Happy Election Day!

Yes, Swimming is here after 6.5 years. Unlikely to have any readers that would see this but I am still going to send a note to everyone to PLEASE VOTE.

I have always taken voting very seriously and, as I've become older, I have grown only more serious about it. In 7th grade, I gave an oral presentation about suffrage and decided to recreate an entire one-woman theatrical interpretation of Marge Piercy's "What are big girls made of?" In hindsight, my dramatic interp was unrelated, but I will never forget what I learned from that project. The horrifying things that those before me went through to make sure I had the right to vote. Civic engagement is sacred to me and I try to vote for everything I possibly can (dumb elections, American Idol, dumb surveys online). People died to give me the right to vote and (as is very evident in the past 5-10y) it's a lot easier to take rights away than it is to get them back or even get them in the first place. For the majority of American citizens, someone died to make sure you had the right to vote so please exercise that right as often as possible. It's the one of the few societal equalizers. 

Happy Election Day!

Links to more information about Suffrage:

(1) Who Fought for the Women's right to vote?

(2) 14th Amendment 

(3) Suffrage history

-https://www.nps.gov/subjects/womenshistory/on-their-shoulders-the-radical-stories-of-women-s-fight-for-the-vote.htm

(4) Suffrage timeline

(5) Torture during suffrage:

-https://www.history.com/news/night-terror-brutality-suffragists-19th-amendment

-https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/58477/prison-special-one-last-push-womens-suffrage

-https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/sisters-suffrage-british-and-american-women-fight-vote

Swimming Lessons (on productivity, excellence, and achieving your best)

Robin Schulz (feat. James Blunt)- Ok

GREETINGS after all this time! Happy New Year (sort of)! Happy Winter/Spring! Happy Passover/Easter!

Let me preface this post by saying the lessons below are all from the Harvard Business Review (mainly from Tony Schwartz). I will try to link all the articles that each quote comes from (but there are a lot so this might take time). They are actually more quotes, mottos, credos rather than lessons.

I have missed my maritime adventures! I wish I had been able to write as frequently as a used to, but this blog is far from dead. I have been constantly reinventing myself and I have realized that my life is going to require my ability to reinvent myself over and over again. Thus, I hope to post all of that here and then some with the hopes that the little things I read and experience can help others or at least amuse my readers.

Also, since it has been some time since I have written, I just wanted to note that for most of my entries I have been posting a link to a song at the top. Most of the time it has been thematic, sometimes it was just random. The idea behind this originated from me writing my entries to the song and hoping that my readers can experience what I am experiencing while they read my posts. (Obviously, this is optional.)

Here goes:

1. Absorbed focus lies at the heart of great performance.
2. The simple act of making decisions progressively depletes our ability to make them well.
3. Whatever you feel compelled to do: Don't.
4. If you respond out of compulsion, you have not made an intentional choice.
5. Live, operate, function with intent.
6. Do what makes you feel good about yourself, not what makes you feel good right now.
7. Be consistent with the person you want to be. 
8. The challenge in life is upping our game.
9. Compulsions rarely lead to positive outcomes.
10. Never stop trying to get better. 
11. Resilience is trying really hard, stopping, recovering, and trying again.
12. Find a way to discover equilibrium quickly.
13. Catch yourself when you default to whatever makes you feel good in the moment.
14. Ask yourself "How would I behave here at my best?" 
15. Push yourself beyond your current limits day-in, day-out despite the discomfort it creates.
16. The willingness to endure discomfort and sacrifice instant gratification is the only way to get better at anything and to achieve true excellence.
17. Welcome Discomfort. 
18. Live in discomfort. 
19. Temptation will always defeat you if you expose yourself to it too long. 
20. Do specific behaviors at precise times.
21. Pride yourself on relentless perseverance in the face of obstacles. (also here)
22. You cannot consistently improve your ability to make decisions (or your intuition) without considerable practice, reflection, and analysis.
23. Have grit and grace. 

I have actually handwritten all of these while I was reading the articles (some of them are my own lessons). Enjoy! 

