#thebiobabe

As someone who has a lot of ideas, but low levels of follow-through, you can understand why most of my work on the internet (if you’ve been here since I started my tumblr in 2010) is editing of others’ work, or reblogging/highlighting the work of others.

Putting together my own work when I know a lot of people might read it or important people might read it, legitimately makes my eyeballs sweat. Mostly because I hate being criticized. I don’t really know anyone who loves being criticized but I have also never made it to the land of “oh criticism makes you a better creator, it helps you grow blah blah blah”. I am still firmly in the camp of “criticism is a blow to my self esteem”

Having teachers as parents or parents who are teachers has made me a lifelong student. this is something that I have used in more than one of my college application essays or pieces that I have written to join clubs or organizations. And it’s true. The one thing that my parents did not seem to shake me out of, despite their best efforts, is my desire to hold on to a concrete view of the world, to relentlessly hold on to things as I see them.

Now, some beliefs-like my belief that there is a lot of injustice and terrible treatment present in the world at large- have largely been grounded in evidence and general consensus by the sensible powers that be. Whether that be scholars or policy makers or my teachers or my educated peers. The problem with my desire to hold on to my own viewpoint is that I’ve fallen prey to political rhetoric or cultural rhetoric more than I care to admit. And while mental self flagellation is one of my favorite hobbies (I blame depression and Catholicism on that account) it’s true that I often do not dig deeper in my mistaken beliefs about the world, unless it’s more directly connected to my day to day life. I think I’m not alone in this. I want to be involved in the process that creates health policy in this country. i want to improve individuals’ health through the organizations I work with- either by direct health interventions or through work within the government or both. This means I am on a steep learning curve. There are peers of mine ( @wryan is always my go to- go listen to him he thinks smart things about politics) who have been educated about policy in their schooling, or by virtue of their jobs, for far longer than I have been. What exactly does this have to do with world view and learning? Well I have a tendency to open my big mouth more frequently than is probably necessary in a given setting, and if I have no clue what I’m talking about, or simply repeating inaccurate political rhetoric, then there I am, a complete jackass in comparison to those around me.

(This happens in grad school constantly btw- you are in a room where you are all supposed to be learning, but there’s already people who know more than you do, right off the bat, that have had more learning opportunities than you have, and have no problem making sure you know that they know, so then you feel dumb, even if you’re all supposed to be learning.)

From what I can gather the policy environment is a large game of grad school- you want to be the savviest and smartest person in the room. And when you open your mouth you better know what you’re talking about.

My learning style is essentially trial by fire- I will continue to talk until you tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about or you tell me to hush. And that can be an extremely uncomfortable way to learn, and especially in a classroom with  political science professors. I have no problem with being wrong, but the ostracizing feeling of being “the dumb one” in class is something I’ve always been afraid of.  But if I can make it through the discomfort I had when learning about my privilege and the prejudices inherent in my feminism and view of individuals who suffer from the -isms, I have to believe I can unlearn the rhetoric I have learned surrounding politics and political parties.

(tumblr version cause I sometimes hate the way wordpress updates on here. also I know that I am too lazy to click links to outside websites, so I wouldn’t want to make ya’ll do anything I wouldn’t do) 

Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet Professor Howard Markel, who is the head of the History of Medicine department here at the University of Michigan and a somewhat high profile author. Needless to say I was mildly starstruck and probably talked too much. I had contacted him because all of his work is something I aspire to do someday, I want to do some sort of independent study or work with one of his projects, and also to get his advice about starting the school of public health blog/student organization in the fall.

In response to my requests, he’s going to try and see if I can help with the web encyclopedia  about the American Flu Epidemic of 1918 that he started. He gave me sound advice about starting the blog/club (don’t publish everything, obviously, and get some money), sound advice about writing and a copy of one of his books.

His advice about writing was “I hate saying this, because I know I hated hearing it when I was younger, but read and write a lot. Writers write. Read other authors, see what works what doesn’t. Find your voice and write for an audience. It’s fun writing for yourself, but writers write for other people. I’ve written for an audience of 3, and I’ve written for an audience of 3 million- and writing for 3 million is a lot more fun”

I have to agree that writing for an audience is more fun. Will I ever write for 3 million people? Who knows. I mean I write for (technically) 930 or so of you (if any of you actually read my original posts, thank you hello, you’re beautiful) and I enjoy it thoroughly.

But he’s right. Writers write. And I have put off a lot of my personal writing because A. I’ve been busy but also B. because I have worried too much about the exactly right timing and perfection so much that I haven’t been getting any of my thoughts down when they occur to me or finished projects and gotten them out there despite them not being “just right”

Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet Professor Howard Markel, who is the head of the History of Medicine department here at the University of Michigan and a somewhat high profile author. Needless to say I was mildly starstruck and probably talked too much. I had contacted him because all of his work is something I aspire to do someday, I want to do some sort of independent study or work with…