With a door.

As of Monday, we moved into a new building at work, and I now officially occupy an office, with a door!

(It's still a little sterile at the moment.)

After many years of shared space, and 4 years here of having half a cubicle in a room with 9 other people, this is SO MUCH BETTER.  I think I'd generally been pretty good at blocking out the ambient noise when I needed to, but I'm amazed how much easier it is to concentrate when I'm not in a relatively small room filled with several other people's conversations and conference calls and typing and breathing and... okay you get the point.

I'm still getting used to the layout of our new space, but I may have already done previously unheard of things like shut the door for an hour to finish up a presentation I was stressed about.  In my past life, someone would always manage to interrupt at just the wrong time.  Tomorrow, conference call in my own space without disrupting anyone.  I may not be out of the cubicle farm forever, but for now I am enjoying my new walls.

And yet somehow all I can think of is this:

The first harvest.

Seven beans!

You may think seven green beans is nothing to write home about, but since only a couple of weeks ago all my garden's plants were tiny, yellow, and dying, I'd like to celebrate the fact that I was able to nurse some of them back to some semblance of health.   (After I almost killed them in the first place.  Hmm... Münchausen, anyone?)

Let's just say 2011 hasn't been my best ever start to vegetables.  But, I think I will be able to salvage a few beans, peas, tomatoes, and maybe some beets and carrots this summer.  Don't worry.  I'll keep you posted.

Some things never change.

I was sorting through some old photos the other day, and had to laugh a little at these:

Yes, sleep is much better than play.

Why get someone else do something when you can figure out how to do it yourself?

Although, according to many photos I apparently rarely wore shoes as a child.  So, that's different.  

But, I like this one:

Aren't the 1980s wonderful? 

The five year plan.

Probably about 10 years ago, my mom made some off-handed comment along the lines of "well, five years from now you'll be married, anyway, maybe with a kid"... and from that moment on, it became legend. The "Five Year Plan", it was dubbed (I, of course, never being one to make something out of nothing).  This became a regular source of teasing my mother. Especially as the years ticked away. I even had roommates who used to ask me after my weekly phone call home for the update on "the Plan". What year was it in now?

In reality, I've hesitated to ever have much of an actual five year plan. As if having a five year plan was somehow a commitment that would require my life to turn out exactly that way.  I was talking to my supervisor at a recruiting event the other week, and the subject of five year plans came up... this being a common interview question. It doesn't have to actually work out that way, she said. But you should have something to say. Some idea at least of what you're working toward. Chances are something else will come up along the way, and that's fine. You just adapt.

Well, considering the "Five Year Plan" has not materialized as initially laid out (even though it was never actually laid out), I realize that makes perfect sense. The trouble is, I'm a bit too literal. Most of the time, I can't even commit to a favorite color, ice cream, movie, or book. My favorite answer? It depends. Lame, I know. But, it does!  Regardless, I know that's true for everyone, and no one actually cares if it is literally your favorite. It's just something you say. And it might be different the next time someone asks. And that's okay, too.

All of this is to say, I've been thinking a lot over the past several months about where my life is headed and what I want it to be. Maybe a bit neurotically at times. But, without any significant impending life decisions on the horizon, my life is pretty stable and, I worry, sometimes stagnant.

While I may struggle to pick favorites, I am willing to say that A River Runs Through It has been on my bedside table for at least a month now... reading and rereading passages I could probably cite by memory at this point.    I don't have any good reason to feel such nostalgia for the book -- I grew up in the suburbs and I've only ever fished once or twice... with bait (gasp).  I think I read it for the first time in high school, and I don't recall if that was before or after I watched the movie. I mean, this might have been motivating, right?  :)

But, I think it one of the most beautifully and lovingly written books I've ever read. Published when the author was 73 (his first book, after a career of teaching literature at the University of Chicago), it's the type of book that could only be written by an old man. One who had already lived and reflected on a lifetime of love and loss.

Maybe because I'm still moving forward in my own story, I find sometimes that it helps me to think about what I'd like it to look like on the back end.  A main theme of the book is of the redeeming power of mastery:

"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful, even if it is only a floating ash."

On the one hand, the book posits, pure talent is something special, but is innate; the truly gifted come that way:

“At that moment I knew, surely and clearly, that I was witnessing perfection. He stood before us, suspended above the earth, free from all its laws like a work of art."

But even so, expertise can be learned through practice and dedication:

"My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things - trout as well as eternal salvation - come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy..."

"One reason Paul caught more fish than anyone else was that he had his flies in the water more than anyone else. "Brother," he would say, "there are no flying fish in Montana. Out here, you can't catch fish with your flies in the air."

That's perhaps the comforting part to the perfectionist in me, most of my life being much less than pure talent.

I'm not sure that puts me any closer to a five year plan, but at least I can start to recognize areas in my life that need a bit more mastery.  And, where I haven't actually put in much effort.  It's the practice and dedication part that is the challenge.  Unfortunately Netflix is sometimes a bit more appealing...

Viva la electricity.

