Shiny Epi People

Cara Eckhardt, PhD (my BFF!) on taking a teaching job and debate moderator dreams

November 26, 2020 Season 1 Episode 18
Shiny Epi People
Cara Eckhardt, PhD (my BFF!) on taking a teaching job and debate moderator dreams
Show Notes Transcript

Cara Eckhardt, PhD is my BFF and a nutritional epidemiologist. In this episode, Cara talks about her choice to move back to her home state and take a faculty position that focuses on teaching epidemiology to undergraduates. We also discuss her dreams of being a presidential debate moderator, Werther's originals, bralettes, soup dumplings, jaunty hats, grape flavor, and more!

Support the show

Cara Eckhardt:

Okay, good. Ugh. My nose is running.

Lisa Bodnar:

Pick your nose now.

Cara Eckhardt:

I feel like I need to take off my shirt. Look at my pits. They're so sweaty. I'm going to change my shirt. Will you wait for me? Because I'm going to be distracted by my own sweat pit, my pitty sweat. Hold on, hold on.

Lisa Bodnar:

Welcome to Shiny Epi People. I'm Lisa Bodnar. This episode is dropping on Thanksgiving Day in the US. I don't know when you're going to listen to this, but in honor of today, I want to thank you. I never would have imagined that this podcast would have resonated with so many people, and I never would have imagined that this podcast would feed my soul the way it has. I think the best part for me is learning from a wide range of public health people and making new friends. How cool is that in a pandemic?

Lisa Bodnar:

I want to thank you for supporting the show by continuing to listen, by sharing the podcast on social media, by telling your friends to try it, by reaching out, and by giving some financial support, if you can, via my Patreon. I want to thank my amazing guests so far. Your sharing of your stories and making yourself vulnerable, not just with telling me about your life, but also with your willingness to be silly to let down that mask that many wear in their professional lives. You are what makes this show special.

Lisa Bodnar:

Today's show is with someone I am incredibly thankful for, my best friend, Cara Eckhardt. Cara and I met in our PhD programs at UNC and some 20 years later, living on opposite coasts of the US with families and careers and lives, we have remained super close. This is part one of my talk with Cara. We discuss why she chose to move to Portland, her home, and take a position that's a primarily teaching job. She tells me why she loves teaching epidemiology to undergraduates. Then we act completely ridiculous, which is super on brand for our relationship.

Lisa Bodnar:

In a month, I will release part two with Cara, where we focus on the meaning and value of strong friendship. Now, listen, I am committed to making episodes that are about 30 minutes long. I've heard from many of you that you like this length, and I do too. However, I am straying from that today with a longer episode, because talking with Cara makes me so happy and sharing her with you is important to me. It's a holiday weekend in the US, so make your turkey and dive into our conversation.

Lisa Bodnar:

Please note that this episode, as with basically all of my episodes, has swear words and may deal with "adult themes." This is why every episode has that little E next to it, which indicates explicit. So, maybe wear some headphones if little ears are nearby. I hope you enjoy this chat.

Lisa Bodnar:

Hi, Cara, my best friend. She's on my podcast!

Cara Eckhardt:

Yoohoo! Hi, Lisa B! So excited.

Lisa Bodnar:

First, I need to comment on I'm really enjoying this nerdy headset that you're wearing. Are you using this for teaching?

Cara Eckhardt:

I am using this for teaching sometimes with success and sometimes with massive failure. I teach a couple different classes. Second week of class, I am online with my synchronous epi section, which is the group that I see each week and we actually meet online. There are 71 undergraduate students in this class.

Lisa Bodnar:

Oh, that's a lot.

Cara Eckhardt:

They're all in there. It's only the second week of class and I'm not used to my headset. So, I had just gotten a new computer the night before. Jay got it, this is my husband, he got it all set up him, but he did not put the power cord into the computer. So, I didn't realize that. It was a brand new computer. So, I'm teaching and all of a sudden, it's saying plug into a power source, the computer's going to die. So, I'm looking around and it's nowhere. I'm looking under my desk and I'm still teaching, but trying to look over my shoulder and see if the box, and finally I'm like, "This computer is going to die, so I need to go find this power cord." So, I said to my class, "Okay, I'm going to give you five minutes. I'm going to go look for this power cord. Take a break." Keep in mind 71 burgeoning epidemiologists.

