are still meant to be further organized (and more importantly, purged). So this isn't complete but rather a first step. But it's a big one that I feel good about. </p><p><b>Volunteering</b></p><p>I normally travel 2x/year for my volunteer responsibility, but now it's all virtual through the end of my term. I am a little sad to end a 9 year commitment without seeing folks in person one last time, but mostly I will feel relieved to be finished. It's a very tough time for the organization and I will still be involved, but no longer in a leadership capacity. Because of changes over the last several years, I have the longest institutional memory in the group, and I also have copies of some documents that were otherwise lost. One of the boxes I need to go through is meeting documents from the last 9 years to decide what to share for the group's archival purposes. </p><p><b>Regional travel</b></p><p>There are some neat parks within a couple hour's drive that we haven't visited recently or ever that I'd like to see in 2021. I also have a tiny glimmer of hope that we might be able to spend a few days with my good friend and her family at their family cabin this summer (we'd sleep separately in a tent and nearly all our time would be spent outdoors). We didn't do it last year, but I hope maybe we can this year. We went in 2018 and 2019 and it's magical. </p><p><b>Family</b></p><p>I hope to see my parents again by the end of summer, hopefully after they are fully vaccinated. Adele would love to go fishing with Jon's dad, once we're comfortable that's a mutually safe activity. Hopefully we'll be able to host Thanksgiving this year for Jon's family! </p><p><b>Friends</b></p><p>I hope by the end of the year we'll be able to have friends over again (not just The Neighbors). I won't be terribly surprised if we have another stretch of time where a friend lives with us again, though at this point we don't know. I plan to continue the monthly calls with college friends and grad school friends. </p><p><b>The World</b></p><p>I hesitate to speculate much, but I want to hope that the new administration will be well on the path of undoing what damage can be undone in a year. It's going to be a tough few years ahead.</p><p><b>Monthly goals</b></p><p>I want to try these again after having some success with them last year.</p><p><i>January</i></p><p>Find a contractor for renovating our basement. We can't do much else until we do this.</p><p><i>February</i></p><p>Read about how other people organize memorabilia to come up with a sustainable system that I will start implementing. </p><p>Other ideas for future months:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Exercise every day (like last July)</li><li>Get better at ping pong (might be easier once the basement is renovated)</li><li>Stay on top of our finances on a weekly basis</li><li>Read a book (there's so many on my shelf and new ones coming out that I need to make some progress, other than the family book club)</li><li>Plan the big 2022 trip</li><li>Unsubscribe from 30 email things</li></ul><div>Hopefully I'll post again in March or April with an update on monthly goals. I write that only half- expecting it to materialize. We'll see!</div><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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I probably already did my biggest trip of the year earlier this month.</i></span></p><p></p></blockquote><p>More accurate than I could have possibly imagined! January was my <i>only</i> work trip. It was awesome though, and I'm glad it was scheduled early enough in the year that it happened! </p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><i>I think we'll do some fun family travel this year, but nothing all that long or expensive. We've got the beginnings of a plan for a big trip in 2021 that I'm excited about. This year we need to see some family and friends, and hopefully get Jon and Adele's passports in use somewhere. A couple of plans to combine work and family travel already fell through this year, so hopefully something will work out.</i></span></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Not exactly. I went on a trip with Adele back to Big City in February, and in August she and I went to visit my parents for a couple of weeks after isolation and testing. No passport use for Jon & Adele. Jon had a fun trip planned in March with his best friend that was canceled. And that big trip in 2021 is seeming less likely, too (probably will be deferred to 2022 instead). </p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"></span></p><blockquote><p><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">As usual, because for some reason for the last decade April is my busiest month of the year, I expect April to be very, very hectic.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /></i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Honestly, I don't really remember April. There was so much chaos and uncertainty around everything. Almost everything that normally makes April stressful for me was canceled, which made the kind of stress I'd predicted diminish but it was replaced by the stress of grocery shopping, deciding if masks should be worn/what kind/how, and whether or not school might reopen. </p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"></span></p><blockquote><p><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">I hope to build some closer friendships this year.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /></i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Yes, but not at all how I'd expected! More on that below. </p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"></span></p><blockquote><p><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">I don't expect huge changes. As far as we can tell, we're all in very stable places (home, careers, school), so more happiness is a matter of maximizing our already wonderful circumstances to make more room for what's fulfilling and leave behind what isn't.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /></i></p><p></p></blockquote><p>Baaahahhahahahahahahahaha! But I was thankfully right about the stability part in a big way. I feel like we climbed above the high water line of financial insecurity over the last few years which, combined with other privileges, has unquestionably protected us from the worst of the pandemic. </p><p>Here's my expanded reflections on some key parts of life in 2020.</p><p><b>Household</b></p><p>An enormous part of our sanity in 2020 came from decisions we made in April/May/June to expand our household and form a bubble with another family. First let's talk about The Neighbors. This family moved 3 doors down around June 2019. Their daughter is a grade behind Adele at the same school (not a given in the charter school landscape) and their younger son started preschool there that year. We saw them around a bit, but didn't really start to get to know them until I invited them over one weekend in December, then they had us over in January of the Before Time. We had a handful of other interactions before March, and then after school went online did some neighborly distanced chatting outside while trying to keep the kids a safe distance apart in the Time Before Masking. </p><p>As Adele continued with first grade online in April and May, no one in our house was very happy. Adele was lonely and online school was miserable for all of us. She hated being assigned worksheets. Jon and I talked about the idea of bubbling up with The Neighbors to be able to share childcare responsibilities. We cautiously emailed them with the idea in late April, and we spent the next month corresponding about it to gauge each other's level of exposure and precautions. We were very much on the same page: only essential trips inside other buildings, no play dates, all working from home. So in late May, we started our arrangement: all 3 kids spend 9-5 together M-F. Monday & Tuesday at our house, Thursday & Friday at their house, and we alternate Wednesdays. Whichever house hosts the kids on Wednesday also hosts dinner for everyone. The Neighbors have been the only people outside our household who we've spent time with indoors since mid-March (with one family exception explained below). We all take the bubble seriously and discuss if anyone is considering higher risk activities. </p><p>On top of the arrangement with The Neighbors, we also added someone to our household. Jon's best friend (of the canceled March trip) moved in with us in June, after isolating and testing. That idea was also discussed for weeks before it became a reality. For a variety of reasons, the safest thing for him to do was move in with us for 6 months, and turns out it was also the funnest. He and Jon have so much fun together, and it was great to have another adult in the house to help with chores (dishes!). It was nice to have him around because it took pressure off of me to be fun. I know that might sound weird, but I'm kind of a workaholic married to a lesiureaholic. In the Before Times, we (mostly Jon) had friends over 2-4 nights per week to play board games. So having his best friend here filled some of the fun he normally would have had with our other good friends. He left shortly before Christmas, which was bittersweet. For the first time in months it was just the 3 of us in the house again which made things more spacious, but we were all sad for him to go.</p><p>Having 2 or 3 uninterrupted work days per week plus four (!) other adults to interact with in person and friends for Adele has made 2020 manageable. I know we are incredibly fortunate that these arrangements worked out. We're committed to the arrangement with The Neighbors indefinitely, at this point. And depending how the chips shake out for our friend, he might be back again sometime in 2021.