Scream Inside Your Heart.

Hi, I'm Kristan. Working on a PhD in Ed Leadership. Focusing on trauma & shame. I cook & paint a lot :) 

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It’s Friday! 

Did a long at-home yoga this morning and made a mango smoothie, so getting off to a slow but pleasant start. I’m playing the new T-Swift album while trying to ground/center myself and figure out what I have going on today. 

I’ve been dealing with creeping feelings of inadequacy for the past few days, and it’s slowing me down. Procrastinating/putting things off in fear of failing... y’all know the drill. 

So, today, I’m at least going to fake it till I make it. 

Finish draft of historical section of manuscript

Read completed draft of BT report; insert graphic place holders 

Maybe outline the article? 

A little prelim reading 

Keeping it small, because each of those things should take some time and anything else I add to my to-do list today will just be used to put off those tasks that really need to get done today. 

Heereeee we go. 

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My friend’s daughter just sent me a random, unsolicited picture of the Venus Flytrap she got at the farmer’s market, so that’s one of the purest things that’s happened to me in awhile. 

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I’m working on a couple of manuscripts today, and - as a PhD student who’s just starting to enter her second year - the imposter syndrome is real. How is it that I’m sitting in my lil at-home office that contains decor such as a painting of a goat and a Mulan movie poster, wearing a sweatshirt that reads, “My dog thinks I’m cool,” writing two papers with faculty?? Idk. 

But -- wallowing in it isn’t going to help me. 

It’s been raining, my window is open, coffee just got refilled. So I just need to write. And trust myself - tacky sweatshirt and all. 

Planning to spend the bulk of the day on these manuscripts. And maybe do a little reading later. Maybe on the front porch, with some tea (or I could get real fancy and have some kombucha). 

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I’ve not posted on here in quite some time, but -- I am back. 

I don’t really have the.... guts? motivation? general desire? ... to write forreal right now. I don’t want my words scrutinized by whomever comes across them (I do realize this is still public, but... this is different. I think.). 

So anyway, I’m coming back here to half journal / half post.

I’ve been traveling - got back last night (Sunday) - and the week ahead of me is the busiest I’ve had planned since the start of The Pandemic. For the first time since March, I broke out a planner. Made a to-do list. And I’m ready for it. My brain/body/soul/whatever is ready to work. 

I’ll share the to-do list here but I just have to say -- I went and looked back at some of my old to-do lists and what?? the? hell? Who did I think I was?! Like one had finishing a book, writing a book report, reading 40 pages of another book, and making pumpkin soup --- IN ONE DAY?? That’s not real, y’all. I didn’t do that. 

Today’s catch up day, so a lot of these tasks are smaller, but here’s what’s been done/what’s left: 

Unpack/clean up/start laundry

Make a list for the store (T will go to the store)

GSC zoom meeting

Sort emails/catch up on communication

Class prep: 

download a software

order book

Clean up garden

Send docs to J

Wrap up BT notes 

Pay some bills 

[ramyeonupdates]

{ #phdstudentlife } || source: my_phd_experience

[ohk4te]

january’s reminders to self:

watch how graceful your coffee is when you pour it in the cup. watch how it breathes. 

rest your hands together in your lap, palms up. your fingers are wondrous collections of muscles and lines. they want to clasp together, to warm up the tips. let them. you are everything you need.

i spotted a bit of green the other day, gently lifting beneath crusted snow. how are you here? i stopped to ask. how do you grow? it is negative twenty-seven. the green did not answer, but i think i will grow stubbornly, too. 

listen to the furnace roar lovingly to life. rest your toes above the vent. engage your abdominal muscles. feel your home love you as it provides support beneath and warmth above.

there is nothing prettier than the steam curling above your cup of tea, particularly if you place it on the window’s sill. 

sink happily into what you love. hermit there, if you must, but sink, happily. progress is not always upwards motion.

[scribbledwriting]

When you keep getting easily distracted while writing:

[study-with-kb]

Good Morning! It is dreary here! Have not seen the sun in days! 

I’m at that point in the semester, where I absolutely recluse. I’m tired. I want to sleep a lot. I want to read Harry Potter books under blankets and eat cookies. But I can’t, because I have several large papers to write. 