Cara Eckhardt:

Well, I walk away from my desk to go look for the power cord and I leave my headset on and the mic on, because I'm not used to it.

Lisa Bodnar:

Because you weren't thinking.

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah.

Lisa Bodnar:

Because you weren't tethered to a computer.

Cara Eckhardt:

No, I wasn't tethered. I was just in my own world. Now, you know me, but I talk out loud to myself constantly. I am constantly in conversation with myself out loud and I swear all the time. So, I just have this very Cara conversation with myself about where this power cord is. The conversation goes like this, something along these lines, "Where the fuck is that power cord? Fuck. Is it in here? Oh, fuck. That's the wrong power cord. Fuck." So forth and so on. I'm just walking around, "Fuck, my God, my computer's going to fucking die. I can't believe it's the fucking second week of class."

Cara Eckhardt:

Aidan, my 17-year-old, was in there and I passed by him and he's like, "Mom, you know you're still wearing your headset." So, I walk back into my office and sit down and I'm just like, "Oh my God." The chat room was hysterical. So, the students worked just, "LOL, LOL." Oh my gosh. Somebody wrote in, "She is all of us looking for something in their house." Somebody else writes in, "She swears like a sailor. Wow." I guess it went over well. If I only knew 12 years ago when I started teaching that if I just dropped F bombs that I would endear myself to my students and that was the key to being your favorite professor.

Lisa Bodnar:

Do you remember when we met?

Cara Eckhardt:

I do. You and I started our PhD programs, or I started my PhD program. You were already a year into it, but I started my PhD program at Chapel Hill and you were there and you were the fun second year person. I remember that there was a student social hour of some kind. I think I want to say it was at Top of the Hill or it was some...

Lisa Bodnar:

I arranged that.

Cara Eckhardt:

That's what I was going to say. I think it was you because even then you were a celebrator.

Lisa Bodnar:

I was.

Cara Eckhardt:

So, we met there and I was like, "We're going to be friends because she is fun and I am fun and therefore fun shall ensue together."

Lisa Bodnar:

I remember that the first time I met you was in Journal Club. I remember thinking that you laughed a lot, which was great, but that you talked a lot, and not just in Journal Club. I don't mean you talked a lot...

Cara Eckhardt:

All the time.

Lisa Bodnar:

You just talked a lot.

Cara Eckhardt:

When I'm nervous and I don't know people, I absolutely talk so much more.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah.

Cara Eckhardt:

Anything that feels remotely uncomfortable, I will fill it with words.

Lisa Bodnar:

You took a position that had more of a teaching responsibility. I know how happy this job makes you and how much you love it.

Cara Eckhardt:

I don't know if I knew I would love it as much as I do when I started it. There's a million circumstances that led to me taking this job. I had been in a post-doc. I was living in Washington, DC. My husband was working at a big law firm there and I had two children towards the end of my PhD. So I had my son, I was pregnant when I defended my dissertation proposal. Then I wrote my dissertation following his birth. Then during my post-doc, I became pregnant with my second child. That was a really tough pregnancy for me. I had a couple of pregnancy losses that were ectopic pregnancies. I had infertility. I had to do IVF.

Cara Eckhardt:

My pregnancy with my daughter ended up being a really complicated pregnancy where I had placenta previa and I ended up on bed rest for four months, so there was a lot going on. At that point, my husband and I talked about moving back to Oregon. We're both from Oregon. We both really felt a connection. I know you did too. That was part of what led you to your job with your home state and your home city. Honestly, as a woman, it felt really hard to picture a reality in DC that was going to be the kind of reality that I wanted to live, which is to say that my husband was working a very busy law firm job, watching my peers all stop working so that they could drive their kids an hour a day to some private school, trying to figure out how I could enter an academic position and take care of my children.

Cara Eckhardt:

I ended up applying for the job that became my job and looking at it and feeling like, "Okay, this could maybe really be a good fit for me." Now, the job that I have is a faculty position. It's a nine-month appointment, which means that we don't have funding over the summer. We're like academic year employees. It's a hard money position, which means that my salary is paid for with hard money and I'm not responsible for raising any of it via grants or research. I can, and we are encouraged to do research and I have been involved in research, but there's limitations on that. So for example, the most amount of FTE I can contribute towards research with my position is 50%. When I arrived, I had never taught. It's so weird. You go to academic training, you go learn how to be a PhD, and now you're going to teach a class and we have absolutely no training.

