Winner, winner, chicken dinner

Confession: I don't really like to cook that much.

Correction: I'm not really motivated to cook for myself.

Condition: I'm single and live alone.

Conclusion: I don't really cook that much, for myself or anyone.

In the past, I've been pretty happy to "scavenge" whatever is in my fridge and/or cupboards, and call a grilled cheese sandwich and a pile of carrots dinner. That or grab some kind of food to-go from a local eatery (or, well, get dinner through the late-night working crew at work). But now that I've been on a graduate student stipend for a few months, I've realized I need a better incentive system to improve my cooking habits. Something with flexibility so I don't feel immediately overwhelmed, yet something with accountability so I also feel adequately compelled to change my behavior. 

Drum (dinner?) roll please.

Tonight, implementation of the "Dinner-in Nights" intervention - DINs - began with my great friend (and apartment building co-resident) Kelly. This pilot program involves each of us committing to cook at least once a week, and then alternating cooking for the other person every other week. This two-pronged approach aims to cultivate a non-intimidating cooking routine while promoting mutual accountability among two people with low access barriers (i.e., we live in the same building, we work for the same company) and high motivation for behavior change. We will report weekly progress as part of the overarching monitoring plan, and course-correct as needed. Limitations of this pilot program may include unforeseen scheduling constraints, self-recall biases (e.g., "Oh wait, it was my turn to cook this week? Ermmm...), and potential for suboptimal adherence. 

Can this count as our study protocol pre-registration?

Anyway.

To kick-off DINs properly, I made Molly Gilbert's tried-and-true (and truly delectable) chicken and broccoli with spicy peanut sauce with a side of quinoa. And before you think I'm a fancy quinoa-toting chef (or something), I'm fairly sure I purchased it circa 2013-2014 amid a fleeting cooking spree - it's hung out on a pantry shelf since. Like her cookbook promised, this dish was quick and easy and ever so tasty. Now Kelly and I both have leftovers in our fridges, and happy digestion in our bellies.

For more of Molly's great recipes (and 'riting), check out her blog at https://dunkandcrumble.com/

Today I learned...

When I was rerunning some analyses, I noticed that a number of patient-level data points were somehow negative versions of otherwise reasonable blood pressure readings (i.e., not 0 or -999, a frequent code for missing values). I'm going to investigate a bit more tomorrow, but it's likely that the negative values were interviewer errors and thus we should adjust them (i.e., multiply by -1) and now include these patients rather than dropping them. Takeway: know thy data.

Today I'm grateful for...

Easy access to a local Trader Joe's so I could pick up ingredients for our first DINs without breaking the bank and on the way home from work.

Today's best part was...

Brainstorming lesson topics and plans for a global health and data science training we'll be offering through the Washington Global Health Alliance (WGHA)'s STEM Global Teacher Workshop at the end of April. I'm excited for the opportunity to be more involved in curriculum development and teaching around global health measurement - more to come soon!

When I grow up, I want to...have a PhD?

What's your dissertation topic? Ummm...

What do you want to do after your PhD? Uhhh...

What do you want to get out of your PhD program - besides a doctorate? Oh, I can answer that one - I think...


It's been almost exactly 6 months since I started my doctoral studies at UW, and while I'm a few (coughmanycough) steps away from landing on a dissertation topic - let alone knowing exactly what I want to do with my PhD - I recently tackled something I had planned to do awhile ago. I wrote out my PhD hopes and goals within key categories; I mapped out the courses I wanted to take and when they were offered (and then color-coded them by degree program requirement - obviously); and put them all in a Google drive so I could regularly review and update them.

Several people, ranging from formal and informal mentors alike to current and former PhD students/friends/colleagues, had recommended completing this kind of exercise in one way or another. One professor told me to articulate 1-, 5-, 10-, and 25-year goals and then identify what experiences and skills I needed to meet them during my PhD. One of my best friends/former officemate and colleague/current PhD candidate recommended writing out what I hoped to learn and be exposed to over the course of my doctoral studies. And the list went on - clearly this was something I should do.

I drafted up an initial version the weekend after a 40 minute cryfest with my faculty advisor. The aim was to review the courses I had taken already, identify the types of methods and skills I wanted to learn, and then work out what kinds of next steps I should take in terms of projects, research assistantships, summer jobs, and so on. Not surprisingly - ha - I took it to the next level, and sought to find more tangible reasons why I was even doing this whole PhD thingamabob in the first place. Clearly, this was a long time coming.

For anyone currently in and/or starting a PhD program - I highly recommend this process. It's helped me garner greater focus, a better understanding of how I want to mold my doctoral studies, and - bonus - realize I'm already making progress toward real milestones I actually care about (versus benchmarks others were erecting and I inadvertantly got caught up in measuring my performance against them).

