So...what is a Coffeespoon Afternoon?
I can't not kick off this blog with a picture of coffee, right? I created an "insta-blog" (a blog-like Instagram without an associated blog) after spending a weekend with my blogger sister 18 months ago, and finally decided to start the actual blog part. At the time, naming it "coffeespoon afternoons" was a little whimsical, given I just liked the atmosphere of coffee shops and thought the idea of me with a blog was somewhat hilarious (even though I've had one before...check it out if you want, it was short-lived and I also find its existence amusing: http://whenhealthisyummy.blogspot.com.) Well it turned out I was onto something when I named this insta-blog-now-real-blog, I just didn't realize how fitting it was at the time.
I started 2018 with gusto; with New Years Resolutions, with plans of revamping my work approach; with life. goals. And a lot of it stems from being a graduate student with unstructured days and spending lots of time in coffee shops ☕️ I'm in my fourth year of my PhD program in Applied Math. At least here at Northwestern, that means I'm done preliminary and qualifying exams, with teaching responsibilities and my own coursework. All that really stands between me and graduation is daily research and a dissertation. And as an applied math student, all of that work is on my laptop. This translates to me needing to be on campus very little. A weekly-ish meeting with my advisor, another weekly quantitative biology meeting. Other optional but helpful weekly seminars. So I end up going to campus only 2-3 times a week. Enter: coffee shops 🙌
One of my favorite feelings- when I'd say I feel "most myself"- is when I'm working away at a coffee shop, and something makes me pause and realize I am totally in the zone. When I have my work spread out at a table, likely in Evanston's Coffee Lab or Uptown's Dollop, with acoustic music or some live Neil Young album playing in the background, alongside the baseline chatter of people-- people picking up their coffee, or having a work date, chatting about their kid's mishap at preschool, or mumbling to themselves as they type on their laptops. I pause my work for some reason (maybe it's the transition between songs) and just take in this scene. I love being the bystander to a bunch of lives colliding, if only briefly. And then I continue on with my own (probably contributing to the chatter by singing to myself, as I notoriously, absentmindedly do). A coffeespoon afternoon indeed.
Exactly this buzz is what drives some of my colleagues away from coffee shops. But I'm an extrovert who goes crazy working in a quiet library. I find the the constant buzz of a coffee shop calming. Anyone else with me??
And so my broader New Years Resolution this year is to take note of and understand these things about myself - where I work well and why, what routine works for me, what daily habits serve me well and what I should do away with - all to become a more productive and engaged version of myself. It reminds me of the old adage, "love yourself before you can love others" which I thought a lot about in college. This is the fitting graduate school counterpart - I think it's my duty to understand how I learn before I preach anything to my future students. (Oh, PS, I'm getting my PhD so I can someday teach).
And so (wrapping up here), I have found that reading and writing have been major holes in my math & science-centric academic life, but both could not only keep me sane but actually improve my work (more on that another time). And so I've started reading much more regularly (still going strong!), and I've decided to start writing in this blog. My random thoughts can be distracting during the work day, and I figure other graduate students might encounter similar struggles. So now my plan is, while sitting at Dollop or wherever I might be, to just jot down my distracting idea as a sidenote in my bullet journal (another future blog post topic ✔️) to return to later, and then keep on with my work. Then I'll purge the thought later via a blog post (like Dumbledore's pensieve 🤓) and so on.
So, with that, thanks for reading the inaugural post (pensieve entry #1) and joining me on this journey!
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PS - If you're curious, @coffeespoonafternoons actually is somewhat inspired by a song I liked in high school: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j53VGZnW4fU