Choosing a path

I have lost my way a bit in terms of how to keep moving forward on this draft. I am struggling with which strategy to take when deciding what to work on next. Should I work on the comments I've received from others (including my advisor)? Should I finish adding all the things into the draft that I need in there (e.g., finish commenting on my results)? Should I work on the easiest or hardest things first? It's hard to know how to move forward when you have so many options about how to proceed.

Maybe I should use the strategy I use at work: Identify what you absolutely need to get done for the meeting (e.g., were you asked to prepare and bring information on a specific topic?). Focus on answering those items first. Then if you have time, go back and add additional information that YOU want to add in. I know that I wanted to try out some non-linear transformations on my data and also go back to the original studies to confirm that I have coded and analyzed everything correctly, but those items might not even affect my paper at all. If I do the research on the non-linear transformations and redo my analysis and find that no big changes were made in my significant findings, then a reader has really nothing new to look at. In other words, I believe I should keep focusing on changing the items with the biggest impact on showing that I am progressing forward. The first few items I can think of are:

• Create tables that report the results of my regression analyses
• Finish summarizing my results in the discussion. 

Identify anything that is still MISSING from the paper and add it in. IGNORE anything that is already in the paper but might not be correct or might be not well written -- come back to these things. In other words, keep continuing to add in all the things that I know must be ADDED in to the paper. Once that is finished, go back and fix things that need major revisions (i.e.,  my suggestions for future research section might not have the best points, but I should only work on revising that once I finish ADDING in anything that is still truly missing).

I've got a call set up with my advisor tomorrow to discuss next steps and questions. I need to come up with a list of questions for him to discuss. It's making me really nervous that we'll have to talk -- we haven't spoken in a while. My concern is that I need to get on good terms with him so that he thinks I'm progressing and will be ready for the meeting. As long as I can produce a pretty complete and good draft by the end of August, I think I should be able to convince him of that. That would mean I have a nearly complete draft ready a month before the meeting. I will then have 1-2 more weeks to go back and fix things that I wanted to check up on before finalizing things.

I feel slightly less bad today, physically. Mentally is a different story! I'm nervous about getting this draft to a good place for my advisor because it means answering and researching a lot of hard questions before 8 AM tomorrow. What I keep telling myself is that I don't need to send him something perfect, but I do need to send him something that has CHANGED a lot since he last saw it. I just need to show a lot of forward progress, not perfection in every little detail. For example, once I pop out the regression results tables and show him that I've done all the work of creating the tables, it will appear to be a relatively minor change at that point if I have to go back and change a detail in the tables. My goal is to have all of the major questions answered and a complete draft sent to him by the end of August. I hope that will be enough for him to think that I'm getting there. I'm also having a hard time getting motivated to work on this all day every day because I'm exhausted. I don't have time for a mini-vacation right now, although I need one. So the best option is to continue to give myself free time at nights as a break.

I've been having a lot of flashbacks to last year with B. Gettysburg, Brookside Gardens, visiting Baltimore, hanging out with his family, museums at the National Mall, Kinetic Sculpture Race, Canada trip, whale watching, climbing mountains, hot air balloon ride in Oregon, New York City, Scottish Highland Games, local bar trivia nights, movie nights, playing with his dog, our garden, Alexandria lectures about the Civil War, dog parks, and just a whole lot of stuff that we did. I continue to be sad when I think about those things because they remind me of him. I don't have time to process that part of my life right now and my relationship decision that I need to make soon, but it's in my mind. The decision is going to be very hard either way, but I just can't think about it right now. I need to look down at my feet and just keep walking for the time being. I need to get this draft #3 finished before I start thinking about the future of my heart.

Lost

I feel a little bit lost in terms of how to explain how I'm doing in my life right now. Maybe a bulleted list will help:

• I left my job on Thursday night with a plan to start working again on November 1. 
• I signed a lease for a new and cheaper apartment yesterday with a plan to move in on Labor Day. 
• I set my defense date (again) for the first week of October with a plan to be pretty much finished with my drafts by September 16.

