Praecipua in Pink

Productive day

2010-05-25T22:45:00.005-05:00

I'm not known for my ability to focus and get things done. Today was really not that different, but I had so many projects that were this close close to being done and so I went for it. I completed a grant proposal, an article review, a letter of recommendation and an abstract for a conference next year. To put this into perspective, I was almost done with all of these projects, but that's always been the problem. I'm almost done with a ton of stuff and then I never finish. Today, I FINISHED. That may not sound like a lot, but it's been a persistent struggle for me, and completing all those tasks felt wonderful.

The plan for tomorrow is to read an entire dissertation. I don't know if I can do it, but I'm going to give it all I have. How awesome will it be if I can have two days in a row of productivity? As strange (and awful) as that sounds, it would be a huge accomplishment for me. I'm looking forward to the challenge!

Weepy movies

2010-05-20T23:08:00.002-05:00

I cried at the end of Terminator 2. Truly. Watching the Terminator voluntarily go into the vat of whatever melted him was really sad. This point highlights that I will probably cry in just about every movie I've ever watched. I cry at the end of romantic comedies, dramas, comic book movies; you name it, I'll cry.

One of the bad crying jags occurred after watching Love Actually which really isn't a sad movie at all, but I cried and cried because of that cute dude who loved Keira Knightly, but she married that other guy. And Emma Thompson's character was so sad, too. Of course, everyone couldn't have a happy ending, but that dude really tore me up. There was just something about him resigning himself to life without her and moving on that touched a chord with me. I wondered if he ever found someone.

I saw the movie with a friend and cried the whole way home. She brought me into my duplex, which I shared with a roommate (Luis), apologized to Luis and bolted. He, of course, couldn't understand how I could go to the movies to see a romantic comedy and come back bawling. We sat on my double papazan while I explained (through sobs) what I thought was so sad. Being incoherent didn't help me clear up the mystery for Luis, but he was a good sport. I ended up falling asleep with my head in his lap, worn out by my tears. He kept patting my head for what must have been about 45 minutes while I slept. When I woke up, I felt really bad that he sat there and patted my head for 45 minutes, but I was glad to know that even if I didn't have a boyfriend, my friends were well and truly awesome.

Tonight I watched The Secret Life of Bees and bawled and bawled when May killed herself. Having gone through a mildish case of depression for about 6 or so months, I was struck by the idea of being so weighed down by sadness, that suicide was a more palatable option. I've never contemplated suicide, and I don't intend to start now, but as I watched the movie, I was struck by her sadness, and it started the waterworks. It reminded me that whatever is going on in my life, whether it's my dad's declining health, my professional stumbles, or personal loneliness, I do not carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, and therefore, I have the strength to get through the problem. So, while I was concerned about whether or not I would hyperventilate, I am not concerned about my adaptive abilities and my capacity to deal with life's sadness and worries. It may difficult to deal, but it won't be impossible.

Exhausted

2010-05-14T22:09:00.002-05:00

Lack of motivation is going to be a recurring theme of this blog, and it's really frustrating to me. In all kinds of ways, I want to accomplish a lot, both professionally and athletically, yet for some reason, I am my own worst enemy. I get started really well, and then I fall off the wagon. Exercise-wise, last week was phenomenal. I ran 5 days and did p90x 4 days...and lost 4 pounds. This week, I ran ONCE, did p90x ONCE and I can see the weight piling back on. Additionally, I'm exhausted. Granted, last night I only got about 5 hours sleep, but then I took a 5 hour nap this afternoon. Crazy. And, as soon as I finish this post, I'll go back to bed and likely sleep a solid 7 hours.

I do have one bright spot to report: I finished a stitch project yesterday. It's a small project for a friend, but it only took me a couple of weeks, which is a record for me. Working on it every day was a key to finishing. Now, I need to apply that consistency to other areas of my life.

I know I've made a lot of progress on many of my issues, especially in the last six months or so, but consistency and motivation are the big ones that really inhibit my success in so many areas. It's times like this when I really ache for a partner who can encourage me and push me. If I can't have a partner, a 'kindred spirit' would be so helpful as well; one who actually lived in the same town as me. I feel so isolated and my reaction is to sit on my couch and watch tv, eat mostly bad food and feel sorry for myself. And all the volunteering in the world won't make that better, it seems. I need companionship, and I fear that loneliness is my lot. And that's exhausting.

