This topic has  been on my mind, partially because it is a part of my research, partially because it is my life in a lot of capacities. Grad school is a weird kind of workplace and like any workplace, you may not love all the people who surround you. Through my time in grad school (both times), I have been acquainted with sycophantic people, competitive people, insecure people, grandiose self-promoters, obsequious people, people who put the “I” in team and forget everyone else, and so on. Often times, those traits are related. In some ways, I have sympathy and even empathy. However, at the very least, these people can be obnoxious to be around. Sometimes, they can be quite draining or harmful to your mental states. I’ve talked to a handful of people who even have had ideas stolen by people who seemed insecure.

I found this article to be quite useful, because my own navigation is very much a work-in-progress. Personally, I disengage with people I feel affect me negatively or I get bad vibes from. By disengage, I won’t be rude to them but I won’t go out of my way to talk to these people.

On a more positive look, I actively engage myself with people I genuinely like. Those people to tend to be “real” in that they are sincere and genuinely interested, proportionately proud of their accomplishments, humble, and kind. The other big help is to have a mentor or several mentors to talk to, as well as classmates who can commiserate. You have to keep it on a professional level but having those people in your life is important for guidance or an ear to listen to you.

Because I’m fairly young (approaching 27 years of age in 2 days), I am very much interested in how everyone else navigates this world. If my future career aspirations come true, I will be in an environment where working with others is inevitable and by the numbers, I am likely not to love everyone I encounter.

I *think* I had mentioned in a post awhile back that my long-term boyfriend and I had ended our relationship. That has opened the possibility of dating and one or two people have been inquiring about that part of my life.

Being in grad school and having no interest in using online dating services (sometimes, I can surprisingly be a luddite) poses an interesting challenge of dating. Grad school by itself is stressful and time-consuming, not optimal for dating. I’ve mentioned earlier that most of my classmates are much older than I; for me, I think being relatively in the same age bracket is important. Similarly, my social group (Middle Eastern dancers) are largely the same age and it’s not exactly the place one goes to find someone to date. Grad school also isn’t exactly the best dating environment; people are very invested in their work and it is a professional environment.

While I’m not so relationship-centric that I need one to survive, I think it would be nice. I have no good solutions on how to handle the dating aspect at this point, but I remain optimistic.

I hope every Middle Eastern dancer gets to do something related to it. I myself am working on playlists for things I want to work on.

The past month I’ve talking to many people about grad/professional school and goals and the like. Everyone I’ve talked is at various stages of degrees, from undergrads to almost finished PhDs.

One conversation in particular inspired this post; someone was interested in completing a program because of the end result: a doctorate.

I’m not convinced that is a good reason to do anything. At this point, I think readers know I was heavily invested in physics and went over to education. I’m in education not just to earn a doctorate but because a doctorate will allow me to do the kind of work I’d like to do someday for a career. I also immensely enjoy my program overall. Despite the fact my life is busy and can be stressful, the thing is it isn’t that bad honestly. Sure, it would be nice to hang out more, have more time to dance, etc. but I enjoy my work, I think it’s worthwhile, and it will hopefully allow to have a career I want.

If I were in physics again, even though I miss physics, I would not have my heart in the work. The end result of having a PhD in physics wouldn’t be worth it, and I’m not sure if I’d be happy with my line of work necessarily.

With anything, you have to figure out why you want what you want in a very honest way. I have known people who have Ivy League aspirations for no reason but the name. Those schools carry cache and are good schools, but I think finding the right fit makes the most sense (I also note the Ivy Leagues are not necessarily top of every field). If the Ivy League or having a PhD fits your aspirations in a real way, by all means, attend and go if you are accepted. However, if you’re doing these things for a name or a few letters after your name, I would recommend re-evaluating what you’re doing and why. Graduate programs are not a walk in the park, and you have to at least enjoy, if not love, your work.

