Meetings of Two Sorts

Today was my first official thesis committee meeting, during which I presented my research project, gave some preliminary results, and let my committee members question me about various aspects of the study design.  Events like that can go either positively or painfully, but I have some good profs and I got supportive feedback and helpful comments, I felt like I handled the interrogation portion well (it was conducted fairly) and was really pleased with how the meeting went overall.

And tomorrow I have a meeting of a different kind: Match!  Going up for my monthly weekend visit to see The Boy, can't wait. We're celebrating my birthday as well, and this time around I will actually loosen up and allow it to be special (see last post for background).  Except he pretty much spoils me to the max all the time, not sure if he can possibly ramp it up in honor of birthday, but will be fun to watch him try. ;p

Long drive to get to him, though, 12 hours on the road, and I have some sleep debt built up, so this post shall be brief.  I wish I'd taken better care of myself leading up to this trip, because I feel like crap and am a bit worried that I won't be as much fun as I'd like this weekend.  I handled the last trip really well, though (although I was also doing better ed-wise leading up to that visit than I am now), and hopefully this one will go smoothly also, as far as dealing with being out of routine and such.

Great Expectations

It can't be real that my stomach has grown bigger and flabbier even as the number on the scale has gone down, right?  I really wish my head were screwed on straight.

I've been watching the series Breaking Bad (I'm only starting Season 2, no spoilers in comments please!), and really identify with the character Pinkman.  He had tons of opportunities and potential, but he got off on a bad track and now he's trapped and can't quite figure out how he got in so far over his head.

I had a little bit of a meltdown last night.  I hate birthdays and holidays, because there's such an expectation to be happy and fun, and I am so bad at that.  And thus I feel like a failure.  It wasn't a bad day, really, was ordinary, but because there is this implied sense that it should be extraordinary some how, and I wasn't comfortable with doing/allowing that, I felt really depressed and bad about myself.  I ended up breaking down crying on the phone with Match, bless his heart, and never really fully explained why.  How did a nice boy like him end up with a nut like me?

Dysfunctional moment of the day: Mom asked me to read her some calorie information from packages at the grocery store, because it was printed too small for her to see without her reading glasses.

Slight win of the day: having a high-ish calorie (even with nonfat milk, etc) drink at Starbucks, liquid calories are still a huge challenge/novelty for me.  It was damn good.

Annual Fail

I really stink at birthdays.

I just feel like such a failure at being a real person when my mom asks over and over again what I want to do, and I don't want to go out to eat, I don't want a cake, I don't want to go to a movie that interferes with my workout schedule, and I don't want anything that she really wants to give me to feel/show that she's a caring parent.

Incongruous Mix of Feelings

I'm back!!! Anyone still here?  Touched down just before midnight last night, still a little zonked and culture-shocked from being back stateside (ie adjusting to being around Americans again, I find us a bit annoying after I've grown used to being around people in my research country. although no offense to all my US readers, I am vastly overgeneralizing and have proportionate degrees of sleep debt and incoherence going on. I just get annoyed when people whine about what are really minor inconveniences when I just left a place where a tin roof  with not *too* many rust holes is a status symbol), but made it out with no illness or injury and lots of great stories.

Good news:
My trip was a HUGE success, my research is going better than I ever could have hoped.  I have fantabulous data results, am making connections in the country, improving my language skills, and having tons of incredible adventures/experiences.

Bad news was that my eating sucked while I was there, and I pushed way more than I needed to physically.  I didn't lose as much weight as I did on my trip over the summer, but that's mostly because it was a shorter trip, I think the rate of loss was about the same.  I wasn't there long enough for it to do a ton to me physically (although, seeing as how I never regained all the lost summer weight, a bit of lost fall weight put me below what I was when I returned from that last trip), but my head is in a very shakey place, I have such a hard time figuring out how to get back on track once I'm home, after I've shifted back into restrictive mode and proved to myself how little I "need" to get by on (which is a fallacy, because if I was getting what I needed I wouldn't be shedding pounds and feeling like a shit taco, would I?).