Also, just for fun, I have taken an interest in Goldendoodles and Angora Rabbits. Hopefully, I can own one someday (but that would require me collecting their dander, taking it to my allergist, creating an allergy shot to tolerate the creature). Until then, I just look at the pictures because they make me happy (this is from insta). Happy New Year! 2018 will be great. 

Why the kidney is a metaphor for life

These past 10-11 months have been a whirlwind. School has been amazing, but difficult at times. My program has challenged me academically and sometimes, even more so, emotionally. I've been forced to make sure that I run my day and not the other way around. I've been tested to control my own, longstanding vice of time-management. I've been impelled to transorm into someone who used to meagerly accept the status quo into someone who realizes that as a woman I am wildly disenfranchised and when I feel, hear, or see injustice I am motivated to speak up and not accept it. I challenge it as much as it challenges me. Most importantly, I've endured professors that span the spectrum of gifted and, well, not so gifted. I've met some great people along the way.

Today is the last day of my first year and last Thursday was my last lecture of the year. During our last lecture, my renal professor/course director presented arguably the most salient information of my entire first year. Below is a picture. I am lucky to have had her to look up to in both academic interest and poise as a woman in clearly what is still a man's field. She knows her field and knows it well. She displayed an enthusiasm for the field and owned her personal responsibility to bequeath that enthusiasm and knowledge upon us in the most honest and humbling way. ("I think the kidney is beautiful and if you don't think so too then I am not doing my job right.") I have never met a professor that has tried to learn as much from our questions as we do from her teaching.

I want to point out that I have only had a few female professors/faculty that we work with closely in my first year. It might be my own gender bias, but these women resonate with me not only by words but also by action. They have shown what it's like to maintain a career while giving birth. They have shown to hold their own when the men around them egregiously (and probably subconsciously) push them aside. They've done it with poise, grace, and intellect. I've learned from them. I've learned that it's not enough for me to know the craft to the fullest extent because I will be challenged by colleagues and superiors that assert that they *may* know more. I have to be able to articulate things at the right time and place. It makes little difference if these are afterthoughts because at the end of the day I will be responsible for someone's life and a misstep or lack of appropriate and prompt action can have a result that I won't be able to take back or redo.

I am grateful for my opportunities this year. I will embark on summer break after our exams next week hopefully a smidge wiser and vigilant and motivated to excel to the next level. I want to leave this post with some last words from my renal professor: "My whole life I have tried to set the bar as high as I can because I realized that if I even accomplished 50% of that then I am still better off than someone who set the bar low."

Swimming Comes back!

Greetings fair viewer,

I have been at sea for quite some time, but I am alive and well and fully intend to update this blog on my life's happenings. Below is a post that I created some time ago. In the past year, I've experienced numerous maritime adventures (aquariums, boat rides, whale watching etc...) I shall post those piece by piece. I would like to say I'm going to bring back my segments: Etiquette Wednesdays, 21st century feminist, climate series, and I would like to try out a Medical Mondays post.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2017 is going to be great! (that is if I still have my health insurance....)


-Love,

Swimming 

The Comeback: Swimming's Four Step Program for eliminating insecurity!

STEP I: Recognize the general problem. Swimming's first step requires identifying whether or not you are insecure/not confident in general or in a particular instance. We all have insecurities in certain aspects of our lives. Some people are social butterflies, but completely shy in school or at work. Others are the exact opposite and have no issue vocalizing their thoughts in an academic or professional setting but struggle establishing social connections with others in a non-business forum. The first step to eliminating insecurity is to identify when and where it occurs. If you're struggling with identifying it then check out if any of the characteristics of low self-esteem creep into your life/conversation and then back-track to specifying when/where.

STEP II: Identify the characteristics of insecurity. There are some tell-tale signs of insecurity.
-Body language: do you shuffle your steps and hold your head down and look down when you walk? Do you try to cross your arms and legs and make yourself smaller in certain situations?
-Language/conversation: what kind of language do you use to describe yourself? what language do you use to voice your opinions? Is it surrounded by positive language? Or does your language begin with apologies or uncertainty? Do you easily get defensive or yield to/conform with others opinions?
Here are some classic characteristics of low self-esteem:
Heavy self-criticism 
Hypersensitivity to criticism  
Chronic indecision  
Excessive will to please and unwillingness to displease any petitioner. 
Perfectionism, which can lead to frustration when perfection is not achieved. 
Neurotic guilt, dwelling on and/or exaggerating the magnitude of past mistakes. 
Floating hostility and general defensiveness and irritability without any proximate cause. 
Pessimism and a general negative outlook. 
Envy, invidiousness, or general resentment

STEP III: Create an action plan. First practice, then create the habit, then transform into second nature!