Other than that, I don't really know how to describe how I'm doing. It has been such a weird year that it is hard to reflect on it. I'm still overwhelmed, but almost done with this phase of my life. I'm really tired and my health is not good, so I'm trying as hard as I can to eat as much good food as possible (which is very difficult given my lack of time and my fatigue). I've done alright though, even given the challenges. It should be easier now that I have no work to focus on. Wish I could hire a personal assistant right about now :). Someone to cook what I want, clean my place, help get all my errands accomplished, and do tedious tasks that are taking up my time. I have set up a number of doctor appointments in September so hopefully I'll make some progress on the getting healthy front. It's hard to know how you truly feel when you're so busy and you barely sleep -- it's easy to feel like you have flu when you consistently wake up at 1:30 AM :). My goal is to sleep 8 hours a night now that I'm done working.

I left work hopeful and was actually considering going back there to work in November, like I said. But then after feeling pretty awful yesterday and today, I started thinking that I can't go back there (because of the health things that happened). After talking to my grandma today I started to think that I just shouldn't go back to work there--period. She kind of scared me a little when we talked about my health as a result of working there, but it's nothing I hadn't already thought of. However, our conversation did get me to rethink returning to work there. I think there's a 50/50 chance I'll just have to quit, unless they let me work from home. My plan is to give myself a few weeks to deal with other stuff and to see how I feel (physically) in a couple weeks. Then I'll talk to my supervisor about making some arrangements at work to see if I can continue working there.

I was looking forward to moving into this new place and have signed a 10-month lease there. It has a deck with a great view of Puget Sound, the Capitol, and the Olympics. It's cheaper than where I'm living, too. I was looking forward to growing some stuff outside. But now that I'm considering not going back to work, I might not be staying there as long. Basically, the reason this makes me sad is because I'm just plain tired of moving. I've moved way too much in my life and I'm tired of it. I want to settle down and have a stable life so I can unpack my things and make a home for myself. I have been a gypsy too long and it's time to settle down. I'm ready for that. I'm getting there, but I'm not there yet. I am REALLY looking forward to being done with this chapter of my life in October. Regardless of how things end with school, I'll be done with it for good. I'm so ready for that, too. In just 7 weeks this thing will be done and I will know the outcome.

I might have to revise my travel plans based on the outcomes of the events above, but either way I'm going to splurge on some sort of relaxation/meditation weekend retreat as well as a tropical vacation on the beach. It might not be a month in Hawaii in May, but it could be 2 weeks in the Caribbean in December. We'll see how it all plays out. Either way, I need some restoration. I need to recover my life and get back to living. I am very much looking forward to it. I can't think about anything else except for the end of the tunnel. I am almost there.

For now, my current goals that I'm focused on are:

• Finish and send draft #3
• Drink my carrot and cranberry juice, chai tea, green tea, and coffee every day
• Eat salads every night
• Eat wild Alaskan, pole caught salmon again (I'm trying this in an attempt to see if it helps my body--which is really struggling right now)
• Eat 3 whole grains a day (brown rice, oatmeal, barley, bulgur, etc.)
• Eat avocado, beans, olive oil, flaxseed, handful of nuts every day
• Sleep 8 hours a night
• Move to new apartment
• Wear my retainer :)

I'm already doing most of those (with the exception of the retainer!), but those are the things I should be focused on the most right now. Getting healthy and staying healthy, and finishing my drafts. I still find myself wanting to quit sometimes even though I'm so close to having a chance to finish the degree, but I'm committed to at least TRYING to finish it at this point. I only have to put up with it for 7 more weeks so I'm giving it my all until then. It's not that much longer...

Hope to write about more adventures soon -- I've had a great time writing my novel here and there and reading Lord of the Rings :)

The dark age

This morning I have had nine different types of fruit.

Last night I wrote some more of the first few chapters of my book. I really enjoy the world that I'm creating in my head. I'm also reading Lord of the Rings on my Kindle.

I'm very tired and looking forward to some sleep tonight and tomorrow night. Tomorrow is my last day at work -- I hope I can can get everything done that I need to get done so I can leave on time and not stay all night. It's hard to wrap things up so quickly (2 weeks).

A friend is coming up this weekend to help me look at apartments. R will also help me with rent over the next couple months. But I'm going to trick him -- I'm going to take his rent money and pretend I'm paying the rent with it but I'll REALLY put it into savings for next year to help pay for his trip to Hawaii so that he can go with me.

