Great Expectations

Something they tell all of us aspiring educators is that setting expectations is a necessary part of teaching. It’s a necessary part of life actually.

People say that it is safer to set the bar low for oneself so that they can meet everyone’s expectations.

Lay low, and you can’t possibly let people down.

When we live like this, we force ourselves in to the mindset that maybe we can’t do everything we want to do. Even worse, we can look at others and assume the worst. Each encounter, each teaching moment, each relationship, each friendship, each job…all of these are expected to fail.

Self fulfilling prophecy.

So what happens when someone sets the standards a bit higher?

Expectations from Others

I have alluded to the great expectations my advisor put on me several times, so allow me to share what brought all of this on.

Early on in my graduate career, I told my PI that I was willing to do anything for the lab, so long as I was taught the techniques. This led to me being introduced to nearly every experiment in the lab, being asked to read every paper on the proteins related to our “beloved” STARD9, and mentoring 11 out of the 12 undergrads by the middle of January.

And just when I thought it would let up

I was given even higher standards to meet.

In the midst of this, I failed my advisor countless times. I lost the lab more money than I am proud to admit, let my social life affect my science, and even was rejected for a grant that supposedly was “in the bag.” My mentee had to relearn techniques because I taught just a little bit incorrectly, and I oftentimes had to double back on what should have been easy experiments for us.

I lost a grant. He gave me a new one to apply for.

I screwed up my experiments. He asked me to try another one on top of my current three.

Last week I had to turn in my American Heart Association Fellowship proposal. In the midst of everything, I let this slip away. So when I finally got up the courage to send my advisor the rough draft, it was almost too late for me to fix everything.

Let’s just say that I was nowhere near ready to turn everything in.

And I had not communicated with my advisor about his requirements either.

My advisor was pissed, and rightfully so! I was mortified. After barely scratching the past few weeks with enough lab work to show that I wasn’t a complete waste of resources, I had really let my advisor down, and he let me know it.

People told me to just let up, to be ok not meeting my advisor’s expectations.

But I couldn’t do that.

You see, all Great Expectations are based on some truth. 

My advisor knew that I loved to write, and he knew that I loved to develop experiments and read papers to support my claims. We talk for hours about what it is like to apply for grants, write papers, and run a lab. It was everything that he already knew that I could do, even though I did not expect myself to succeed at it.

So I sat in that lab, set up a PCR reaction for one of the experiments that I let sit on the backburner in the wake of this stressful time, and I wrote everything I could get out of my mind.

Not only did I develop a project that I was even more proud of, but I also made my experiment that had been failing for three weeks to finally work.

When we hold people to high standards, when we believe in others, they have an opportunity to rise to the challenge. Sometimes it is painful, and sometimes we fail, but there is always a chance for us to succeed. If we do nothing but expect the worst of others, then there is less of a possibility of victory.

That is, unless we are willing to believe in ourselves.

Expectations from Ourselves

I recently had an experience to rise above the expectations of others. Not to give too much away, but there were some people who had some pretty misconceptions of who I was because of the way I had been acting. My lab work and my own daily struggles took over my mind, and I oftentimes had careless encounters with my peers, particularly those I did not share a close friendship with.

My carelessness had hurt some people’s feelings.

And I had let myself appear to be less welcoming and understanding.

All my life, I have prided myself in being a community builder, in loving all of those around me. I don’t really like hating on people, and I don’t hold grudges. Even though I can harbor pain longer than I ought to, I oftentimes blame myself for the trouble I cause in my life. It may be someone else’s fault, but I’ll blame myself for the sake of the community.

I never meant to hurt their feelings.

I just prioritized my experiments and my labmates more than I did shooting the breeze.

I was told that I should stop being so nice. I was told that I needed to be mean every once in a while. Someone even told me that I had to be faking my forgiveness. In fact, one of my first memories with the first year cohort was all of the guys trying to get me to say something mean at my friend Pat’s birthday party.

I still haven’t uttered a harsh word against them.

At least, not intentionally.

So in this moment, I was given two options. I could meet the standards of everyone else and just keep this persona of a clique-y girl with a chip on her shoulder, or I could be the woman that my parents raised me to be. I could be closed off and angry, or I could be kind and collaborative. Both choices would ultimately lead to essentially the same end, or so everyone told me.

Either I would maintain the status quo without heartache, or I would be hurt by admitting my fault.

