Dr. Abigail Leigh Phillips

Tag: blogging

I’m Going to the Gym! Or, Why I Exercise
I get a lot of questions about my exercise habits, but recently it feels like people are slightly more curious. During the past six months, I’ve become more active in long distance running and posting about my training and races on social media. This may be the reason for this curiosity. I love talking (and nagging people) about exercise and nutrition, so this seems like a good time to blog about my fitness fanaticism and how exercise has helped me as a PhD student.

I had no idea when I started working out during my Junior year as an undergrad at University of Georgia that exercise would become a life-long passion. Boredom is what really forced me to go to the gym. It was summer and all my friends had left for home. Exercise became something to do. Now, I don’t even think about whether or not to work out. I wake up and go. I exercise while I travel. I exercise on my birthday. I exercise on holidays. I may be exercising as you are reading this!

Exercise gives me time to think. I think about so many things, my dissertation, relationships, to-do lists, daydreams. It’s my time to focus on myself and what’s going on in this head of mine. I feel mentally stronger and happier after I work out. Endorphins are great! Also, exercise tires me out physically. I’ve struggled with insomnia since middle school, but exercise helps quiet my overactive mind and uses up some of my excess energy. Instead of dealing with racing thoughts while I’m trying to sleep, I just sleep. I like sleep.

What I eat is just as important as how much I exercise. I’ve been an almost life-long vegetarian, but during high school and undergrad I ate a lot of junk. Healthy eating just made sense as I began to workout regularly. I started listening to my body more. I paid attention to the foods I ate that made me feel good, and the foods that didn’t. Slowly over the years I’ve become a super healthy eater. There’s always room in my life for foods that some people may call “guilty pleasures”, but I don’t see food as good or bad anymore. Placing food into these categories only leads to dangerous habits (for me anyway). I eat a balanced diet that includes whole grains, fruits, veggies, legumes (weird sounding word), and other yummy things. Being mindful about my eating is more important to me that sticking to a super-strict diet. Once again mindfulness can be used in so many ways!

I’ll willingly admit to being a gym rat. For most of my exercising life, I’ve worked out alone. To be honest, I tend to get annoyed when people talk to me while I’m working out. Can’t they see I’m in the zone??? But recently, I’m started incorporating non-gym stuff into my exercise routine. I can work out in places other than the gym. There’s a whole world outside of the gym! It’s taken me awhile to realize this and get out of my gym rut. This is where running fits in.

I love physical challenges! My current challenge is long-distance running. In February, I completed my first half-marathon with a respectable time. (I don’t like to share my times. I run for myself and not to compete against anyone else. If I’m happy with how I ran, that’s all that matters to me.) I have another half lined up for early May. I recently joined a training group that’s part of my local running club. This has drastically improved my running. We run every Sunday morning, adding another mile each week. Running for more than 5 miles alone is a struggle for me. Now matter how amazing of a playlist I make for a run, I hit a boredom wall. If I’m going to run a marathon next year (my goal!), I need a support system that motivates me to run a lot every week. Otherwise, I’ll find some excuse and plateau. I know myself too well. I also have a weekly shorter run with a fellow doc student and friend (Hi Jen!). I love having someone to run with and talk about our PhD lives.

What are my fitness challenges for the future, you ask? Right now, it’s training for a full marathon. I plan to run it early next year. A few more halfs and I think I’ll be ready. I also want to become a certified group fitness instructor, probably spinning or weight training. I’ve been wanting to do this for years. Now seems like a good time! Another challenge is a 5 minute plank. I can do this. I’m at 3 minutes already! Finally, this spring I’m hoping to join an adult sports league. I’ve never been good at team sports, especially those that require you to hit or catch a ball. But there must be SOMETHING I can play without embarrassing myself. Kickball seems to be a good option. How bad could this go??

What does this all have to do with my school life? I honestly think that without fitness and healthy eating I wouldn’t be able to deal with the stress of grad school. This felt true while I worked on my MLIS and it’s true now. Exercise has helped me become both mentally and physically stronger. “Healthy body, healthy mind” is a good mantra. I can deal with more than I ever thought I could as a result of my healthy lifestyle. I still struggle with stuff, but I can manage it. When I’m in doubt/anxious/stressed/bummed about my work, I hit the gym or go for a run. Long distance running is hard! So so incredibly hard for me. Running a marathon is good analogy to the doctoral program. It’s a long, grueling process that involves a lot of self-doubt, tears, and frustration. It takes dedication and determination. It’s definitely not for the weak. But the end is wonderful and the pain is worth it!

Interesting Reads:
- The Westin hotel chain loans out work out clothing and shoes! Brillant!
- Some stuff about the relationship between exercise and mental health.
- Intuitive Eating, 3rd Edition: A Revolutionary Program That Works by Evelyn Tribole, M.S., R.D., Elyse Resch, M.S., R.D., F.A.D.A. I love this book! I read it during my senior year at UGA, and it helped put my eating into perspective.
- I love food blogs! There are so many wonderful blogs about healthy cooking/baking and eating. My current favorites are Gastronomic Intentions, Cookie and Kate, Can You Stay for Dinner?, and Minimalist Baker.
- I’m also a fan of fitness blogs! They keep me motivated, and I’m always looking for new exercises to try. A few that I read regularly: The Hunger Runner Girl, Lazy Runner Girl, and the Fitnessista.
Disclaimer: I’m not a certified personal trainer or nutritionist. I’m just a fitness and healthy eating enthusiast. I may nag the people I love about exercising and eating better, but I can do that because they’re stuck with me. This post is about what works for me. Talk to your doctor before you start or change your fitness or eating routines.
2015-03-04
Writing Stuff. All the Time.

