Bumps

The past two weeks have been full of what I'm perceiving as bumps in school life. And naturally when one part of my life is bumpy the other parts feel bumpy. I've finished all first round interviews with participants this week, but only had 3 of the total 7 scheduled show. The survey portion of my study is complete but I had more than my allotted number of participants fill it out - the Internal Review Board (IRB) approved my research protocol for 100 participants in the survey and I have about 40 more than that. I'm having to submit revision forms to IRB, which feels about as painful as submitting things to the IRS or DMV.

The largest bump that I'm still not quite dealing with (mostly I am in denial) is that my major professor is leaving the department. I don't know quite how to explain this to those not familiar to the PhD process other than it is like having your driver's education instructor leave you at the wheel. This being said, I am mainly feeling this way because I adore my major professor. She is amazing, a mentor, and has been a part of my graduate school journey since my masters program. I'm thrilled for her to get an opportunity to do something new, but feeling very selfish about not being able to get this done in time to finish my journey with her.

I've been trying to tell myself that these bumps would be like spraining my toe. It hurts, but is not devastating to my overall training.

And speaking of training, it's been hard. I've been to core fitness twice in the last two weeks. I've only been able to run twice. Because of the bumps with school I haven't had a lot of extra time outside of work. And at work, I've been a bit busy. But, I'm proud of myself because I actually asked for help at work. What a concept, right?! I'm horrible at asking for help. It hasn't been until the last year that I've been able to ask Andrew for help with home stuff without going into fits about it. It's all me, and I'm working hard to get over it. I am so thankful for my work colleagues and even more thankful that Andrew is there supporting me.

Given all that is going on the last thing you'd expect is for me to skip town. Well, I did. Yesterday I flew to Orlando with a team of PCC folks to attend a Legal Issues in Community Colleges conference. And after the conference I'm taking some vacation. Yes, vacation. Crazy, right?! I'm staying in Florida for awhile then flying to New York. Between the conference and vacation I will be gone 16 days.

It seems like a strange time to be gone from all these things in my life, but in a way they are coming with me. I've brought along my school things so that I can work on planes, when friends are busy, late at night if I can't sleep. It may seem like I won't get anything done, but I think I will get some things done given that there are other things off my plate for awhile (playing trains, tucking in my kiddo, attending to work on a daily basis, etc.). As for the running, I plan on doing that during my time in sunny Florida but refuse to run in 15 inches of snow in New York.

One thing about this trip though is that I am so missing my little family. I've travelled without them plenty of times, but for some reason it was really hard to leave this time. I wrote my kiddo a letter for each day I am gone and could not stop hugging him the day I left. I think I needed some extra love for all the bumps.