How a TV on Wheels Helps Arielle on Work/Life/Passion Balance

I am so excited to introduce Arielle is super smart (like, PhD smart) and takes on a lot of roles in her day to day. Read on to learn about her quest for balance and what she does in her (limited) free time.

Hi! Who are you?! What do you do?
Hi! My name is Arielle Linsky, and I am a second year PhD student in Clinical Psychology. This position is divided between 4 main roles: (1) Researcher: I am part of the Social and Emotional Learning Lab. We conduct community action-research projects promoting social and emotional and character development in schools. In other words, we teach kids to be smart with their hearts. (2) Clinician: I see clients for psychotherapy in our in-house community clinic, and as part of the behavioral medicine team at a family medicine practice. (3) Student: I take courses, just like normal school! (4) Teacher: sometimes I teach undergrads.

Work/Life/Passion Balance, what’s your method?
Ahhh, the quest for balance is ongoing! Probably my 3 strongest sources of “life” in the work/life balance are spending time with friends and family, exercising, and cooking. More specifically, I’m pretty obsessed with yoga, and with the classes offered at the Rutgers gym (surprisingly high quality!), and with good food- especially involving avocados and recently, fresh tomatoes.  Another key component to my survival in grad school so far, is that I have my TV on wheels in the center of my studio apartment. This means I literally can watch from anywhere- leading to lots of Netflix while I cook, get ready, do “work”, etc. One struggle has been finding time to get out to one of my favorite places in the world- The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. Hole in the Wall is a camp for kids with serious illness, and it’s pretty much magic. The “work” balance part of the equation is made possible, in part, because, I’m really lucky to love what I’m doing. I get a lot of joy from the learning and critical thinking involved in my research and classes, and I love the direct interaction I get to have during client sessions and while teaching. I try to remember how much I love and learn from this stuff when it’s midnight and I still have class reading to do, a client note to write, and research emails to respond to… 🙂

When you were a kid, what did you think you were going to be when you grew up?
Well, I’ll say this, I spent a lot (and I mean A LOT) of time daydreaming about becoming a professional figure skater. Unfortunately, my moves on the ice, or lack thereof, never quite caught up to my dreams…

Now that you’re pretty much a grown-up, what do you think you’re going to be when you grow up?
I’ll probably be a firefighter. No, but for real, I’ll probably be a researcher/clinician in some setting- either academic or as part of a teaching hospital, at least for starters. Then… we’ll see!

Thanks for chatting! Where can folks find more info about you?
We are in the process of upgrading our lab website, so stay tuned for that, but for now, you can find out more about the Rutgers Social and Emotional Learning Lab here: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~melias/. Also, if you’re interested, you can check out the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp here, do it, it’s an awesome place!: http://www.holeinthewallgang.org.

Anything else you want to share?
I’m so honored to have been interviewed for this site. Rikki- you’re awesome for doing this blog!  I didn’t pay her to say that. Seriously.