After a big storm in Atlanta this week, and several downed trees in the neighborhood, I was without power at my house for a couple of nights.  What to do? No TV or music. No cooking or baking without the stove. No internet. Cell phone almost dead without the ability to charge. No hairdryer after a morning shower. Assembling what I could for meals with the contents of my rapidly warming refrigerator.

The first night was spent more worried about the raging storm outside (and whether those large, violently swaying trees in my yard were going to remain upright) than being cut off from my usual routines.

The second night was quiet without the storm... no humming of appliances, no option of having the TV on in the background or music playing from my laptop (with its now-empty battery). It was also very dark. I guess I don't generally recognize how much ambient light is generated from modern conveniences -- clock on the microwave, charging cell phone, etc. I did some dishes by candlelight, and then read a book by flashlight for a little while before going to bed early.

All in all, it was lovely.

(For 24 hours, anyway. Of course, when I woke up in the middle of the night and saw my flashing clock and realized the power was back on, I may or may not have checked my email... not because I was expecting anything, just because I could.)

No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks.

Four years ago I was in a state of panic, just a couple short weeks before defending my dissertation.  It took me several more weeks after that to settle down and realize I was actually done.  No more school!

While it's true that I don't miss being a student (after going straight through my life's formal education -- 23 consecutive years of being a full time student!), I did always think I'd go back to academia after a brief stint at CDC.  Well, I'm still at CDC with no plans or real desire to make a change any time soon... and the longer I stay the harder it probably will be to go back.

The one thing I have missed about not being at a university, though, is teaching.  If you'd told me that even a decade ago, I wouldn't have believed it.  My mother is a teacher, my sister is a teacher, but I never really thought it was for me.  So, I was surprised during my second year of grad school to discover that I actually liked teaching.  And specifically teaching epidemiology.  I was even more surprised that after teaching the same cycle of classes for four years in a row I wasn't bored with them.

Recently I started co-teaching an introductory epidemiology course for the fellows and junior staff in our Center at work.  It's pretty informal, and I felt a little rusty at first, but lately Thursday afternoon has been the part of my work week I look forward to the most.  My friend Sara sent me a link to an article she read about epidemiology, and as I've been sitting here reading the chapter for this week's class, it reminded me how cool it can be.

This week, causal inference!  Sounds exciting, no?


(Also, this one always makes me smile:)

The others.

My parents were in town for a visit this week, and my mom talked for days about some article she read in the Mormon Times last week. After meeting my friends on Sunday, she promptly looked it up online and forced me to read it. (I'm not quite sure what that says.)   While it isn't exactly the experience of my youth -- I kept my mouth shut -- I can relate, given my formative years in the midst of Mormon culture:

Holding on to the 'others'

I was a good kid. I followed the rules, I worked hard, I got good grades, and importantly, I didn't talk back (...well, to people who weren't related to me, anyway). I was generally well-respected by leaders and peers at church, but not very close to any of them. I got along well with the few adults who themselves used to be nerdy kids, but otherwise I don't think anyone quite knew what to do with me. I didn't look or dress like they did. I was more interested in books than shopping or sports. More interested at the age of 15 in talking about what I might want to study in college than what my wedding would look like. Wedding dress fashion show for a Stake activity? Are there really not other life/social skills that might be more important for teenagers?

In the grand scheme of trials and angst, you're thinking, that is not a big deal. I agree. So, the rational part of me would have a hard time explaining how it could have been as painfully lonely as it was.

Also, I had questions. Lots of them. Consequently, I struggled to express myself with the certainty that was expected of the "faithful", "chosen generation". But, I was also too shy to ever bring it up and attract confrontation. When younger, I spoke up in Primary or Sunday School because no one else would, but after a while, I just stopped talking. It only make me stick out more.

I can't really explain, especially to those not of our faith, just how much of your life is encompassed by membership in such a tight-knit community. We don't really do casual. Now that I'm older, and have some life experience I'm struck by how much collective effort of that culture was spent on (a) trying to define with exactness what a good person was supposed to be like, and then (b) trying hard to fit that mold, and/or (c) trying hard to at least make it look like you did.

It wasn't really until I moved to Boston after college that I finally started realizing it was okay to be different and still have a meaningful place the church. And that, heck, I wasn't even really all that odd. (An old roommate used to call the Boston singles' wards the Island of Misfit Toys).

The saddest part to me is this: there are probably more people who feel like they're the ones on the outside than not. It's easy to think you're the one feeling out, and look around at everyone else seemingly having a grand old time. But that's not the reality. I think confidence is much less frequently the motivator than insecurity.

So why is it that we pay a lot of lip service to the idea that everyone has different gifts, but less to the reality that in a world of people from different backgrounds/interests/cultures/talents, there might just be more than one good way to talk/think/feel/act and still be True. As the author says, "It's no surprise that middle- and high-school culture usually treats young people with these virtues as if there is something wrong with them for not being like the "normal" kids — but LDS culture should be a haven for them."

It's harder and more vulnerable than it seems to open yourself up and just be who you are, however minor those differences may seem. We all want to be appreciated, and recognized, and valued. "There's more than one way to lose sheep." Basically, if you don't find reasons to value someone and their own unique contributions and perspective, someone else will. So, if we practice what we preach, it should be us.