Week 48
View from the houseboats
Happy Lunar New Year! Theo’s daycare/preschool has always done a great job celebrating – in past years bringing in Lion Dancers too – such that I think this is Theo’s favorite holiday of the year (despite us having no family/cultural connection to the holiday). As a white family I usually am more quiet about it, because it seems too akin to cultural appropriation. Yet Theo’s been watching video of International Lion Dance competitions, reenacting them in his lion bathrobe (complete with washcloth “beard”), and unmaking and remaking his Lion Dancer Legos. We will be enjoying the Bay Area and Smithsonian online celebrations this weekend. In a week where my social media has been full of acknowledgements of anti-Asian hate crimes and racism, it seems especially important to teach Theo the variety of global celebrations.
I made more time for exercise and mediation practice this week, and I feel better as a result. There are a few potential opportunities on the horizon at work, some exciting, some exciting and nervewracking, some getting my creativity spinning. Since right now they come with small amounts of financial support, I’m spending some time reflecting on how I’d ideally like to spend my time in the coming 2-5 years, which activities may be prudent investments, which might prove to be distractions that make longer-term goals more challenging, and how I can avoid doing unpaid work if possible. (If this doesn’t make sense, it’s because I’m a small business owner masquerading as a university employee: I’m 100% soft money. I have to cover my salary, benefits, and those of any staff members I work with, typically through grants. At this stage in my career, it can be hard to get sufficient salary and resources for what a job requires. For example, I have a career development award that is supposed to fund 75% of my time…but because of the cost of living in the Bay Area it funds about 45% of my time…and about 20% of the cost of the research proposed.)
How are things for you? I know for many this is a tumultuous time - job interviews, job changes, job reviews, waiting to hear if grants were scored or funded, or perhaps submitting a grant… I hope you are finding times for quiet and restoration.
(Re)Learnings and observations
Tradeoffs for time expenditures. My regular reminder to myself (and you) that we are making choices every day that reflect our values (and perhaps our anxieties). Exercise could have been paper writing. First-author paper writing could have been working on administrative things or other people’s projects. It sounds selfish because it is – it is your job to make sure you are doing the things that will ensure your long-term success in the field – and that usually includes making sure your body and mind are healthy enough for long-term success and that you are doing activities to move towards your goals. You can prioritize work for short periods, but my experience is that 2 months is a good limit before rebalancing – the longer you go unbalanced, the more time off or less productive time you need to recover. Self-care is also work, skills that have to be practiced (particularly in chaotic times), much like the skills more proximately associated with being a successful researcher, or mentor, or leader.
Reflecting on professional cultures. I’ve been reading and reflecting a bit on the academic physician culture (in particular) that quietly teaches people to attempt superhuman feats: working through sickness, grief, microaggressions (and macroaggressions), often underpaid or for free. As I trained an in interdisciplinary field and then moved across multiple disciplines, I missed some of the potential downsides of having such a strong disciplinary culture. As a result, I’ve been recently been thinking about how people’s training and early career experiences influence their current reactions and behaviors – a version of a trauma-informed approach to being a colleague in academia.
The continual humbling of stretching your skillsets. Somehow I’ve stumbled into quite a few projects that use quantitative methods, which I am less-practiced at (compared to qualitative methods). One of the projects has an every-other-week methods meeting, and sometimes I feel entirely out of my depth. I remind myself that this is a great way to grow. After all, even with qualitative methods I never feel comfortable – I’m always trying to get better. With qualitative methods I’m better at knowing how to learn new skills.
Anti-racism actions: Note: these always feel weird to share, like I’m boasting that I did the bare minimum. Instead, I’m trying to show what everyday actions look like. My Vietnamese neighbor (who has lived on our dock for 10 years!) had a shocking experience this week with another neighbor making racist comments – I happened to be the first neighbor she saw after the experience. So I’ve been checking in on her to reiterate that this is wrong, that I’m sorry it’s happening, that we are delighted she and her extended family are here. After they talked about Lunar New Year celebrations, I ordered a bunch of decorations and decorated the dock, to reinforce that they and their celebrations are welcome. I wasn’t quite sure what to do – as a white person I try to be careful about what might be consider cultural appropriation – but I checked with a Chinese friend of mind if it would be ok and also figured decorating might not be the kind of thing my neighbors felt comfortable doing, but I was perfectly happy use my privilege for!
Gratitude & appreciation
In honor of Black History Month, UCSF has been featuring our Black students, fellows and faculty on Twitter, this week asking them to share their favorite written words by Black creators. They’ve also been amplifying calls to #fundblackscientists. It’s not that they’re perfect…but I’m glad they are trying.
Theo has been loving reading Wonder Woman stories with my mom; I just learned about a Latina STEM version
A K scholars women support group, and the article former K scholar women wrote about the differential experience of women junior clinician-investigator faculty that inspired the support group. Some of the authors also recently published a study of the impact of pandemic parenting on physician moms, with 41% of respondents reporting moderate to severe anxiety. Both UCSF and NIH have mechanisms for caregivers (of kids or older adults) to request additional funding support for research. In additionally, UCSF implementing family-friendly policies and examining gender-based salary inequities.
Work meetings about improving support for qualitative methods use in the Division of Geriatrics went well – it seems like momentum is gathering!
Colleague sponsorship, in unexpected ways and places
A thank you note so unexpected and touching that it’s now on my fridge.
Chocolate hummus (I know I know, this is unlike the others. But really. It’s so good).
My mother finally sold her house in Florida (it’s been on the market for quite a while) and in 1.5 months is moving out here to be closer to us…and she managed to rent the houseboat next door! I’m already dreaming of sending Theo over in his PJs…. I haven’t lived in the same state as my mother since 2006, or in the same state as my in-laws since 2009, so it will be a major change to have family nearby.
My mother and in-laws got their first doses of vaccine, and my stepmother is recovering from her COVID (thankfully relatively mild).
Things we’ve been making
Crepes for breakfast 2 days in a row (it’s still a pandemic, why not)
Sam made sourdough bread, sourdough-olive oil crackers, and yogurt
Things I’m looking forward to
New team member joining next week!
As before, I invite you to share how you are doing and your small goals.
Hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy.
Krista