Lilith the Assassin Cat's Journey

[Lilith]

Puppy status update????

Puppy mum not yet in heat, which is good because she's timed for much later. The same breeder is soon going to have a litter with a different female and I love following all her litters basically! I pretty much figured out what I want to feed the dog (I will be doing BARF) and the boyfriend is going to look at playpens and crates. Very excited for the little one to come but right now he or she doesn't exist yet. (luckily, I don't want the pup to come when I'm still in Paris)

[amandolin]

Got it. I always wanted to do the BARF diet, just not feasible for us financially. I highly recommend crate training. We had two crates one in the bedroom and another in the "dog room" since we've always overlapped dogs, older dog gets full run of the room, younger dog gets the crate. We just took the second crate out of the bedroom since the younger dog is now 2 and has graduated during the night to not wander about an cause chaos.

[Lilith]

Yes we definitely want to crate train our dog. I just wonder, what is the time you can teach them free roam of the house when you leave for work etc? And how gradually do you build that up? 

[amandolin]

So we have 2 dogs, a 8 year old Great Dane(Delia) and a 2 year old bulldog mix(Morgan). Before we got the mix the Great Dane had full rein of the house while we were gone. When we got the new dog, she went into the crate and Delia went into what we call the dog room, because Morgan freaked out when she couldn't see Delia, and Delia likes to hang out on the couch, which is out of the site line of the crate. Once she had been 100% accident free for about 3 months Morgan got short test runs of being loose in the house. Like super short, like we're just out in the yard mowing, or in the garage working out. We're at home but not in the house giving constant super vision, that built into staying out when running to the grocery. Then when going out to dinner, going to visit the inlaws. We just slowly kept building more and more unsupervised time. There were of course lapses, not with accidents in the house but with destroying things, loofahs are a favorite for sure, hair brushes, pens, sunglasses. Never shoes fortunately. After we had a mishap, they both would lose privileges and it was back to the crate/dog room respectively. They still don't have full rein while we're at work. I'll sometimes leave Delia loose, because all she does is sleeps on the couch. But Morgan gets board and causes chaos still. we try giving her toys but they all end up under the couch, and then she has to find other things to occupy her which is when things go bad.

 

Sorry that was so long, but basically, you have to decide how much you trust them and make a judgment call, come home and find out if you trusted them too much or not and adjust accordingly.

[Lilith]

Doesn't matter that it was long, it was a very good read and informative. Thanks! I will put your tip in the extensive puppy google docs I have, that has everything from food to training to what crate to get  

[Lilith]

Parkour didn't happen. For some reason I already thought it wouldn't. Maybe my roommate is sort of not wanting to do parkour, or not with me, at the moment. She said it was too wet, and certainly it had rained yesterday, a lot. But when I walked outside everything seemed dry actually. Or she just misinterpreted. Or anything, because she's not obligated to teach me parkour of course. So I'm not sure if parkour will ever happen, so far I was always the one asking, not her saying 'okay we said yesterday we'd do it today, lets go!' and I don't want to keep doing that. So the next initiation of parkour planning will have to be from her side.

 

So none of this happened sadly: 

This morning I only managed 3 minutes of meditation and then my thoughts were roving so much I bounced out of bed. 

 

Elements was nice again! I already know I will do the program again when it's done, because there's still plenty to learn! And my boyfriend has also taken a liking to it - so we will have to discuss which GMB program to try next. He is eyeing paralettes! Me, I'm partial to Floor 1 now, but Integral Strength also seems nice, even though it seems less necessary to buy. Strength programming is easier to do on your own than skill ones, as SymphonicDan also stated once. Also, when I'm home again I have my weightlifting stuff. But bodyweight strength is ALSO shiny. EVERYTHING IS SHINY! 

 

I've been keeping measurements of my waist and right upper leg (broadest part) and my waist measurements vary too much. I am not very good at keeping it in the same spot I guess. But from the start of Paris to now, I already lost 2cm from my legs. Or leg, rather. But I suppose the other one followed suit . Makes me very happy! I mean it was definitely a goal and I have been trying to watch what I eat (ups and downs obviously, there are periods, and stressfull days, and getting accustomed to the new eating patterns here) but I am also very active here and I guess it's showing.  I AM SO HAPPY!

 

Also, I went thrift shopping today and got a SUPER gorgeous skirt and a nice vest. I feel like a Parisienne now, haha. And on top of that, with the apparent weight loss (sadly I think my tummy is still eh, too prominent) I feel kind of sexy and awesome. Yeah. I feel good. 