</p><p><b>Family</b></p><p>We moved here, to Jon's Hometown, to be near his family. This year: so close, but so far away. We suspended weekly brunch with his brother in early March. We were just about to start weekly dinner with his mom. So, it's been a bummer not to be able to gather with them in person. For various reasons, none of them are in circumstances where it makes sense to add them to our bubble. We have had some outdoor conversations with them (with masks, at a distance). His family does have a weekly zoom gathering (which is much greater frequency than they all convened before) and more recently a weekly family book club. Jon's family has a rotation for hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year was supposed to be our year for Thanksgiving, but it's been deferred until next year (I hope!). </p><p>We usually see my parents a few times a year (roughly spring/summer, fall, Thanksgiving, and Christmas). When cases were relatively low towards the end of summer, Adele and I went to stay with them for two weeks while The Neighbors went to visit family (outdoors, masked, at a distance). They isolated more than usual in advance, and we all got tested. Usually we have shorter but more frequent visits, but this time we spent a year's worth of time together all in one go. Adele had so much fun with them and was so sad to go. I really enjoyed exploring the parks around their house while we were there. We also got to see my closest cousin (outdoors, masked, at a distance) who lives nearby. The cynical part of me (anticipating a fall surge in cases) thought it might be the only time we saw them in 2020, but the optimistic part of me wanted to hope for the possibility of safely gathering again for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Sadly, the fall surge made it unsafe to gather again.</p><p>In terms of who in our families has been infected, as far as I know it's just one sister in law; my aunt, uncle, & cousin (one household); and my cousin's husband. Several of my cousins/uncles are working high risk jobs in hospitals/long-term care facilities and are getting vaccinated already. We're very thankful that all of our parents are being careful and have stayed healthy. </p><p><b>Friends</b></p><p>Oddly enough, I'm feeling better than I have in a while about my friendships. Maybe part of it is lowered expectations for socializing, but I definitely have grown closer to some friends.</p><p>Thankfully, The Neighbors are awesome. We've gotten to know them quite well over the last 7 months as the only other adults we see in person for any length of time. We've all heard so much about each other's friends and family that we're looking forward to meeting them when such things are safe. Adele has a ball with their kids. Especially as an only child, I think it's been great for her to have other kids to play with on a daily basis. They've started calling each other "corona cousins". </p><p>I also had a great time hanging out more than ever with Jon's best friend. I've always considered him a good friend too (we all met in college half a lifetime ago), but there was no question that he and Jon were two peas in a pod from the time they were freshman year college roommates. I'm thankful this year to have become closer to him too.</p><p>I started a monthly call with my college housemates which has been great for being more connected with some of them who I haven't seen in ages and don't regularly call. For a hot minute there was also the possibility of a <i>different</i> college friend moving in with us as she contemplated leaving her longtime partner. I wouldn't rule that out in the future.</p><p>We did surprisingly manage to see one of my best friends in person outdoors for a couple of hours while visiting my parents. Her in-laws live an hour away and they were visiting them. The visit was painfully bittersweet. Our girls are the same age and usually spend at least a few entire days each year with each other. We did a year's worth of in-person conversation in a few hours. It was so sweet for the kids to see each other, and it turned into a painful reminder of what we've missed this year because of the pandemic. It filled my heart to see them, but it crushed my heart to leave.</p><p><b>Home</b></p><p>Last year I wrote about feeling like the clutter around our house (particularly the clutter I create) is a manifestation of trying to do too much. Aside from the unsubscribe-fest I did in January, it hasn't really been much of a year for decluttering. Our bedroom has just accumulated more and more of my miscellaneous stuff and I'm working up the resolve and energy to tackle it. </p><p>In February we replaced our 20 year old stove which was aggressively mediocre/slightly dysfunctional. Someday we'll properly renovate the kitchen, but thankfully we realized that we could (and long since should've) just replace the stove. Glad we got that one under the wire before covid really took hold.</p><p>For the past couple of years we've had the same woman come to clean once or twice a month. She came in early March and we fretted about the looming threat, then she didn't come again until late summer/fall when cases were relatively low and the doors and windows could be open while she cleaned and we stayed in rooms she didn't enter. I've kept paying her every 2-4 weeks whether she comes or not. </p><p><b>Careers</b></p><p>I've spent the last 9 months working full time while caring for 1-3 kids ages 3-7 for at least one full day per week. In June, I started tracking my work hours (see below), so I know I'm still working 40+ hours per week. Tuesday is my day with the kids. When school is in session, I help make sure they all attend the appropriate video meeting at the right time. Pretty much every week I mess something up and someone misses something. But this is far, far better than the alternative of trying to help or entertain Adele ourselves every day, and less risky (and less expensive) than forming a learning pod with a tutor like some families have done. My heart goes out to all the parents who are still going at it with little support. We as a society should be able to do better in so many ways. </p><p>My work remains fulfilling but often too expansive. I've done some great work and I've definitely let some people down. I've had some more conflicts with my boss, which remain confusing and disorienting. I have lots of vacation days saved up but I find it nearly impossible to actually use them because there's so much to do and our team is spread so thin. I have been unsuccessful in finding the path to grow our team so that I don't feel so threadbare. </p><p>Jon and I both took pay cuts mid-year, but his was fairly soon restored, and then he got a large raise that more than offsets my cut. I don't think my salary will be restored until well into 2021. </p><p><b>Hobbies</b></p><p>Jon has always enjoyed watching a lot of movies and tv shows, but this was probably a record viewing year for me given the relative lack of entertainment alternatives. Some of my favorites were Never Have I Ever (please binge watch it now) and The Queen's Gambit. We re-watched several older seasons of Survivor and Long Way Round. We're part way through Long Way Up now and I'm appreciating the vicarious adventure of it. </p><p>I've written in the past about growing weary of a major volunteer commitment. The weariness continues. I've doubted my effectiveness as a leader and had some extremely frustrating experiences this year. It was a real roller coaster, and thankfully it was most recently at a good point, but yeesh. At one point I rage-read this book Strategic Doing because I was so frustrated that our attempts to be helpful kept getting blocked by unnecessary bureaucracy. I was thankful to be volunteering closely with someone else on the same page. </p><p><b>The World</b></p><p>Remember November? Early November? Yikes, what a nail-biter of a time. I wrote letters to voters. I called people in swing states. I texted my friends to ask if they had a plan for voting. I gave a lot of my personal "entertainment" budget money to campaigns. And thank goodness we voted that monster out in a landslide (it turned out) and some of his supporters (though not nearly enough of them). It was a necessary (but not sufficient) step.</p><p>The self-inflicted devastation of the last four years has been agonizing to watch. Three years ago, I wrote<br /><br /></p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>My immediate family is doing fine, but the world feels much less safe with the insanity of nuclear brinksmanship from two insecure leaders, no new gun control measures despite escalating casualties in mass shootings, and the mainstreaming of white supremacists. We continue to ignore the paths for action on climate change, despite suffering extensive damages from hurricanes, flooding, droughts, and fires exacerbated by our inaction. Measures making the dysfunctional health care system we have even worse and tax changes that will disproportionately benefit the incredibly wealthy and wreck the federal budget make me less optimistic for a thriving future of broadly shared prosperity in our country. I am sad for our country and the world.</i></p><div></div></blockquote><div>These words are sadly still so timely. It's just missing the part about the devastatingly preventable pandemic and the aggressive and racist policing and systems that makes us all less safe. </div><p><b>Monthly goals</b></p><p>January: wrote about unsubscribing from 31 things <a href="https://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2020/07/whoa-2020.html">here</a></p><p>February: I came up with a process for managing my photos from both my phone and separate camera. I didn't completely deal with organization of past photos, but having a system in place for this year has really helped.</p><p>March, April, and May: Turns out the main goal was "don't get covid or lose your mind"</p><p>June: track my hours again. During grad school, I tracked my working hours and added them all up <a href="https://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2013/11/13507-hours.html">here</a>. I wanted to do it again to get a sense for how much I was actually working. I told myself I'd do it for a month, but once I got in the habit I just kept doing it, so now I have 7 months of data. I just checked and I've worked 1238 hours over the last 31 weeks, or 39.9 hours per week. Considering that I took a pay cut, have "had" 10 days worth of holidays or vacation days during those 31 weeks, did at least 36 hours of volunteer work (more on that below), and spent at least one full day per week supervising 3 kids, I'd say that's plenty.</p><p>July: exercise every day. It's been ages since I had a regular exercise routine, so I decided July would be the month to do it. I did some kind of exercise each day, though sometimes it was pretty modest (i.e. going for a walk when I otherwise wouldn't have). Most days I was run/walking with a Couch to 5k app. When July was over I still ran occasionally but not as much. I'll probably try to do something like this again in 2021. A month is a manageable daily exercise commitment, and some of the habit persists. </p><p>After this I think I stopped having monthly goals, so I'll call that a partial success with four out of twelve. Some of the ideas I had might be implemented in 2021.</p><p>I still love looking back on the year and reviewing my expectations, goals, and predictions. Especially in these strange and hectic times, I appreciate having a snapshot of my thoughts. I am cautiously optimistic about national and global improvements in the months ahead, though we have a long way to go. For my part, I will continue to do what I can to right this ship by protecting and supporting others.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">I don't expect huge changes. </span></blockquote>