Glee addiction

2010-05-11T22:38:00.002-05:00

Quick post: I came home relatively early to practice my cello (which I did), but instead of going to bed afterward, I sat down and watched tonight's Glee. I can't seem to stay away. And next week is Neil Patrick Harris! :swoon: Except for a stupid episode here and there (and the first part of the season was better than the current part, Madonna excepted), it's an awesome show! Will probably spend tomorrow night watching the part of this season that I stupidly erased from my DVR.

Better results

2010-05-10T23:09:00.003-05:00

Mondays are weigh-in days, and I'm much happier with today's result than last week. I got all five of my runs in this week, and I completed 4 p90x routines. Additionally, I tried to limit bad food (though I did slip several times during the week). The result: a 4 pound weight loss. That makes me happy. It's nice to see the scale moving in that direction for a change.

It's really funny that it took me 2 years to lose 20 pounds, but I gained that same amount back in 4 months. Boo! Still, hopefully I can keep my motivation going and make quicker work of those pesky pounds. Certainly, I can't rest on my laurels, and I need to keep working hard, but it's nice to get positive reinforcement with what I'm doing. This coming weekend, it's going to be nearly impossible to get my workouts in because I'm volunteering at the Big 12 track championships, but I'll be running around, so hopefully I will be burning some calories.

Hard work, good eating and exercise...I guess it's a simple enough plan for better results.

Accepting compliments

2010-05-07T21:46:00.002-05:00

As we were waiting for the softball game to start tonight, the captain of my team and I were talking about the fact that I've had the same glove since I was 9 or 10 and I should probably get a new one since there was no padding left in mine. He suggested that I get a first baseman's glove since that's my position. I've been playing first base pretty much since I started with this team two summers ago, largely because I fell down my basement stairs during the second week of the season and wrenched my right shoulder as I grabbed the railing to keep from falling the whole way down. Due to the wrenching, I couldn't really throw the ball from the outfield and they put me on first so I could do something productive. Turns out, I'm pretty good.

Anyhow, the captain suggested I get a first basemen's glove and I suggested that I might not always play first base. His response: You're so good, there's no way we're moving you. Now, this is a beer league softball team made up of mostly nonathletic academics, so "good" has a pretty loose definition, but it was a nice thing to say. He went on to say that I was the reason there was a co-ed team from our department. This seemed really crazy, so I pressed him about what he meant. He said that it was rare to find a female player who was really good at first base, and having such a player was critical because it allowed us to play a guy on third base. Blah, blah, blah, accusations of sexism, blah, blah, blah, and the end result was that if our team didn't have a good female first basemen, it would have been hard to recruit enough guys to play.

Now, to me this is crazy generally, but it's even crazier because all I do is catch the ball. Seriously, I barely field and just catch the ball with my foot on the bag. It's true that the left side of our infield can get a little wild and I have had some spectacular catches, but the idea that the team would be impossible to field without me on first is just a crazy thing...and a very flattering compliment. Which, of course, I had real difficulty accepting.

I'm not sure why I don't believe people when they say nice things to me, but I don't. I try to argue with them and convince they why I'm not as good/worthy/whatever as they seem to think. I'm trying to learn to say "thank you" and leave it at that, but it's hard. Funnily, even if I do manage not to argue with the person, in my head, I still say what I would have said to the person aloud.

Apparently, I'm indispensable to my beer league softball team. Thank you.

Pain in the @ss

2010-05-06T23:24:00.002-05:00

Wow, am I sore.

I did two workouts on Tuesday and Thursday and my glutes are rebelling. So, I allowed myself to be a bit of a slacker today and took the day off. I intend to go back to two workouts tomorrow, but today, I just needed to let my body rest.

My schedule is helping me get things done, and I'm proud of that, but there's more work to do. I really need to be working on my diet. It's seems like I can't have two things working at the same time. If my fitness is in hand, my diet goes to crap, and if I ever get my eating to a good place, I tend not to be exercising (but usually both are in bad shape). I don't know why this is, but I need to address it. My running would be so much better if I could shed all this unwanted weight. And I'd love to shed it sooner rather than later. Eating french fries, potato chips and pop is not going to make that happen.

One step at a time...if my glutes cooperate.

Finishing

2010-05-04T22:06:00.002-05:00

I am not a closer. I have a horrible tendency to start things, get them about half done and then stop and move onto another project. I've even starting doing this with books, and I never want to return to the books later because I can't remember what happened. I went through my magazines a couple of weeks ago, and I found that I had started reading about a third of them but never finished.