This isn’t to say close yourself off to grad school for all eternity but in my opinion, you have to really want it to complete the program and maintain some happiness. Even if the degrees are a short period of time, they can still be mentally taxing. Additionally, if there is research projects or theses/dissertations, they may not go according to schedule and add even more time invested in the program.

Readers out there: what do you think?

Finishing off my last finals (hopefully ever) feels strange. While work certainly hasn’t ended, the amount has substantially decreased. It felt odd this evening to have more free time. Odd but good. As much as I’ve enjoyed taking classes, I’m inevitably glad to be out of classes.

Beginning research full-time is going to be an interesting change of pace. A welcome change of pace but interesting. I’m hoping my research support group stay together, because already, I miss the interaction that occurs in class.

Subject says it all. Finals is halfway finished for me in that I’m halfway finished with my final work.

Looking forward to a slight technology detox. With hiring for one of my jobs and transitioning to research full-time, I’m not sure if I could take an entire day away.

I’m closing out the last of my graduate school classes. It has been a fun ride in many respects, and I’ve read some fantastic things, had some great conversations, met lovely people, but I’ve been feeling a bit restless. I enjoy learning but there comes a point where I want to do more than write papers that no one but the professor will read. Make some kind of positive mark on the world, so speak.

The end or rather, the new beginning, will be strange just because I go into research-mode full-time. When I was working on my master’s, save for the summer, I never worked on research full-time. If anything, it’ll be nice to take a break from the world of grades, relatively firm due dates, and constant reading. Not saying that the next 2 years will be a walk in the park or be without due dates or reading but I think it’ll be different.

For my non-TAing part-time job, we’ve been in the midst of hiring graduate students to work in high school classrooms alongside a teacher. Being there through the interviews is fun. The interviews are thankfully low pressure and the program attracts quality candidates. The interviewing process does drive home the points about being prepared, showing up on time, and being genuinely interested in the job.

Recently I began to incorporate 5-10 min. of practice on various dance things in my day. Ideally, I’d give myself an hour but well, time is a precious commodity. I figure the short practice can easily turn into a long practice and if it doesn’t, I don’t feel discouraged. So yesterday was veil, today is sagat and zills.

Sagat are different from zills. My now tired hands can tell you that. I learned zills, which are generally two-slotted and made in a very different process than sagat. They’re one-slotted and have round elastic vs. the flat elastic. They’re much heavier than my zills and require a different technique to play. It is almost like starting over with finger cymbals.

So why am I interested in them? They can produce a wide-range of sounds that zill cannot.  Even though most Arabic style dancers do not perform while playing sagat, they’re part of the the history and do bring something extra to the performance. My particular interest is to better my understanding of the music and they’re fun to play.

The only place I know of that you can buy sagat is through Yasmin of the Washington, DC area. She and Artemis Mourat produced two CDs, one on zills and one on sagat. Great resources for those working on these skills. I wish they would release a DVD on playing both but particularly sagat. I suspect finding someone to teach sagat is much more difficult than someone who can teach zills. A DVD cannot replace a teacher but would be quite useful.

I hope over the summer to become more competent with playing sagat or at least not have such tired hands!

As I close out the semester and start to focus even more so on research, I’ve been focusing on preparing for working at home. It is a kind of fun project. I’m not much of a decorator so it is challenging on that end but I’ve been taking the time to organize my desk and figure out what, if anything I may need. The first step has been to determine what I have and what I need, as I do not want to waste money or purchase things that I simply do not need.

So far, I’ve purchased a fireproof, waterproof lock box (something I should’ve owned for personal reasons) to store my data; the box is quite nice but difficult to open unless you put A LOT (I sit on it) of pressure on the top. Because my desk (Ikea) is badly worn and my foray into wallpapering it has been a failure, I went back to the cloth I had over it. However, the cloth isn’t conducive to using a mouse so I need a mousepad.

I’m hoping the extra effort to make my workspace nice will help keep me productive this summer through my dissertation completion. When I’m finished really cleaning up the space, I’ll post photos