Shooting for the sky

This semester has been fun. Really, really fun. In fact, I tend to have "weekend hangovers" on Mondays... not just the kind that resulted from a few too many at Oktoberfest in Leavenworth this weekend, but the kind that you get from not working for two days and then coming back to work realizing you "could have" done so many productive things.

With friends like these... HOW DO YOU GET ANY WORK DONE!?

I tend to have this feeling after almost everything I do, I guess it is the (very small bit of) perfectionist in me. Kind of like how I left Costa Rica this summer having learned so much, but wishing I had done so much more. So this blog is a public commitment towards making achievable goals for the rest of the semester so that I have tangible successes and CAN'T beat myself up about my last semester in Moscow.

What I am proud of:
-I am getting A's in all of my classes. I love grades how grades can just give you a simple, comfortable "you are doing something right!"
-I am in better shape than I usually am this time of the year. Ran 9 miles on accident the other day... doing plenty of trail running and a few races. Also took a 1 month yoga course and have been hiking. It's nice to know your body is capable of almost anything your friends can throw at you!
-I am happy with singledom now! I can go to bed without wishing I had someone to call, I can go to a party without wishing I had someone to hang on. I can look at my ex and think "you know what's great? that we aren't dating anymore."

What I want to achieve in the 2 months I have left:
-Run a half marathon
-Order all of my field equipment
-Have a written plan of action for the field
-Hire 2 field techs
-Write a rough draft of a review paper

Aaaand goal #1: FINISH THIS STATS HOMEWORK.

Love ya'all.

Sara

How was your summer?

Hi, trusty 5 or 6 readers! I figured now was a good time to post considering it has been *one year and two days* since my first post! There is good news and bad news about this past year:

GOOD NEWS:

1. Still feeling love from my Ole crew

2. I've had adventures in Costa Rica, learned Spanish, met new people/friends. and DONE RESEARCH!

3. I'm FUNDED! I get to finish out my Ph.D. without worrying about funding. I got the Borlaug fellowship, and I'm so proud/happy!

4. I get to start Idaho with a bunch of awesome friends.

BAD NEWS:

1. Sort of starting over (remember my tumultuous spring)

2. Still confused about my research (story of a Ph.D. student's life, really)

3. Moving back and forth constantly makes it hard to set roots. I read my very first post and felt a little weird. Yes, I have achieved many of those goals/expectations I had for myself, but I still feel very similar to how I did last summer. Like there is so much that I don't know about my future and I'm still just... Starting Out.... again!

Bienvenidos a Hojancha

I love Hojancha. So much. We climbed up on rutted dirt roads, and above the pastures and forest and tree plantations we could see the whole countryside. The people are kind, the houses for rent are gorgeous, and the promise of my project is sinking in. I'm so exited. As I type, I am sitting at a hostel on the beach in Montezuma (where I just randomly ran into an Ole that I graduated with last spring!!) and honestly, I just keep thinking.... I can't WAIT to go back and start my work in Hojancha. Here is a picture of my life right now:

I'm in Costa Rica! A lot has happened in the last WEEK. I can't believe it has only been one week. But first things first...

I left Moscow after the worst finals EVER. Honestly, the grades turned out just fine but I was just kind of stressed and overwhelmed. Take studying and add in moving, a day with a nasty hangover, and a few hilarious twists of fate and you have one wild week. The last day in the 'Scow I was trying to clean my bestie's apartment with him, finish a Stats project, fix a car that we managed to almost destroy, and pack all of my stuff. Thankfully, it ended with me, Becky, Troy, and Audrey in Spokane for my last night, trying out every happy hour in the downtown area and running through fountains in the sunshine. Could not have asked for a better goodbye from the West.

At home, I tried to mix enjoying the sunshine and Bass Lake and snuggling with Sheila and cooking with my family with finishing a proposal. What a lousy time to finish a proposal. But home was amazing, of course. My little brother is the most awesome upcoming farmer in the mid-west. Also, I ate fried cheese curds and drank Miller Lite at an outdoor bar... twice. I love home... WI in the summer is pretty amazing.

A few days later, I left on my evening flight from Chicago. Chicago was amazing for a few reasons:
1. My sister is still my other half
2. Cuban food outdoors with live music and Mojitos
3. Plenty of time to relax, work on some stuff for school, and re-pack, re-pack, re-pack.
4. I got to see my sister's life! Finally, after hours and hours logged on the phone where I had to make up all of the places and people in my head.

So I got on the flight and hung out in various airports and planes until arriving in San Jose at 5am the next day. If you want to hear a funny story about a red-eye flight, just hit me up. It was NOT the best sleep I've ever received.

When I got to San Jose, I had a few tasks: get colones (CR $$, jaja I know funny name...), take a taxi to the SJ bus stand, take the bus to Turrialba, and take a taxi to CATIE. Luckily, I had been practicing the phrase: "Necesito ir a la estacion de autobuses que viajan a Turrialba" throughout my many flights, so I got to CATIE by 10am. After a run with Mo, a delicious papaya snack, and a few faculty meetings, I was finally able to relax with Zayra's family, have a pisco sour, and get some sleep!

I spent a few days at CATIE before venturing west to the coast with my friend Mo. It took us a good 12 hours of bus riding, but we got to Nosara and eventually found a beautiful language school. If you ever want to learn Spanish in Costa Rica, I would highly recommend Nosara Language Institute. We are taking two weeks of intensive Spanish lessons (its just the two of us with one instructor) and getting a homestay (two meals a day included) for $550. In addition, the owner of the school is really awesome and has hooked us up with surfboards, bicycles, rides places, and great connections. He is a really inspired guy who uses the Spanish language program to fund his non-profit English courses for Ticos.

In addition to language classes, I have been really busting my booty to get in a grant proposal due tomorrow... I only need one letter signed and I will be done! Hooray!

I also took surfing lessons the other day with a hottie named Adrian. It was pretty fun staring into his beautiful eyes and... faceplanting into the waves for an hour and a half. What can I say, I don't perform well under pressure! I'm going to go on my own tomorrow and probably surf some gnarly olas.

Bees? Not yet. More on those later. Hoping to get out in the field next week after we pick up our car... and I can't wait! More adventures yet to come... and I'll add pictures ASAP.

PURA VIDA!

Well, here we are: finals 2012. I wish I could say that I am feeling excited, happy, and successful this week, but alas, the general gloom is still settled a bit on my heart. Combined with stress, it's not working out real well for me. But is it normal to feel great on finals? Let's do a flashback:


Finals Spring 2011: This was a very mixed-emotion time. Leaving Olaf was one of the saddest, hardest things I've done, and I knew I was leaving behind a relationship that really made me happy, on top of that. The stress of graduating really got to me, too- I remember freaking out when my family was all at Olaf. But I also got a 4.0 this semester and it bumped me up to my goal GPA for graduation, plus there was so much celebration in the air.








Finals Spring 2010: A confusing, but happy time. Getting ready to move to Oregon to participate in an REU, not encumbered by any relationship but with a prospect that was making me giddy, and a lot of new friends that I was very excited about. Plus I was going to move into WB in the fall- how awesome was THAT going to be!?







Finals Spring 2009: Thinking back this far is difficult. I had just found out I was going to India in the fall.... and I was taking vertebrate bio and doing a hilarious failure of a final project with Erin Seybold... I was living in Rand, but my roomie was living with her bf so I remember being lonely at times... but I was dating a SWEETHEART of a guy and I'm sure that I was excited to get home to be with him. It was my brother's high school graduation... here is a pic of me with said sweetheart and my bro's friend.



Finals Spring 2008: Oh yeah, drama spring. This was the year that I was struggling to finish CH/BI, the course of my nightmares, I was breaking up with Bryce (who is still one of the MOST important people in my life) and I had broken a guy's heart and was regretting it (the sweetheart from Spring 2009). I was also about to start my first summer at Camp Sturtevant, which I may not have known it, but that would be life-changing, positive experience for me!




So anyway, the point of this blog is: my heart got broken this semester and I'm still reeling. But drama happens, and every finals is like a door to another stage of life. Looking back, I can see how big every step was and it makes me think... what awesome stuff is headed my way? Maybe I wont just survive, maybe I'll thrive.

Spring Feverrrrrr

In the last week, I have ventured to Portland, made dinners with friends, done intense sprinting workouts with my college track athlete housemate, found fall housing, had drinks with friends new and old, gone hiking and antiquing, and danced to a great band. I have even caught up (somewhat) on work. This usually would be more than enough, but that sad feeling is still living in the pit of my stomach. It is fading, though. And I seriously just want to flirt at this point... where the boys at?

Research stuff is going. Not the best all of the time, I'm still a little fuzzy on some of the details, but there is some serious progress happening. For example, I met some leaders in my field at a conference and really enjoyed hanging with them. I also got an Honorable Mention for the NSF GRFP, which does not earn me a fellowship, but does grant me access to the NSF Supercomputer and it means that there is serious potential for applying next year.

Also BOOM I miss St. Olaf. It was lingering deep within and it has surfaced. Has anyone else suddenly realized that feeling like you "belong" might not happen again for a while? Not that St. Olaf was perfect, but I felt so comfortable in that community, so much more confident that I knew where home was (other than home home, which will always be home of course). Plus, I just saw Ultimate Spring Break pictures and I want that time BACK.

Positive closing thoughts:
-planning egg dying and Easter Egg hunting Sunday
-Wallowas? adventure this weekend?
-GURLZ ONLY HIKING in two weeks! Yippeeeeee!
-Wine+chocolates+The Help+hanging in my new potential housing situation= pumped for next year

Truer happiness: In the works

Magical Blog Wish: Positive distractions

Resilience

First of all, don't worry.... the person I just broke up with has no idea I have a blog. This is between us.

Ending a relationship you really fully valued is a fascinating journey. I've felt a lot of things in the past two weeks, mostly confused and sad. I keep trying to remember that the best thing I can do is just stand up tall, stay busy, and remember that I can and will get through anything and come out stronger. The worst part right now, is that every day I have a new perspective on "what went wrong." I have no idea what he really feels or really thinks or what his days are like right now.

But you know what? We are young. And he is confused, too. And this is a two-way street. And for some crazy reason, I keep forgetting that this is actually HIS loss, too. I forget my value when I focus on how much I admire him, and if there is no other reason why this had to end, that can be it.

I know this is a self-serving post, but it has to happen. Every healthy break-up involves at least one of the people going through a self-confidence building phase. My good friend Natalie Warren said it well: "Break-ups can be awesome. You start doing things to make yourself feel better about yourself, and then you realize one day that you are totally over that person and you actually got way cooler in the process."

I'm not ready to get over this person. The last six months (yep, it was only 6 months) were often perfect, and at this point, I still want that in my life. Still, it is okay to question things. It is okay to try to move on and ask myself if Costa Rica might be better single and if we were just being together because it is convenient. It is okay to accept that forcing the relationship forward is not the best way to decide if it is really right and that in a few months, or a year, or however long it takes, everything will make sense.

My Ph.D. program is focused around resilience. We talk for entire courses about what that means (it depends) and how we can understand it (still up for debate.) I have not really liked that word in terms of ecology, but I'm loving it in terms of love. I think that to have resilient love- love that can survive questioning, hardship, and life in general- we have to be strong enough on our own. I'm not going to ask this guy to fill some void in my life, because there isn't one. I am a happy, independent person when I am single and when I am with him. I'm going to enjoy this time in my life and if what we had was resilient than woohoo! If not, I'm glad we got out now.

Look at this beautiful sunrise I saw while running last night. Spring, 75 degrees, and life is good.

Reality Check

My experience in Moscow so far has been pretty rosy. I have gone from new, friendless, and overwhelmed to happily living in a big house with a bunch of friends and tons of adventures in a matter of weeks. Finally, reality has hit.

My life finally gave me some lemons. I have been in denial about a relationship I'm in and we hit the "should we keep going or stop now?" phase. I think a lot of people go through this, but I don't know if it feels like this. So I have NO idea what to do. I really wish I could just go back to where a I was in October... new and fresh and independent and not really knowing what to expect. But, unfortunately, this combination of events has led me to feel something I have not felt until now: I'm starting to think...I don't want to be here. As in temporarily, maybe for the next month or so... I don't want to deal with all of this.

I guess the good thing is, if things do change... and maybe things get a little harder.... it is only a change to something that was still relatively new anyway (compared to leaving St. Olaf, leaving the mid-West... this should be easy, right?)

Pain, heartache, change, and uncertainty. These are things I've managed to bypass/ignore/overcome in the past. Any tips? Favorite empowering song? Best stress-busting workout? Inspiring story of a good thing that was doubted but not lost in the long run?

Ohh yeah one last thing:
This blog is magical, and I'm going to just say.... man oh man will I be happy if this struggle opens the door to a truer happiness.