Escape

Seasonal Depression is a serious thing.  I first heard about it at Dartmouth, when the long, cold, and cloudy winters often caused depression that resulted in not a small amount of transfers.  Of course, this confused me, because I loved winter.  The novelty of having snow consistently on the ground and face-biting cold never wore off in my 4 years there, or my next 2 winters in Madison.  While other Dartmouth students made every effort to avoid Hanover in the winter, I did the Hanover FSP my Junior winter, living on campus and working for a geology prof when I wasn't taking classes.

The solution to avoiding seasonal depression, I learned, was to embrace the season.  I was never effected because I went skiing at least twice a week and love the feeling of cold air in my lungs.  I thought Dartmouth looked beautiful in the winter and loved walking across campus.  It makes sense then that when I lived in Vail there was no issue with winter depression, everyone who was there was there by choice; they had all chosen to be ski bums and embrace the cold.

When I moved to Phoenix I discovered that seasonal depression isn't just about winter.  It can be about summer.  The consistent heat in Phoenix in oppressive.  It exhausts and dehydrates you.  I can't take a cold shower at my house because the pipes are too close to the surface and the water is hot.  Air conditioning is expensive, so home temperature is about finding the balance between cool enough to avoid going crazy while not going bankrupt.

Summer at New England, the perfect escape from summer at ASU

And for me at least, the bigger issue with summer oppression is that if you embrace it, you get heat stroke and die.  In the winter I can always put on a thicker coat and another fleece.  In the summer, once it's a sunny day above 110, there's not much you can do.  And while it's survivable to play ultimate or go running at dusk, the fact that it's still 105 out at 8 or 9pm can just get to you after a few weeks.

So that's why I addressed my problem by avoiding it all together.  I escape.  Between the end of ASU finals last May 1st and the beginning of class yesterday, there were 16 weeks.  I managed to get the hell out of Phoenix for 8 full weeks and 3 additional weekends:
  Nicaragua Volcano Tectonics Workshop - 2 weeks
  TA ASU Field Camp - 3 weeks
  Working Vacation to CO and OK - 2 weeks
  Vacation to New England - 1 week
  2 weekend ultimate tournaments and 1 hiking weekend in Flagstaff.

It's these trips that keep me happy and sane during the summer.  I can deal with pretty terrible heat as long as I know it's going away soon.  So while it may not get below 100 consistently until October, I could look forward to a trip to cooler climates coming in a week or two.  And if I'm looking forward to something, my motivation increases, and I still get a lot of work done, despite being out of town so much.  Or at least that's what I tell my parents and my advisor when they occasionally express concern.

50 degrees with 30 mph winds on Mount Moosilauke.  Sometimes escaping the heat can go too far.

The College Schedule and Working Vacations

One of my favorite things about being a more or less permanent college student is the schedule.  While the rest of my 'real world' friends are counting vacation days and stuck in their offices on a rigid 8-5 schedule, I choose my work days and hours.  I go to work when I want, leave when I want, and if I want to, take a weekday off to do something fun.  I can go on vacation when I want for more or less as long as I feel like it.  It doesn't matter where or when I do my work, just that is gets done by the time it should be done.

Of course, the downside to this schedule is that while I have no set 'days on', I also don't have set 'days off'.  During Christmas break, every weekend, every evening, every vacation, it is necessary to continue making due progress on my research less I appear unproductive.  My laptop comes with me for on almost every trip I take, and I find time to squeeze is progress: a paper read on the airplane here, labs graded in the hotel there.  Just like you need to find the time to have fun, you have to find time to do work while you're having fun.

This can all get stressful, constantly trying to make progress, knowing that you could/should be working during every possible downtime.  I know grad students who work every weekend and every evening.  It makes it hard to relax sometimes knowing that I'm being outworked, knowing that it will still take those students 5 years to graduate, and wondering if that means it'll take me 6, or even 7.  Monotonous days can also get stressful and the Arizona summer heat doesn't help.  It's depressing, 95 degrees already biking in to work at 9am, still 105 out at 7pm biking home.

My office for a week

Hence, the glorious solution that is the working vacation.  I got the idea from my advisor, who peaces out to Italy for a couple months each summer to write grants and papers.
It sounds like a lot of work and she's incredibly busy when she's over there, but if it's work that has to be done, I'm sure I'd rather be in Tuscany than Phoenix too.  Again, for grad students and even professors in the summer, as long as the work gets finished, it doesn't matter where it's done.

So that reason is why a couple weeks ago I spent a week in Vail, Colorado.  While there I prepared two posters for a conference and advanced my research quite a bit.  In the afternoons I'd watch the daily thunderstorm roll through and then I'd go running in the 60 degree temps that followed.  Sure beat the hell out of Phoenix.  I think next summer I'm going back for multiple weeks.

Hike up to here in the morning, read some papers in the afternoon