A lot of things have made me sad lately, including a family situation that's going on now. Technically it should be a good situation, but it's not feeling good to me. I don't want to explain here. But anyway, let's forget about that situation and talk about a different situation that made me sad about my family this weekend. I had made my dad a present for his birthday by CREATING and printing a deck of playing cards of various activities that I was offering to take him on for his birthday. A cruise down the Columbia River Gorge, Star Trek in the Park, a movie at OMSI, etc. I told him he could pick two cards. I spent a few hours coming up with the ideas for pictures to put on each card (I copied the pictures from their websites) and instead of the little number symbols on the cards I put the dates when the event was (one card had a 24 in the corners, for August 24th). On the back of each card was the name of the event, the date, the location. It was a really creative present. And none of the family reacted in any sort of positive way -- the only comment my dad made was a half-assed, "That's creative honey." I have never been appreciated by them and I have never appreciated them. I just wish I could choose my family. But you can't, as they say. That's why it's so important to me to marry the right person so that I can have the family that I never had.

Just had to share that experience because it reflects how I feel right now -- many of the people I am forced to make time for these days are people I don't want to be around. I want to have time to be around I care about and people who appreciate me. I want to have time to be around THOSE people, not the ones I'm forced to make time for because of genetic code. I'm really, really looking forward to October when this is all over. I will once again surround myself with the people I like and people who appreciate me. One of the reasons I find myself missing B lately is because he is the most supportive of most of my interests out of any significant others. He encourages my nerdiness, my creativity, my adventurousness and gets excited about pretty much all of the same stuff. He encouraged me to go to his jazz band concerts and to a Ravens game, while I encouraged him to travel with me to British Columbia and the Scottish Highland Games. We both got excited about gardening and museums and renaissance faires. I miss that about him. I'm also really going through another period of being really overburdened at the moment and so things are affecting me more because I have no power to fix them. I don't have time to fix the fact that I'm not surrounded by supportive people because I am putting all my time into just getting by.

One of the things that really bothers me about this situation is that people don't understand why it has taken so long and they make ignorant judgments about my situation because they don't have all the facts. It's fine to not have all the facts, but then you don't get to make judgments if you don't have all the facts. People think I've been working on this project hardcore for 4 years. No, I haven't. I haven't been doing that at all. In fact, if I had been working that hard, I would have been done 3 years ago. I went through long periods at a time where I got so burned out and demotivated that I stopped working on it for a while and started going out all the time, traveling, seeing people, etc. THAT is what caused me to take so long on this, not the fact that I have been working on this for 4 years straight. In fact, last year I think I did maybe a handful of hours of work on this project between April and September. I really regret that, but still -- that is the truth. I don't tell certain people the truth because I want them to think that I have been working on it, because I am SUPPOSED to be working on it. Anyway, I just regret the judgments from people who don't have all the facts. Not supportive at all, and it's pretty ignorant.

A couple months ago I saw that one of L's relatives had made a comment to her that was very unsupportive when she had really started to make forward progress again on her project that she's working on, "Wow haven't you been working on that degree for 10 years? Aren't you done yet?" Something to that effect. I know how I would feel if my relative said that to me. I wonder if anyone else can imagine how that would make someone in her shoes feel? It's pretty astounding how unaware many people are. Especially after being at this job, it's shocking how inconsiderate people can be. It's pretty disheartening, actually. Yep, I'm not in the best mood today lol.

Well, here are some things I am proud of myself for:

• Choosing to take a leave from my job rather than quit (and be out of money)
• Choosing to take a leave from my job to focus full-time on the end of school (rather than juggle work and school for another 7 weeks)
• Making healthy nutritional decisions each day, even if I don't eat 100% healthy that day. One of the things I do is try to make sure I eat certain good foods every day, no matter what kind of bad food I ate. If I'm going to have pizza for lunch, then I must eat my 10 kinds of fruits and 3 kinds of vegetables during breakfast and dinner. 
• Choosing to try to finish this project rather than stop
• Keeping focused on what's important to me after I finished (travel plans, activities, dog, friends, etc.)

I'm late for the dentist, haha!

The darkness in the tunnel behind you (a sequel to "The light at the end of the tunnel")- A tale of superhero rebirth and being in the light on the other side of the tunnel

I'm feeling very anxious today. I woke up at 1:30 AM (probably due to some neighbor coming home at that time). I woke up directly out of a dream where Michael Cera and I were spinning 2-foot-umbrellas-made-of-candy-canes on our fingers. We were simultaneously yelling and trying to wake up our zombie friends from dreams (they were somnambulent, or maybe just walking around as if being controlled by some evil power) without them touching us because I think we would have gotten infected by whatever was controlling them and making them walk around like creepy, possessed, normal-looking zombies.

