External validation can be underrated

You know, I often write about the struggles I face as a doc student, in part because I hope the someone considering grad school will stumble across the blog and go into it with their eyes wide open. Plus, its cathartic to put my story into the internet abyss. But there are also periods of sunshine and rainbows that remind me of why I continue to put myself through the other stuff. Like right now - things are just coming up me. :)

After a killer spring semester and a week of much-needed rest, I finally worked up the nerve to look at my grades. I'll be the first one to spout the "grades don't matter" line, in part because I've believed that most of my life (and I have the undergrad GPA to prove it), but also because I get that a) there are no more school applications to worry about, and b) I'm learning to generate knowledge rather than report it. And yet, it still felt pretty great to see almost all Hs (on the H - high pass, P - pass, L - low pass system my grad school runs) for the semester. I felt validated for the level of exhaustion I was feeling at the end there and like I might actually be able to approach thriving some day.

Then I get an email saying my Letter to the Editor was accepted for publication in the journal I plan on submitting my inaugural first-author manuscript. I strategically submitted to that journal in hopes improving the chances of the still-under-way manuscript being accepted. Plus, I now get to cite myself when writing this article and, really, isn't that the dream?

THEN I get asked to do a sex ed 101 session with some undergrads working on an arts-based intervention I have been involved with off and on for a few years and with which I am moderately obsessed. It was one of the most fun things I've done in a while and reminded me of why I keep saying I want to teach. Plus, it looks like I'm going to get even more involved in the project because fun+research=yessssssss.

NOW I've just gotten word that I was accepted into a summer short course on multilevel models and multidimensional approaches to immigrant health. Plus travel stipend. Why yes, yes I will go to Ann Arbor for a week to get access to national datasets and learn some stuff from leaders in the field from across the country. And you fit in perfectly with both my dissertation ideas and all the things I discussed with my progress review committee this past week? Well. If you insist.

#winning