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Um... 😳<br />
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Wow.<br />
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😭<br />
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I did not see this *gestures around in reference to the massive global disruption due to covid-19* coming on January 31, even though I was already following the news about the novel coronavirus at that time.<br />
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I was first warned about the then-unnamed disease spreading in China on Friday, January 3rd via email from a nurse responsible for advising me and my colleagues on travel happening later that month. I was warned again very seriously in person a few days later and told to cover my mouth and nose with "anything you have" if anyone around me coughed or sneezed. I listened but wasn't particularly worried.<br />
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But we did talk about it during the trip, and what it was like for people during SARS (1). Another person on the trip had been quarantined apart from his family for 10 days during that time due to a mysterious fever. That seemed like such a long time, and so serious. So exceptional.<br />
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As my trip was wrapping up, China was shutting down. People I collaborate with across Asia were taking it very seriously by early February. I came down with a cold in the middle of the month (about 3 weeks after returning) and was definitely paranoid that maybe I'd picked it up during my travels and it had just taken a much longer time to develop, but I wasn't that sick and from reading the news I was unconvinced that anyone would even test me because I didn't meet the criteria.<br />
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I spent a <i>lot</i> of the second half of February reading about it on Twitter, watching the science community react, and reading the news. I got more and more anxious with the lack of preparation and seriousness in the US. It was like watching the news of a hurricane leaving destruction in its wake and tracking this way, but every town and city in the path just planned to carry on.<br />
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Everything came to a head in March, of course. Jon was supposed to leave on March 14 for a much-anticipated week long trip with a friend. Based on everything I was reading, I did not think it was a good idea and we had several tense conversations leading up to the day when the shit actually hit the fan and <i>everything</i> was canceled, including his trip (much to my relief).<br />
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Adele's last day of school <i>at</i> school was Friday, March 13. I could see the writing on the wall and was sort of conflicted about even sending her the last couple of days that week, but it seemed like it would be a while before she went back so she went.<br />
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Do you remember those early days, when we had hope that it might be a month or two and then the kids would go back to school? Ha! Here we are, 3.5 months later with no school and no summer camp. I was so pleased with our proactive organization this year—we made all the camp plans and paid in February! So organized! So privileged to even be able to do that! Sigh.<br />
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We've taken the isolation seriously, and still are even as some things are opening up. We are incredibly fortunate to have our jobs (with pay cuts) and the ability to work from home, so we're doing the best we can. It sucks, but know it could be so, so much worse. I am thankful for everything we have during this wild 2020 ride.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<b>January's goal: Unsubscribe from at least 31 things</b>. The idea was kind of to do at least one per day, but I had a chunk of travel and knew that would throw things off, so I went with a numeric target for the month. I kept a list and just made it to 32 things tonight. I will continue unsubscribing from things, but this was a good start to the year.<br />
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I'm planning to do monthly goals this year to give me focus (and to release myself from the urge to try to do too much at once).<br />
<br />
<b>February's goal: a simpler photo organization system for all my digital photos</b><br />
By the end of the month, I want to have a clear system for how I manage images from my phone and separate digital camera, as well as all my older photos which are spread across two laptops and possibly an external drive.<br />
<br />
Right now I've got some photos duplicated on my current laptop but am not entirely sure which ones they are, I have a few different file naming systems, and I've got at least two different cloud backup systems in play but they aren't both including all the images. It's a mess, and my life would be easier if it wasn't.<br />
<br />
<b>Other expectations for 2020:</b><br />
I don't think I'll have as much work travel this year as I did last year, and I'm ok with that. I probably already did my biggest trip of the year earlier this month. It was great, but the kind of work I did for that really isn't what I should normally be doing, so I hope it's an outlier in that regard.<br />
<br />
I think we'll do some fun family travel this year, but nothing all that long or expensive. We've got the beginnings of a plan for a big trip in 2021 that I'm excited about. This year we need to see some family and friends, and hopefully get Jon and Adele's passports in use somewhere. A couple of plans to combine work and family travel already fell through this year, so hopefully something will work out.<br />
<br />
As usual, because for some reason for the last decade April is my busiest month of the year, I expect April to be very, very hectic.<br />
<br />
I hope to build some closer friendships this year.<br />
<br />
I don't expect huge changes. As far as we can tell, we're all in very stable places (home, careers, school), so more happiness is a matter of maximizing our already wonderful circumstances to make more room for what's fulfilling and leave behind what isn't.<br />
<br />
There's so much to be done in this broken world. I'm sorry I can't do all the things. I'm just trying to do what good I can in my little corners, and I hope you are able to do good in yours.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
I intended to have monthly goals, but I hadn't figured out what all of them were going to be yet. But I had the first two planned. January was going to be no backlog. My interpretation of that was something like "inbox zero" for new stuff where I'd deal with it each day. However, I promptly departed for a 2 week international work trip whereupon that plan went right out the window.<br />
<br />
Sigh.<br />
<br />
February's goal was going to be to buy our house... and we bought it in August instead. So that didn't exactly help me build momentum with the monthly goal thing. Those were bad goals. For 2020, my first goal is to have better goals.<br />
<br />
So without a blueprint of ambitions and expectations laid out at the beginning of the year, I'll just muse on various aspects of my life in 2019.<br />
<br />
<i>Home & Family</i><br />
The most noteworthy thing that happened this year is that we became homeowners! I'll spare everyone the boring complicated details, but we didn't move. It just took a long time to go from being renters to owners. Jon is still loving his work and doing a great job, so a couple of solid years with both of us earning respectable professional wages finally made that possible. We're so glad to have made that leap and thankful to everyone who played a role.<br />
<br />
Adele continues her trajectory of awesomeness as a first grader. There have been some new struggles this year with friends, but all part of growing up. In the last year or so she has upped her game skills so we established a weekly family board game night. It's fascinating to recognize some of the odd affinities and hangups she has that I relate to from my childhood. I can tell that she gets worked up by the anticipation of uncomfortable things in a way that I did a lot as a child but Jon did not, e.g. taking medicine. She also shares my affinity for gnarly tree roots and making sets of M&Ms with one of each color.<br />
<br />
<i>Friends</i><br />
This year I canceled a failing monthly event with neighborhood mom friends that I started about 5 years ago. I was bad at reminding people, but I also wasn't hearing from anyone despite the recurring calendar event. Sometimes no one showed up, which was kind of depressing for me. Jon is the kind of person who commits heavily to a small group of friends. He has about 5 close friends and at least any two of them are over at least 2 times per week to play games. I hang out with them too, but I also want my own group of close friends. The kind of sad truth for me is that I really don't have a close friend here. I know a lot of people and have a lot of friendly acquaintances who could potentially be closer friends, but I couldn't think of anyone I felt close enough to to invite to my birthday dinner. I work too much and volunteer too much and try to do too much around the house and don't do a good job prioritizing friendships. I skype monthly with my two best friends from grad school, I'm in close with a college friend who lives a few hours away, and I hike monthly with a few women, but sometimes I am sad that I don't have more regular hang out friends around here. It's not like there aren't cool people here. I need to do a better job in 2020.<br />
<br />
<i>Travel</i><br />
I traveled for work in January, February, March, April, October, and November. Half the trips were international. For the first time since our honeymoon in 2009, we managed to combine a work trip with a family vacation. Considering how many trips I've done for work since then, that's kind of insane. It just either hasn't made sense logistically (especially with a kid), or been feasible financially. But this year, Jon and Adele joined me at the end of a work retreat and we made a long weekend of exploring a different part of the country.<br />