Two glaring examples of this lack of finishing are really starting to bother me. Recreationally, I have four cross-stitch projects in various stages of completion. The oldest was started in November 2007, another was started probably in the summer of 2008, the third began in March 2010 and the final piece was started last Tuesday (April 27, 2010).

More seriously, I have four journal-length manuscripts in various stages of readiness that I haven't sent out. Two were previously submitted journals and rejected, and I just haven't made the time to fix them up and send them out again. My career depends on me getting these and other articles published, yet they languish on my desk for months and months.

Why don't I finish what I start? This is actually a difficult question to answer. I think I get bored of my stitching projects, or I don't work on them very often so I don't feel as if I'll ever finish them. I have hope about new projects so I take them up enthusiastically and believe that I'll fly right through them. Then, I get bored with them and want to move on. I've already promised to start a new project for a friend, but he is wisely not giving me the pattern for the project since I have so many others to finish. Thus, I can't move off my current project (two of my current projects are for others) and onto the bright, shiny new one.

Why don't I finish my manuscripts? Part of the problem is that I know they'll be rejected (rejection is the modal category) so I'm discouraged before I start. Part of me worries that my writing is terrible or my ideas are uninteresting and I don't want that confirmed by my field. Part of me (a mostly secret part) is not even sure I want to stay at a research university. If I don't publish, I will be fired, but if I'm fired, I can pursue a job at a college/university with less of an emphasis on research, and maybe I'll be happier. Here's the problem, though: especially at this time of year, I hate my students and I wish I didn't have to deal with them. If I moved to a teaching institution, that's all I'd do. And I'm not actually that bad at research. I especially love collaboration. So, the trick is to remind myself that I need to at least give this life the old college try and have the option of staying or going.

So, I'm trying to pursue a new strategy that schedules time to write during the day and push some manuscripts out the door, and schedule some time in the evening to work on my various projects. If I can write two hours a day and stitch one hour a day, I can get a lot accomplished in both realms in a relatively short period of time. This still leaves plenty of time to exercise (2 hours/day), sleep (7-8 hours), and deal with all the other responsibilities of life and work. Some days I'll write more than scheduled, and some days I'll stitch more, but I'm going to try very hard not to do less. I'd like to start the stitching part of the plan this Thursday and the writing plan next Monday (I have a lot of grading this week). I bought a planner, and I'm penciling in the time when I'll focus on these things. I feel capable and motivated to do this. I really, really hope I can make it last.

Weigh-in Day

2010-05-03T22:05:00.002-05:00

Bleh! Today is weigh-in day.

My best friend, Susan, and I are trying to motivate each other to lose weight and so we've engaged in many a challenge to see who can post the best weight loss numbers. We post our weight every Monday, and because we're both uber-competitive, we want to beat each other so badly that we stick to our health and fitness plans. Until the boy-induced depression/sadness crap. I've gained about 20 pounds since this time last year, and today I topped the scale at 211.5 pounds. That's humiliating, but it's got to stop.

I was in IL with some amazing runner chicks this weekend, and they LOOKED like runner chicks. I, on the other hand, not only looked bad but felt bad too. I will never have a runner's physique, even if I lost 60, 70, or 80 pounds. I'm just not built that way. Still, I wanted to feel more confident when I was with them, and I didn't. And when I uploaded the pictures off my camera today, I felt even worse. I have bad posture which didn't help the cause, but I was embarrassed by how bad I looked. People who love me don't care how I look, but it's hard for me to love myself when I treat my body so badly.

I recently got into Glee and tonight I watched the last episode, "Home". One of the story lines was about Mercedes having to lose 10 pounds to stay on the Cheerios squad and how bad she felt about herself because she was struggling to lose the weight. She sang Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" and it really touched a chord in me. I want to be able to sing that song and mean it.

I am beautiful, no matter what they say

Words can't bring me down.

I am beautiful in every single way.

Yes, words can bring me down,

So don't you bring me down today.

I need desperately to stop being the person saying the hurtful words to myself. So, today, despite the crappy weigh-in, I went to the grocery store and stocked up on fruits and vegetables and yummy, healthy snacks. I will go running tomorrow and I will do a p90x video. I can do this, and I'll see myself as beautiful, both inside and out.

It's a Start

2010-05-02T22:43:00.003-05:00

So, in July 2009, I fell in love.

