This Is Beautiful: New Pointe Shoes

 Alright so I rebought pointe shoes about a year and a half ago, and I knew my shoes were dead for a bit. But I have this thing where I hate shopping and spending money and all that, so I kept going for as long as I could. And it got to the point(e) where I couldn't do anything with the shoes and it was a struggle to hold myself up. I knew the shoes were dead, but I kept thinking about how bad of a dancer I am and that I'm getting worse, not better, etc etc.

All that to say, I bought new shoes about a week ago and it's SO much easier! I actually do not totally suck, if anything the dead shoes probably made me stronger and I can tell that I've improved now. It's really delightful, even though the hit to the bank account was a little rough. But I'm so excited to dance in them, it's a joy again.

This Is Beautiful: Kind of a Break?

 Last week my mentor was out of town, and this week a lot of activities I do are suspended for a break before the fall. It's nice to get a break from the pressure, and it's nice that it's not all at once, so I get multiple chill weeks. In different ways of course, but still. When my mentor was out I was able to course prep and get stuff done that I wanted to do personally, and then with less activities I have more evenings free during the first week of class. It's nice! I almost prefer it to a complete stop to be honest, still feels like I'm going but it's a little more relaxed.

This Is Beautiful: Independent Course Design

 I got moved to a different course recently and it was a swap from teaching with someone else to teaching on my own again. And even though it's more work, I am excited to be just on my own and having that flexibility again. Last fall I was in a similar situation and I liked the freedom, and now I have the added benefit of building off of a previous instructor's materials. (Thankfully it's not like last fall where I was doing a course from scratch.) I think it'll be a good semester as a result!

This Is Beautiful: Circus Performing

 I recently found out that the aerials studio I've been going to for a while lets even folks from the intro classes perform! As I'm staring down my last year of graduate school I'm about to lose my dance group that I've been with, and it'd be nice to have a different venue to perform with. At least I'd still get to perform if it isn't working with others so much. And I really appreciate that intro students can since I've been stuck there due to lack of upper body strength and the fact that I build up muscle so slowly.

Anyways, excited to check that out soon! Hopefully this will work out as a new thing I can do as a creative outlet.

This Is Beautiful: Things Starting

 I'm such a sucker, I love doing nothing and the free time that I have over the summer, but I'm also getting excited about being back from vacation and things starting up for the fall. I just feel like I need something to look forward to, you know? The dance group I'm with is announcing pieces to sign up for and I'll be teaching a low-key lab class. It'll be good to be in a classroom again. I'm just hoping that the academic year has a good balance of time to work on my things (or I'm never graduating) and fun stuff to do.

This Is Beautiful: Vacation

 I'm heading out on a 2 week vacation on Saturday, and I am very much looking forward to it. It will be a working vacation as I make sure all of my i's are dotted and t's crossed on this paper, but that's ok. Gives me an excuse for a little alone time. And it will be so nice to just take a break from the grind. The summer has been restorative, but there's always less that I could be doing.

This Is Beautiful: Getting Close

 I am nervous about posting this as I might be proven wrong, but I do feel like I am getting close to the end of the process with this paper. Things I think are coming together pretty nicely, and I feel as though most of what I'm doing is wrapping up things and settling details. Again I might be proven wrong because my advisor consistently can't go through everything that I'm working on so I'm just making a judgement call in places, but I'm really hoping it's getting close. The passage of time is freaking me out a little, it's July already, and I want to just get this out of my hands.

This Is Beautiful: Progress

 Things have been hard lately, I can tell that I'm making progress but it doesn't feel like it's enough. I'm trying to remember to take a step back, look at everything I've done, and be proud of that. But it is hard, the summer is passing rapidly and I feel so pressured to get things done more quickly with very little assistance. Need to keep focusing on the big picture, and even just the progress that I can make over the course of a few days when things are working. There are plenty of figure edits and writing progress being made without me having to fret about it not being finalized.

This Is Beautiful: No Meetings

 As my studies start to begin to wrap up (lol) I have finally achieved success with eliminating all meetings that I used to have to go to. A big part of that is that I'm no longer doing a bunch of orgs and those meetings are all gone now, but it's also part of me just not paying attention to anything that I don't want to do before I go. Plus it's the summer, so things are more relaxed regardless. It is really nice and makes me realize that I used to go to wayyyy too many meetings. Why was I doing all that?

This Is Beautiful: Progress

 Not like a super fleshed out post, but in the past week I had a thesis committee meeting and submitted an abstract to a conference. And it's nice to just look back and realize that I have gotten a lot done. I'm trying to not focus on how much I have left to do, and this was a nice reminder that I am making progress and I am going to graduate eventually!

