Category Archives: Grad School

Fit Friday: Keeping Fit with a Busy Schedule

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Hey hey, it’s Fit Friday again! And I know I haven’t posted anything since the last Fit Friday. It has been a crazy busy week: recovering from a cold, grading papers, teaching, preparing for my trip to So Cal for the Asics LA Marathon this weekend, and traveling yesterday. So no time for blogging… but I still made time for fitness.

We all have busy lifestyles and it can easy to let fitness be the thing that falls off when it just gets to be too chaotic. It has definitely happened for me… in fact when I ran my first marathon (the Big Sur Marathon, apparently it’s go big or go home) I was severely undertrained. Recently fellow SFM Ambassador Heather also blogged about keeping up with your running and I suggest heading over and check it out.

Don’t let all those blank spaces fool you, it’s essay grading time.

For me, the best way to keep up with my fitness goals and ensure I get in my exercise daily is to put it on the calendar. I live by my calendar. And I have to, I am a PhD candidate who is a teaching assistant, I teach two of my own community college classes, and I am the co-president for our graduate student government. I have some crazy busy days. But every day I have my run and sometimes other workout scheduled in on my calendar. This week it meant a few 5am runs (always with friends, thank goodness!) and it also meant taking advantage of the one free hour I had on Wednesday and running the track between a meeting with a professor and class. Sometimes this is not fun! Carrying a workout bag with wipies so I can clean up quickly and head on to the next thing isn’t ideal. But it works! Just like any meeting or agenda item I put on my calendar and have to attend, I also get to my run. Sure, there are days when my run that I originally planned to get done at 7am gets moved to 4pm because something happened, but the key is to never cancel but reschedule!

Photo compliments of the SFM FB page

So how do you manage your busy lifestyle and keep fit? What might work for you if you struggle with this?

And for all of you running LA on Sunday, I’ll see you there!

 

Qualified!

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Last week, I became a PhD candidate.

{please applaud now}

For those of you wise, wise souls who avoided grad school and don’t know that this means: I have finished my course work and can now focus on my research and eventual writing of my dissertation.

This was a long time coming: 3 years of coursework, 1 Master’s thesis (well if you count my work at UCI, make that 4 years of coursework and 2 MA theses), a language exam, a field statement, 2 syllabi, an explanation of one of those syllabi, 1 dissertation prospectus, and a 3 hour oral exam.

{exhale}

Most of this work felt like it happened in the last 6 months. While I wrote a draft of my dissertation prospectus last year, the rest of the Qualifying Exam dossier (field statement, syllabi and attachment, and prospectus) I wrote largely in the last two quarters.

studying for exam.

After I got the OK on my written work, I submitted the dossier to my four committee members and took a mini break (mostly to catch up on my other work for seminar and my TA responsibilities). Then back to focusing on the oral exam. I felt pretty good about it until the weekend before when I started imagining all the worst possible scenarios. I crammed for about 3 days straight. But the exam wasn’t so bad after all. After I settled in, it went by surprisingly fast and felt more like a conversation than scary test.

After passing, I went out with some friends who helped me celebrate. And then two days later, I picked up a stack of final exams to grade. (I took a break to help a good friend celebrate her receiving of a doctorate in Ecology and to run a race, more about that on a future post). Today I submitted the grades, enjoyed brunch with my professor, and can now officially enjoy summer!

Forget About Me?

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Uh… hi.

Oh man it’s been such a long time since I’ve blogged. I guess the winter quarter was too crazy busy to leave time for blogging. But not to worry, I’ve just been busy but all has been good.

And I’ve been running a lot again and I’ve been posting all of my racing events and results at See Meg Run. I’m hoping to blog about some of these events in the near future. But for now I felt like I need to check in and let you all know I was still alive :)

Summer Recap

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I know, I’ve been a bad blogger.

It’s been a long, long time since my last post. I’ve logged in and started to write posts but didn’t know where to start. Well, I figure no time like the present to get caught up on my blog. I thought about doing a separate post for all the events/things we have been doing, but instead here’s a bit of what we’ve been doing since May (yep it’s a long entry).

Wedding Planning
Not surprisingly since I’ve been out of my course work for the summer I have been focusing on the wedding. We finally have a DJ (yay!) but still have lots to do. I had my first dress fitting a few weeks back (and will have another one on Friday) as well as talked flowers and decorations. My mom, Susan, Olivia, and Tara have some AMAZING ideas!

Engagement Photos
In June, my amazing friend and mom-to-be Punam took engagement photos of Kevin & me. They are great. Here’s a teaser shot, but you can see her blog post on them here.

Bachelorette Weekend
The weekend after the engagement photo shoot, four of my close friends and I went to Sonoma County for my bachelorette weekend. It was perfect, complete with beautiful views, hiking, dogs (you know I love dogs!), delicious food, and wine… lots of wine! One of my best friends, Tawny, planned the whole thing and I seriously couldn’t have asked for a better time.

