Monday October 16th 2023 – 5:12pm

Hey Tumblr, it's been a while.

I've logged on a couple times in the last week or two. Most people I used to follow are no longer active. The few that are still here feel comforting (hi!). This community used to be such a big part of my life.

As always, I have many (many) thoughts going through my head. Some I would love to get out here, but I'm not going to put any pressure on myself to do so.

Scott and I are getting married in just under six months! We can't wait. He's been away for work almost 50% of the time in the last six months, and it's been very hard at times. Some days I still can't believe the life we're growing together – and am in awe that it's really just beginning.

The dark wet days (like today) are hard.

I'm still working on my PhD (please don't ask for much longer).

Jazzie is doing great.

I even won a rowing race over the weekend! My first in many years.

We'll see if I have anything else to say.

Race Recap: Hatzic Valley Road Race

Man is it nice to be able to write race recaps again. This one is a bit different because it's a cycling race recap! I'd never done a cycling road race before, so I learned a lot through the many mistakes I made. Cycling races are *very* different from running (or rowing) races. The short of it is that my fitness was alright, but my race tactics were non-existent. Much of the placing came down to a sprint at the end and I had nothing left, so I placed quite poorly. However, I had fun and would do it again! Over-analysis below:

May 20th 2021 – 2:57pm

All in all I'm doing alright, I just feel... out of sorts. Rambles below.

Depressed or burnt out? I can't tell. I hope we can travel within BC soon so I can go to Victoria for a week and try to reset.

March 18th 2021 - 3:14pm

I've been thinking back to this time last year, as I'm sure many of you have. Here's a collection of memories:

March 6th 2021 – 9:06 am

I haven't had the time/brain energy for journalling much this year, so this will have to do! A collection of thoughts below:

Zoomester Studyblr Challenge

Thanks to @progressaesthetics for setting up this challenge! I fully expect to do a couple days of it and then fall off the face of the earth, but it's nice to have some prompts.

My name is Bronwyn! I am a Canadian PhD candidate studying Medical Genetics in Vancouver. I am also a high-performance endurance athlete (rowing/running/cycling) so I am very busy most of the time.

I am in my third year of my program (tags #gsy1 #gsy2 #gsy3 for each year), and am probably under half way done. My PhD is a fast-track from undergrad and my program average is 6 years (with people in my lab taking closer to 7). I'm fine with that though, I love my job (yes, we get paid)! I finished classes in my first year, and so I'm currently doing lab work, "attending" talks, TAing, and mentoring an undergrad.

My major in undergrad was Biochemistry, which was great way to figure out that I don't indeed enjoy biochemistry! Part of the problem was that my program (at Queen's university) was extremely protein-chemistry heavy instead of being well-rounded. For example, I didn't take a *single* microbiology course, and only took physiology in my final year because I realized I had very little knowledge about how the body worked as a whole.

I knew fairly early on that I loved evolutionary biology, and my favourite fourth-year required course BY FAR was advanced molecular biology. I took a year off after I graduated to decide what I wanted to do next - I'd wanted to get a job in industry but it didn't work out. I then decided which university I wanted to go to, and I knew from my previous experience in two different labs that I wanted to do a research-based graduate degree. I spent a few days looking through labs and the ones I were interested in all fell under the Department of Medical Genetics. I then looked at the required courses and knew it was the program for me! I was also lucky enough to get into my first-choice lab. I don't have any particular ~story~ for why I'm studying X-chromosome inactivation beyond the fact that it brings together a few interests: gene expression regulation x sexual selection x cutting-edge laboratory techniques.

I have not! I have *meant* to do a few of them but haven't followed through. I think ideally I'd do 1-2 posts per week with questions that I like. I've been quiet on tumblr lately mostly due to feeling *overwhelmed* so I guess I just hope to start posting again.

hypothesis: most people in my little corner of this hellsite had a rough time during middle school

January 2021 Recap.

By the time we got to the fourth week of January I decided that I would just wait until the end of the month before posting my January goals. (I’ll write out my 2021 goals at some point.) I think part of my issue is that everything just feels... up in the air. Uncertain. Lately I have been feeling both overwhelmed and ineffective, like I’m struggling to tread water yet not realizing that I would be able to stand if i could stop treading long enough to let my feet find the bottom. I feel like I don’t have enough brain-powered hours in the day, yet I’m also not waking up rested at least a few days a week.  It’s been raining a lot the last few weeks, which probably doesn’t help. Anyway, goals (generally not met) below the cut. Sorry for the negativity; things just feel hard right now.

January 26th 2021 - 11:15am

This month has flown by. I still haven’t posted my January Goals, so at this point I guess I will just post them when it’s time for the month’s recap. I can tell you now that it’s been very hit and miss. I haven’t fully written out my 2021 goals/intentions yet, but they’re sitting in the back of my head. 

Unrelated, heavy topics below the cut:

Training in 2020

Now that I’ve done my sport-specific recaps, here is my overview for the year. This was my second year of keeping a consistent training diary (2019 here). As per last year, I probably spent 30-45 minutes/week to keep it up to date since I also kept an online spreadsheet with totals (instead of spending forever to create it at the end of the year). I like keeping a training record because it forces quite a bit of self-reflection, and also helps with consistency. The basics: 

Slightly excessive number of graphs below the cut

2020 Resolution Recap

Original resolution post. Overall, I did fairly well, which is largely because my resolutions are internal and so achievable even in a global pandemic. Some of these have their own recap (which are linked, or will be linked). I put it under a read-more because a) another long-ass text post and b) this year has been hard, and I don’t want anyone to feel bad if they didn’t make or meet their goals!