<br />
Our biggest family trip this year was visiting Disney with my parents. Adele was such a fun age for it (almost 6). We also did a couple of shorter trips to visit friends and attend our college reunion.<br />
<br />
<i>Career</i><br />
I'm established enough in my position now that this year I've gotten the highest profile invitations of my career. I did a handful of interviews and gave a couple of prominent invited talks. For the biggest, it was an entirely new talk for which I spent at least 60 hours preparing, and I knocked it out of the park. I've never received so many compliments in my life. That felt good. Then I slept for 11 hours straight.<br />
<br />
<i>Stuff and Attention</i><br />
I watched Marie Kondo's <i>Tidying Up</i> and parted with a lot of clothes and books. I have a growing realization that I'm trying to fit too much into my life (in terms of my time and commitments), and cluttered corners of the house are a reflection of the same phenomenon, but with physical things. Watching <i>Tidying Up</i> helped me think about what I can be grateful for but let go. I'm trying to do a better job of not trying to hold too much, physically or metaphorically. I still have a lot of papers and misc to go through to decide if they spark joy.<br />
<br />
This year I also read <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42771901-how-to-do-nothing" target="_blank">How to Do Nothing</a></i> by Jenny O'Dell (so did <a href="https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1211033245812441091" target="_blank">Obama</a>, btw) which got me thinking even more about the attention economy and how to make conscious decisions about my attention. I've definitely spent less time on conventional social media this year, especially Facebook. I have some complicated thoughts about my role in the attention economy but I really enjoyed the book.<br />
<br />
<i>Work & Emotional Labor at Work</i><br />
Last year I reflected on some of the growing pains from moving into my dream job. This year has overall been much smoother with my colleagues, but I'm definitely feeling the stress of being at the interface of internal and external expectations. There are a handful of difficult external people who I've had to deal with, and the amount of emotional labor and time it takes to interact with them is exhausting. It has been difficult to know the best way to proceed in many circumstances and definitely caused me to lose sleep.<br />
<br />
One night I had a dream that I was near a forest fire. For some reason, I thought I could get closer and still get back out safely (I can't even remember why). But in my dream, the fire quickly got more intense, and I was trapped and had to be rescued. I realized I was a fool for going in because I had not only endangered myself, but the person who had to come rescue me.<br />
<br />
I woke up from this dream with the realization that I needed to set clear boundaries with the difficult person I was dealing with at the time. I took it as a warning that if I didn't, I was putting my team and project at risk by proceeding. Essentially, this difficult person was an unpredictable forest fire capable of inflicting damage.<br />
<br />
I love my job. I care about it so much that I have a hard time not working. I'm almost always trying to accomplish more than is realistically possible in a week. The team had many great successes this year, but I've also wasted a bit of time on some things that kind of flopped. We didn't lose anything but the time we put into it, but I feel a little self-conscious about those things. However, I've more than succeeded in many other areas, so it's just good for me to hone my sense of where to put my effort and attention. I also think I did a great job foreseeing a potentially disastrous collaboration and cutting it off, though it caused me a fair amount of anxiety for months before finally made the call. I probably should have done it sooner, but I kept hoping they'd get their act together.<br />
<br />
I don't like saying no or letting people down, so I sometimes have trouble setting boundaries for work and prioritizing. I should be more strict about that in 2020, for my own sanity and health.<br />
<br />
<i>Volunteering</i><br />
I've also done a lot of volunteering this year. One of the things I volunteer for has a strong interaction with my work, but it's not exactly part of my job. Over the last year it's been exciting to see how it has grown into a movement, and I'm not having to manage all of the mental responsibilities for it anymore.<br />
<br />
I'm also nearing the end of a long-term volunteer commitment and find myself looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. It's been a bit more stressful than fun for the last 2 years. Perhaps I should write a longer reflection on it at some point.<br />
<br />
I've organized a lot of events. Some for volunteering, some for work, and I have less and less patience for it. It falls into the category of something I'm pretty good at but don't enjoy. I hate all of the little decisions about the venue, the food, the budget, etc. I should have a personal limit for event organizing and stick to it.<br />
<br />
<i>Ritual</i><br />
I did a good job of committing to a particular ritual every day (~95% success). I plan to continue the ritual for the foreseeable future.<br />
<br />
<i>Health</i><br />
Last year I noted my weight had crept up more than I was comfortable with (i.e. my clothes weren't fitting), so I'm pleased I managed to lose about 10 pounds this year (though it went up first before it went down!). However, I have probably had higher blood pressure this year than ever before, thanks to these aforementioned difficult people and generally working too hard. I'm not really exercising though, so that's not great.<br />
<br />
Just before leaving for 10 days of travel in October, I made a frantic dash out the door for something that was urgent but not really very important, and in my haste I fell down a few steps onto the sidewalk. I scraped myself up pretty badly and hit my cheek on the concrete. I ended up with a spectacularly awful black eye, but honestly I'm grateful that it wasn't worse because I easily could have broken something. It was a wake up call for me. I took it as a warning to make sure I don't try to do too much, get hasty, and break myself (or my work) in the process and ultimately make things unnecessarily more difficult.<br />
<br />
All in all, it's been a great year and I can hardly complain. We're incredibly fortunate. Wishing all who read this a healthy, just, and peaceful 2020!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
I mentioned just a few <a href="https://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2018/01/2018lets-do-some-big-things.html" target="_blank">things that I expected for 2018</a>:<br />
<br />
<i>Make monthly resolutions</i><br />
I completely failed at this. I think I'll try again in 2019, but with a better plan. I hope!<br />
<br />
<i>Start my <a href="https://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2018/02/starting-my-dream-job.html" target="_blank">dream job</a></i><br />
Yes! It's been more of a roller coaster than I expected, though. More on that below.<br />
<br />
<i>New job for Jon</i><br />
Yes! He ended up changing jobs right after I did, and it's been a complete 180 for him. It's a great company and an incredible fit for his personality and skills. It's a great reminder that if your job sucks and you're depressed about it, there's probably someplace out there where you can shine. I'm so glad he's found that in his new job.<br />
<br />
<i>Big family trip</i><br />
Yes! We had an awesome time traveling with several nieces and nephews for a week over the summer. They are wonderful people.<br />
<br />
<i>Big gardening plans</i><br />
Yes! We put in a rain garden and a lot more native plants. I love puttering in the garden.<br />
<br />
Many things about this year were predictable, but they certainly weren't boring. I worked really hard. Probably too hard (Jon would say definitely too hard). For the first half of the year, I was also working on a carryover project from my last job. Seeing that through was a lot of extra work, and it was a relief to have it finished. However, I was pretty crushed by my new boss's response to it. He thought it was so... unimportant. I've learned that it's very difficult when he and I don't see eye to eye, and I had a few particularly stressful incidents with him. I hadn't anticipated this kind of conflict, and there were definitely several times when I regretted leaving my other job when I did because of the stress with my new boss. I spent 4 years working mostly for and with badass women who gave me just enough guidance and independence to flourish. There's a different dynamic with my new job and I have struggled at times to understand how I best fit into the team. I feel it's on the upswing now, but I expect there will be other rough patches. I've contemplated getting a therapist or a coach or both.<br />
<br />
I spent part of the year feeling somewhat socially isolated and feeling like I needed more quality social time with friends. We decided to throw a holiday party for the first time since leaving Big City and that was a big success. Although that itself wasn't a time when I got to have lots of the kinds of conversations I was craving, it was helpful for encouraging some new friendships.<br />
<br />
My weight has crept up slowly for the last couple of years, and I know I've been less active this year. I need to eat a little less and be more active (the recipe for almost every weight loss plan ever). Sigh.<br />
<br />
I didn't travel nearly as much for work in 2018 as I did in 2017 and 2016. I had just 3 work trips, and only one was international. We did a fair number of weekend driving trips to see friends or family, and that one big family trip.<br />
<br />
I got a holiday card out this year for the first time since 2014. In years past part of my hang up was having "the photo" for the card. We've never had a professional family portrait, but sometimes Jon takes one that we pose for. I decided last holiday season that this year I should just pick some photos and get something done rather than getting hung up on "the photo". I had the cards made pretty early, but since last sending cards in 2014, it seemed half our list had moved, died, or added new family members, so updating it took quite a while and we didn't get cards out until Christmas Eve. Next year should be easier!<br />
<br />