[Cherry Poppins]

Shiny!

[Lilith]

From now on, for a while I'll be posting on my battlelog again! 

 

The updates will most likely be done very sparingly. I actually have an important thing to ask you guys, but I need to type everything out first sooooo for now just this tiny update. 

 

I did paralettes again yesterday, and this time I transitioned to the second stage with different movements. They were harder and incorporated more 'strange' movements on the paralettes. It was great fun, however I think I strained my neck? Because it's hurting a little. Anyway, today I'll make sure to do some stretches! 

[Mad Hatter]

Ask away.

 

Congrats on stage 2! Hope the neck pain goes away quickly. My guess is it's just cranky from the hard work.

[Lilith]

Okay so three times I tried writing this post, in a word document. Three times I failed well I wrote things but then deleted them again. I find it hard to talk about, hard to describe properly, hard to anything. 

 

The thing is, I'm in science and I always thought I wanted to get an academic career. But I think my heart is not in it. I think I'm not good enough. I get very stressed. And to make it you need to be the best, flexible with finding a new job every few years and moving around the world (or at least Europe) for every new job. I can't do that. I think. I KNOW I won't do the moving around thing. But then I could still try to make it without doing that. But I think I can't. And I think I don't want to. Since I decided "maybe not" I have been so much less stressed at my internship! 

 

But then what do I do? I need a job, and something I like. I'm not a child, I don't need something that is THE BEST THING EVER. Just a job I will enjoy. A job that will allow me to have a life OUTSIDE the job (science does not do that, science is living for science). And I am brainstorming on things I like and things I can do. I am putting more effort in learning how to program, that would be relatively easy to find a job in, if I have my masters degree companies will pay me and teach me how to program because programmers are that high in demand. But I'm not entirely sure I like that either. It's an option though, learning how to program I like. I just don't know if I will like it when the difficulty increases because right now I'm really at beginner stage. 

 

The other thing I like is just... Work in a gym? Work in a climbing gym maybe? But I'm not sure if it would be fulfilling and I think I would feel like a failure doing something like that but I also think I would love it? And that's more important?

 

The thing I want to do MOST right now is you have these dogs for handicapped people (blind and such) and there's one company in the Netherlands that trains all of them. I would love to be a dog instructor there. Really love it. I would need to first become a trained dog instructor thing but I could do that honestly it wouldnt'be hard it would just cost money and time. And then I need some work experience on the CV because they do have quite some requirements. And I'm scared and sort of ashamed by how much I want this. I would love this. 

 

I don't even know what to do or what exactly to ask you. But any thoughts? On anything? 

[SymphonicDan]

Ah, this is a real struggle for many people when they're advanced in their academic career and the most natural progression is to just continue (Masters, PhD, post-doc, tenured professor etc.) but aren't sure whether it's for them... and often when people move to employment from academia they believe that they'll use lots of their knowledge in a job somewhere, but for most jobs (especially Maths and Science) this really isn't true. I'm a Mathematician by education and I work with lots of ex-Mathematicians but we barely do any Maths - just programming.

 

From my experience, when you move from academia to employment, you get the following:

• more restriction on your time (you have to be in the office at particular times and can't skip work like you might skip lectures)
• more or less free time, depending on your job
• more money
• more headspace for thinking of things that aren't your job (when you leave work you have no reason to think about work)
• less social opportunities

There are exceptions to these of course - but hopefully that helps you decide.

 

As for what career to pick - it's more important to get a job working in an environment you like than with things that you like. If you worked in a climbing gym for example, that would involve lots of dealing with people, and lots of admin (entering people's details into a database, putting the new chalk bags in the cupboard etc.) so it would be much the same as working in a garden centre (to pick a random example). Either way you'd have free time when you aren't working to pursue hobbies - whether it's climbing or gardening or whatever.

 

Some factors that you might consider:

• freedom to work on what you want
• social contact with colleagues etc.
• stress and sense of accomplishment
• rigid structure vs. variety of schedule
• seeing a clear benefit of your work
• customer-facing or not
• demographic of colleagues
• outdoors
• vacation time
• work hours
• salary
• variety of work vs. becoming an expert at something

Obviously you have to make compromises (as you've said lol) but maybe some of these points will help you think about what jobs will actually keep you happy on a day-to-day basis.

[Mad Hatter]

You're completely right that an academic career is a huge commitment, especially since your field is highly competitive, and if you're not 100% sure it might be worth considering other options.