Doesn't sound too momentous, but this is actually the first time I'm admitting it. I fell in love. Hard. I met him online and we clicked immediately. Always had stuff to talk about. Crazy physical attraction. I was sure he was the one. I don't have a lot of relationship experience, so I didn't notice the warning signs until it was too late. I mean, when you make a habit of crushing on unavailable (usually married) men, the signs are always that it's not going to work. Dating a straight single guy? The signs are all different. At any rate, I missed them, and six weeks after I fell head-over-heels, it was all over but the crying.

Maybe if there was more crying, it would have been easier to deal with. I cried a lot while things were falling apart, and I cried a lot in my therapist's office, but I had to go to work, teach, interact with people, and while everyone knew I was sad, I didn't really talk too much about what I was going through. As a result, I went into a state of mourning. Mourning for the relationship that seemed to have so much promise. Mourning for my 34 years of loneliness. Mourning for the fact that I'm in a town I don't like, in a job I'm not sure I can keep, with friends who aren't "kindred spirits" or if they are have too much of their own lives to deal with to be the type of "bosom friend" I need in my life. (Don't hate on the Anne of Green Gables references.) I went into mourning. Which is a nice way of saying that I was depressed for a good 4 months. I lost interest in the people and things that used to keep the loneliness at bay. I sat on my couch and watched tv and kept the outside world away. Sure, I hung out with people; I went to work. But I didn't engage with anyone or anything.

I started pulling out of malaise in February, but I realized that I had dug myself into a hole. I had largely stopped running, my go-to self-help for the previous two years. I tried to start running again, but it was painful and I didn't enjoy it. So, I signed up for a marathon. I have until October 3 to get myself into fighting form. March was a pretty good month, but I allowed myself to find excuses, and I stopped running again in April. So here it is, May 2, and I am determined to be ready in 5 months and a day come Hell or high water.

To start, I ran 3 miles this evening. It's a start. I also plan to do p90x. I'm going to buy a planner tomorrow and keep track of my daily running, fitness and research goals (because my professional life is going to crumble on me soon if I don't get my carcass in gear). I'm going to track my progress and hopefully, I'll be motivated to keep moving forward.

Still, it's almost 11 pm and I have a ton of reading to do for tomorrow, a lecture to finish, a study guide to prepare, a final exam to write, 6 sets of reviews to grade and more reading for Wednesday. Will I be able to cobble everything together? Yes. Will it be fantastic? No. Will it be good enough? I hope so. Can I get better? I have to.

Where will I find my motivation? It's trite to say that I will find it within myself. But it's also true.

Day 1 (May 2): 3 miles

It's a start.

Talking about blogs made me remember I had one

2009-10-17T00:09:00.002-05:00

So people were talking about blogs today, which made me remember that I never post on mine. It's not that I don't have things to say; it's honestly because my Blogspot gmail account is different than my every day account and I hate switching back and forth. Seriously. That's why I don't post more often.

It's after midnight, so this will just be quick. I have 8 miles to run tomorrow which won't feel good on little sleep. I'm also going to a friend's garage sale and an orchestra concert. At some point this weekend, I need to read about the DOD and the US intelligence community, but I can imagine talking myself out of that and saving it for Monday. Oh, the joys of my life.

Seriously, I need to go to bed. See you in 6 months!

Six month update

2009-06-11T13:31:00.002-05:00

One would think that this blog would be a really good place to vomit my thoughts for the benefit of my mental health and to spare my friends from having to listen to all my issues, but apparently, I only think about it every six months or so, which decreases it's usefulness considerably. I've been thinking of posting more, so here's seeing if I'll actually do that. But, since I'm here, how about a six month recap?

I've been living here for just over one year now, and I guess it's becoming home. I don't like that I have to drive 800 years to get to a city of any decent size, but I guess there are worse things in the world. I know someone who had to drive 2.5 hours to get to a Target, and thankfully my city of about 100,000 isn't so bad. My mom was just visiting and anywhere we wanted to go was about 2 hours away. We ended up sticking close to home a lot because the driving was just tiring me out. Work is going reasonably well. I'm a master procrastinator, so I haven't gotten any of my dissertation chapters out the door yet. The plan is do that this summer, but it's already mid-June and I haven't accomplished much. Still, hope springs eternal.

Thankfully, I have made some wonderful friends here, so it's not completely lonely, though I do find myself parked in front of the tv most nights of the week. For a while in the fall, I was out almost every night and that was too much, so I've cut back considerably, though now I'm finding myself lonely again. I hope to find a balance soon.