Adele gets more and more awesome. She's in kindergarten this year (Montessori) and her math skills are exploding. She's doing some simple mental addition and subtraction with ease. She's starting to read a little, learned to ride a pedal bike, loves to play and invent games, and tells people she's a scientist.<br />
<br />
All in all we've had a good year and cannot possibly complain about our lot in life. The country and world... oof. I'm really hoping for some improvement (modest, realistically) on a number of fronts in 2019 with a change in congress, but I know we're just halfway to 2020 and how much more important that will be for political change in the US.<br />
<br />
As usual, I'll post my expectations for 2019 and some goals in January.<br />
<br />
Happy New Year!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
Back in 2015, I <a href="https://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2015/12/looking-back-on-2015.html" target="_blank">mentioned</a> at the end of the year that I had envisioned my nearish-term dream job. I talked about it with a few close colleagues of mine, and then got up the guts to tell the person whose buy-in was absolutely essential to make it happen. We talked about it some, but there wasn't much to be done at that point except talk about it hypothetically.<br />
<br />
Over the next two years, we kept talking. Before leaving my job at Exciting Non-Profit (ENP), we talked about a lot of organizational strategy, and I pushed with my questions until I realized that I hit the limits of their thinking and planning. I saw directions that I thought they needed to go, but I didn't know how to help them get there.<br />
<br />
When I changed jobs in 2016, I shifted focus considerably, away from direct involvement in the type of work I had been doing at ENP and wanted to return to later. The new job had a specific emphasis on professional development, so I told my boss about my career aspirations. I was super nervous about choosing such a specific job at which to target my skills development, but she was amazingly supportive. I started talking with other people about it, and giving that dream a voice. <a href="https://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2016/09/using-my-new-job-to-get-to-my-dream-job.html" target="_blank">I wrote about it</a> when those feelings were fresh, just when I was starting to commit to the dream in some sense.<br />
<br />
I feel like I should take a moment here to write about what a cool experience the last year and a half has been. I haven't written about my work nearly as much as I did in my job at ENP. I think it's mostly because it has been <i>much</i> less stressful! I haven't had looming anxiety about getting laid off (this job has always been a short-term thing) and I haven't suffered under leadership decision paralysis (well, not too much). I managed to keep a foot in my previous work on the side while exploring this new area.<br />
<br />
<b>Even though I've had a very specific job in mind, this experience has radically broadened my perception of what I can do with my career.</b><br />
<br />
I've learned how to be effective in a totally new professional space with new organizations and new key players. I got to work with some incredibly talented people and definitely felt many times like I was punching above my weight. I was flattered that my work had their attention at all. I watched some great leadership in action, and I started taking notes. Seriously, I started writing down things they did. I watched many awesome women diplomatically negotiate difficult, influential personalities. One woman did a remarkable job of leading a group by laying out the social contract for their deliberations and inviting everyone's feedback and buy-in. I had great working relationships with my closest colleagues. And on top of all that, my job had awesome travel opportunities...almost too many. I traveled to seven different countries and four different states in 18 months (10 trips in all).<br />
<br />
Once I got the hang of the new field of work (about 6 months in!), I could imagine myself continuing in that career. I see plenty of opportunities to make an impact and I honed some of the knowledge and skills to make a difference. There are exciting things happening, and I am sad to be stepping out just as many things are taking off.<br />
<br />
But I never wavered much from the dream job I first articulated in 2015. I went to all of these meetings and professional development sessions with two minds: one on applications to my current position, and one on applications to my dream job. Many times my mind was buzzing with ideas for the latter. It's like everything that I absorbed was filtered through "how can I use this for my dream job?" I observed every meeting and workshop not only for content, but for process. How did they organize the committees? What tools are they using?<br />
<br />
Over many months of conversations, my ideas about what I would want to work on evolved. I realized more and more that I had a unique skill set and perspective to bring to the team I wanted to work with. I thought I was going to have to find the funding to make this happen, but then an opportunity came up a bit sooner than I was prepared for. After deliberating with many people about the timing, I decided to go for it.<br />
<br />
That person who I anxiously told about my ambitions in 2015 is about to become my boss. This is happening!<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
Last year, a friend of mine did monthly resolutions instead of year-long ones. I find this idea appealing, though I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do each month. February is really the only one I have figured out.<br />
<br />
<b>February is going to be about getting my email under control</b>. My goal is to get to inbox zero for my personal email and basically stay there. I am recruiting an accountability buddy who I can check in with.<br />
<br />
My friend said she liked best the monthly resolutions that involved a daily action rather than less habit-forming ones, but I think I'll probably have a mix of both. I like the idea of setting a goal of tackling a big, looming, one-off thing in a particular month.<br />
<br />
There are other big things to look forward to in 2018, especially related to jobs.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">I am going to start my dream job! </span></b>More on that next month. *grins*<br />
<br />
Jon is also going to change jobs, though he hasn't found his dream job yet. His current job is a terrible fit and he's actively looking for other opportunities.<br />
<br />
We have a big trip planned with our nieces and nephews over the summer and I have big gardening plans.<br />
<br />
I am still discouraged about the state of our country and world, but I am trying to find hope and make change in the places where I can.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
I'll start with what I wrote in 2007. In short, I described my career objective to become a professor a place like Small Friendly College, which would include teaching, research with undergrads, occasionally leading foreign study programs, and doing some kind of science outreach. I knew I needed good teaching experience, international experience, and to write my own grants to support my research. I got the grants and the international experience, but not so much teaching experience (in part because I was successful with fellowship applications). My decision to steer away from the liberal arts college professor path was motivated in part by wanting to be geographically narrow (to be near Jon's family eventually) and in part by realizing (mostly from conversations with SFC faculty) that I wasn't going to be terribly competitive for those jobs without a much stronger teaching and research record.<br />
<br />
I've been able to play to the same interests articulated above and strengths I developed in grad school in unexpected ways and chart a very different path than the small-liberal-arts-college-professor way. There is a strong international component to my current work. My interest in outreach and an unconventional science communication opportunity helped my land my first real job as a PhD. It's really all of my side interests and ancillary skills from grad school that have gotten me to here, rather than my research itself. I suppose I expected the same to be true as a professor, so I've just applied it differently.<br />
<br />
I'm most proud of my self-awareness in 2007:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-678923223820340871" itemprop="description articleBody" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 520px;">
<i>At this point in time my ideal job is quite specific, and I’m not even sure it exists. However, the breadth of what I want to do to is great enough that I would be happy to pursue other careers that fulfill some, if not all, of my interests in other ways. I will remain open to other options that I can’t even imagine yet.</i></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
Not bad, huh?<br />
<br />
I also wrote about wanting to start a family:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><i>I do plan to start a family by 2017. I am not sure exactly how children will fit into the picture, nor can I realistically expect things to go as planned. But if I could choose, I’d like to have two children relatively close together to minimize the pre-school time period. When in my career I try to have children will depend on my research plans and post doc opportunities. Perhaps I will try to have kids between finishing field work and defending.</i></span></blockquote>
I did strategically aim to give birth between my dissertation defense and the end of my NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, which worked out pretty well, except for the part where <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-calamity_18.html" target="_blank">I almost died</a> and then had a pretty rough start to motherhood while trying to find a job. We've decided to only have one child instead of the two we'd originally intended, but I'm feeling ok with that. Given the state of the world, it doesn't seem like the right decision for us to choose to have another child.<br />
<br />
For my goals defined at the beginning of this year I wrote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><i>This year is not about being wildly aspirational—it's about modest changes to try and protect us (in the immediate and broader sense) in uncertain times.</i></span></blockquote>
I did well on the goals and elaborated on several in a <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2017/05/five-whole-months-into-year.html" target="_blank">post</a> earlier in the year.<br />