This Is Beautiful: Cooking

 A combination of a few factors have led to me cooking much more in my regular life. First, I have started protecting my weekends much more. I do a lot of meal prepping, so having time on Saturday or Sunday to actually do that is crucial. We also started getting a kind of farm share box that is local foods only, some prepared even, and you can opt in or out each week. So it's pretty flexible, but still gives me access to different foods I might not buy on my own.

And I'm really enjoying it. The challenge of how to use the different foods in a way that we will actually eat is pretty exciting in a way that makes my brain happy. Taking the time to really do this and make something good, plus we get so much food from this box that it's always a feast on Saturday or Sunday night. It's so satisfying!

This Is Beautiful: Stuff is... Working?

 I'm at this home stretch of my degree where I'm doing a lot of analyses, and also at this point where I'm trying to wrap them up and just about everything I have left is super annoying to figure out. But this past week felt really good, I had multiple things work out! It feels good, and I'm trying to just remember that and focus on that because it's so easy to just focus on what doesn't work instead of what does. But things are in fact progressing! It might not be as fast as I'd like, but that's ok because I will get there eventually and while I still have a timeline I think it'll work.

This Is Beautiful: Nice Weather

 It's finally warm! I can wear shorts outside! This is game changing, I have the windows down in the car and I'm not in lab much so I'm in shorts and flip flops. It is lovely!

This Is Beautiful: Leaving Things

 Alright so as I'm trying to graduate and get out of here, I'm abandoning a number of leadership positions. Most I'm able to get others to take, there's a few that I'm not. And that's ok because I'm done here. And it's just so nice to finally be out. No more meetings, no stress about event planning, and no more responsibilities. Feels so good, and I'm so ready to be here. 

I am worried that I won't have enough to look forward to, but honestly a lot of these things I was doing didn't make me happy anymore and I wanted out. For a while I've wanted out. So this is going to be good for me.

This Is Beautiful: End of the Semester

 I am so ready for the summer, I won't have to be teaching and will have more free time. Of course this means that it'll be more time for me to work on my research and manuscript preparation so I won't just be sitting around but I will definitely have more flexible time. I'm dropping all of my leadership roles so I'll not be worrying about organizations or meetings that I have to lead. It sure will be nice.

This Is Beautiful: Recovering from Being Sick

 Last week I was down for the count with a real bad cold. It started on Tuesday and went all the way until the weekend. Thankfully not that much was going on, but it sure sucks having to spend my free time being sick. But I'm over it now! And nothing quite makes you appreciate a non-stuffy nose than not being able to breathe for a few days.

This Is Beautiful: End of Semester

 The semester ended yesterday and my goodness have I needed a break. The passage of time is still freaking me out, but I need more free time and more capacity than I've had the past few weeks. I am dropping a lot of responsibilities with the end of the semester, so this is a great feeling to be having! Summer here we are.

This Is Beautiful: Dance Performance

 Last weekend my dance group had its annual performance. I was really stressed out leading up to it (gestures vaguely) and I wasn't really looking forward to it to be honest. I just had so much else going on. Plus the dress rehearsal wasn't great, I mucked up a bunch of things I normally wouldn't have. Of course, the performance was great and a ton of fun! Things came together, I hit the spots that I was messing up to fix them, and I had a great time. It was a fun affirmation that these artistic communities are so important, and that creating art is such a good time. I am hoping that this isn't my last with the group, but there is the possibility that it is, but I'm so glad that I had this terrific performance if it is.

This Is Beautiful: In an Unknown Hand

 Last weekend I went to see my friend perform with her early music group. It was in a gorgeous little church and the 5 of them all sang songs that are uncredited but are associated with women's institutions (nuns primarily). They talked about the history and how they transcribed the music as they went so it was fascinating to hear about the work they did as well. And it was a lovely time, the music wasn't overly long like a mass and it just sounded so pretty with the resonance in the church. Plus they got an organist to help out! Great time and great to see a friend do what she studies!

This Is Beautiful: Solidarity

 Well not to dox myself, but the university I attend as a graduate student just ended all DEI programs before anyone asked them to. This is definitely an attempt to spin it as something the current administration is pressuring them into, but there's been talks about this since the fall and it's not fooling me. The administration just wants to consolidate more power in their end and do what they wanted to do all along.

In response, there's been a lot of heartening things taking place. More faculty are trying to learn from the graduate students who have been organizing for ages. And when faculty get fired up, that's when you know it's bad. So the solidarity and determination from everyone has been really encouraging and hopeful. I think this next year(s) is going to be rough, but we will have each others backs throughout it!