It would have been easier had I just stayed behind.

But then I remembered the word of Christ, “When you are asked to go a mile, go two.”

My parents raised me to love my neighbor, to see Christ in them, to go the extra mile for the sake of sharing God’s love with the world around me. Even if I never was given anything in return, it would be well worth it to admit my fault.

So I did.

And I saw a smile that I had not seen in quite some time.

And I saw people communicate again in a way that I thought I would never see again.

Because I held myself to the standards that I had instilled in me through my family and my faith, I was able to be the kind-hearted woman that I have aspired to be all my life. It was challenging, and I wish I had not made the mistakes that led to that moment, but I am forever grateful for the standards I gave myself in order to live a life I am proud of.

Most importantly, I am thankful for the workings of Christ that came from that moment.

Another note on “going an extra mile”

Apparently at the time of Christ, the Romans could tell the jews to drop everything and carry their things and march for a mile. That was just the standard. So when Jesus told them to “go two” miles, He was not only asking them to go the extra mile as a sign of hard work. He was calling them to give even more to those that were in need, to forgive the Romans even more.

You know who were the first to call Jesus the Christ? To really believe in Him?

The Roman Centurions.

People must have been taking Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount seriously and taking that extra mile for the Romans. And as they went beyond the begrudging and hateful expectations of the soldiers, the Romans had a chance to encounter true love and service.

When we go beyond the expectations of others for the sake of love, for the sake of something greater than ourselves, then we have an opportunity to make a change in the world.

My life is better for the standards set for me by my superiors and myself

And it is getting better with every extra mile.

Choose Joy

I always say that Tuesday is the worst day of the week. You expect Monday to be rough, so you mentally prepare yourself for the week. You huddle over your homework as you wait in the long Sunday laundry line, and you tell yourself that you are going to need that third cup of coffee. “Treat yo’ self” and whatnot.

You choose to do things to make yourself happier on Monday.

But what about Tuesday?

On Tuesday you have to wake up again. You have to do homework again. You have to get that third cup of coffee again. For some reason, Tuesday struggles always seem to come as a bit of a shock. What seemed easy to handle on Monday now looks like a particularly difficult challenge, one that you would not expect yourself to be able to handle.

Tuesdays are difficult because you never prepare for them.

And since you had all of Monday’s responsibilities, you are more likely to be tired on Tuesday.

How can we make Tuesdays better?

Choose Joy.

Again.

To choose joy does not mean that you have to be completely happy. In fact, joy has little to do with happiness. Joy means “an emotion evoked by well-being.” To be well does not mean you have to be completely happy or have your life completely put together. Well-being is alive, healthy, and functioning to some capacity.

Choosing joy is simply recognizing that all is well.

Whenever things go wrong, my mom reminds me to “choose joy.” The day that my NSF proposal returned unreviewed, or my exam grades dropped in my first semester of graduate school, or I had a hard day, my mom would remind me to choose joy in that moment. I was blessed to be where I was, and I was learning lessons that would help me grow in to the woman I was meant to be.

But choosing joy can go a bit deeper. It can also mean to believe that all will be well, or rather, all will be even better than it is in the moment. As I said, I don’t believe it is good to say “it’s ok to not be ok,” but rather say “I’m not ok right now, but I will be ok.” 

This belief stems from my mother’s instruction to choose joy. It gives me hope.

Choosing joy is having hope.

It’s no secret that I am single and searching for my future Saint Joseph. I make fun of my love life so much that I get tagged in Facebook videos about it. I write about it on my blog, and I am an advocate for publicly adorable yet respectful relationships like my parents’ have shown me.

With all of my cute little posts and rom com nights, you would think that I have always been this hopeful romantic.

For the most part, you would be right. 

Every time a boy broke my heart, or I broke someone’s heart, I would go to the dining room of my Tucson home and look at the picture of my mom in the wedding dress that I will some day wear. When I moved to Nashville, I would go home and just spend time with my parents.

I chose joy in the face of everything I faced because I had reminders of joy everywhere I looked. 

I prepared like one would on a Sunday night, but then a Monday night came, and I did not prepare, and I did not choose joy.

It’s a particularly vivid memory for me. I had been searching for quite some time, and I finally took a break from my search for my Saint Joseph. Grad school had gotten insanely busy, and I was overwhelmed with my first grant proposal, my constantly failing experiments, and adjusting to life without my family close by.