<br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Personal/Familial</b><br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Help Jon get a new, full-time job with benefits</i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">DONE. He's not wild about the workplace culture, but it's ok. He's keeping an eye out for other opportunities.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Get Adele a passport and renew mine</i><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">DONE! </span></span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Clear my inbox every month</i><br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
Nope. I completely failed at this and my work email has now gotten a bit unwieldy too. I've practically given up on my personal email. I need to find a strategy that works for me, but in the short term I'm just procrastinating on it.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
<i>Celebrate my blogiversary (10 years!)</i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
Kind of. I wrote a reflection on <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-decade-of-blogging.html" target="_blank">a decade of blogging</a>, but I didn't get it printed like I considered. I didn't find a way to print it that was easy and satisfying enough. I'd still like to do that someday. Suggestions welcome!</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
<i>Read four books</i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
DONE! I read a book about my field of work which included many people I know personally, which was pretty cool. I also read <a href="http://www.scottsampson.net/index.php?page=wild-child-book" target="_blank">How to Raise A Wild Child</a> because I want to make sure that Adele is well-connected to nature.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
<br /></div>
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Financial</b><br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Pay off our car</i><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">DONE!</span></span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Pay off all of Jon's course/credit card debt</i><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: times new roman, times, freeserif, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">DONE! </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: times new roman, times, freeserif, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Shorten the repayment term on my student loans</i><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: times new roman, times, freeserif, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">Nope. We have instead put more emphasis on saving for retirement. I'll re-evaluate the situation in 2018.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: times new roman, times, freeserif, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Activism</b><br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Carbon offsets</i><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: times new roman, times, freeserif, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">DONE. We've been paying a monthly fee based on our calculated carbon emissions from 2016. I am guessing 2017 would be comparable for us so I think we'll continue at the same rates for 2018.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: times new roman, times, freeserif, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Switch to electricity from renewable sources</i><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: times new roman, times, freeserif, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">DONE. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: times new roman, times, freeserif, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", times, freeserif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Organizations we'll newly support with monthly contributions:</i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">-<a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give" target="_blank">Wikimedia</a> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">-<a href="https://www.propublica.org/" target="_blank">ProPublica</a> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">-<a href="https://www.givedirectly.org/" target="_blank">GiveDirectly</a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">-<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/" target="_blank">Southern Poverty Law Center</a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">DONE! </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></span>
In terms of broad expectations for the year, I wrote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><i>I am less optimistic about 2017 than I have been...maybe ever. I am deeply concerned about Trump becoming president tomorrow and I honestly expect the world and its people to be in worse shape at the end of 2017 than now. I expect my family (immediate and extended) to weather this year due to our position of privilege (employed, mostly urban, socially connected, highly educated, white), but even still I expect our lives to be diminished.</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"></span><br />
I am afraid I hit the nail on the head. My immediate family is doing fine, but the world feels much less safe with the insanity of nuclear brinksmanship from two insecure leaders, no new gun control measures despite escalating casualties in mass shootings, and the mainstreaming of white supremacists. We continue to ignore the paths for action on climate change, despite suffering extensive damages from hurricanes, flooding, droughts, and fires exacerbated by our inaction. Measures making the dysfunctional health care system we have even worse and tax changes that will disproportionately benefit the incredibly wealthy and wreck the federal budget make me less optimistic for a thriving future of broadly shared prosperity in our country. I am sad for our country and the world.<br />
<br />
I expect some big changes again in 2018, particularly with my career. As usual, I'll share more in a separate post after the new year.<br />
<br />
Farewell, 2017!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
It has been around since <a href="https://www.storycollider.org/about-us-2/" target="_blank">2010</a>! What have I been doing with my life?!?! I anticipate a lot more Story Collider keeping my ears occupied in the future.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
For the first few years, I blogged several times per month (or even several times per week). It was an opportunity for me to reflect on my experiences and practice writing. Looking back on many of my early posts in the writing of this, I am struck as much by the things that haven't changed as much as the things that have. I still <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2007/10/i-love-small-friendly-college.html" target="_blank">love Small Friendly College</a> just as much as in 2007 (and the post made me teary <i>again</i>). I see major parts my current self in these older writings. In some cases, I captured events that I see now had outsized importance in shaping my current career, like a workshop on <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2008/11/communicating-what-i-do.html" target="_blank">science communication</a> and <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2009/04/weve-got-project.html" target="_blank">an interdisciplinary project</a>. There are threads and early hints of the ideas and concepts that are hugely important to my present work, which makes me feel like I'm in the right place now in my career.<br />
<br />
In some ways, I don't think I've <i>changed</i> substantially, but I've <i>learned</i> so much about myself in the last 10 years. I've grown. I wrote in 2009 that I needed to be <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2009/07/being-badass.html" target="_blank">more of a badass</a>. I most definitely am. My moments of greatest badass-ness are probably still finishing my dissertation before my daughter was born, then giving birth to her and going through (and recovering from) serious complications. To finish my dissertation, I toughed it out and kept my eye on the prize with intense focus to the exclusion of everything else non-essential. When recovering from childbirth, I refused to accept my limited mobility and searched and read until I found the right people and resources to help me heal. During grad school, and especially during field work, I became aware of my common mental traps and I'm much better at avoiding them now that I know the signs (like being <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2009/08/when-going-gets-tough.html" target="_blank">indecisive</a>). I am nothing if not resourceful, and as my personal networks and knowledge have grown, I have an ever-growing pool of ideas to draw upon. This last year in my new job has especially helped me realize and appreciate the breadth and depth of skills and networks I have, and given me many more ideas for how I can leverage them to do good and awesome things. I, too, can <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants" target="_blank">stand on the shoulders of giants</a>—in life as well as in research. <br />
<br />
My favorite genre of books is scientist memoirs (e.g. Richard Feynman), especially field biologists (e.g. Jane Goodall and Robert Sapolsky). I love reading about the adventures that happen in the pursuit of science. I love reading about how they live their science-y lives, what their families think, how they raised kids, what went wrong, and how they overcame adversity. Their stories have helped me imagine what my life could be. Blogs by scientists about their lives scratched a similar itch.<br />
<br />
Blogging was also a community, and the other women in science bloggers were my mentors. I learned so much from them. I read blogs of more advanced students describing drama in their committees (I learned years later that managing your committee is a classic example of "managing up"). I read about postdocs applying for faculty positions. I read stories of scientists in all career stages struggling with chronic health issues, infertility, and difficult relationships. I was unquestionably better prepared to be a good graduate student and navigate the potential job market afterwards as a result of the science blog community. I'd like to throw some nonspecific thanks out into the universe to the dozens (hundreds?) of bloggers from whom I gleaned wisdom and advice. Thank you!<br />
<br />
