Thanks to list... and Grad School Motivation

i have often had people ask me how i got into cycling- and really-
the truth is that there is a long list of people who have really
helped me out. i was telling this to a good friend of mine the other
day, and he suggested that i sit down and write up that list and put
it on my site. i thought that it was a great idea and did that
today. i just put it on my site under the cycling page link. please
check it out.

i have been obsessing about my website for too long now- it has been
a great distraction from me working on my thesis. right now- i have
HOPEFULLY finished all my data collection for my phd and i just have
to analyze it and write it up. my goal is to finish with the writing
portion of my thesis by the end of february. that is daunting. some
days, i feel like i can do it- others, i just want to throw in the
towel. grad school is hard. i know that sounds stupid to say, grad
school SHOULD be hard. but it is not hard the way i thought it would
be hard. not hard in that you have so much work to do (although that
is sometimes the case), but hard in that you have to get up every day
and put one foot in front of the other. hard in that i don't have
someone telling me what to do or how to do it. hard for the lack of
structure and the complete reliance on self-discipline. i wake up
and have a million and one things to do, yet invariably, my day
starts out with, "humm... what am i going to do today?". i sometimes
get paralyzed with all that i have to do and find that i can't do
anything at all. i have to fight the burn-out that has infused me
since some big discouragement last year on my thesis.

once i get immersed into a project, i am in full board. when i am
doing molecular work- i can put my head down and just burry myself in
work. what is hard for me though- is that transition. going from
one thing to the next. i have spent months in grad school NOT
getting anything done because i lose the ability to put that one foot
down to start something new. that is where i am today. i came back
from santa cruz- finishing up a heaping amount of molecular work- and
now, i have to switch gears, analyze that data and then write. the
truth is though, i am scared to even look at it. there is so much
riding on that data. if it does not tell me what i hope it does... i
am not sure if i can recover. 6 years now that i have been in grad
school, and if this does not work, i don't know if i will walk away
or try and salvage it. it might be a sinking ship that can't be
recovered. that is a scary thought. i am ready to be done. it has
been a wonderful adventure, but i have a new passion. i love this
cycling thing. i see that there are a lot of opportunities for me-
not just in racing. i love it all. i no longer think that i have to
stay in academia to be happy. in fact, i realize that there are a
lot of things that i can do to be happy. cycling has taught me that
for sure.

so- cycling is wonderful, but it is hard to put it aside and finish
my thesis. i am not doing much in the way of training right now.
just trying to stay in shape and have fun being unstructured. i have
been running and walking a lot. but it is hard for me to motivate
when i am not on a training program. i am eager to get back to more
focused training and get back to riding.

i am sorry if this mussing if of little interest- it is my mind
wandering as i sit here honestly afraid to look at my data. i am sad
today. i am scared today. i am listless today and lacking in
focus. i am not always like this, but today i am. this is my
life--- grad school and cycling. sometimes one more than the other.
both have their ups and downs. today is not an up day. but i know
that when i can get focused back on school, that i can just bury
myself in that and move on. today, my challenge is to take care of
myself and take care of my life. i am sitting in a dirty apartment
that i need to clean and want to clean. but i can't get around to
doing it. i want to snap out of my funk. but i also want to wallow
in it. it is hard to describe. this is why i am writing. i just
have to put it down in words. an open diary of sorts... welcome to
brooke's head. not ALWAYS spunky and enthusiastic.

i hate being such a downer. i really do. i have SO many things to
make me happy. but right now, i am just overwhelmed and sad. i once
knew a girl named natty and she was perpetually happy. she was like
a golden retriever- dopy and delighted with everything in life. in a
good way, mind you. but, i was studying abroad in costa rica at the
time and was homesick. it was hard for me to see someone so happy
all the time. i was sort of sickened. i asked her, "natty, do you
EVER had a bad day?". she looked at me quizzically and said, "no. i
sometimes have bad moments. but never a bad day". i was disgusted
with that at first- WHO never has a bad day? but then i realized
that it was something to look up to as a goal. i wanted to never
have a bad day again, but to always isolate those bad moments and
find the good moments in that day to redeem it. i did not want to
deny my bad moments, but just to not let them define my day. anyway,
so hopefully this is a bad moment. i know that it is. it was a
beautiful day this morning and i had a good morning. it is just now
that i am having a bad moment. thinking about things that make me
sad and thinking about things that are hard to take. thinking about
my thesis and being scared: in part because i am scared that it won't
work. and, in part, because i am scared that i don't care enough.
that i am so burned out that i am afraid that i can't make myself
finish. that scares me too. i feel like i would let down so many
people if i came this far and did not walk away with a phd. but
would i let myself down? THAT is scary to not have an easy answer to
that question.