This is, I can almost guarantee, a product of me getting super excited when the semester starts and absolutely not having any balance. This semester was especially worse, because I started my PhD program, fell in love with a couple of research questions, and found that it was all I could talk about/think about/breathe about... for like 2 months. Then, November hit, and I crashed hard. I found that it is, indeed, not sustainable to talk about only trauma-informed education and toxic masculinity for months on end. Can’t do it. Gotta take a break. Climb a mountain. Read a (for-fun book). 

But, I can’t check out yet, so here’s what’s going to happen today. I’m seated at my table. I don’t have any GA work to do. It’s dreary, but we’re embracing it. Blanket across my lap. Coffee poured. Pumpkin-y candle lit. Curtains pulled back. The dreary weather is poetic and reflects the state of my soul, let’s write. 

Finish a draft of my paper on charter schools (7-8 pages of binge writing) 

Skim 5ish papers on toxic masculinity and feminist education

Review notes on foundational texts

Write an incredibly detailed outline, maybe even an intro

Make a discussion sheet

Finish 2 PowerPoint slides 

If time -- edit charter school draft?? We will see; at least send to friend for a peer editing swap

Run the Roomba

Clean up, do something nice for myself, may paint my nails a power color 

It’s going to happen! Today! Big energy! Let’s go! 

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Getting cozy this morning to help motivate me for a full day of reading and writing. I have so much to do, and the Midwest is in a state of early Autumn drear right now, so I'm grateful to be able to dive in to my work headfirst with warm coffee and a blanket.

I'm working with our department chair, whose in charge of a curriculum conference, which happens this week. So! The days ahead are busy. For today, here's the Hoping Desparetly to Accomplish List:

Finish Tinkering Towards Utopia (a book)

Finish first draft of book report

Read approximately 40 pages of Other People's Children

Skim articles 1 and 2

Finish my presentation for the conference this week

Go the store

Make pumpkin soup

Maybe just maybe get a work out in? We'll see.

It's easy to feel stressed/overwhelmed by everything happening this week, but I'm reminding myself that a year ago, I would have given anything to have a week filled with these things.

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I know I’m having a good day in academia, because I’ve had three Good Ideas 

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Me: God, that’s sucky. I wish people would just suck less. 

My Department Chair: You know, I’m glad you don’t use words like “sucky” in meetings. You’re good in meetings. 

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My husband: I'm sorry you couldn't sleep.

Me: It's okay, I just kept waking up and thinking about curriculum.

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I just spent approximately five minutes laying on my couch, staring off into space, vision clouded with despair, with no less than three research ideas swirling in my head. 

I have two research topics that have been well-developed and that I’m using for class. Another one that I’m presenting at an upcoming conference. And a fourth, yet to be developed topic, that I am hoping and praying can coincide with one of the previous three. 

Can someone please tell me why I didn’t choose the SAME topic or at least a similar one for all of my classes? 

I am literally confused about everything.  I have several running projects... and I know nothing. 

*insert manic laughter as a I grip my coffee cup here* 

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It's drizzly and cool, and I'm spending the morning with coffee and a blanket on my front porch, getting my reading done. It's a good Monday, friends.

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So, remember when I was really cute and organized and posting regularly about productivity in the month of August?

And then dropped off the face of the earth towards the end of August, seemingly never to post again? 

Yeah, full transparency...

I’m a first year PhD student, and it is kicking. my. ass.

I am overwhelmed with reading, my mind is spinning with research questions and ideas, and I feel permanently confused. I told my adviser yesterday that my brain looks like the tornado scene from Wizard of Oz, when all of the things are just flying past her window with no particular rhyme or reason.

He said that was okay.

Here’s the thing though- I am also loving it. Like I cried last week from stress, but also I can honestly say I am mostly happy every day. I feel intellectually stimulated. I have creative vibes flowing all through my body. People actually want to hear about my research interests?? Every day feels at least somewhat interesting, and I’ve met the best people, and, god, I just love it. I really do. 

I know I sound crazy here.

This last week I fell behind, because I was panicked about falling behind. I spent so much time trying to figure out how to organize my stuff, and what systems worked and what didn’t. Schedule reading time? Or no? How do I plot my research? Do I like to print my articles? Or should I save trees? 

But! It was not all for not. I honestly did figure out a few things I liked. So... maybe, just maybe, I can help save you some time. Here is what I liked:

OneNote for task lists; I know there’s some die hard Notion people on here (and maybe I’ll try it one day), but right now I have my life organized by notebooks and pages in OneNote and it is working for me!

Google Calendar; I’ve scheduled out reading blocks in my google calendar. I can’t do anything else during that time! It helps me get my head around how much reading I can actually manage in a day and also removes the guilt I sometimes feel when I’m not reading (we can’t read all day, every day, we’ll go crazy!) 

My writing group; I joined a writing group on Mondays, where we ring a bell, and everyone shuts up and writes for an hour; we can’t do anything else, and it’s been awesome. You can do this on your own. 

Mendeley; holy hell, Mendeley is a gift from the Lord that should be cherished. It’s a citation manager, but it is serves as your personal, virtual library. It’s free. It’s multi-platformed. I can read on my personal laptop, my work laptop, and my phone if I really need to. 

Quitting; I quit a side gig. I had to. All is well, and I can work for them again next summer. 

I just reblogged great advice from post--grad, but I want to reiterate.. give yourselves a break! I need to give myself a break! We are so badass for all we get done! Go us!

[post--grad]

hi friends, just 2 quick notes because ‘tis the season:

i love you

grad school is fucking hard. around september i start getting messages from first-year grad students who are in various stages of first-year panic–i’ve made a mistake, i can’t do this, everyone knows more than me, i don’t understand what i’m supposed to do, why did they accept me, i’m an idiot. few things here.

it’s okay if you are having a rough go of it. you’re not alone in that. if nobody’s told you that this is normal, here it is: this is normal. that doesn’t make it suck less, but it may be comforting to know.

nobody “does academia” naturally. we learn it at different stages, and it also looks different at different institutions. just because other folks seem to have a different mindset or approach to grad school than you do, this does not mean yours is incorrect or inferior. we all do it differently. that is a good thing. 

faculty are humans too. some of them are better teachers than others. don’t make someone’s bad teaching your fault. if you’re showing with a desire to learn, and you’re doing the work, you’re doing good. 

it is often a steep, steep curve. give yourself a break, be kind, and trust yourself to get there. i have been on grad admissions committees. we don’t make “mistakes”; nobody gets in accidentally. if you’re there, you’re there because they believe you can do it. it’s up to you to decide if you want to.

finally: it’s okay to hate it. that’s allowed. it doesn’t mean shit about you as a person, as an individual, as a human. discerning “i can’t do this” from “oh i straight-up dislike doing this” can be really hard!! especially when you are feeling both of them simultaneously. deciding that grad school is not for you does not mean you’re not smart, engaged, whatever. it means grad school isn’t for you. i promise you’re still a whole entire human being, and i promise everyone who loved you before will continue loving you after.

[study-with-kb]

Gradblr Challenge Update! Somehow Week 3?? 

I’m admittedly slacking a little on these. 

This week I’m officially starting work on campus, and classes begin next week. The past couple of days have been great- I met with my department chair and was shown to my (frankly randomly amazing) desk on campus. I’ve also gotten to meet some people. 

The “done” list from the past two days (Monday & Tuesday):

Met with  Dr. P

Organized my desk/switched out a computer

Taught an online class 

Data entry work

Attended professional development workshops (two of them)

Attended an orientation 

Emailed my adviser 

Finished reading an essay on Essentialism

Painted a second desk and a file cabinet  

Tidied the house up! 

Goals for the remainder of the week: 

Get the ball rolling on GA work for the semester 

Start making revisions to paper presentation - send to Dr. J

Data entry work (big ugh- but really, I must! finish! September! No choice!)

Read articles

1, 2, 3, 4

Summarize them for my own purposes?

Also maybe summarize this essentialism essay

Finally, (throwback from broader August goals) is the blog project gonna happen? Yeah? Create a strategy then, Kristan. 

I hope August has been as wonderful to you all as it has been to me <3