Say hello to Dr. Maria C.

Finally, it happened. As I waited for the presentation to begin, it took me a while to see that it was for real. It took me a while after I had started talking that I understood it was for real. Everyone who was in the room tells me that I kept my cool and that it was great. On the inside I kept thinking I had forgotten one thing after another that I wanted to say, but even members of the committee commended me for a great presentation. Questions were not what I thought they would be. I was prepared for some thing they asked, and some of the questions I thought they would ask never came. Some of the questions were boring and redundant, while some of them were really out there, and made me realize a lot of things i hadn't consider before.

Now I feel relieved. Like some 10 kilos lighter and also very anxious of what's coming next. Like I always thought, now it's the time to figure out what I want, and if out of everything out there, I can find my dream job in a dreamy city...

1 day left

I tried to write everyday, but I simply couldn't. There was just too much to get done before the big day. We had a small crisis, since one of the members of the committee in charge of my evaluation was supposed to arrive on tuesday and had a medical issue to attend and he couldn't come. For a few hours it seemed like the defense would be postponed. Indefinitely. At first, I felt shocked and very disappointed. I started to think what I would do with all the extra time on my hands. But then, I realized I was just flat out sick of it. Of the whole presentation, the planning, thinking again and again how to say what I wanted to say.  And then something else happened. The opponent, as many people call him, decided to join us through a videoconference. As the week when by, somehow I felt realized and more in control of what I'm gonna say and how I handle myself.

On monday I was very moody, and I cried like a million tears I needed to get out off. It was intense, but at the end I felt relieved and so blessed and happy to be able to finish this stage of my life. As on today, I was more calmed, and quiet and tried desperately to catch every mistake and go through everything once again, just to make sure. I know I missed something, just because it's hard to get everything right, right? Anyway, a few mistakes haven't been out of sight and I've managed to fix them on time.

Anyway, I'm having dinner before 7 p.m.like an old lady and I expect to be in bed at 8 p.m. I don't really know how I feel, I just.... I want to get it over with and I hope the opponents are not ruthless. OK, I'll rehearse one more time, and I hope I get everything right. I hope I don't break into tears of excitement (mostly 'cause I would be very embarrassed). I hope to do a pretty decent job. I hope I'm a rock star tomorrow morning and my audience is wowed by me. Including me.

I'll keep working on my EFT exercises and meditation exercises today and tomorrow before leaving!!!

For now, I'm off! 

8 days left

I'm getting closer and closer... I can almost smell it. My outfit is ready and as I try on different shoes and think about make up and some other excuses not to read and think about the subject itself, I realize I always do the same. I always find excuses and somehow find time to procastinate. I read somewhere that the best way to stop doing it is by tackling small task and dividing big tasks into smaller ones....

Anyway, I should go to bed. Rehearsal tomorrow, although not the big one. Final rehearsal on tuesday.
it's so close!

10 days left

A few more days to go and the idea of being done with everything is simply unthinkingable. Although the big day is almost upon us, I still think of it as someday in the future. Someday in the future.....next week!! As I prepare every detail of the presentation and get ready for a new rehearsal on the actual auditorioum where the defense will take place, I realize that I've learned far beyond my expectations and that should be enough. Still, I feel scared to death. Just the thought of not being able to answer one question....what if I can't answer more than one? what if I freeze and start mumbling crap? A lot of people will be there. Some of them are dear friends, awesome colleagues, professors from classes I took as an undergrad, family and some other co-workers who would probably rather be somewhere else. Most of them expect greatness from me, and expect me to make them proud. Even myself. 

There's only one way I can deal with this and it's just taking one step at a time. Today as I spoke to a dear friend whose thesis defense will be 2 weeks after mine, I realize a few things that might come in handy. With all the yoga I've been doing I've been able to let go off things. Whatever it is. It's kinda of hard to do it, but the truth is that's all in the past. All the pain, the fear, the sadness, the failed experiments, the wasted time, the papers I never read and should have (maybe there's something to do about that), the frustration.... Even the one I felt on my first rehearsal a week ago. When I was done it was like everybody was bored, nobody cared and like even with all the work and effort I put into it, it was just kind of ok, I guess. 

When I first started the PhD I remember feeling excitement for the new path I was embarking. I remember seeing myself as kind of useless and in desperate need of learning and reading things that I thought I should have known at that time. How I felt this pressure to stand up to the plate and prove myself. And then a lot of things happened. As my personal life got tightly intertwined with my professional life everything became dark. For 3 more years, with some oases in the light of a foreign land, my life was a lot not what I expected. I didn't feel the need to learn anything anymore. Just the urge to get out. I didn't understand it at the time but I just didn't feel at ease and I wanted to get it over with. No matter what. No matter how. For years I felt like I had invested everything I had and lost it all. For a whole year there was no feasible progress on the thesis, on the writing, on the results and it felt like I had hit rock bottom. You know what they say, when you hit rock bottom, there's no other way than up. So, how do you know where the bottom actually is? Sometimes it felt like I could go deeper and deeper and like I could never get out of my misery. A lot went down and I had to work hard on getting my life back on track. I'm still working on it, but thanks to yoga and some books I read as well as my own determination to feel better about myself, led me on the right direction.