All that to say: today is an incongruous mix of feelings.  Extremely elated about my work, yet pretty damn disheartened and depressed at how I completely fail to handle something (food) that seems to come natural to so many people.

It's one of those "cry behind your sunglasses in the grocery store" days, and I'm just really, really tired of this.

Popcorn, Morning Texts, and Weekend Reading

A few random notes from the weekend:

-It made my day when the old lady I've befriended at the gym asked me to add her on Facebook.

-Over the last 24 hours, some member of my family has chosen to have popcorn for each and every one of the 3 traditional meals,  Meaning someone (Littlebro) had it for breakfast, someone else (Mom) for lunch, someone else (Cammy, lol) for dinner, etc.

-Match woke me up this morning with a text asking if we could play the "Things I Love About Cammy" game.

-Despite the fact that I've had 4 extra days in the country to get work done, I've mostly been finishing the 2nd season of True Blood and reading backposts on the Mental Floss blogs.

-It finally feels like fall outside! I'm afraid I'll miss the most beautiful part of the season while I'm on my trip, but oh well...back in time for the holidays at least.

-I have almost perfected a recipe for a protein powder muffincookiething.

-Poor G. has seen my suitcases sitting out and ready to go for days now and can't settle down, because he *knows* what that signal portends...

-I am disturbed and concerned by how dolled-up and mature the girls are that post on Littlebro's Facebook page.  Stay away from my innocent baby brother!  Wait, he's 15 now?  Holy crap.  Still think they look like they're trying to be too grown up.

-The new book put out by the Daily Show, Earth, is fantabulously hilarious, literal laugh out louds on almost every page.

-So far it looks like everything is a go with finally leaving for my trip as rescheduled, fingers crossed!

--It Happened!

So, as some of you may have noticed from my commenting activity on other blogs, I am not, in fact, out in the field right now.  Remember my conclusion in my last post that "shit happens"?  Well this is proof of point!  There were some last minute complications with transporting my equipment down to the site, so we were delayed a few days.

I was nowhere near as stressed as I thought I would be in that situation, with less than 24 hours notice of the change.  I held onto my cool the whole time, sort of surprised myself, and I know that in the long run this is just a blip that shouldn't affect any outcomes.

And actually, I'm kind of glad.  I have the weekend to spend with my family and talk to Match before I take off.  I was actually feeling quite sorry for myself on Thursday, because during the week I'm mostly here working from home alone, and I was getting major lonelies being so isolated in the days leading up to leaving everyone I love for several weeks.

So, that's the update, hope everyone is having a great weekend!

On the Road Again

It has been a CRAZY week, I leave at 7 AM tomorrow for my next research trip to Tropical Field Site.  This one really snuck up on me.  I think I have everything ready, but there is still definite trip anxiety going on.

Reasons for being anxious:

1) This is my most autonomous research trip yet.
Previously I've always had at least a professor or 2 with me, and last time there were 10 people total, almost all of whom had been there before.  This time, it's just me with one assistant, who has never visited the country before, much less our specific site.  My language skills are better than they were at the start of the last trip but still not as good as I'd like them to be.

2) Usual travel issues
Will my flight be cancelled/delayed, will my bags arrive (I'm carrying several thousand dollars worth of equipment), will I have to sit next to a kid that spills stuff in my lap, etc.

3) Food/exercise
I had a major relapse on the last trip.  I will be there for a shorter duration this time, not as much time to develop/sustain harmful habits, but I still need to try harder to do better....which brings anxiety about gaining weight.  My relapses have rarely, if ever, been conscious attempts to lose weight, they've just results from attempts to not gain gone wild.

Ways to deal:

 1) Even though I won't be supervised, the truth is that none of my professors have used the techniques that I'll be doing, and they were never hands-on with the work in the field last time.  So mostly I let them know what I'm doing and seek approval for making changes if needed (NOTHING ever goes exactly as planned).   So this shouldn't be that much different....but the feeling of flying solo is definitely more significant.  If something goes drastically wrong, chances are they couldn't have prevented/fixed it any better than me, it's just dread of coming back and having to deliver bad news to them if that does happen.
BUT they've both done a lot of tropical field work themselves, even if it's not using my exact methods, so in short they know and accept that shit happens and trust that I do my best to make the best of it...

2) See last sentence above.  Shit happens.  It can and probably will; I'll survive.  On the last trip, I a) was wait-listed on my 1st flight and almost missed it, b) my next connection was cancelled completely and I risked being stranded overnight, c) the next available flight landed only 20 minutes before my international flight left, nowhere near enough time to re-check in and do security and customs, and d) my luggage was left in the United States and I didn't get it for over 24 hours.  And I'm here to tell the tale!  In every situation (even item c, which involved major pulling of strings), things were worked out and I arrived safe and on time that night.

3) Food and exercise....I need to work on keeping my priorities straight and the big picture in mind.  Since it's just me and an inexperienced assistant, if I am not on top of my game, or if I get sick or hurt, the work just won't happen and not getting my data is the WORST thing that could occur on this trip.  So I have to make sure to do everything I can to avoid that, which includes fueling myself appropriately and not over-working my body with extra hiking and activity.
     I'll be on a much stricter timeline than over the summer, with less total days at the site, which will be a help.  I tend to use free time destructively, and so having fewer free days and afternoons to myself will probably be a huge help in keeping me on track.
   Also, during and immediately following my last trip, I was in intense turmoil over my relationship with Match.  As you poor people have had to read way too much about in recent posts, we've worked through tons of things and really cemented our relationship more firmly than ever over the last 6-8 weeks, and I am feeling extremely secure and confident about the situation now.  Last time involved a lot of life changes. I was leaving for the tropics, and when I came back I was moving to a different state, and while I was gone HE was moving to a different state as well, and putting us 10 hours apart.  We've gotten into the swing of this Distance Couple thing, though, and I trust him and us more than I ever really thought possible.
   I have packed a TON of supplemental food, because I don't tend to be comfortable with what they serve at the field station.  I have enough that I could probably make it off of just what's in my luggage, although I do eat some of what they give us.  But rice and fish heads for breakfast?  Hopefully even a non-ED person would understand me turning my nose up at that...anyway, I did pretty well with food on my December '09 trip, so I need to use that as a model and not be tempted to repeat the July '10 trip.

So those are the challenges.  I'm SO excited to be back on the ground and bringing back the crown jewel and purpose of my academic and professional life right now....DATA.  Gimme gimme, I wants, lemme at it.  Really itching to see the results of the work I did when I was there over the summer, it's like Christmas!  Even though I stress over these trips, I'm going down to do what I'm really passionate about, and wouldn't trade it for the world.

Also, we're going to a new part of the country with TOTALLY new habitat and wildlife, I'm really looking forward to that.  Considering what a ritualistic and routine-dependent personality/lifestyle I have, I actually really love adventure and seeing new places, so this is going to be super exciting. One of my least favorite things about not writing under my own name is that I can't show you the AWESOME pictures of where I work!

I'll miss my family, my dog, Match.  I won't have any phone or internet for weeks, and it's hard to be completely cut off from contact, imagining them going about their daily lives while I'm down there scrambling around in the jungle.  BUT I know that they will all be here for me when I get back, and in my experience the joy of reunions definitely makes up for difficult good-byes.

Which brings me to y'all!  I'm going to miss you, and really appreciate both the support you give me and, for those that blog themselves, the insights I am privy to from your awesome and thoughtful posts.  Don't forget me while I'm gone, love you muchly!

<3
Cammy