Cara Eckhardt:

Teaching is a whole other ballgame. I immediately fell in love with it. So, I think you really feel impact. You feel a difference in what you're doing. I think I'm training people who are going into the field of public health. I see so many of my students who then end up in MPH programs. I just sat on the dissertation defense of a student who I had as an undergraduate and now I'm on her doctoral committee.

Lisa Bodnar:

Oh, that's cool.

Cara Eckhardt:

A lot of them don't know what epidemiology is when they walk into my classroom. So, I get the amazing pleasure of opening their eyes and explaining this area to them and watching them fall in love with it. I also am there at the beginning and I have this responsibility, I think, and opportunity to help them from day one think about some of the things that I hope we're all thinking about as epidemiologists, like social determinants of health and social justice and how to be a critical thinker. I love the exact kind of students that we have at PSU.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah, tell me about the students.

Cara Eckhardt:

So, at Portland State University, which is where I am, and I should say because they always want us to say this now that we are now part of the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. So, we are a joint school of public health. One of very few, I think there's only one other. So, at PSU, we have, it's our largest state university. A lot of our students are first-generation college students. A lot of them are balancing families and children and jobs. A lot of them went to school when they were younger and then took a break and have returned.

Cara Eckhardt:

We have a lot of traditional students too, who are just straight out of high school and starting the four years. But in my experience, I went to schools where everyone just was in the same boat. Everyone had left high school and was there for their four years and that was where they were able to have this amazing privilege of being able to devote all of their energy to their studies. That's quite a different situation from the one that I'm in. It's just such a rich, incredible learning environment to be in with just students that I feel so honored to champion.

Lisa Bodnar:

You mentioned that we are not trained in how to be a teacher.

Cara Eckhardt:

No, we're not.

Lisa Bodnar:

We might have a TA position, but that's a term and all you do is grade papers or whatever. I can imagine that a lot of people who are coming out of their training are a little nervous about taking a teaching job. If you could summarize how you managed it, maybe what recommendations you would give to someone who had our training, meaning no teaching training at all, and how to go about this and end up maybe loving teaching.

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah. So I mean, yeah, I really did not know what I was doing when I was coming in. Even if you don't think you're going to take a "teaching position," you very likely will still teach. So, if that's something that you want to do well, finding some way to work in your doctoral program to get some training in that is great. I was the director of our PhD program in community health here at PSU for four years and did a bunch of curriculum revision in our PhD program while I was the director of that. One thing that we added was a required semester of a teaching and pedagogy class, where they each design a course syllabus where they have to design assignments, show how they would assess certain things, have learning objectives, explain how they would map those learning objectives to assessment tools, have a teaching philosophy. So they have to do that.

Cara Eckhardt:

In addition, they have an independent study where they have weekly meetings with a professor and design curriculum with that professor that they then teach during the term. So, if something like that doesn't exist, most training programs have room for things like independent studies. So, if you can find a professor who's willing to work with you to help you design something that would be really valued. I know for certain that when you're on the job market and you're applying to faculty positions, it is nice to be able to say that you have some training.

Lisa Bodnar:

So many jobs that you apply for academic positions, they require you to write a teaching statement. I was literally like, "What the fuck do I write? I have never taught anything legitimately."

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah, and it's like...

Lisa Bodnar:

I don't know what a teaching philosophy is.

Cara Eckhardt:

Your philosophy...

Lisa Bodnar:

I don't fucking know.

Cara Eckhardt:

... and how you approach class. These are things we literally never talked about in our doctorate training programs.

Lisa Bodnar:

No.

Cara Eckhardt:

So, I mean, I will say another thing is most universities have some type of offices and resources that you probably were never aware of as a student. But for example, at my school, we have the Office of Academic Innovation. If you want to work with them, they will help you. They will come in and listen to you teach. They will give you feedback. They will help you write a syllabus. They will help you design an online class. They will train you in all kinds of things. They have a library of pedagogy books. They have workshops. They have meetings with people that you can set up a weekly meeting. They have training programs for junior faculty where you go with other junior faculty and basically have a writing group you would have for a research paper, only it's a course design group where you meet and you work on your classes together. So, there's often resources there.