We’ve Been Here, There, & Everywhere (yeah, I totally used one of my favorite Beatle songs here)
Kevin & I have been traveling all over the place this summer. I think one or both of us was gone every weekend beginning in mid-June until, well, now. As mentioned earlier, I was in Sonoma County in June, Kevin’s sister and his niece and nephews visited the following few days, then we flew off to Texas (more about that later), then we drove up to Washington (with a pit stop in Oregon to see one of my best friends), Kevin’s uncle visited for a week or so, then I went home to wedding stuff, Kevin went off to Taiwan for work… and now we’re laying low. Of course, we’ll be traveling here and there again soon :) During that time, Kevin also celebrated the big 3-0!!

Showers
While we were in Washington, Kevin’s family threw us a wedding shower. And when I was in So Cal my best friend threw me a bridal shower. Both parties were so much fun and it was great seeing everyone. We really appreciate that everyone came out and celebrated with us. Plus, my mom brought an old high school photo album that my girlfriends and I had a good laugh at!

                                 

Dan & Juliana’s Wedding
As I mentioned earlier, Kevin & I went to Texas this summer. Why? To attend Dan and Juliana’s wedding of course! I love this couple, they are fun and sweet and a perfect match for each other. I also got to catch up with some of my old high school friends, as well as visit some of the best that San Antonio has to offer: Alamo, River Walk (ok we barely did this), San Jose Mission, Cavender’s Boot store, and some serious BBQ (the boys ate it, I just stared in amazement).

The newlyweds

Outside the cathedral

The boys & me outside of the Alamo

BBQ!

Summer School
In addition to traveling, planning, and partying, I also worked as a teaching assistant for the first session of summer school at UCSC. I had the pleasure of working with an amazing teacher and fellow grad student who I definitely look up to. This was a class I had TAed for before, but I learned a great deal from above-mentioned-instructor and her great teaching style.

Cooking/Baking
As usual, I’ve spent a great deal of time cooking and baking. I made a yummy batch of cookies-n-cream/cookie dough ice cream (yes together, in one delicious, sugary bowl!). I failed at my first scone making attempt (that’s what I get for last-minute recipe modifications). And I made homemade pasta for the first time, yum!

Drying pasta

Running
I’ve still been running with a few races here and there. Since my last post, I ran 4 races (see my results here). I did take 1st in my age group for one of them, always a nice feeling! And tomorrow, I’ll be running the 1st half of the San Francisco Marathon. Since running the Big Sur Marathon I’ve been pretty slow on my long runs, so I’m not expecting to be very speedy tomorrow but I think it will be a lot of fun. And I have to admit I’m pretty darn excited about getting an Irish Coffee after the race, now that’s a treat I can look forward to post-run (the run is early, like 5:45am early, so I’ll ready for that warm beverage!). Here are some photos from my recent races.

Silly me, throwing my hands in the hair! Crossing the finish line at She.Is.Beautiful 10k on May 22

Post race at Nisene Marks 5k, very rainy race :)

Coming up to the finish line in the San Lorenzo Train Run 10k

Pre-Race Wharf to Wharf 6 mile (surrounded by 15,000 other runners!)

Well, I think we’re all caught up. I will try to get back into my normal blog routine in August.

Encyclopedia of Meg: H

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H is for … you guessed it History!

Ok, I know it’s a bit of a cop-out, but really how could I not spend a portion of this Encyclopedia of Meg series without discussing something that takes up the vast majority of my life these days.

Like many people, I didn’t really like history in high school. I didn’t hate and I did well in the classes, but I thought it was so boring. Memorizing names and dates of dead white men just didn’t appeal to me. Then I went to college. For those of you who don’t know, I attended Chapman University for my freshman year of college. In that year, I took two classes with Robert Slayton. His way of teaching history made me fall in love with the subject. I especially loved his course “Everyday Life in America” (which he still teaches, btw). For the first time, I saw the art, the excitement, and the meaning in history.

I transferred to CSUSM in 2000 and my love of history only grew more, largely in part to my adviser Jill Watts (and her blog). I really cannot sing her praises enough, she taught me so much not only about US history but about teaching, about school, and about creating and maintaining professional relationships. I also have to sing the praises about the History faculty at CSUSM in general. I received so much support there and learned so much, I am so thankful to have completed my undergraduate career there.

After a few years off, I returned to pursue a graduate degree and graduated from UCI. I found that to be one of the most difficult experiences, I put too much pressure on myself and ended up leaving with a Masters degree and no desire to return to academia.

And yet… here I am, in the 2nd year of my PhD program and in the midst of the largest budget cuts to the California higher education system… maybe I should have stuck it out at UCI … nah (I’m happy with my decision). So history, specifically of course US history, remains a huge portion of my life. I spend entirely too much time reading and prepping for seminar, section, and lecture. For those of you who care, I’m particularly interested in women and religion in 19th century US… but I’m still trying to figure out my next big research project. Oh! And I also manage an informal blog about history (and am always looking for contributors). So yes, history is a big part of my life.