I imagine I'll continue to refine this working document, but in case anyone else wants a broader template from which to start their own "PhD goals and planning, 20xx-20xx" reference, here's my current structure (and a few examples):

• PhD goals and planning: 2018-202x
• When I graduate with my doctorate, I want to...
• Have expertise across impact evaluation methods and analyses
• Have exposure to different phases of evaluation projects
• Have spent time working at organizations and/or with country partners outside of my current research institute
• ...among others
• Topical areas I would like to spend more time on include...
• Vaccine coverage and vaccination determinants
• Malaria control and elimination
• Healthcare utilization (e.g., care-seeking behavior) and intervention effectiveness
• Intersection of quantitative global health and social psychology/sociological factors that affect effectiveness and outcomes
• ...among others
• The technical methods and analytical approaches I want to learn more about are...
• Impact evaluation and policy analysis techniques (e.g., stepped wedge)
• Data synthesis techniques for trend estimation (e.g., methods for combining administrative and survey data)
• Geospatial analysis
• Counterfactual models and simulations
• Qualitative data collection and/or analysis
• Network analysis
• ...among others
• Specific research and coding skills I would like to learn include...
• Becoming proficient in R
• Making maps
• Developing R Shiny tools (I did this!)
• ...among others
• Personal and academic experiences I want to have or benchmarks I want to achieve during my PhD are...
• TA-ing at least 1-2 courses
• Applying to teach (and then ideally treaching) a J-term course on global health measurement and analysis at my alma mater (current target is Winter 2021)
• Applying for at least 1 grant or fellowship
• Writing 1-2 first-author papers per year; supporting 1-2 team papers per year and/or providing regular scientific paper mentorship, coaching, etc. to team members
• ...among others

Spring quarter 2019 - here I come.


Today I learned...
...well, it's more like thought-about-more-deeply than formally-learned-something-completely-new, but I technically learned more about the challenges of conducting truly independent evaluations from a bravely written Viewpoint in The Lancet: Storeng & Palmer, "When ethics and politics collide in donor-funded global health research." I strongly recommend it.

Today I'm grateful for...
My research team's willingness to let me focus on studying for finals and recovering from an obstinate ear/sinus infection over the last week. Further, I'm now the bottleneck for a manuscript we're working on, yet everyone has kindly given me the space to focus on school and then getting closer to 100% health status. I'm incredibly thankful for this, and I look forward to wrangling results and a paper into submission this week (all the puns intended).

Today's best part was...
Honestly, being back in the office. I missed seeing my team and colleagues, and it felt good to back in "my" hotel space. PhD students reserve computer space at our offices through an online system, and I've essentially taken over "Hotel 2" at our northern offices. This is where I left the homemade paperweight the Murphy girls made me as a thank you for coordinating Girl Scout cookie orders at our institute for them (as if this was a huge inconvenience or something...ha). It kind of snuck up on me, but I'm starting to feel like I belong.

Another quarter, another...quarter?

And just like that, Winter Quarter 2019 is done. Two quarters down, one-third of my PhD coursework completed, over 54% of core classes finished...ok, enough with the statistics. At least for the next week - oh wait, that's a lie. I'll definitely be doing some statistics next week.

The quarter system is a weird, wild ride. Our professors shove a typical semester's 13-15 weeks of material into 10 weeks of class time and course work, taunting our minds and sleep schedules to stretch and shrink respectively. Throw in a snow day (or week, as Seattle did this year), and suddenly what was already a precarious timetable goes totally topsy-turvy. One professor recalibrates expectations, extending deadlines and shifting class foci; others charge ahead, recording lectures to supplement lost days and providing additional office hours to offset diminished face time. The quarter system can offer some great benefits - the ability to enroll in a greater variety and total number of courses, the opportunity to take a quarter off to do xyz without wreaking total havoc on timelines, among others. The quarter system also can be your foe - pushing, pushing, pushing until something gives, and that something is usually you.

About 5 or so weeks into this past quarter I gave. The days were flying by and while my colleagues and classmates were at least seemingly keeping apace, I felt sluggish and increasingly worried about falling behind. New concepts and equations and code swirled around my head without settling anywhere, an experience that shook me as I've relied on my brain and its swift uptake of information for decades. The isolating cycle of studying, coding, and doing homework alone left me desperately craving social interaction, but whenever I spent time with friends and people outside of work or school, I felt like I was watching my own social trainwreck from afar. Words were thick and clumsy, jokes wouldn't land, and I couldn't keep track of anyone's stories or updates anymore. Nothing felt good, everything felt out of reach.

Though no magical life 180 followed a a tear-laden meeting with my faculty advisor in mid-February, various bits and bobs gradually started to come together. I worked on a couple of group projects where I finally felt more useful and effective, slowly rebuilding some confidence in my head and brain capacities. I tackled some outstanding data processing needs for my research one weekend, and threw myself into a coding project the next - and even got an R Shiny app with Sankey diagrams to work! I spent more time with longstanding friends and new grad school ones alike, adding new layers and strength to the Seattle community I hold so dear. I began to haul myself out on some painfully slow runs, and started wobbling through some push-up and ab routines again. While the last month has been far from smooth sailing (e.g., I got pretty sick last weekend right before and then during finals, which ultimately led me to cancel a trip back East to see my nephew, brother, and sister-in-law so I could fully recover), I increasingly feel like I'm back at the rudder of my own ship. At least for now.

Today I learned...
Overtime in the NHL now stipulates 3-on-3 (plus goalies) sudden death play rather than the full squad. How exciting (and unexpected).

Today I'm grateful for...
Spending time with great people, of past and present Seattle. I got the chance to have dinner with Allie last night, I spent a couple of hours in Fremont with Chloe and Molly this afternoon, and I had dinner with Brooks in Capitol Hill tonight. I'm also grateful for the chance to rest and recuperate over the last few days; from sleeping 15 hours on Thursday to Friday morning and taking a full break from work and school, it's made a massive difference. My total A-game remains a bit illusive (i.e., my ear infection hasn't fully cleared and I'm still pretty drained), but I'm getting there.

Today's best part was...
Doing a meet-and-greet for two delightful, goofy weimaraners I'll be dogsitting April 6-7. Luke and Luna brought me so much joy.