I did run a marathon in May, so I've been keeping busy with the running. I'm not fast, and I'm not pretty, but I'm dedicated, and right now that's enough for me. I've just started training for a half-marathon this fall, but I also intend to begin P90X next week, so if my running needs to take a backseat for a while, I'm willing to let that happen. I will probably attempt another marathon next year, and most probably in the fall, but we'll see about that as well. While I was run/walking the marathon (due to overheating and a grouchy hip), I was demoralized and cranky, though when I crossed the finish line, I was nothing but proud. Part of me really wants to do it again and do it better. Better, not just faster. We'll see.

Other than work, friends and running, there's not too much going on. I'm debating about jumping into the dating scene through the dreaded internet. I'm not too thrilled about this, but I've only met married women and men since moving here, and they don't know any single people, so I'm stuck. This might be fodder for future posts.

Well, I've got a guy trying to sell me a vacuum cleaner, so I'd better pay attention. At least I'm getting my carpets cleaned. (And I don't mean that euphemistically!)

Today kicks @ss!

2008-12-11T14:25:00.002-06:00

Well, here's a nice change of pace. Usually I use this space to express frustrations with what's going on in my life. Today, I'm using the space to be excited about what's going on in my life.

Last night, my neighbor invited me to a girls-night-in type of event where she invited a bunch of her friends over to watch Top Chef. It was a small event, but everyone was really nice and I had a good time. This morning, my neighbor forwarded me an e-mail from one of the women in attendance, which basically said, "How cool is Prae? I'm so glad she's part of our group now!" It absolutely made my morning. First, the fact that this woman accepted me so quickly as part of the group just about knocked me over, and that my neighbor forwarded the message really touched my heart.

I was flying high when I went to class, the last class of the semester. Before I handed out the final exams, I asked the students to give me feedback on the course. While I didn't expect overly negative comments (I haven't turned in their final grades yet), I also didn't expect the extent of the nice comments either. They were really complimentary, and gave useful feedback for future iterations of the class. At the end of class, several students came up to me and thanked me for the class and said what a good time they had. It was very gratifying.

But wait, there's more. . .After lunch my department chair forwarded me an e-mail from a student in my class. S/he went to great lengths to praise my teaching, even going so far as to suggest I receive extra compensation for my efforts! It absolutely made my semester.

I don't know how long the good times will last, but I'm very happy today. That doesn't happen too often, so I'm going to ride the wave as long as I can. It's just so nice to see that all my hard work was appreciated by someone.

Hooray!

I hate journaling, but I need an outlet

2008-12-02T16:13:00.002-06:00

The reason there' s nothing ever posted on this blog is that I actually hate the process of journaling, which is how I view this process. I don't have enough going on in my real life to post news items or other such stuff on a regular basis, and I definitely don't want most of my friends to keep this close of tabs on me. Still, having moved to a new place, I'm finding myself in serious need of friends, and as that process is slowly unfolding, I figure I could pretend that I'm writing to a friend here and release much of my frustration in a non-self-defeating form.

I guess the starting point is that I'm lonely. I miss having people around who I can talk to at any point. Back in graduate school, I could walk down the hall, or through the graduate carrels and always find someone to talk to. Going home to an empty house wasn't even that daunting because I had just filled myself up on people at school. Now, I'm the new girl in town and I don't know my colleagues well enough to know that popping by their offices is "proper behavior" or not. Since I'm the new girl, I also want to impress these people. They took a calculated risk in hiring me (as all new hires are), and I want to prove to them that they made a good bet. Unfortunately, my loneliness and sadness about all the change that has occurred is seriously affecting my productivity.

Also affecting my productivity is living with a very bad decision and alternating between beating myself up for it and trying to give myself a break about it. The short version is that I got involved with a man who turned out to be less than ideal in a situation that was certainly less than ideal. I was happy and then I wasn't, and now I'm sad and a little guilty about it, but I can't undo it. Someone who might have been a friend isn't and I'm left wondering what it is about me that has led me to this point in my life. I'm perpetually single and afraid of relationships. I'm gregarious and independent while simultaneously, I'm shy and needy. I'm worried about overburdening my true, close friends by leaning on them too hard, but they're the only people who I know won't judge me and my truly stupid decisions.