 

One thing to remember is that whatever you choose it doesn't have to be forever. So you could take a job as a junior programmer, get all the perks Dan mentioned, save up some money and learn about dog training in your spare time. On the way maybe you'll discover that you love programming, or that you actually hate dog training, or something else entirely. But it's all good and it's all part of the learning process and discovering what you enjoy. While Dan's list is a really good starting point and really worth thinking about, nothing will prepare you for the real thing.

 

I do however want to add one thing to his list that has become important to me personally - in a job you make things that have direct value straight away as opposed to intellectual value that may or may not be useful in a few years time. (In many fields of physics more like never )

 

I'd also like to add intellectual stimulation as a factor to the second list. Because from what I know about you, I honestly don't think you'll be satisfied for very long working in a gym. For a while sure, but I think you have too much of a science mind to not get bored quickly. I might be completely wrong, but it's something to consider. 

 

Not sure if it's helpful or not but I've written some of my personal experiences behind the spoiler as I can definitely relate to your thinking. 

 

At uni I was in the exact same situation as you, though I never went as far as a PhD. For a long time I was dead set on an academic career, first because of interest, later because well what else would I do? Then life happened and I got the choice sort of made for me. Basically I went traveling, got broke, had to move in with my parents and was going crazy after about two weeks haha. Since I was a lot more picky about PhD programmes than jobs I ended up taking a job as a software developer in a physics group at a medical company. (Fun fact, I actually hated programming back then and I couldn't program for shit.) I was still "a physicist", a label that I liked and felt comfortable with and for the longest time I identified more with that label (because physics is cool!) than the developer label (impostor syndrome was running strong for a few years) But now as I've learned more and more about programming, and when my tasks have shifted more from physics to application development I'm actually finding that I really enjoy programming! I used to think that I loved research, but what I did love was rather the big physics concepts and feeling smart LOL. But actually it turns out that I enjoy simply building interesting stuff and the big picture a lot more than the nitty-gritty. But it took a long time to realize and accept this as I've worn my shiny physicist hat for a really long time.

 

What I'm trying to say with this very long-winded story is that unless you try something you won't find out if you like it or not, and you may well discover things on the way that you didn't expect, about the work or about yourself.

[Lilith]

SymphonicDan - Thank you so much for your well thought out post!

 

·         more restriction on your time (you have to be in the office at particular times and can't skip work like you might skip lectures)

·         more or less free time, depending on your job

·         more money

·         more headspace for thinking of things that aren't your job (when you leave work you have no reason to think about work)

·         less social opportunities

So about this list, I think, after consideration, this seems spot on. The more money thing depends on what I do. Right now it doesn't necessarily have to be a job 'worthy of my degree/intellectual level'. The more restriction on your time will also be true, but in the end that doesn't really matter I think. I'm the kind of person that feels obliged to be present anyway at everything. But the list, and the comprehensive way you put it, is nice. I actually saved the list in my 'career' googledocs that I made to brainstorm and basically figure out where my life is going to head. 

 

I think I get your environment you like versus things you like. I was also very unsure about the climbing gym thing. In fact, I guess I never really saw it as a 'real' option it was more a kneejerk reaction. Because right now I'm stressed and overburdened. And from the way my life is now, it seemed like the best thing ever to work at the climbing gym, because even though I realise those people do in fact work, the atmosphere there was always laid back. 

 

It also made me think about  service dog trainer. The thing with that is, yes I also considered, even before posting here, that I may just like it because I’m obsessed with dogs right now. But I think this is not the case. I really genuinely think I could be great at training guide dogs. For training behavior you need to have a logical side, and contrary to popular belief, you should not be EEEEE DOG SQUEEE MUST HUG IT. You also do this for patients and one of the reasons I’m in biomedical sciences is well, I want to help people. This would be a more direct way to do it!

 

The factors you posted are also nice. Science would give me more freedom to work on what I want, you basically apply for a position that Works on a certain thing and you can choose your position. But then again, even though in science you can choose the subjects and the techniques, there are some things that never change. Like data analysis, like deadlines, like writing and lots and lots of reading of research articles. Things I don’t like. In this internship I’m realising how important all the things are that I dislike about ‘doing science’ and how much time you actually spend doing those.

 

Social contact with colleagues is nice, but I guess you can find a good team of people in any profession. You just have to be lucky. Although I admit that staying in a field that will require my master ensures that my team has a certain level of intelligence which might make it more likely I like them.

 

Stress is one of the main reasons I would not like to do science. Stress is crippling, I’ve seen it happen to my dad. I don’t deal well with stress. Of course I understand that NO job is ever completely stress free, there’s always a moment that things go wrong, or that things have to go right but it’s just a bit too much work for what you can handle. But to me this is continuous stress.

