View from the Houseboats

Daylight savings week has been a major transition ever since Theo was born, though the impact is shorter as he gets older. He’s still getting up later and going to bed later, but he’s more self-reliant. Granted, Wednesday night, after bedtime, Theo cut off his bangs and used them for a sculpture made of tape, somewhere in the middle of his usual drawing fest. I’ve gotten a lot of laughs out of this, and I gave him a real haircut the next morning. 

Wednesday, I got my usual “PTO hangover” where after a few days of efficiency and catch-up, I get crabby and resistant to work. Thursday I was able to take things a little slower because I had fewer meetings, reading some of a new book and taking an outdoors walk when a meeting was canceled.  

Last week was the 2nd anniversary of the stay-at-home order. A year ago, (week 52), I wrote about getting my first vaccine dose, and reflected on the feelings of those early disorienting days of the pandemic. I’m still using the cubic yard (optimistically) between the end of my bed and my wall/roof as my office, and my bureau holds my most-used books. Perhaps because nearly all the public health protective requirements (like masking, vaccine requirements) have been dropped, efforts to honor the second anniversary of the pandemic have been minimal and subtle. My feelings about the current state of the world (pandemic-wise) are conflicted. I hope our household continues to be able to enjoy the reduced risk and am trying to have self-compassion for my resistance to requests for professional in-person events. Certainly the war in Ukraine continues to be heartbreaking and terrifying

Yet in my immediate life, plenty of good things happened recently.  

Gratitude 

• A mentee matched to their top residency program

• I read four novellas from a science fiction series of one of my favorite authors that I discovered this week.

• I got a paper under the 3k word count, when my first draft was at 6k words

• I made a first pass at a revise and resubmit

• I wrote a paragraph of an aims page for a grant

• I did 3 cardio workouts, including a couple early morning ones

• I walked outside on a sunny day instead of taking meetings

• A colleague’s grant that I am a co-investigator on got funded!

• A leader offered me more money/resources for an underfunded role!

• Sun today, and rain expected tomorrow

Interesting things on the internet 

• Spring cleaning for your brain

• My post on setting boundaries

• Propensity score methods in aging research

• WaPo article on hospice

• Memorializing those lost to COVID

• Methods for hybrid machine-human coding of qualitative data

Donations for Ukraine

UCSF suggested donating - as you are able - to credible non-profit organizations that are assisting the people of Ukraine, such as:

• Amnesty International USA

• International Committee of the Red Cross

• International Rescue Committee

• National Bank of Ukraine: Humanitarian Assistance Account

• World Central Kitchen

Wishing you restoration time, realistic goals, and supportive surroundings.

Krista