Lisa Bodnar:

I've found that people often are quite generous about sharing slides. I mean, I see this all the time on Twitter, like, "I'm starting a class in this. Would someone be willing to share information?" There's a lot of syllabus exchange. Would you feel okay with someone reaching out to you and asking you?

Cara Eckhardt:

100%, yes. I feel like why would we, as people who are trained in research, think that we're all going to get this right without talking to each other? That just seems to go against everything we were ever taught. In the research world, we're trying to get to some answer. We write a manuscript, you communicate with others, you try to replicate it. I tell you what went wrong in my class. You learn from that. We have our strengths and limitations and we share those and we grow and we have this cumulative knowledge. I don't know why people get so possessive about their course design, and for sure, we shouldn't be just copying someone else's course because we come to this as individuals with individual strengths and experiences that we should be working hard to share in our classrooms. But you want to hear about my syllabus? You want to look at it? Ask me.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah.

Cara Eckhardt:

Even just nitty gritty stuff. When I think when I first had my first syllabus, it was like, "Here's my name and here's my office and here's your assignments." Then you teach your first class and you have all the shit go down, right? Some people ask you for extensions and this and late. You're like, "Oh my God, I have nothing about that in my syllabus. I didn't know that was supposed to be there." Then you add that and you add that and you add that. Now, I have this streamlined, yet detailed manifesto of a syllabus that answers every question that could ever come up.

Lisa Bodnar:

Can you share what some of those are?

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah. The students, by the way, ask me, they'll be like, "Oh my gosh, why is this in your syllabus? Did someone actually do..." I'm like, "Everything is in here because students do this. I didn't just make this up. It literally was blank until I met you guys. This exists because of you." So, one thing I put in there and I try to make sure that it doesn't come off as negative is about letters of recommendation. So, in the first couple times around, I would have students show up and say, "I took your class a year ago. Can you write me a letter of recommendation for school?" I'm looking at this person thinking, "I have taught so many sections of 70 people since a year ago, like hundreds of people. I have no idea who you are. I don't remember anything about you. I don't feel like that's going to be a good letter."

Cara Eckhardt:

So, I added a piece to my syllabus that said, "Here is how to..." It's basically a how to nurture a relationship with a professor so that you can be in a good position to then ask them for a letter of recommendation later. Also saying that I don't write letters of recommendation for students that I know nothing about other than their grade in my class. Not because I'm trying to be mean, but because that isn't going to serve them. A lot of them are in large classes and they don't know maybe how to create that kind of relationship with the professor. So, I tried to add some examples of, "Here are ways that you can get to know me and I can get to know you. I'm happy to meet outside of office hours. If you don't know what to talk about at office hours, here's some ideas here are ways that we could have a... Sit in the front, ask questions. You don't have to be a spontaneous person. Plan them ahead. It's going to be a year before I see you again, send me an email every now. Let's keep up."

Cara Eckhardt:

Just walking them through that. So, that's something I have in my syllabus. I have things about honestly, email etiquette. I'm sure I say it in a better way than this, but don't email me with like, "Hey, you," and emojis, and learn how to communicate professionally. Put something helpful in the subject line, so forth and so on. I have something in my syllabus that says, "I have a life and you should have a life outside of school. I will not be checking email in the evenings and I will not be checking it over the weekends." I also did a funny thing one time, a couple of years ago where I thought, "God, this syllabus is long," but it's here because in a way it's a contract.

Cara Eckhardt:

So, you have it in writing and that way, no one later can say, "But I didn't know that." You're like, "It's in the syllabus." So, I put somewhere three pages into my syllabus. I had, "Alert, if you've made it this far, congratulations and if you send me an email with a picture of a kitten in it, I will put you in the drawing for a gift card from Starbucks."

Lisa Bodnar:

Did people do it?

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah, but so few. Lisa, it was so sad.

Lisa Bodnar:

Really?

Cara Eckhardt:

I think maybe four. That was just a little Easter egg hunt in there. I haven't done it since. I don't know if my ego can take it. So

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah. Okay. So Cara, you are one of those annoying people who started baking bread during quarantine.