If I could, I would excise all emotions from my brain and just get work done. Then, when convenient, I would add the emotions back in and interact with people. I look out into the world and I see that other people struggle with relationships, but somehow, even in the struggle, they seem to be happy. I don't think I know what happy feels like. I was in a conversation at lunch today where I made the categorical statement that I wouldn't attach myself to a man who couldn't get a credit card on his own. Someone said, "Well, now you're just getting picky," in a joking way. It did make me stop and think about how picky or not I'm actually being. I know that I romanticize relationships too much, and that no person is "perfect", but I also believe that I am worth enough as a person not to settle for something that doesn't make me happy. I am worried, however, that since I don't know what happiness feels like, I will turn away from opportunities and people that make me happy.

This is really all a moot point because I don't know anyone, especially men. A new friend is having a to-do at her house, but it's all women. In general, this should be fun, but most of these women are married, so the likelihood that they'll know unmarried guys in probably nil. I'm trying not to make this the sole fixation of my thoughts, but I'm sad, and I've always believed that if I were in a relationship, I'd be happier. I know, objectively, that this is not true, but when everything else is unsatisfying, it's nice to dream.

I'll stop the pity party now, but there will probably be more later. I'm just warning you. . .

Ooops, I keep forgetting I have a blog

2008-07-15T14:54:00.002-05:00

My friend, Frankie, just reminded me that I have a blog, so I guess I should post here every once in a while. At the new year, I posted some goals for 2008, so as the year is half over, let's see how I've done (completed goals are bolded):

2008 Goals:

1. Academic
A. Finish draft of dissertation by March 5
B. Successfully defend dissertation in April
C. Draft Ch. 6 into an article by August
D. Draft Ch. 5 into article by November

2. Personal
A. Actively pursue dating
B. Keep in touch with current friends
C. Make at least one new friend
D. Finish one cross-stitch picture

3. Health and Fitness
A. Make better food choices
B. Exercise more frequently
C. Run a 10k
D. Run a half marathon

Currently, I'm procrastinating on 1C; 3A is a constant struggle; I'm in training for 3D; and it's too early to judge all of #2 (though I was making really good progress on a x-stitch picture).

There's still a lot to be done in 2008. Here I come!

Lonely in a Crowd

2008-02-18T16:43:00.002-06:00

I was at a party the other week, and about 3 hours into it, I realized that I was all alone in the middle of a crowd.

While that was not the most fun feeling I've ever experience, what is worse is that I haven't been able to shake it, even 2 weeks later. I'm not one of those people who have a ton of friends all the time. Typically, I have one or two friends with whom I do almost everything. I don't know if this is a function of not being able to pay attention to multiple people at once, or if like at the party, when I'm in the middle of a crowd, I feel alone. The few friends at a time that I have, though, are true, deep and important friends, and I love spending time with them, talking with them and sharing my life and theirs. The problem arises when they leave.

My best friend moved away to graduate school about 5 years ago. While we still talk on the phone several times a month, she is now living with a very nice man and her life and mine are not on the same trajectory. We both know other people and some times it's so exhausting to explain the context, that it's almost not fun sharing the stories. I still love her dearly and I eagerly anticipate our time together, but it's just not the same. She's not HERE.

My first year in graduate school, my closest friend was Andrew. After our first year, Andrew got married and his wife moved to town. She doesn't really like me. I don't think it's personal, but we don't have much to talk about. Since his marriage, I spend almost no time with my friend. I was very sad (and still am sometimes) because I loved spending time with him and always had a smile on my face when with him. I miss him.

After Andrew's marriage, my closes friend was Luis. We lived together for three years and spent quite a bit of time together. We watched movies together on the weekends, and spent many an hour over dinner talking about the world. We always joked that we would be the perfect team to compete on The Amazing Race because we were smart people who would do well, but we'd also be highly entertaining because we have the most random conversations. People on the bus, on the street, and in our department would just shake their heads during our conversations because we disagreed with each other just for fun. Luis, however, began dating a woman he met during his Master's program, and moved out shortly afterward. I think he moved out partly because she didn't like the idea of him living with another woman, no matter how platonically. Recently moved to live with her, as she lives out of state. We talk on the phone every once in a blue moon, but it's simply not the same.

So here I find myself, 2.5 weeks from a dissertation deadline, 6.5 weeks from a dissertation defense and 8.5 weeks from graduation, and I've got no one in my immediate vicinity with whom to shares the ups and downs (mostly downs) of my life. I've been very sad recently and I don't know what to do about it. I guess the most immediate thing to do is gut it out and get my dissertation finished. If I don't do that, so many other things in my life will be unhappy. I guess I must also make myself promise that I will work very hard when I get to the new job to make friends. This one-at-a-time stuff is nice in theory, but it is really difficult when that one person finds another person.