The thesis, the written document that collects not only all the information I got from the research, but also my observation, analysis and conclusions, also reflects the journey I went through. Fortunately, 2012 has been awesome to me, and writing the thesis allowed me to express myself in a whole different way. It also served as a mirror on which I could see everything I was capable of and I could finally, FINALLY, see myself as a professional, as a scientist with opinions, and for the first time I gave myself credit for all the work I put onto it. In between every line written in the document, there's a story that I never wrote and I rarely talk about anymore. Like the DNA, it lies there, and in a whole lot of ways, dictated what the actual document looks, sounds and feels like. Even if that piece of the story is not actually written. 

Today I feel very grateful about everthing. I learned about myself, my weakest points, my strongest points, my  breaking points, and I feel rewarded as on today not only I'm about to finish my biggest accomplishment so far, but also, in the work place I'm regarded with love and respect. I feel their warmth and sometimes even admiration, and I can hold my head high as I start my depature from a place I've been for the past 7 years. I feel ready to leave.  

13 days left

As another day passes by, I keep observing myself through this. The first thing I noticed is how much I want to be left alone. I'm actually a little cranky and isolation seems the only way. I really don't want to leave the house and more than that I just want to be seated in front of my laptop and in front of my TV without being interrupted. As time goes by I'm starting to figure out that my nerves are getting the best of me, and that soon, I'll be standing in front of an audience, hopefully convincingly enough to earn a degree. Anyway, as I was distracted visualizing absolutely everything (starting from the makeup I'm gonna wear), I decided to tackle the easiest parts first. That is, drawings and slight changes to the presentation, which are still necessary. As I went to bed kind of early, after deciding to stop working after dinner, I used mandalas to meditate and relax.

Mandala, taken from http://www.mandalaproject.org

Mandalas are drawings usually in circular shapes that, as you color them, help you relax and concentrate later on. If you're interested I found http://www.mandalaproject.org/, a website devoted to mandalas. A few months ago, in a quest to find spiritual answers, that obviously led me to more questions, I ended up in a place that helped to sort a few things out and they also led me to mandalas. The idea of sitting down to color things, as fun as it sounded, was childish and honestly, to me it sounded ridiculous that something like that would help, at all. I thought it would be a waste of time. I must admit, though, that coloring is not the worst thing in the world and that I love color, so I decided to give it a try. One of my yoga teachers also suggested that I could play meditation music while I do it. Brilliant idea. Last night I couldn't think about work and the defense, just on me. What I want, what I expect and most importantly, it made me realize that the most important part of the presentation is me. Not the results, not the presentation itself, and not even if I'm prepared to answer every single question. It's more about being ready (I hope that doesn't bite m in the ass). I've doing this for almost 5 years and I've learned a lot just by writing the thesis. I'll keep studying, of course, but I'll keep in mind that it's me who needs to be ready. I'll get there. 

14 days left....

As the big day approaches I find myself a little confused and very confident. I don't know if too much but I'm still waiting to maybe have a nervous breakdown at the very end.... If you have no idea of what I'm talking about, let me fill you in. A few months ago I handed in my PhD thesis and then I waited for a while until a couple of weeks ago, when the date for the thesis defense was set. The defense is basically an oral exam about your results, what you did, what you didn't do and most importantly about the consequences of those results, how do they affect the world, the research and your field. My field is biochemistry and I think the science included on my thesis is pretty solid. No worries there. But still, what concerns me the most is how to present it to examiners. Confidence is key, but speaking in public is clearly not my cup of tea. I still have to master the language I should use, and basically having domain over the public. I've had a few rehearsals so far, and it hasn't been that bad. Things are going good and my performance is getting stronger.

I can't believe it's been almost five years since I started. Back then, I was a kid following somebody else's path and trying to figure out what I wanted and what I loved. I still feel like that kid, like I haven't figured everything I thought I would by now. In a very unexpected way, everything sorted out itself and my hard work paid off as I handed in a document with all my findings and that makes me proud to read.

But the oral presentation seals the deal and I'll get to walk out of that room having earned the right to ask people to call me doctor. I feel anxious and happy at the same time. I want it to be over already, but I don't ever want it to happen. It's inevitable, so I just have to embrace it.

For the last few weeks I've been asking myself a few questions. What should I be doing now? what are they gonna ask?? what should I be studying???

I'll worry about that tomorrow, for now, I'll be spending a relaxed friday night...

As I worry about time passing by and me not doing enough, I've decided to document it and have some reflections on everyday, just to keep me sane for the 2 weeks left.