Cara Eckhardt:

Oh, my God. I know. I know. It's totally true.

Lisa Bodnar:

For the listeners, I'll tell you that something either you could view it as very sweet and thoughtful or very obnoxious was that Cara used to send me photos of every single thing that she made and it was beautiful.

Cara Eckhardt:

I was ready to open a bakery.

Lisa Bodnar:

You would send them to me all the time and be like, "Look, I made this German frothel fruth and fluflu, and I’d be like, "What is that and why does it look so fucking good? Fuck you." You're like, "What?" I was just sitting at home, being like, "You guys, we're going to open a can of soup tonight." I don't know.

Cara Eckhardt:

It's so weird. I feel almost embarrassed that I was totally, I mean, and I continue to be on that bandwagon. I literally just made a new bread because I got upset, because Great British Baking show is back on, new season. So, watching, 100% watching. So, I just ordered...

Lisa Bodnar:

Is Mary Berry still on?

Cara Eckhardt:

No. God Lisa, for the love of God. She was gone several seasons ago. Where have you been?

Lisa Bodnar:

It is the guy that has the gray hair...

Cara Eckhardt:

Paul Hollywood, piercing blue eyes. Yes.

Lisa Bodnar:

Isn't he a dick in real life?

Cara Eckhardt:

I don't know if he's a dick. I have no idea, but I did order his bread book and I just made his... It's a bread that has both molasses and Guinness stout beer in it and it was so freaking good.

Lisa Bodnar:

Ooh.

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah, so fucking good.

Lisa Bodnar:

Okay. And I think his eyes are not that color.

Cara Eckhardt:

Maybe.

Lisa Bodnar:

I think it's...

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah, he's a vampire or something. I absolutely embrace this insanely cliched like... I did, but God, I love it. I have control and that's always good. So, let's get down to what's most important, control. So I can make something and I can follow the directions and I'm going to have something good turn out at the end. I think when everything is so unknown and scary in so many ways, it's just a very good feeling. That's thing number one. Thing number two, it's a thing that you're doing that's not being at the computer. I think in the Zoom times, this is really important.

Cara Eckhardt:

So, it's like doing something with your hands and I think when I'm really stressed out, I'm not a person who likes to be still. So, I'm always just doing more things when I'm stressed out. I mean, gosh, on election night I was breaking down 8 million boxes in my backyard at 11:00 at night with a knife, just hacking through them. I don't know. I guess I fricking love bread. I fucking love bread. I love it more than most desserts. I just want to eat all the bread with all the butter, all the time. I always want something bready. So, there's that.

Lisa Bodnar:

Would you rather be a chicken, a pig, or a cow?

Cara Eckhardt:

Oh God, I don't think I want someone to handling my teats all the time. So, I'm going to go no on cow.

Lisa Bodnar:

But Cara, why not? I mean, come on.

Cara Eckhardt:

They have nice eyelashes. I don't want to be a chicken. They're gross and dinosaury. I guess, I mean, God, pigs seem to really enjoy life. I think I'm going to go as pig. Just eat whatever the fuck you want, roll around in the mud, make noise when you want to make noise, not worry, not give a damn. I'm going pig.

Lisa Bodnar:

Pigs are smart.

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah. They're smart.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah. They just get to have fun.

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah.

Lisa Bodnar:

Cows just chew the cud.

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah. There's a lot of regurgitation involved in being a cow and I think that's gross.

Lisa Bodnar:

That's gross.

Cara Eckhardt:

It's all just grass. I like food and I don't want to just eat grass. I want to be a pig and eat all the things.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah. And you want to stick your snout in and just go for it.

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah. I do.

Lisa Bodnar:

I want to be beefy, not beefy like a cow, but I want to have porky. I want to be a porky pig.

Cara Eckhardt:

Yes.

Lisa Bodnar:

I want to snort.

Cara Eckhardt:

I want to take up space and if I want to say something, I want to squeal that shit out loud and clear.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yes. Yeah.

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah. Pig.

Lisa Bodnar:

Pig all the way.

Cara Eckhardt:

Pig all the way.

Lisa Bodnar:

Pig.

Cara Eckhardt:

What is something embarrassing that you are obsessed with?

Lisa Bodnar:

First, let me say that I don't get embarrassed easily anymore because I'm 44 and who the fuck cares?

Cara Eckhardt:

It's the best thing about aging, isn't it?

Lisa Bodnar:

Right. I am pretty obsessed with Werther's Originals, the candy.

Cara Eckhardt:

God, I love that so much because I'm sorry Pat Bodnar I love you, but one of the things we would laugh about from time to time is your mom always having hard candies with her. Now, look at you Lisa, embracing the hard candy life.

Lisa Bodnar:

Hashtag hard candy life. I mean, I think I'm especially embarrassed about Werther's because they're like grandma candy.

Cara Eckhardt:

It's the ultimate grandma candy, but you know who else is obsessed with them? Jay, my husband.

Lisa Bodnar:

Oh, my God.

Cara Eckhardt:

So, he has all of these bags of Werther's down at his desk Zoom area for boring Zoom meetings.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah.

Cara Eckhardt:

So, I have been known to pinch a Werther's or two. I'm with you. They're good.

Lisa Bodnar:

Okay. Yeah. The other embarrassing thing, maybe this I'm legitimate embarrassed about, is I wouldn't say obsessed because that makes me sound like a stalker, but I am really fascinated by the life that my pilates instructor leads on Instagram.

Cara Eckhardt:

So, you're a little bit stalkery there, huh?

Lisa Bodnar:

I mean, a little bit, but it feels like, as often as she posts and the stuff that she posts, she wants people to be obsessed with her.

Cara Eckhardt:

But of course the life that anyone leads on Instagram is a fake life, right?

Lisa Bodnar:

I know. That's why I'm embarrassed. I'm so obsessed with it because she has the life that you and I used to have before kids.

Cara Eckhardt:

Oh, yeah.

Lisa Bodnar:

She lives with her boyfriend in this really nice place in Boston. She has cocktails on the rooftop and goes and visits her family on the coast of Maine.

Cara Eckhardt:

You mean she's not wrapped in an old scraggly robe, sucking on grandma candy in front of a Zoom screen? Is that what you're trying to say?

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah. That's exactly what I'm trying to say. I understand what... Let's be clear. I understand that social media is not real. I'm not crying in bed at night, but in those moments, you're just like, "Oh yeah, wouldn't it be nice to not have kids and to have me and a lover sit on the patio as the sun is setting while we're drinking martinis?" That's what it is and they wear these like jaunty little hats. I don't think that's the right word. Jaunty?

Cara Eckhardt:

Jaunty? I think jaunty is a good word. You're wearing that hat and you're like, "Yeah. I can pull this off and it's totally normal for me to wear this jaunty hat. I'm not feeling like I'm wearing a persona. It's just natural."

Lisa Bodnar:

Anyway. Do you always return library books on time?

Cara Eckhardt:

Oh, my God. No. Not even close. No. I consider the fee and the fines as part of the service, like I'm going to borrow this book for as long as I need it and I'll pay you whatever the fuck it is that I owe you what I'm good and done. It's still cheaper than buying the book and oh yeah. No, not, I don't even worry about it. I just check out the book and they're like, "It's due then. Oh, this is a new release. You can only have it for two weeks." I'm like, "Okay. Right. I'll see you in two weeks. Not." I do return them, though.

Lisa Bodnar:

What's the most embarrassing thing you bought during quarantine?

Cara Eckhardt:

I think there's, I don't know if embarrassing is the word, but I've bought a lot of things that fall into certain categories. So, maybe it's the amounts of them is what makes it embarrassing.

Lisa Bodnar:

Okay.

Cara Eckhardt:

Okay. So I have bought more bralettes than any person should buy.

Lisa Bodnar:

Bralettes.

Cara Eckhardt:

Anyone who's not...

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah, people may need an explanation.

Cara Eckhardt:

... know. They're not a bra because they don't really have the support of a bra, but they're like bra-ish and so they hold you in a little bit, but they're really comfortable and you can like... I just don't see the need for an actual bra in this time of COVID. So, I have really embraced the bralette. I've tried a lot of them. Like, "Look at this one, this one's so soft, this one's so..." And it's just like, "Will I be able to go back?" I don't know. That scares me a little bit. I think when I put on a real bra at some point, I'm just going to be like, "Whoa." I'm going to feel like I'm putting on some kind of 18th century corsetry or something. So, I've bought a lot of those.