Phase 1: Get creative on reminding yourself to be confident. I made cheat sheets to post around my apartment and posted positive words ("Fearless" and "Powerful" are two but there are many more) to constantly remember the mission. I also employed reminders on my phone throughout the day and worked with a few different affirmation apps for iphone along with power posing daily and being aware of when I'd slouch or cross my legs. Whatever mechanism you choose make sure you are constantly reminding yourself of what you want to be throughout the day and set that intention first thing in the morning. Fake it till you make it. 

Phase 2: Hand-in-hand with #2, be constantly aware of language that wreaks of insecurity. These are things that allude to guilt, self-deprecation/pessimism, perfection, appeasing others/yielding to others, indecision, overtly defensive. Create new vocabulary to speak positively about your position, yourself, and others. This is where the real legwork comes in. It's difficult to catch insecure language but it is imperative to change since anything you vocalize is physical energy that is getting sent out to the world and will eventually manifest itself in some way back into your life. I first started with reviewing the conversations I had with people each day, then listing everyday for one month all the things that fit the low self-esteem profile from #2 and then spent the following months attacking each to make peace and finding positive language to displace the insecurity.
-Be certain about what you want. It's infinitely more difficult to vocalize your opinions or thoughts if you are internally unsure of what you want. Be sure to establish real goals and sort out what you want for a certain endeavor and make sure that those things are measurable to some extent so that it can be quantified. (SMART goals!) This will help with indecisiveness.
-Be positive about others. I cannot emphasize this enough and this was something that came easy to me since I love giving kindness to others. In general, be kind, be interested in others, be positive about others. There are many ways to get ahead in life, but I believe that when all is said and done the kindness you share others is everlasting since it also inspires others to pay it forward. Make gratitude and compliments to others a habit to eliminate pessimism. I know many pessimists who masquerade as just being realistic. Truth be-told they may be buzz-kills but to cope with this I do the follow:
-If you find yourself getting defensive, the best strategy is to calmly ask questions and truly understand where the other person is coming from. The ability to empathize with others is important in life (but don't give up your own position on a matter.)

STEP IV: Employ action plan and hop to it!
A major aspect of this is being ok with constantly not being in your comfort zone. Where you are uncomfortable is where real growth is so embrace it. 

Best Day Ever

12/09/2015: Best. Day. Ever.

Coldplay: Viva La Vida 

Buongiorno!

Hello fair readers! I know it's been some times once I've posted-Swimming has been busy at sea whale watching, volunteering, working, and sorting out a tumultuous lodging situation.

I will post my maritime adventures later. For now, I would like to share a wonderful poem entitled 'Life Changes'. While volunteering at Healthcare for the Homeless, one very special lady gave me a copy of her poem after she told me about her battle with ovarian cancer and how she wrote this one night. She encouraged me to stay strong in all of my endeavors, to love greatly, and to laugh and be silly (she has been married 20 years and still plays pranks on her husband). She also gave me some wonderful words of wisdom to stand up for myself, be very discerning, and learn some Krav Maga to defend myself. I look forward to hanging out with her more. For now, enjoy her wonderful words:

Deep thoughts by MB

I had a lovely conversation with one of my best friends today. Her eloquence reminds me of how lucky I am to have people like her in my life.

Criminal Pig Leaves a Smelly Surprise for Police After He's Apprehended in Michigan

This has to be the best thing I've read all day.  This little piggy went all the way home


http://www.peoplepets.com/people/pets/article/0,,20927280,00.html

Swimming moves again!

I am getting prepped for my move back to Boston. Today I graduate grad school (thank you Case for the wonderful opportunity!!) and would like to post some good quotes: