So last month I went to see Maddie and Dan in NY, which was fantastic. As Maddie said, it's nice to spend time with old friends who know all of your idiosyncrasies-- and love you anyway! For example, who else but a dear, dear friend would take me to a whole cafe full of peanut butter?
Along with our normal PB&J, we had a PB and nutella sandwich, which conjured up all kinds of great memories from Spain, when Maddie first had her reeeal taste of 24-7 Rachel "energy." :) We spent some great girl time, and had fun with Dan, going out for sushi and loving the Olympics. Much love, you guys!
The next weekend, Cassidy and I went to the Lion King in Boston.
It was phenomenal. I love, love, love music. The costumes were amazing and, as usual, I just could not get over the dancing. I was just awed by the way the costumes and dancers fused together to portray the animals, and there were some points where I almost forgot there were people behind those animals. My kids better watch out, because I'm going to do my best to get them to dance.
The last couple of weekends have mostly just been baby showers (really, a rash of them!). And, I've been doing my own dance called "Thinking in Circles." This is a complex dance that involves me dancing from thesis to job to life decisions to thesis.... The circle of life. :)
The thesis is finally coming along. I actually finished my final statistical analysis this week! I'm about 80% finished with the rest of the writing and am excited to bang out the rest of it tomorrow to submit for revisions. This week is spring break, so I'll have the whole week to tie up loose ends. The end is so close I can taste it.
However, I haven't made much progress in the decisions about life-direction. In fact, the decision got much more complicated on Friday when my thesis reader suggested I might consider a PhD... and I got an uncomfortable feeling similar to when I decided to switch to Public Health. That feeling like, "Hm, that could be an option. Wait, that was NOT on my list of options. Excuse me?"
It's a new, half-formed idea that's only been rolling around in my head for a couple of days. But it's a thought, and if I go for it, it changes everything. Everything about looking for a job. Everything about which city I'm going to live in. Everything about the timeline of exactly when I leave Providence.
So, to anyone who feels inclined to comment, I'd love to know:
1- How do you (or someone you know) balance a family and a PhD? (Because I hope/kind of assume I will get married in the next five years.)
2- What did you do during your PhD to feel like you were "giving back"? I really just want to help people, and I'd really like to avoid a crisis at age 30 where I look at my life and feel like I haven't done anything to help anyone, but rather have spent 10 years just collecting degrees.
I'm open to other advice too, like how to begin finding a professor to work with and getting the university to pay you to be there.
Crazy times ahead. Thanks to everyone who understands when I can't commit to anything more than two months from now. Who understands when I don't want to commit to anything a week from now because I'm tired of making decisions. And who understands when it takes me a week to respond to emails. I'm working on it, and I will gladly share the news when I know what I'm doing!
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