My brain is getting a delicious rest. I've read a lot, but nothing about agriculture and nothing academic. Much is related to mental health, and I may need some more "junk food" type books. Aaaaaand that's my super short update.

...Back in MN at last, enjoying friends and taking a break from work.

A number of people who gave moved away from the area are back for the holidays. One surprising thing is to hear that everyone who has moved away found it more difficult than expected, and many eventually want to move back to the Twin Cities. Travel is fun and exciting, but home is home.

We've also been assessing where we are in our lives. It's disappointing (but unsurprising) how most have dropped their ideals and taken the narrow, conventional but minimally fulfilling path. In some ways, I've taken that conventional path, but in another way--school was always my skill and I had never thought that I wouldn't take advantage of that skill. Despite learning about pesticides and other land-destroying techniques, I'm completely devoted to the agroecological movement, to put humans back in a better balance with everything surrounding us.

Despite feeling the pull, there are still holdouts--people who continue to travel or find alternative ways of supporting themselves. It's highly admirable and the only way to be happy oneself in the long run, I think--you can never run away from what you truly want. You can't truly leave yourself.

I went to the library today, so excited that I can start to read some books that have nothing to do with school! A search my whole life has involved understanding why some people think so differently from me, or how other people's experiences can be so different. Over the past year, I've learned why people think industrial agriculture is a good idea (that took a lot of open-mindedness and research to understand). Now I have a book about borderline personality disorder and another about addiction (both memoirs). I suspect for those things, the difference is less one of viewpoints and more a matter of genetic susceptibility. People have different weaknesses and different things that make them feel better.

Anyway, they shouldn't be too academic. Hooray! Though I'd love to read the linguistics textbook a friend gave me last year. My mind is hungry for different experiences.: the lazy, TV watching sort as well as the more stimulating sort.

I read part of The Little Prince today. I love that book so much. It is simple and truthful.
"What is essential is invisible to the eyes."
All the stories about grown-ups obsessed with their silly games--accounting, owning all the stars, owning what cannot be owned. And his rose looks just like any rose, but is unique because he has loved it for so long.

Nothing exciting here. Vacation in less than a week! Maybe I'll be able to pull interesting things out of my head after some rest and a change of scenery.

We finally have some snow that doesn't melt right away! It was too warm for a nice dusting to stay. I love it.

My work is taking me a lot longer than I had hoped. I keep learning that most things are harder than they seem, especially anything that requires any kind of expertise. That goes for anything from dance to painting to making simple clustered stacked column graph in Excel. I guess that makes me appreciate almost anything more--it takes so much work to do anything decently.

I'm getting back to reading the Yoga Sutras, currently about ignorance. The idea for acting right (right behavior) is that it will happen if there are no false ideas. Wrong behavior will naturally fall away as yoga practices that drive away ignorance are followed.

statistics on the brain

I'm finally finishing a first run of all of my data! It was a steep learning curve for me, but I feel like I broke a certain part of my brain down--a barrier that never would have let this information get through normally. The specific data point is grouped with the others, and if it's normally distributed (if not, a standard transformation may make it so), a model can be used to describe the overall pattern. Anything you can think of and measure can be accounted for in the model, and you can test to see if your model is accurate. Response=treatment factors. So, you have have something like:

Stress level (measured in terms of perceived stress on a 1-10 scale) = Inborn resilience (genetic/karmic) + sleep level + exercise level (could increase or decrease it) + sleep*exercise+ sleep*genetic+ exercise*genetic+ sleep*exercise*genetic+ [other factors and interactions with those factors].

If you have precise measures for everything, you can see if there is any effect from the factors on the response (stress levels). (I wouldn't really trust anything that relied on self-reported measures though, such as the "happiness" reports). You also account for interacting factors (sleep*exercise; exercise may be less effective if sleep-deprived and sleep may be lower quality if exercise is too low, as an example). Boring but I am surprised that this sort of calculation can be done at all.

I'm not generally big on poetry, but Rumi is an exception:

“I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting
to know reasons, knocking on a door.
It opens.
I have been knocking from the inside!”

I feel good because I'm finally starting to be able to do my statistical analysis without feeling completely clueless. It will make next year that much easier to complete. One of my peers will be getting his MS in August (he has to do it quickly since he's on a MS/PhD track) and another PhD student just told me she will be dropping to just an MS. When life happens, school doesn't move for you. So she's sticking to the Master's and is happy with that. It's interesting to see all the different choices people make.

A lot of people here told me I would change my mind and get a PhD--to be fair, some had actually done just that. But I knew in my gut there was no good reason for it and so my decision has stayed the same. It's not short, anyhow--two years is a long time if you're in it. Anytime I think, "That went by so fast!" I remember what it was actually like to be there--it was never so fast.

