where i wanna be

"I'm blowing up like you thought I would/Call the crib/Same number same hood/It's all good..." -- Notorious B.I.G., "Juicy"

I'm quoting Biggie because I'm having an awesome day. I had been having all this anxiety about whether or not I wanted to go into academia post-grad school, but I'm reconciling those worries. I'm living the dream and it feels good. I think I've found enough that I like about what I do in order to stay.

A panel that I organized got accepted to a conference in Chicago in March. I love conferences because I love meeting people and presenting my work. It seriously puts me on a high to share ideas with others who understand and are interested in the research that I do. I'm reprising my role as co-investigator of study on themes about Black masculinity in hip-hop music lyrics for this one.

I've gotten involved in a few new research projects that I am really interested in. I like to call the first one the "Baby Daddy" study. It's designed to look at social support systems throughout pregnancies to determine why there are racial disparities in birth weight for African American babies. I get to do interviews with pregnant women about their families and relationships with their baby daddies.

The second research project is on older African American women's experiences with depression diagnoses and values about medication. I get to lead a focus group to talk about some of their experiences. I'm super excited because we touched on some of the issues I'm interested in, namely "Strong Black Women," cultural mistrust of the medical system, the Tuskegee legacy, etc. Since my dissertation is on SBW, I'm super excited to talk to these women and really hear what they have to say. And I also had to deal with some stuff behind my own clinical depression diagnosis so I feel like I can relate.

And this morning I did a guest lecture for the class I'm teaching for. My partner-in-crime (my friend, research, and teaching buddy) and I put together some of our research and added some music videos courtesy of Youtube. It was soooo exciting. It was like lights, camera, action - and I was on. All 300 students appeared to be super-engaged, asked lots of questions, received great reviews, and even got some of the Black students to raise their hands and speak in class. This is a supreme feat, so I'm geeked.

It's moments like these when I know I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Things are going great. And better things are coming up on the horizon. At least professionally.