I haven’t felt like posting.

I kinda feel like I’m at a standstill. I’m a technician for a lab for the summer before I start my first year at A&M. I just do the same things every week. Then, I go home and take care of Colt, video with Chan, watch Netflix, and go to bed. I’m bored and anxious to move on. I want to move and get started on my PhD career.

I’m also feeling incredibly stressed out financially, and nothing bad is even happening. I’m currently making money, my bills are paid…I just have this fear that I’m going to do something to screw it all up and I’m going to drown in debt, my car will be repossessed, and I’ll be evicted. It’s completely irrational. I have Chan, friends, my family, Chan’s family…so many people who would help me out if I were to ever get in a bind and I still can’t calm down from it. That’s anxiety for you.

Further, I feel like I’ve been a bad dog mom lately. I haven’t been taking Colt on the long walks like I used to. It’s easy for me to slip back into just wanting to lay in bed all day, even though my depression has been getting a lot better. I think it’s just a side effect of me feeling sorta like I’m in limbo just waiting. I’m not seeing my therapist anymore, because of aforementioned finances, but I still have the medication, so at least my brain is mostly normal. Which brings up another point: what IS my normal? How long have I had depression and anxiety fucking with my brain? The depression I’d say started mid-way through Purdue, but the anxiety? I feel like I’ve had it all my life. Hell! In elementary, if I couldn’t finish my homework myself and required help from parents? I lost it. I got so angry I cried. So…what is MY normal? Do I have a baseline of normality? Is there a baseline anywhere, for anyone?

I’m getting too philosophical. Let’s move on. I’m finally under 200 lbs! Last I weighed myself, on Saturday, I was 196.5! I’m wearing a belt I bought on Black Friday 2013 again. I haven’t been able to wear it for a while. Actually, I’m close to being able to use the last notch on it before I have to either add notches, or get a new belt. Wee!

Colt is going into his kennel all by himself now! WITHOUT ME ASKING! We have a routine down when I get ready for the gym in the morning and when he sees me packing my bags, he goes in there and waits for his treats. #ProudDogMom

I miss Chan like crazy lately. He’s moving down soon and it seems like the closer it gets to him moving, the more I miss him. I think it’s reasonable but I certainly shouldn’t be getting sad like I do. Maybe I’m just too impatient and too excited that it makes me sad that it isn’t happening even faster. Who knows.

I just can’t even right now.

I’ve been quite obsessed with podcasts lately. I’ve listened to at least 24 hours of Dan Carlin talking about WWI (my boyfriend [Chan] is so totally tired of hearing me talk about the Great War) and probably 3 hours of history of Ghengis Kahn, as well as several hours on science things like color and memory.

Today I listened to one called Happier with Gretchen Rubin. I listened to the first two episodes and decided I was going to try her little at home tips to see if they’ll increase my happiness. The first bit was about “1 minute tasks” – things such as hanging up your jacket instead of throwing it in a chair or putting that dish in the dishwasher instead of the sink. I NEED THIS. I often describe my room as organized chaos because it’s just that…chaos. I lost my mailbox key yesterday and tore apart my entire room just to find them in a jacket pocket. So, I’m excited to see if I can make this a habit. Secondly, setting an alarm to go to bed. It sounded silly to me at first too, but, I need routine or my work/mood suffers.

As far as gyming goes, I have decided to go back to weight lifting 3x week and cardio 2-3x. Specifically, low intensity walking and then a couple rounds of some HIIT plus p90x ab ripper because I need to destroy my abs.

The weight lifting program is simple, and it comes from Chan, back to his high school football lifting days. MWF you have the 3 core exercises: squat, bench, powerclean and then 3 auxiliary exercises each of those days as well. For the main 3, you lift heavy with low reps and the accessory exercises are opposite: lighter weight with high reps. The first week you max out on squat, bench, and powerclean (each on separate days, don’t kill yourself) and then the next 4 weeks you do 70/75/80/85% of your max. It’s meant to build strength while the accessory/auxiliary exercises are for aesthetics.

(not me; also where’s the squat on that powerclean gurl? ASS TO GRASS. ASS TO GRASS.)