Cara Eckhardt:

I am obsessed now with the Trader Joe's soup dumplings. Do you know of these?

Lisa Bodnar:

No, no.

Cara Eckhardt:

Literally, when I write a grocery list and Jay is going to Trader Joe's, the list, he actually was making fun of me for this yesterday. He's like, "Every time you write this list, you write all the soup dumplings." I'm like, "Go there with your cart and just empty the freezer of all the soup dumplings." So, those are keeping me happy.

Lisa Bodnar:

What do you do with them?

Cara Eckhardt:

They're just so good, Lisa.

Lisa Bodnar:

You put them in soup?

Cara Eckhardt:

They're like a dumpling... No, you put them in the microwave and they're like a dumpling, but inside the dumpling, there's dumpling filling, like the meat part. But then there's also broth. So when you bite into it, it's just like a little mini soup inside each dumpling.

Lisa Bodnar:

Oh, I get it.

Cara Eckhardt:

So you have to eat it over a spoon or something because you can bite into it and have a situation of soup spewing out of your mouth, but they're so good.

Lisa Bodnar:

Okay. Before you go on, Trader Joe's need to fucking sponsor this podcast.

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah, because it comes up every time.

Lisa Bodnar:

You didn't buy a pulsox machine, did you?

Cara Eckhardt:

A what? I did. pulse oximeter?

Lisa Bodnar:

Okay. 

Cara Eckhardt:

Yes. I totally did. As it was all hitting New York and we were first learning all this stuff about the pandemic and how people's blood oxygen could be low without them realizing it. I totally bought a pulsox machine. Yeah. As everyone should. Ready for anything. You want to take my blood oxygen? I'm ready. You want some soup dumplings? I got a thousand.

Cara Eckhardt:

Given that this is 2020, what are some of your go-to ways of coping with stress?

Lisa Bodnar:

I have learned through 20 plus years of therapy that...

Cara Eckhardt:

Lucky that 20 plus years of therapy preceded COVID, so you arrived at this place in time.

Lisa Bodnar:

I know. I did. It was just in the right amount of time.

Cara Eckhardt:

It was just in time.

Lisa Bodnar:

Because it was really just in the last year that I hit my stride in therapy.

Cara Eckhardt:

There you go.

Lisa Bodnar:

Therapy has taught me, we're going to get serious for a minute.

Cara Eckhardt:

Okay.

Lisa Bodnar:

Therapy has taught me how to change my expectations of myself and really be kind to myself in moments where I'm feeling stress. I'm very good at identifying stress before it gets bad to immediately stop, take inventory and be like, "I don't feel good. What needs to change?" Also, the antidepressants really help.

Cara Eckhardt:

Hell yeah. Where would we be without them? I'm a 100% with their number one coping mechanism.

Lisa Bodnar:

Okay. So Cara, you help me cope with stress a lot. You and I talk very frequently.

Cara Eckhardt:

Very.

Lisa Bodnar:

No matter what we talk about, we laugh our butts off.

Cara Eckhardt:

That is the best stress relief there is, I think, laughter.

Lisa Bodnar:

And just being able to see the absurdity in so many of these situations, they do cause stress. But then to be able to look at them with this outside eye of like, "How fucking crazy is this?" And that we can just laugh about it.

Cara Eckhardt:

And just to be able to vent to someone who gets you and use all your words.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yes.

Cara Eckhardt:

And all your swear words and all of your fucks and your shits.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah, and human connection is really my go-to when I'm stressed.

Cara Eckhardt:

Which is hard in COVID.

Lisa Bodnar:

It is, yeah. But the podcast has been great for that. Just texting friends, reaching out, hearing, having feelings validated. I'm feeling really overwhelmed today. What are you feeling? And being open enough to talk about it so that you know that you're not the only one on earth who is overwhelmed right now.

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah.

Lisa Bodnar:

What's the most overrated flavor?

Cara Eckhardt:

Well, I mean, overrated? Let's first just say that the disgusting, most horrible flavor there is, is grape. Any kind of fake grape flavor is the worst flavor.