Excuses

2008-01-19T08:56:00.000-06:00

Thursday was a bad day for me. I should have known that when I was posting on the blog in the morning instead of writing. I did not get much writing done, and I was very unmotivated to go to yoga. So, I started coming up with all these excuses for why I shouldn't go to yoga. I'll spare you the inner dialogue, but the excuses won and I went home, made questionable food choices and stayed up too late watching tv. I wrote Friday off because I was feeling low and almost talked myself out of going to the gym in the early evening. Thankfully, the excuses didn't win this time, and I got in 3 good miles on the TM and 20 not-so-good minutes on the exercise bike. Still, I'm very glad I made it to the gym on Friday, and I'm looking forward to starting 10k training next week.

I'm definitely going to have to work on the excuses, but I know that I am strong enough to fight them.

Dissertation writing

2008-01-17T09:57:00.001-06:00

I'm in the last throes of my dissertation in terms of time, but I have miles to go before I'm done. The plan is seven chapters, three of which are drafted, though I will have to revise them. I'm part of the way done with a fourth chapter, two of the remaining are intro and conclusion, which don't have to be long, and the final chapter is a lit review which no one will read. Therefore, in the scheme of life, I'm almost done, but it seems like such a daunting endeavor. I hate writing because I'm a perfectionist, and that's all I have left to do. All the quantitative models are run, and I just have to write. It sucks.

I'm trying to finish a chapter this week, and if I do, it will be a miracle. Still, I have to do this, so I will. I wish I could live my entire life just working out, reading, watching movies and cross-stitching. I'm sure that I would eventually get bored, but right now if I contemplate a life of research and constant writing, it makes me a little sad. Not because I'm not intellectually curious, but because I don't think I'm very good. I love the prospect of mentoring students and teaching classes (though I'm a little nervous about the grad class next spring), but I'm worried that I won't be a good enough researcher (or a motivated enough one) to meet my tenure requirements.

Isn't it funny, though, that I'm worried about tenure 6-7 years from now instead of focusing on the dissertation. I think that's because people in my department say that since I have a job for next year, as far as they are concerned, I've already passed my dissertation. Of course, they're not going to fail me now, but I still have to finish writing it, and if it's the first draft of my eventual book, I'd like for it to be as good as it can be. At some point, I know I'm going to have to give up my perfectionist ways, but that's hard to do.

Well, enough procrastinating. On to the work of the day.

In the Shower

2008-01-16T09:13:00.001-06:00

This morning while I was in the shower, I was thinking about last night's Biggest Loser and the emotional conversation between Bette-Sue and Ali. I convinced my mother to start watching this season of the show and after the first episode, she said that she could imagine herself being Bette-Sue crawling up the hill and me being Ali, trying to push her up. So, when they had their emotional heart-to-heart about why Ali is fat because of being left alone so much by her mother, it really started to make me think about why exactly I am fat.

I thought about my parents' seemingly loveless marriage; always being compared to my apparently perfect older siblings; the expectations that I would get good grades, perform well in sports, etc. I also remembered all the taunts from kids about my clothes, my weight, etc. I remembered my unrequited crush on a guy for 10 years. I thought about my only real boyfriend who turned out to be kinda crazy. I thought about how much I hated my layers of fat, but how I am afraid that if I lose them, I'll lose my excuses. I thought about how I don't know anyone's marriage that I'd like mine (if I ever get married) to resemble. I thought about how I always have crushes on older, married men in positions of authority because they're somehow safer than men my own age.

I'll probably explore these topics more in the coming days, but suffice to say, I started this day off in a very pensive manner. Hopefully, I can get some work done, both on my dissertation and on myself.

Popping Hips

2008-01-11T10:01:00.000-06:00

One of my New Year's resolutions was to exercise more and one of the ways I plan to accomplish this goal is to practice yoga at least twice a week. My favorite class is on Tuesday afternoons because I love the instructor, Monique. She's not one of those twiggy women who I'd love to snap like, well, a twig. She's got curves, and she's very understanding that sometimes our bodies just don't pretzel twist. Yesterday, however, was not Tuesday, so I went to a later class with another woman, Linda, who while somewhat twiggy, is also a bit older and somewhat understanding as well.

Last week I had struggled with my right hip flexor, and I was very frustrated that I had to do modifications of many positions. I know that this is part of the territory, but I'm a competitor and a perfectionist, so I hate to be "less" than what is being asked of me. Like last week, Linda started with core exercises: basically versions of sit-ups. This hurt because my core is not very strong and I had to rest every once in a while. She asked if the exercise hurt my hip (I'm always impressed when yogis remember (1) their students, and (2) their problems from week to week), and I responded that it hurt my weak core. Everyone got a chuckle out of that, even me, so on we went.