Further, this past week I only lost a half pound. Which sounds great and all but I’ve been losing about 2 pounds a week…and I ate badly probably all weekend. Pizza. IT’S THE DEVIL. Not really, but it’s super hard to stay eating healthy when those you’re surrounded by aren’t. Let’s be honest, it steals gains. Gotta say no, gotta get them gains. I’d like to have lost another 20 pounds by August. I can’t do that if I keep eating like crap on the weekends. UGH.

That’s okay though. Even if I did have one, two, three, however many bad days. That doesn’t mean I give up. I just gotta work harder.

Budgets are the bane of my existence.

In the STEM fields, graduate students generally get paid a stipend. Once a month. At the beginning of the month. We are probably the best paid graduate students of them all, which is scary to think about considering I feel like I’m always broke. My tuition & fees and health insurance are covered, so that’s a plus. But, if you don’t have a good budget plan setup, you’re probably doomed to failure like me.

I’ve overdrafted my account…again. At least the third time in my first year of graduate school. It shouldn’t be this hard to keep track of, yet it is. Maybe it’s because we’ve switched to the digital age and don’t actually see the bills leaving our hands. Maybe it’s because I’m 23 and am irresponsible or just that plain forgetful. Whatever it is, I’ve got to improve on it.

So far, I’ve found that having my bills automatically come out at the beginning of the month helps me realize how much money I actually have. And I’ve setup text alerts for when my accounts are under 25$. I have two accounts now; one for bills & one for “fun” money. In reality that fun money is actually for emergencies and groceries or gas. Joy. But I don’t have to have money to have fun or happiness.

You know why? I have other riches. Friends, family, and a boyfriend who love and care for me. I have a dog, who is a part of my world but to him I AM his world. I have a car, a roof over my head, and my health. I lift weights about 6 days a week. For fun. I have a job. I’m in school. I literally have everything I need, so why should I fret over money? What defines being wealthy or successful?

Imposter Syndrome, Grad School, and the Man.

I just want to point out in the beginning of this post that I know I don’t know everything, actually very far from it the older I get the more I realize how much I don’t know. Also, that I just have a lot of opinions and complaints that I need to get out there so this is essentially a public journal/diary. Now then.

Imposter Syndrome. What is that, you say? It’s soul-sucking, self-doubt-inducing, confidence-crushing bullshit. A more politically correct definition is this: “collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success” (Harvard Business Review). It’s funny because I have some close friends who experience it and I support them saying things like: “You definitely deserve to be in graduate school” and “You are very intelligent; if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here”. And I fully believe those statements. Yet, I feel the rampant chaos of imposter syndrome swirling in my brain a majority of the time. I think it’s much more prevalent in graduate students than they let on, but that’s probably because in my eyes, most people try to persuade the general population that they’re confident and they need no one’s help.

Grad school just amplifies the imposter syndrome effect quite frankly. I felt it while in college. Hell, I tweeted a popular meme during my graduation:

And it just keeps getting worse. Maybe of us experiencing it in graduate school aren’t nearly as confident as we let on, or maybe I’m just wrong in thinking that it runs wild through most grad students’ minds. But if I’m not, what does that say about graduate school in general? What does it say about our culture? To me, it screams that graduate school is a hostile environment meant to beat you down over and over until you think you can’t get back up again. And some of us don’t. But for those of us that do, why? I don’t know, maybe we’re brainwashed, maybe we’re sadistic and love the pain.

Graduate school, at least in college, is portrayed as this wonderful place where you collaborate and make awesome discoveries and contribute to the world. It’s sugar-coated, dipped in chocolate, with a nice bow on top. In reality, at least in my experience with a top tier research university with at least an undergrad population of 50k, it’s not that nice. Few professors seem to care about you as a person, they just care about their research and getting funding to do their research. Which I fully think they should care about, but if I’m committing 5-7 years of my life to have you as my mentor, I would hope you’d care about my education and well-being just a little bit.