In case you missed it, I’ve been writing quite a bit since the beginning of summer. Some of which has actually been published! Here’s a round-up in case you missed them.

June

I contributed a bit to Julia Skinner’s post for Hack Library School “Why We Decided on the PhD“. Just a couple of sentences from me about (obviously) why I decided to pursue an doctoral degree. There are many reasons NOT do go this route. Julia is a doctoral candidate in my program; and she’s very knowledgeable about so many things!

July

I wrote a guest post for the Letters to a Young Librarian blog called, “Politics Schmolitics! What Does Politics Have to do With Libraries?” My first librarian position was in a small rural library system. My MLIS program didn’t prepare me for the amount of politics (local and state) involved in public libraries. Only working in a library can teach you that.

September

I had an article published in Public Library Quarterly called, “Systematic Marketing Facilitates Optimal Customer Service: The Marketing Audit of a Rural Public Library System”. This actually began as a final paper for Dr. Koontz’s library marketing course I took as a masters’ student. The full article (pre-print) is available here.

October
I published an article in Journal of Education for Library and Information Science entitled (that’s a nice word), “What Do We Mean By Library Leadership: Leadership in LIS Education”. You can check out the pre-print article here.

November and Beyond!!

What am I up to now you ask? An article I co-wrote with an iSchool faculty member, Dr. Lorri Mon, has been accepted to Advances in Librarianship. This article, about successfully effectively using social media in public libraries, should be published early next year.

I recently submitted an article to a major LIS journal. Something I’m very very nervous about. This could either end in tears or more tears or happy tears. I wrote this article as a kind of part one about the small exploratory study I conducted this past summer. I presented this paper at the Library Research Seminar VI back in October. More on that experience in a later post.

But what has recently been consuming the majority of my writing time is my prospectus. In October, I completed and passed my preliminary exam. Now, I’ve officially advanced to candidacy. Go me! The next step is writing my prospectus. In the doctoral world (or at least my corner of the doctoral world), a prospectus is the first three chapters of a dissertation. Basically, these chapters say, “Here’s what I would like to do for my dissertation!”. While the rest of a dissertation says, “Look at what I did!” I’m expecting to defend my prospectus mid-spring. I’m ambitious I know, but it’s worked for me so far.

If all this sounds a bit braggy, it’s because I am being a bit braggy. When I began the doctoral program in 2012, I never thought I would get an article published. It seemed like this unattainable dream, especially when I compared myself with other doc students. I still struggle with insecurities and anxiety over my writing and ability to conduct research. I know I always will. But somehow I survived the writing process, peer review, editing, and the long long wait till publication. When I feel these doubts and fears, I try to remember that a few people out there value me as a writer and believe what I research (and have to say) is worthwhile.

Plus, my parents are super proud.

2014-11-17
Lurking as a Social Media Researcher

I feel I must make a confession as someone who is just beginning to do research on social media. I am a bit of a reluctant social media contributor. I’m more of a hardcore lurker. I post infrequently to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr (although I’m trying to do better). I believe my reluctance to update/post/tweet comes more from a personal hesitancy than a professional/research hesitancy Being a naturally private, shy, and quiet person, I’ve never felt the need to publicly announce what I’m doing/thinking/eating/feeling. I hope there are others out there like me who cringe a bit after posting on a social network site. Will it be liked or retweeted?? Part of these may come from working in a public library in a conservative community, part of it is just my introverted self. But I realize that there are many people who do not share this tendency and who feel quite comfortable updating their status with anything and everything. I’d like to find a happy medium between these two extremes: rarely posting and posting every five minutes.

I am currently working on a literature review of cyberbullying, focusing on how public librarians can be a source of support for victims.As a beginning social media researcher I need to make myself known with the community of social media researchers. From what I’ve been told the best way to do this is to put myself out there through blog posts, Tweets, Tumblr posts, etc. This is part of my attempt with this blog. By posting about once a week to this blog, I becoming more comfortable as a producer of online content. I’ll get there. Baby steps.You may ask yourself: Why is does she want to research social media if she doesn’t seem to be actively engaged with it? Since I started using social network sites back in the early days of MySpace and LiveJournal, I’ve been fascinated with how people use these sites. My interest in the effect social media has had on the way we all, especially young adults, communicate and interact on a daily basis has led to my summer research collaboration with Dr. Mardis. I am currently working on a literature review of cyberbullying, focusing on how public librarians can be a source of support for victims. Social media appears to be a research area that is wide open for investigation.

As a beginning social media researcher I need to make myself known with the community of social media researchers. From what I’ve been told the best way to do this is to put myself out there through blog posts, Tweets, Tumblr posts, etc. This is part of my attempt with this blog. By posting about once a week to this blog, I becoming more comfortable as a producer of online content. I’ll get there. Baby steps.

2013-06-10