While blogging during grad school, I accidentally discovered the identities of a few bloggers I followed, and a few people discovered me (one person anonymously and mysteriously tried to "out" me). I made real life friends because of this blog, and it was a way to re-connect with a handful of trusted people that I invited to read it. A few of you are still reading. Thanks for following my sometimes vague and pseudonymized adventures!<br />
<br />
I watched, always with sadness, when other bloggers decided to call it quits for one reason or another. More often, they didn't have closure and just stopped writing, or I just stopped reading. Probably kind of like this—I stopped writing so often. In part I blame the declining popularity of RSS and therefore the declining options for good feed readers. Somewhere along the migration from one feed reader to another, I lost track. It has been a long time since I regularly read other people's blogs, so my blogging is overwhelmingly an introspective exercise.<br />
<br />
It would probably be fitting, after a decade of blogging as an "aspiring ecologist", to declare this the end. But I imagine I'll still want to blog occasionally, and I'm frankly not motivated enough to set up another blog, so I'll stick with what I've got. Those of you who are friends in real life know where to find me, and if you've been reading this for years and still don't know who I am but want to be friends in real life, drop me a note.<br />
<br />
I'm excited about the next 10 years. I've got <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2016/09/using-my-new-job-to-get-to-my-dream-job.html" target="_blank">big ideas</a> that have been simmering for a while now. With the right combination of preparation and luck (there's always luck), it could be awesome. Or, more likely, I'll end up doing something 10 years from now that I can't even imagine at present. Let's see where the next decade goes!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
There are a couple of things I have on my mind lately to blog about, but for now I want to do just a short check in on my <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2017/01/looking-ahead-to-2017.html" target="_blank">goals/expectations for 2017</a>.<br />
<br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Personal/Familial</b><br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Help Jon get a new, full-time job with benefits</i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">"This is the most important thing that needs to happen this year and it will make all of the financial goals below much easier!" DONE! There was a bit of a false start a few months back, but he now has a full time salaried job with opportunity for advancement. Once he finishes the trial period, he'll be eligible for benefits too. This is a huge first for us to have TWO predictable, livable incomes. </span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Get Adele a passport and renew mine</i><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">DONE! We're all set for about 5 more years.</span></span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Clear my inbox every month</i><br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
"I granted myself email amnesty at the beginning of the year and I think I need to do it on a regular basis." I think I did it once so far this year... but it really needs to happen. Ugh.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
<i>Celebrate my blogiversary (10 years!)</i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
"I want to do something special to celebrate...maybe get this printed as a book!" Not yet! I think I'll write a 10 year reflection post by the June 22 date of my <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2007/06/my-application-experience-phase-1.html" target="_blank">first non-introductory blog post</a>. I have a lot to reflect on, including these <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-goals-for-2017.html" target="_blank">goals for 2017 that I wrote in 2007</a>! I just stumbled across it looking through my oldest posts; I had completely forgotten. </div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
<i>Read four books</i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
I've read one so far. I know I can do this if I buckle down.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
<br /></div>
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Financial</b><br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Pay off our car</i><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">DONE!</span></span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Pay off all of Jon's course/credit card debt</i><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">We just paid off one of the cards at the end of its 0% APR period, and the other one ends in October. We're almost there! Our credit scores have been noticeably recovering from carrying pretty high balances (thankfully all at 0%).</span></span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Shorten the repayment term on my student loans</i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">"Once we're sure we have the credit card debt paid for, then we can shorten the repayment term for my student loans to pay it down aggressively..." Not there yet.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Activism</b><br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Carbon offsets</i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">"The easiest way to do this is probably by estimating our emissions and spreading it out over monthly payments." DONE! I added up all of our air travel and other emissions estimates from 2016 and now we pay a monthly fee to a carbon offset company.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Switch to electricity from renewable sources</i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">"This will take a bit of research, which is the biggest hurdle." Turns out direct mail works sometimes, because we went with the company that sent us mail about the opportunity to switch to wind power, and they seemed ok. DONE!</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Organizations we'll newly support with monthly contributions:</i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">-wikipedia (we have given to them in the past, but lapsed)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">-Pro-Publica (nonprofit investigative journalism)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">-An organization that very efficiently transfers donations to extremely poor people (I believe that wealth inequality is a huge problem)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">-Southern Poverty Law Center</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">DONE! On January 20, we set up modest ($5-10) recurring monthly donations to all of these.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">With Jon getting a salaried job, many other things are falling into place. Perhaps next month I'll think about whether or not to stretch myself a little more in some of these areas since we've already met most of the goals.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">I have a pretty good work life balance since starting my new job, and if anything this spring I've been stressed out by my non-work commitments that should count for some kind of "fun". That has toned down thankfully in the last few weeks, but as ever I am trying to find the balance. Adele turned four and is almost done with school for the year. We currently have an international student from Small Friendly College who decided it was too risky to return home for the summer living in our basement for a couple of months while he does an internship. The fear is that they wouldn't renew his visa to let him back in the country for the fall semester, so he stayed here. I'm sad that's the world we live in, but glad that we can help in some small way. Onward!</span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
<b>Personal/Familial</b><br />
<i>Help Jon get a new, full-time job with benefits</i><br />
Applying for jobs sucks. <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2014/01/tell-me-your-triumph-over-career.html" target="_blank">I </a><a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2014/04/bad-bad-good-bad.html" target="_blank">remember</a>. It was super discouraging. I am doing what I can do support Jon in his career-change job search. This is the most important thing that needs to happen this year and it will make all of the financial goals below much easier!<br />
<br />
<i>Get Adele a passport and renew mine</i><br />
This is among the more paranoid goals that I've ever had, but I want us to be able to leave the country if necessary. My passport expires next year and I have a lull in international travel for the next couple of months, so I need to take this opportunity to renew it. We already filed the paperwork for Adele. Jon's is good for about 5 more years. It would also be great if we could go visit my family in Canada sometime soon.<br />
<br />
<i>Clear my inbox every month</i><br />
<div>
I granted myself email amnesty at the beginning of the year and I think I need to do it on a regular basis. I need to let go of more things that I'd like to do but just can't find the time. I can hardly find the time to do the other important things I want to need to do. I need more ruthless prioritization.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>Celebrate my blogiversary (10 years!)</i></div>
<div>
I've been blogging for almost a decade! WHAT. My blogging frequency has radically changed over the last few years, but I still enjoy the focus and outlet this platform offers. I want to do something special to celebrate...maybe get this printed as a book!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>Read four books</i></div>
<div>
Let's see if I can meet this modest goal this year!</div>
<br />
<b>Financial</b><br />
<i>Pay off our car</i><br />
We are one small payment away from this! So. close.<br />
<br />
<i>Pay off all of Jon's course/credit card debt</i><br />
We've been making steady progress, but we need to step it up to pay them off before our 0% interest period expires. This is the #1 priority when Jon gets a new job. We should be able to do this.<br />
<br />
<i>Shorten the repayment term on my student loans</i><br />
Once we're sure we have the credit card debt paid for, then we can shorten the repayment term for my student loans to pay it down aggressively (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/business/dealbook/navient-loans-lawsuit.html" target="_blank">Navient sucks</a>, so apparently that's the best way to automatically increase your monthly payment). Oddly, our car loan has a lower interest rate so ideally, we would have been paying less on that loan and more on the student loan, but the terms aren't flexible like that, so we're waiting to be able to pay down the student loans.<br />