Now, this could very well just be this school or this program or what have you as I know my friend had a very welcoming and helpful experience with a different department at our uni. Maybe large programs are the problem. A smaller department could focus more on fewer students’ needs and make sure they’re getting the help they need. Perhaps potential graduate students should be looking at smaller universities to do their grad work at. After all, it doesn’t matter where your Phd comes from as long as it’s an accredited university right? I doubt that. Everything is about politics nowadays. I came from a well-known research institute for my undergraduate experience, but others I know did not and they have definitely experienced “school-discrimination” just based off where they got their bachelor’s degree. Why would that stop in graduate school?

The Man. This is just a rant I have about general public education. I think it’s terrible. As I’m sure many hundreds/thousands/millions what-have-you’s do. This is probably entirely based on the fact that I am one of those few who don’t fit into the cookie cutter learning type of lecture-listening. Thankfully, I figured this out waayyyyy before I got to graduate school, but still. There are those unlucky students who never figure it out and are setup to fail. I realize that the public education system is just doing what fits the majority of the population but how many Einsteins, Newtons, Poes, deGrasse Tysons, Shakespeares, Dickinsons, etc are we missing out on because we don’t have anything to cater to the others who are gifted yet don’t learn in the traditional style?

Brotein fits my Macros.

I moved about 1100 miles away from all my family, friends, and my SO to attend a graduate school I wasn’t sure of and tried to back out of at the last minute. In college, I had already been seeing a therapist for anxiety issues and stopped after I graduated. When I came to graduate school last fall, everything became a gazillion times worse. I developed severe depression and anxiety with panic attacks that sent me into a hyperventilating frenzy. I gained 25 pounds on top of my already ~40 pounds of being overweight. I finally got help for the depression/anxiety, started seeing a therapist, medication, the whole sha’bang. Even decided that my current school wasn’t the one for me and reapplied for another better fit knowing I’d have to start the grueling process all over. Then it was time for me to tackle the ~60lbs I had gained that was weighing me down, literally.

I use IIFYM and have been since I started seriously lifting on March 31st this year. I wouldn’t be seeing the weight loss I have without focusing on meeting my macros, cutting out processed foods, weighing my food out on my scale, and basically just eating clean.

I try my best not to eat anything with added sugars, I’ve been doing the whole vegetarian thing for about a week or two now, and just doing what works for me. I think that’s the most important thing in any healthy lifestyle. Doing what works for you. I’ve tried Atkins, Weight Watchers, high protein/low-no carb…Alli, Adipex…pretty much anything. You just have to find what works for you.

As for lifting, I couldn’t have gotten into the routine without one of my close friends who I’m going to dearly miss when I move. Thankfully, my new graduate school is only a couple of hours from the old one, so I can still come visit. I started out doing Strong Curves with her, and after we finished probably doing about 6 or so weeks of it, we got bored and have started doing routines we just kind of feel like doing. Today, I tried powercleans for the first time in probably 6 years and I forgot HOW AWESOME THEY ARE. I LOVE POWERCLEANS. I need it on a shirt, seriously. I’m replacing my deadlifts with powercleans…and deadlifts are were my favorite lift. But yeah, so, squat/bench/powerclean MWF + some accessories (haven’t decided on those yet) then Tuesday/Thursday are prob arms & back days…AND SATURDAY IS LEG DAY. Because Leg Day is bae.

Kia Ora!

My name is Misha. I’m a 23 year old graduate student working on my PhD in Biochemistry. Just finished my first year and am transferring to a different uni to do it all over again.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m starting this blog f0r several reasons, whether anyone reads it or not; It helps me organize my thoughts and feels, which is important, especially in a stressful as fuck environment like graduate school.

Secondly, I’ve been eating healthy (again), working out (again), and losing weight (again). I say again because like many millions of people on Earth, I have tried pretty much any diet/weight loss fad there is. And I just gained the weight back. Why? Because there isn’t an easy fast fix. It takes dedication, discipline (that I don’t have much of), and motivation. I’ve lost 20lbs in the last 2 months because of weight lifting and “cutting” (eating less calories) slash meeting my Macros!

Lastly, as kind of a hobby to keep myself sane throughout grad school. It’ll kinda be fun to see how much I grow during my journey, right? We’ll see.