Recovering/Brushing

So, I've had the flu (or a flu-like illness) this past week. Good news is that it seems mostly to be over. Bad news is I'm weak as hell after spending six days in bed, and not really being able to eat three of those days. :( It's gonna take awhile to get my strength back up so I don't feel I need to go lay down after doing... well, anything.

Bleh. This stuff sucks.

The upshot is that a week in bed was possibly good for my aching back-- we'll see after I've stopped taking flu-painkillers and start moving around again. Also I've started a six week back-pain-be-gone system, which, with continued use over the years, took away my adviser's wife's back pain for these past couple decades. I'm hopeful.

But the important thing to note today is that my hair is long. Yes, officially, my hair is long. I got out of the shower and looked into the mirror as it dripped down my back and I thought briefly, 'I'm never going to be able to brush this by myself. I'm way too weak.'

The thing was, that's an old thought resurfacing unexpectedly from the last time my hair was long back in Chicago. When I wasn't feeling well or when I'd had a tiring day or something, my arms would wear out trying to brush out the tangles after a wash-- that, even with the two handfuls of conditioner slathered through. And when I say my arms would wear out, I mean that sometimes I would get about halfway through and ask Michael to do the rest because he would just have to reach forward and brush, whereas I would have to spend extended periods of times contorted into strange hair brushing positions in order to run the brush through the full length of it. It was tiring.

But that was then.

I've been doing the baking soda rinse wash / vinegar rinse condition now for about a year and a half. My hair was chin length when I started this. But now, now it is long. And now that it is long, here are the problems with the baking soda/vinegar thing:

1) My hair loses its body if I wash too many consecutive times with too much baking soda and vinegar. A couple times yields no change in the light curly bounce, but four or five times and it starts to get flat.

2)

No, it's really just the one thing. And that can be rectified by either waiting a couple days to wash again (ponytail days) (but let's be frank, most days are ponytail days anyway) or by just being careful not to use too much during the next few washes.

When I had short hair and started using baking soda and vinegar instead of shampoo and conditioner, it started taking only six brush strokes to brush out my hair after a shower rather than then [many] that it took before. Now that I have long hair, it still only takes six brush strokes to brush out my hair after a shower.

So when I looked in the mirror today and saw all that wet hair, and the thought of brushing it filled me with dread for the enormous amount of strength it would take to accomplish that feat, it was only momentary. Because then I realized that my hair doesn't knot the way it used to when I used shampoo. And even in my post-flu weakened state, I could still brush my hair all on my own.

And that made me happy. Just wanted to share.

Academically speaking,

One of the cool things about being in a field that I love and am continuously more interested in is that I get to meet lots of people who are really neat. Most every time a new class begins, we go around and introduce ourselves, our lives, our studies, and I think, "Wow, these people are all really interesting. I'm looking forward to sharing this class with them."

I started my first class toward becoming certified in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance (DMHA) a couple weeks back, and as we went around the room, my thoughts were more along the lines of, "Holy shit, every single person in this class is waaaay cooler than me!" It's a large class, and as such there hasn't yet been much discussion around the table, but I am really, really, really looking forward to it when it does happen.

We have the lady who worked with Bosnian refugees. We have the guy who directed a disaster refugee program in Indonesia. We have the lady who studies lava flow on the moon. No, really. That's what she does.

This class also promises to be cool (outside of its own right of being really cool because I'm interested in learning more on the subject) in two ways:

1) the professors are pretty awesome, and except for being from an Urban Planning background as opposed to a psychology/social sciences background, my research and life interests are pretty well entangled with the research and careers of these two professors. I can't wait to learn everything from both of them.

2) the Urban Planning department was just named a national center for disaster management training (the official title is very similar to those words, but I don't remember them exactly or else I'd have capitalized). I mean, it was very very recently named a national center for training. So our final project in this class was changed from research paper to... create a training program that will address a need in DMHA. Dr. Kim said, "So, this project is exploitative in nature because we're using you all for ideas for training programs, but on the other side is that if you have a really good idea we might be able to hire you in the spring to further develop and implement it."

Of course, in that moment my goal became to create a project that they'll want to develop and implement. I honestly have no idea how reasonable a goal that is, given that this is my first foray into the field, but no point not shooting for it, right?

I also don't know how exactly all of this fits together for my long-term plans, although it seems as though it could come together quite cohesively.

My Plan As It Stands Now:

1) Get a Masters in December. This entails revising and defending my thesis before October ends, which I believe is doable. I finished my first draft a couple weeks back, did some edits, sent it off to my adviser, and just received it back yesterday. He had some really good suggestions, including two things that I knew I had left out and needed to figure out how to add but hadn't figured out how to add, and some other things that I agree will greatly improve the overall work. And a whole bunch of grammar and APA stuff.

2) Start my DMHA certificate. I figured now was a good time, because I want to be developing my dissertation proposal over the next year, and knowledge from this certificate will really help me in that. My Cultural Community Psychology adviser agreed that was a good idea, and my brand spanking new DMHA Certificate adviser (Dr. Kim) also agreed and seemed to think my interests aligned well into the program.

3) Complete my major comprehensive exams in the spring. I've been scared of these for awhile, but I've had the great fortune of watching Andrew, who is also in Cliff's lab, go through Comps last semester. He gave me great tips for survival, explained to me how it works and what it's like, and generally gave me a realistic point of view. I can do Comps in the spring. I'm pretty confident of this.

4) Complete my minor comprehensive papers in the spring and summer of 2010. They're designed, it turns out, so that you can use them as building blocks for your dissertation research, I guess in many if not all cases. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to use my minor papers as research opportunities and dissertation-building opportunities.

5) Also use my classes as dissertation-building opportunities. Over the next year, I'm going to try and take classes that I'll be able to use toward that goal.

I feel much more directed now. There's room in that plan for things/times/research/goals to change, but at least I have a good idea what to shoot for. Also, I don't know what all will happen with work. I've pretty well decided that unless I'm able to get in on a grant that is directly related to my dissertation research, I'm going to stick with the job I have. Because I'm invested in it. I'd be really sad to not see it through, although if I have the opportunity to have a job that will pay me to do my dissertation research, well. That would be pretty awesome.

But for now, I'm gonna have breakfast. Because it's closing in on 11am and I haven't done that yet. The rest of my plans can wait.