My hip felt ok for most of the practice, and I was sweating up a storm. Whoever thinks that yoga is a nice easy way to exercise needs to attend my studio. This made me feel good, though, because right at the end of my work day I started to come up with excuses to keep myself from going. I overcame my own excuses, and I was glad that I was getting my @ss kicked with hard moves. One of the very last things we did was leg moves with a strap. During this sequence, both of my hips popped. It was incredibly loud and then I groaned (because it felt great) so everyone in the class thought something serious had happened. Of course, I was fine, and I finshed the practice.

Walking home in downpour, I was very thankful that I had convinced myself to attend and that tired as I was, I could walk home. I think it's going to be very hard for me to keep self-motivating to work out, but I know it will do me good, even if the scale doesn't say so.

New Year, New Me

2008-01-09T14:21:00.001-06:00

As you can see, I haven't posted here in over 2 1/2 years. I guess I never really think that I have anything insighful or interesting to say. . .at least not anything that I think anyone else would find interesting.

Well, that still might be the case, but I'm trying to learn more about myself in the coming months as I get ready to graduate with a PhD, move to a new state, start a job that I'm not quite sure I'm ready for, and start a new chapter of my life. I know I've learned a ton already, especially about my motivations and what stands in the way of success. I hope to be able to learn quite a bit more in the weeks and months ahead.

In the spirit of New Year, New Me, I will list some of my goals for this year. I think it will be interesting to see if I make them, and even more interesting to discover what I learn about myself in the process.

2008 Goals:

1. Academic
A. Finish draft of dissertation by March 5
B. Successfully defend dissertation in April
C. Draft Ch. 6 into an article by August
D. Draft Ch. 5 into article by November

2. Personal
A. Actively pursue dating
B. Keep in touch with current friends
C. Make at least one new friend
D. Finish one cross-stitch picture

3. Health and Fitness
A. Make better food choices
B. Exercise more frequently
C. Run a 10k
D. Run a half marathon

That's good for a start. Let's see how well I do.

Squatters v. Sitters

2005-06-20T23:03:00.000-05:00

Here's a rant I've been wanting to have for quite a bit. It concerns public women's bathrooms and in-stall behavior that distresses me. See, I believe that there are two types of women (though my good friend, S, disagrees. More in a sec.): Squatters and Sitters. Squatters, who for hygiene or other nefarious reasons, think that rear-ends shouldn't touch public toilets. I even met a woman once who squatted in her own bathroom. Regardless of the reason, squatters squat over the holes in public toilets to do their business. Sitters, on the other hand, sit on the toilet seats.

Many of you can probably work out the problem (or you are a sitter who has intimately encountered the problem). Because women's anatomy doesn't have built-in aiming devices, there is inevitably a "splash" effect that comes back to haunt Sitters. This splash is one of the reason why so many women become Squatters in the first place. But really, people, some women cannot physically squat over a toilet to do their business. They are forced to sit due to physical handicap or poor leg strength. Squatters ruin public bathrooms for Sitters.

Now, my friend S, claims there are really two kinds of Squatters: neat and sloppy. She, so she claims, is a neat Squatter who doesn't splash. Of course, she will claim this. It is impossible to prove what kind of Squatter a person is, unless all toilets are assessed before and after each user.

There are many solutions to this very real problem. One is to have separate stalls for Sitters and Squatters. I think Squatters shouldn't even have toilet seats, seeing as they don't use them. This is not an ideal situation, however, because, without a monitoring device, there is no guarantee that Squatters will not use the Sitters' stall in an emergency. Another solution is to convince Squatters to flip up the seat while they do their business, thus negating the possibility of splashing onto the seat. This is also not ideal because most Squatters squat because of germ issues. Having them deal with the lid of a toilet would probably be beyond their ability. Perhaps a button that could be activated by the foot that lifts and lowers the lid? That technology might be easy enough to install and would save quite a bit of heartache (as well as wet asses). Doorless stalls might also work to shame women into peeing neatly, but as a Sitter, I don't want to have people watch me do my business.

I really belive that this is the next big issue in women's bathrooms. Now that sports stadiums and office buildings have more women's restrooms than men's, we now need to focus on ways in which all women can use the facilities comfortably, heathfully and happily.