<br />
<b>Activism</b><br />
<i>Carbon offsets</i><br />
In the face of Republican governance that does not believe in climate change, I think this is more important than ever. The easiest way to do this is probably by estimating our emissions and spreading it out over monthly payments.<br />
<br />
<i>Switch to electricity from renewable sources</i><br />
The Republican love affair with fossil fuels makes me concerned about renewable energy, so I want to commit us to buying our electricity from renewable sources. This will take a big of research, which is the biggest hurdle.<br />
<br />
<i>Organizations we'll newly support with monthly contributions:</i><br />
-wikipedia (we have given to them in the past, but lapsed)<br />
-Pro-Publica (nonprofit investigative journalism)<br />
-An organization that very efficiently transfers donations to extremely poor people (I believe that wealth inequality is a huge problem)<br />
-Southern Poverty Law Center<br />
<br />
Looking at these all, they are pretty boring. If this year is boring, I'll be satisfied. This year is not about being wildly aspirational—it's about modest changes to try and protect us (in the immediate and broader sense) in uncertain times. There's a chance that I will change jobs this year, but I suspect not. There's a small chance that we could end the year debt-free, but I suspect not.<br />
<br />
Let's do this, 2017. More than ever before, we need to be the change we wish to see in the world and stand up for what is just. All of us. Every day.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
Here were my <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2016/01/goals-for-2016.html" target="_blank">goals and expectations for 2016</a>:<br />
<br />
<b>Personal</b><br />
<i>Read at least 4 books</i><br />
I read 3, one of which was Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. One was about a fruit (took me all year to finish—not exactly a riveting page turner but I wanted to finish it), and the other was an odd aforementioned field biologist memoir. As in 2015, I also read a lot of online news (print media to a lesser extent), but that doesn't offer the satisfaction of completing a book. I still have an ever-growing stack I want to read.<br />
<br />
<i>Make our backyard more playable.</i><br />
Yes! We got it fenced and erected a makeshift play structure. Much improved!<br />
<br />
<i>Make peace with having one child.</i><br />
Last year I wrote, "By the end of this year I'd like to confidently and happily say we're "one and done" if anyone asks." It took me most of the year, but I'm there. I might elaborate on this in a later post.<br />
<br />
<b>Career</b><br />
<br />
<i>Get another job offer.</i><br />
I got <i>four</i> offers, including my first choice! It was hard to leave my great boss and interesting workplace, but this new position is a great opportunity for professional growth. It was also a raise!<br />
<br />
<i>Fix up my website</i><br />
I hardly did anything beyond the bare minimum, and thankfully it wasn't necessary. But in 2017 I think it needs attention again in preparation for another career move.<br />
<br />
<b>Money</b><br />
<br />
<i>Get more life insurance</i><br />
Didn't do this and didn't really investigate it. Probably should go on the list for 2017.<br />
<br />
<i>Move retirement investments & Jon's HSA to accounts with lower fees</i><br />
We made progress on the Roth IRA investments but not the HSA. We moved all of my IRA out of <a href="http://femmefrugality.com/socially-responsible-investing-through-index-funds/" target="_blank">Pax World</a> and into a lower-fee socially responsible index fund with some in another low-fee index fund.<br />
<br />
<i>Refinance or at least change the repayment term on my student loans</i><br />
Due to other things that happened this year (see below), it didn't make sense to work aggressively on paying down my loans yet but I think we will be able to in 2017.<br />
<br />
<b>What else did I think would happen in 2016? </b><br />
<i>-Adele is going to start preschool somewhere, hopefully at a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education" target="_blank">Montessori</a> school. </i><br />
Yes! She is at a wonderful Montessori school that we love, and it is mercifully costing us less than her daycare.<br />
<br />
<i>-Jon has been working on some long-term projects that will hopefully start earning more money this year. </i><br />
Yes! He's published now, but we're still waiting on the first royalty check and it's really more a labor of love than a money maker. Another project that took a lot of time and energy this year should be much smoother sailing next year and more profitable too.<br />
<br />
<i>-We're planning a fun trip this summer with my parents to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. </i><br />
We did this and it was wonderful. We explored a different part of the country and it worked well for the five of us to travel together.<br />
<br />
<i>-There's a chance I might get to travel somewhere exciting for work for a few days, which I would welcome.</i><br />
Oh boy did I ever. I way underestimated this one. I went on TWO exciting trips before I left my old job and I've been on 3 trips to 3 different countries since I started in September. The recent travel has been a bit too much and I am looking forward to less travel in the immediate future, but I'm sure there will be at least 2 more work-related trips in the first half of 2017.<br />
<br />
<i>-If I do travel for more than a few days in a row this year, I think Adele will probably wean. </i><br />
Even with all of my traveling, she hasn't weaned. I'm fine with that.<br />
<br />
<i>-I don't foresee other big events or changes in 2016 right now, but I know that life can throw you a curve ball at any time. </i><br />
I knew there were decent odds that I might change jobs this past year, but when I wrote my goals we hadn't anticipated Jon make a big career change. We basically sent him back to school for a semester and took on debt to do it. Since we had excellent credit, we put the tuition on credit cards with 0% interest for 15-18 months. It was definitely a gamble, but the whole reason for sending him was so that he will be well-trained for jobs with much higher starting salaries. We put a couple of other big expenses on the 0% cards, including the aforementioned vacation with my parents. We unquestionably lived beyond our means this year, albeit in (mostly) calculated ways. 2017 should be the year of setting the balance straight (more on that in another post).<br />
<br />
The last noteworthy thing to happen in 2016 was that my grandmother passed away on New Year's Eve. It was not unexpected and she had been mentally ready to go for a long time, but it is still a big change for my family, especially my parents.<br />
<br />
I hope all of my readers are ready for a new chapter in your own lives in 2017. I am thinking about my goals and expectations and will post them soon. Cheers!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
Hope you are all celebrating with people you love. Stay tuned for more from me soon!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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<br />
I've spent a month now in my new position. I'm still swimming in names and acronyms and trying to find my footing. It's in a new field for me where I'm outside my comfort zone and expect to learn quite a bit. I'll get to travel a LOT more than in my last job—I have 3 big trips in the next 3 months! But the best thing about my new position is that it's temporary (1-2 years) and they expect us to make use of the time, connections, and opportunities to find our next career move.<br />
<br />
So I have this dream job that grew out of my last job. I can imagine all of these ways in which I could help expand and grow this movement and community that I'm really invested in. I think it would be personally satisfying and fun, but there's no one (that I know of right now) who can hire me to do this. Part of the task would be finding the funding to make it possible, which sounds stressful and insecure from a purely financial perspective. I'd be something like an entrepreneur, but more like for a non-profit (turns out <a href="http://www.kauffman.org/blogs/growthology/2015/03/six-ways-non-profit-entrepreneurs-are-distinct-from-traditional-entrepreneurs" target="_blank">non-profit entrepreneurs are a thing</a>). I wouldn't be starting something new, but I'd be trying to make an existing thing much bigger. I think I can do it, but I'm also slightly afraid of the amount of responsibility I would take on and the influence I'd have.<br />
<br />
There are two big ways in which I can leverage my current position to set myself up for my dream job. The first is by gaining a better understanding of the funding environment and opportunities. The second is to learn more about different organizational structures to determine what would be best to implement at the dream job. Additionally, I have the freedom and support to explore the broader community and make useful connections in other organizations.<br />
<br />
The dilemma I've had recently is that this is, in some ways, a very narrow vision for what I could do with my skills, especially considering all of the professional connections that I'll make in this new position. I'm afraid to some extent of pigeon-holing myself by not thinking more broadly. I know that my current job will open doors and likely lead to opportunities that I can't even imagine right now.<br />
<br />
Still, it's been a long time since I've had such a clear vision of what I want. When I decided to go to grad school, <a href="http://aspiringecologist.blogspot.com/2010/06/teaching-at-slac.html" target="_blank">my goal was to become a professor at a small liberal arts college</a>. I knew that goal might change, but the goal gave me something to aim for. Perhaps I should think of this the same way. The only problem is that I'll surely have to close metaphorical doors at some point on the road to my dream job or risk letting people down and hindering the movement rather than helping it.<br />
<br />
I hope the necessary vagueness of my descriptions still convey the essence of what I'm thinking through. It always helps me to blog it through. Suggestions welcome!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
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