Lisa Bodnar:

I disagree. I like grape.

Cara Eckhardt:

Let me tell you something. I am not alone in this. Just as, from a research standpoint, there is a store in my neighborhood that always has Jolly Ranchers. I went in there one time and all it was was grape. I said, "That's disgusting. Why do you only have grape Jolly Ranchers?" And he said, "I fill up the bowl with a mixture every morning and by the end of the day, all I ever have is grape." I don't know if that's overrated. It's just gross.

Lisa Bodnar:

All right. I think blue raspberry is totally fucking overrated.

Cara Eckhardt:

Like, what is that?

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah, I don't know. But I also think that watermelon is a disgusting flavor.

Cara Eckhardt:

I agree. Okay. I'm glad we found some common ground here.

Lisa Bodnar:

Some common ground.

Cara Eckhardt:

It tastes nothing like actual watermelons, which are delicious.

Lisa Bodnar:

Cara, if you had to be on a reality TV show, which would you choose and why?

Cara Eckhardt:

Okay. I don't know if this counts, but I think it counts.

Lisa Bodnar:

Okay.

Cara Eckhardt:

I am 100% obsessed with the moderators in the presidential debates and I want to be one. Does that count? I think that counts as a reality TV show.

Lisa Bodnar:

It is.

Cara Eckhardt:

I am watching those debates and I know other people are watching them, I don't know what they're watching them for really. Don't we know what we need to know? I think we know what we need to know.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah, it's true.

Cara Eckhardt:

But in theory, people are watching them to pay attention to what the candidates are saying. I'm 100% percent zeroed in on that moderator every time, 100%. That is all I'm hearing. And it's like, everything they're doing, I'm just like, "No, no, don't do that. Do it like this." Or like, "Why are you asking the question that way?" Or like, "Why aren't you cutting him off?" If someone asked me if I had to pay $10,000, if I had to pay to be, I would be like, "Sign me up. Here's your money." I want to do this so bad. I am, I am ready. I am ready PBS, CNN, MSNBC, right here. I so want it.

Lisa Bodnar:

Why would you be such a great moderator?

Cara Eckhardt:

Because I don't take no bullshit from anybody, A.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah.

Cara Eckhardt:

And B, I am a good controller of mayhem. I think I really am. Having children and large classes of students, having classroom control or keeping people's attention and I just, I absolutely fantasize about it. Like a lot. I even think about what I would wear, Lisa. I think about it a lot.

Lisa Bodnar:

What would you wear?

Cara Eckhardt:

A lot. Just not a boring suit. I would not wear blue and I would not wear red. I would wear green and it would be awesome.

Lisa Bodnar:

You don't wear green.

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah. That's true. Purple maybe. But I just really feel like I could bring that to the next level. I really do.

Lisa Bodnar:

In debates, they don't want to make the moderator the story. I fear that if you were the moderator, the story would be about you.

Cara Eckhardt:

That is true. I would be so awesome.

Lisa Bodnar:

They also would just be like, "Can the moderator stop talking?"

Cara Eckhardt:

It's true. But I would ask such good questions. I was so upset when I found out there was only one vice-presidential debate because I was like, "That's it for the moderators? I've seen them all?" And then they canceled the one because dumb ass got COVID. I was like, "What? You took away one of them from me?"

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah.

Cara Eckhardt:

Yeah, it was heart wrenching.

Lisa Bodnar:

We didn't even touch on the female friendship stuff.

Cara Eckhardt:

I know.

Lisa Bodnar:

Okay. So, we're just going to continue this...

Cara Eckhardt:

Okay.

Lisa Bodnar:

... Because we're just, we shockingly have too much to say.

Cara Eckhardt:

I know. All right. Talk to you soon.

Lisa Bodnar:

Mwah.

Cara Eckhardt:

Bye.

Lisa Bodnar:

Bye. We'll find another time.

Cara Eckhardt:

Okay, so I think we should talk about the next bit and we should chug a beer before we do it.

Lisa Bodnar:

Wait a minute. Hold on a second. Are you saying the next time we record, we chug a beer and then we record?

Cara Eckhardt:

That's what I'm saying.

Lisa Bodnar:

All right.