 

Salary sigh well I would like a good salary, but I realised that what I want more is a job I enjoy. Salary is really secondary. So this is why I would even consider jobs below my education level. Not that academic science is SO well paying.

 

I didn’t respond to all the points because this post is already huge but thanks a lot, you put everything in such a logical way to think about. I will definitely use these guidelines.

 

Now I’m going to write a second post to Mad Hatter, although some things might overlap and it’s not that this post is solely meant for you haha <3 

[Lilith]

Mad Hatter – Yes, the field is so competitive that even the ones that absolutely want and love this don’t always make it. I’m pretty confident I can find a phd, right now I’ve done (or still doing one) two internships in very good labs. If from both I can get a good reference, then I’m confident I will find a phd. I mean, you can’t know 100%, especially since I don’t want to look abroad so this narrows down the amount of available positions… But you get the point. It’s more, what then? I am not entirely sure I could finish the phd, people say I’m capable but I don’t feel that way, and then again people also don’t see how much I struggle, just the end result. They don’t see that for two months I was falling in a depressive, anxious hole of suicidal thoughts in order to finish that essay. And yes, I get better at it, but it’s always this battle against that side of me, the side that just crumbles under stress which comes from not feeling capable. And I feel capable with so many things, but NOT with science actually. I feel very capable, and passionate, about explaining things to people I like. Such as workouts, why squats are good for you, how to train your dog, how to tackle this climbing problem. I already found out I can work tirelessly and super happily on things I feel competent at. Say my beginner programming, when it goes well. I just don’t have that fire in science anymore. And even though I understand that in whatever profession I choose, there will be people better than me, the academic atmosphere is highly competitive which exagerates the unease I feel at everyone being (or so I perceive) better than me.

 

You are right that whatever it is it doesn’t have to be forever. But it’s something that is hard for me to accept and truly be okay with. Even though it’s true. I’ve always been ambitious, and if you keep changing up you won’t get good at anything. Or am I just making that up?

 

But yes, what you propose of starting as a programmer while training to be a dog trainer, this was actually something in my mind aswell to do.

 

Direct value versus intellectual value, true it’s a factor. Dog trainer would be VERY rewarding, since you’re directly helping patients. (See I’m quite obsessed with this guide dog training thing sigh) But it wouldn’t be the most important one for me. Most important for me, is that TO ME it has to be enjoyable, relatively stress free (or the kind of stress I can cope with) and just a job I like doing. And a job that allows me to have a life next to my job. Doesn’t mean it can’t be a relatively demanding job, but science, at least the teams I worked, means NO friends outside of the lab usually NO weekends etc.

 

Your personal experience is super useful and thanks so much fors haring that about yourself! It’s so nice to know that you basically went through the same and then you came out on the other end happy! So yes, I definitely want to try programming at least. Because I looked at pharmaceutical jobs and they are just really not my thing (although very suited to my master).

 

I am not sure how much mental stimulation I need in a job. I also don’t know what kind. You are right I have a logical mind, and you are right that my mind loves to do things. I also think, after you and Dan’s comments, that I agree with you. I should not work in a gym of some sort. It would be boring. But I have always wanted to work with animals. I wanted to be a vet, in fact, my single biggest regret in life is that I didn’t go to veterinary school. But I can’t change that now. Now I work with animals too at work (albeit in a science way, so not A LOT). So I would think that being a guide dog trainer, and keep in mind, this is a serious job where you get special training, work fulltime hours and at any one time have five dogs (different ages) under your care that you raise to be fully equipped guide dogs for patients. Then you also have to train the patients and make patient and dog work as a team, and do yearly checkups to check on the performance of the dog. It’s not ‘I’m a freelance dog trainer and I give puppy courses 5 hours a week’ because that definitely wouldn’t be the job for me. I think that COULD (but I don’t know ofc!) be mentally challenging enough, because every dog will be different, every patient will be different. And next to that, I wonder how much I can just do in my free time if that makes sense. Say doing as a hobby robotics at home or things like that. In the end, just like for a dog actually, you just need an amount of mental stimulation per day, not neccesarily just in your work. (But your work should definitely not be boring)

 

Long write up again. Does it all make sense? There’s no real questions but it’s just I wouldn’t know what to ask and I just really like discussing it with you guys. You give invaluable insights. 

[Elastigirl]

No advice, just finding you and saying hi!

[SymphonicDan]

How are you doing Lilith? How much time do you have left in Paris? Hope everything's okay