Unprepared and vulnerable, I ended up sitting outside at 9:47pm when it was 42 degrees outside with a light jacket and no gloves.

At 10:04pm, I looked up at the sky with teary eyes and told myself to drive home.

“I give up” I said over and over to myself as I got in the shower and attempted to get ready for bed. And yet I could not sleep. I just laid in my bed, tears streaming down my face because I knew that I had failed yet again. I knew that I was not looking in the right places.

For a week I cried myself to sleep because the hopeful romantic I had become in college had crumbled in the wake of the adult world. 

I thought God had been clear with me, but perhaps I misheard Him.

I had no clue where to go next.

Now it is a Tuesday, a day that is particularly difficult, and it is also a Valentine’s day.

And what do we do on Tuesday?

We choose Joy.

Again.

I won’t go in to the details of how I found myself again, how I became a “Ted Mosby,” or any of the very important steps that brought me to this place. What I will say is that I have prepared myself for such a day.

I took care of my body

I spent time with God.

I found beautiful and loving friends who I wish I could truly express my gratitude towards.

And I found hope in the world around me.

One thing I will share is a story that came to me as I was driving during this “monday” of my life. A song called “Oh Darling” came on the stereo. It was the song that I used to drive my little brother Mark and his girlfriend Kate around town to. Not because they wanted to, but because that was the only thing on the radio.

That was back when they were freshmen in high school.

When we moved away, they broke up, and it was sad for everyone.

And yet they found one another again, perhaps because they had always known that they loved one another. 

When Kate came to Nashville last year at the end of Christmas Break, it was as if nothing had changed. The only real change was that Mark was driving and she was in the front seat while the other kids sat in the back. I can’t speak to everything, but there was something absolutely beautiful about sitting in the backseat while the songs we used to listen to when they were freshmen played on the car radio again.

As I drove to the old song in South Bend, I remembered that happy moment.

And I felt hope again.

Mark and Kate are one of the few couples in my generation that has shown me what it means to be in a true loving relationship. And even though they both had to go through their own difficult moments, they somehow were able to come back.

All of Team Newton has been blessed because of it.

My sisters have someone to look up to, and I have hope in my heart that there will be love in my life like their’s. I don’t have to settle. I just have to work a little bit.

Someday I’ll find a man who loves Jesus and is willing to help me fight for the misunderstood lysosome populations and put a swingset in the backyard.

So on this Tuesday Valentine’s Day, choose joy Dear Readers. 

Choose to have hope in the future. Choose to keep searching, keep fighting, keep believing that whatever happens will lead you to where you are meant to be.

Choose joy

Again and again, choose joy.

Failing With Style

I have written previously on my experience with “Imposter Syndrome” at Notre Dame. Put simply, I am the least experienced (in many ways) of the graduate students, and many undergraduate students could probably do my job ten times better than me.

But enough about that.

I would like to share what happens when you get out of the bubble and what that can do for not just yourself, but for an entire community.

Two weeks ago was one of the hardest academic weeks for me. Ironically, the struggle stemmed from how well I was doing. I was no longer drowning in the sea of work and learning, so everyone assumed that I was capable of taking on more responsibilities. Being the triple A battery type person I am, I took every single opportunity that came my way. 

While I did have the confidence to ask questions, I did not take the time to really hash out the details when needed. This led to me looking completely lost in my Cell Culturing lesson, lots of poorly timed experiments, and stress. 

I seriously had no clue what was going on.

I did not want to give up all of my responsibilities, but I didn’t want to look like an idiot either. I tried to cover up my mistakes, highlight what I knew I was good at, and tried to distract people from my struggles. I made jokes about my many mistakes with the students I was teaching to convince them that I was cool and worth listening to.

It worked!

No one seemed to notice that I was crumbling under the pressure, and I made it through the week.

Highlighting one’s strengths is a great way to deal with low confidence. If we know that we have a valuable skill, then we can utilize it in order to move a project forward. Sure, it may be a bit tricky in places, but using your skills can help you gain the confidence to fix your mistakes and improve for the future.

The thing is…not every situation can be masked with our strengths. 

Let’s say you’re baking a cake but only know how to decorate it. By only emphasizing your skills, you will just end up with a pile of frosting on a plate instead of a pretty little cake with flowers on it.

What happens when you can’t make up for your weaknesses?