I am analyzing all my data from the summer and it's reshaping my mind, forcing me to understand a new way of thinking that never made sense to me before. Math and science concepts have always needed a few years to settle in my mind before they made sense to me as general principles, but this is that process speeded up. I think I'm struggling so much more than others because my mind doesn't work this way naturally. I have to remember that many people never understand these things, so it's normal that it takes time.

Over the next week and a half, I'll finish this up and have my presentation ready for a conference after New Year's. It will be so good to be able to whatever I'd like. It wouldn't be so bad if it made sense to me.

The edge.

I finally solidified by travel plans for home and I'm very happy because it is two whole weeks! I couldn't stand another four day trip, where I hardly got to see any friends and had to get up at 8 am to write. This body is not meant to run like that. That, on top of the "why don't you get a PhD" comments was pretty insane. Thank god I don't think I have to keep postponing my life for... I don't know what. Enough of that!
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I've been thinking a lot about the idea of being pushed beyond one's edge. There are a lot of things that can happen when we go beyond what we thought we could do. If you go a day without food, nothing happens. You lose a couple pounds in food weight and glycogen stores and it all goes back when you eat again. If you get chased, you can run a lot farther than you thought you could. If you have a baby, you survive on few hours of sleep for a long time. So we can do all these things, if we push past our psychological barriers. Is that a good thing?

Generally I value the concept of the yoga "edge", where you go as far as you can, differentiating between physical and psychological barriers. Go past a psychological barrier, have a breakthrough (even if it's just a mm). That's the "good" pain. Go past a physical barrier, damage yourself needlessly. That's the "bad" pain that comes from not listening to oneself.

The barrier between these two categories can blur. If I'm very, very tight, my muscles will be tighter than usual. It is psychological, but if I try and push myself to where I normally go, I will hurt myself. The muscles are too tight and ignoring that doesn't change it.

I thought (hoped is more accurate) I would learn a lot from being pushed past my edge in grad school. No, no, no. Nothing is learned from going past your edge but to listen to yourself. This body and mind of mine need lots of rest of breaks that should be respected if it wants to work well. Otherwise it just gets crazy and unhappy. Other people can go farther than me, but it has no bearing on me and what I can do. Conversely, at my old job I was bored out of my mind. It wasn't enough. But I exercised a lot, which felt great, and balanced it with sleep and rest and regular meals. So, I respect the edge and go to it but not beyond.

Classes ended and I hardly noticed, because there is enough to do. The thought of all there is to do is more paralyzing than actually doing it, but knowing that doesn't change it for me. It just adds another thing to the list: 1) overcome paralyzing anxiety over all the things I have to do.
On the other hand, I have more time, since I'm not in classes. I am being sure to enjoy that. Last night, we went to a party and they had a video game system with a game called "Rock Band" (I think). It was fun, and reminded me how much I miss playing an instrument. I only ever played the cello, and they're pretty expensive to own for a casual hobby. I have to think about how else I can integrate that into my life. The big secret about playing or making music is that it is *much* more fun than listening to it. Even a song you love, is that much more enjoyable for the person creating it (assuming it's not a worn-out pop song, I suppose). I do have a djembe that I could learn how to play sometime... would be a riot.

R has been networking a lot lately, meeting new people with similar interests; mainly, the "green" industry. It's a bizarre scene. Plenty of people are just in it for the money, some are really into it and rightfully cynical, others are so naive about the opportunities that they fail to see how many will cut corners for a label. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out, in general. Will it make any sort of impact, in this age of destruction? Is something better than nothing? Or are the greedy corrupting whatever is left? I hope some good comes out of it.

grades

One thing I have learned from being involved in grading students, is that there is truly a randomness to grades. They don't reflect how hard-working somehow is, they reflect how savvy and/or smart they are. For certain students, it is a measure of how hard they have worked. But there are so many different factors that I hardly see the point. A B for one person could mean something completely different for someone else.

fun facts

Sleep burned off a lot of stress last night. I feel really good and a lot of my mixed feelings from yesterday are gone.

So, a fun list! I learned today:

• Strawberries are from the Americas.
• Pineapples are from South America.
• Most spices are from Asia, but pepper-based spices are from the Americas. (not black pepper, but the fruit)
• Peanuts are from South America.
  
• Beans, rice, chocolate, corn, potatoes and tomatoes are from the Americas (this is more commonly known, but a nice list).
• "Kellog recommended that his patients who were "suffering from vegetarianism" eat the peanut butter." From here. Very funny!
  

Things will be getting more in balance soon. I am also getting a little better at all this, which makes it easier. I got up early a few days ago to finish a literature review for the intro of a paper, and it wasn't a big deal. I'm not going to be overly optimistic, but anything is easier after doing it multiple times.