What are you supposed to do when you actually have no clue what is going on?

So far I did not have to deal with this issue. All of my classes were in my field, and once I learned two or three things in my lab at the beginning of the semetser, the rest was just troubleshooting and working with my advisor’s wife. I figured that I always could figure it out, and in the meantime I could just fiddle with my classes and experiments with what I knew.

Then it became very clear that I could not do that in all of my classes.

I was particularly stressed out by my Molecular Biology II class. It was another paper discussion based course, like most grad classes, but there are only six kids in the class. We would have to participate quite a bit.

It’s all about cancer.

I know just about nothing when it comes to cancer.

So imagine my panic when I realized that I would have to participate in class discussion with five intelligent and talented students. I was worried that they would judge me, or that they would make some comment that would trigger the teachers in to giving me a lower score. 

I stressed about this class for an entire week.

We got in to class and started a group discussion on a paper about new mouse models for cancer. I presented the first figure because I knew what all of the numbers and labels meant, and there was an easy discussion question. Again, I highlighted my strengths and avoided my lack of understanding.

I was still too scared to admit how lost I was.

Now I have this great friend named Lauren who knows herself and is not afraid to admit that she doesn't know something. Lauren just turned around to one of the boys at the second figure and blatantly said that she didn’t know anything about the experiment we were analyzing.

Instead of being judgmental, the boy simply explained the experiment. What seemed like such a scary action at the beginning turned out to be the most beneficial part of the discussion.

Inspired by my friend's confidence, I started to ask questions myself.

The discussion flourished.

Because someone was willing to admit they didn’t understand something, we were all able to have an open and honest and in depth conversation about methods that many of us have never seen. I learned more in that paper discussion than I had in most paper discussions in grad school.

And it was all because someone was willing to admit they didn't know it all.

It’s totally ok to not understand everything. We can’t all be experts in everything. What we can do is recognize the experts among us and ask them questions. Maybe someday they will come back to us with a question in our own field, maybe not. All that matters is that you have the confidence to seek out the people who can help you the most. Sometimes you can help yourself, but there are many instances where you can’t do it all.

However, not all experts are perfect.

And the experts that are willing to admit their failures are the best kinds of experts.

Take my advisor’s wife for example. She has been my mentor ever since I joined the Vaughan lab in my REU. When it comes to cloning or DNA work, she can do just about anything. So much in fact that I often refer to her as a wizard. Every time I have a question, want to make a new DNA construct, or can’t seem to make things work, my advisor’s wife always has an answer or knows where we can find it.

But she’s not perfect

And she reminds me every chance she gets.

I often joke that the Vaughan lab took me solely because I like to clone and can make jokes about failure with Dr. Mrs. Vaughan all the time. Last Friday, she was showing me a particularly difficult technique that she was doing to move another project along. The entire time she was telling me about how she had screwed it up, from technically difficult problems to simple mistakes like putting the gel in the wrong direction. 

She does this every time I learn an experiment.

She laughs off every mistake, and she makes sure I knew every single one she made.

What I especially didn’t realize was that I had started to do the same thing with her with my own students. Somehow I had taken on the mentoring style of my own mentor, showing my failure filled notebook and laughing about the biggest mistakes I made in the lab thus far. What I did not realize until that week is that those moments when I was laughing with Dr. Mrs. Vaughan in the back of the lab were some of the best teaching moments I ever had with her. 

Those jokes I made in Cell Research Lab, while a bit off base, were an opportunity for me to teach the students. My daily reminders of failed experiments over the past 33 weeks to my mentee are an opportunity for me to steer her in the right direction. By sharing our errors, we allow the students to learn from our mistakes and avoid them in the future.

So yes, I may be failing.

But I am failing with style.

Through the combined efforts of my friend Lauren and my mentor, I saw just how important it is to not only reveal our weaknesses to ourselves, but also to allow them in to our daily lives. Whether it may be through asking for help or by teaching through our mistakes, there is an enormous benefit to being transparent with others.

You may be able to help someone open up

You may be able to help someone avoid a pitfall you fell in to

Most importantly, you give the world an example to go off of so that they too can benefit from the answers you receive and the lessons you give. By setting an example of vulnerability and authenticity, you allow the world to see that perfection is not possible, but we can strive for greatness every day.

And when you fail or can’t understand something.

It’s ok to laugh.

Because that’s how you fail with style.