I've been anxious since Friday, since my defense meeting plans got interrupted. I am horribly anxious about finding a new date because I'm really cutting it close to the deadline. I'm also anxious about having to finish up work projects by Thursday while trying not to work overtime in order to get that done, and getting my next draft ready for my advisor. I'm concerned about my health (one of the reasons I couldn't fall back asleep since 1:30 was because I was in pain). I just can't wait for this time to be done. I'm trying really hard to keep myself on task, but I'm beyond burned out. That's why I'm stopping work -- to see if I can become less burned out for a while and spent 14 hours a day working on school instead of BOTH work and school. I'm anxious because I have not had the most supportive situation in the last year. For the last 3-4 months I felt that I was starting to move into a better place, but now I felt worse again this weekend. I think I know why, but that's another topic to be discussed offline. So I need to move away from that pain and back toward myself -- back toward being excited and happy and everything I was once again becoming after that pain. I have plans to move to a new apartment and I'm looking forward to being able to spend time with a good friend.

In the meantime, I just need to keep moving forward. I can't do two things at once. So I'm going in to work early to finish up some projects and then I'm going to work on school again this afternoon, and then go to bed as soon as I get home. Sometimes it helps to think about having blinders on. This morning would have been a good time for blinders -- it was one of those times you wake up from a dream and your room is really hot and you start flashing through all of the regrets and mistakes and sadness of your life. I can pinpoint the cause of all of those mistakes to one particular event that happened in 2007. If I could take it back, I would. I am trying to recover from it and I was doing a decent job until some stuff knocked me down a bit -- but now I'm already pretty far up on the slope back to myself again. All I know is that love is the thing that makes me feel the best in this world. So when you feel that love, cherish it and don't let it go. That's been the motto I lived by until 2007. I believe it is my motto once again, after that dark period of my life. I hope that my story ends well -- you know, like those superheroes who go into a dark period of their lives and come out in costume as a new person and start changing the world? Haha. Well that's my hope. It's better than a super villain going into a dark period only to reemerge to become the greatest terror the world has ever seen. Let's hope for the first option!!

Every morning when I wake up at 5 I open my back door. I sit on the ground and take many deep breaths of the fresh air. My backyard is a forest so it smells beyond wonderful. It smells like pine, cold, fresh air. It stirs up memories of camping. It makes me feel connected to nature, excited, and calm at the same time. I miss connecting with nature and experiencing it. I am glad to have at least this small chance to connect with it every day. It has made me want to buy a house that has nature around it. I have been casually looking for houses recently, wondering what kinds I could afford, how much I'll need to save up, and when I might want to buy one. I fantasize about having a house, a dog, 2 kids, and a loving husband. I imagine us spending quality family time together, playing musical instruments together, cooking together, helping them with their homework, going on fun and exciting trips with them, and playing with our dog. I hope to be on the way to that goal next year. Once this school thing is done I plan to focus on getting healthy and enjoying my freedom for a while, but then I really want to start living some of that dream. I really look forward to home life and taking my kids on trips. Camping, sending them to Harry Potter chemistry camp :), pirate summer camp (in PDX), and a whole bunch of other things.

I am big into enjoying little things. I do this naturally and I often wonder if others do the same. I get so much enjoyment out of basic things like the act of chopping up ingredients for a salad and arranging it on the plate so that it's colorful. The smell of the air every morning. The fact that I have soft carpet under me instead of living somewhere else in the world. The vitamins that I'm getting from the food I'm eating. Really simple things. I enjoy this about myself, that I have always been able to appreciate the little things in my life. I think this is something I have had my whole life and it's one of those things you always wonder about in terms of if other people have this trait. I enjoy drinking water out of my pink, stainless steel water bottle. There's not a whole lot involved in that task, but I enjoy thinking about the fact that I have water that I have collected from nature. Of course, the water isn't so natural as drinking out of a river, but in the past it would have been. That's why I enjoy big bowls of fruit and take my time eating -- so that I have a chance to pretend that we are all back living in a time when food is scarce and you have to collect nuts and berries and water from the forest. I love my mindset in this regard because I naturally have a deep appreciation for my food and water. I think it's one of the reasons I have also always been into the apocalyptic and horror genres -- they really make you focus on what's important in life and your priorities change. If I could describe how I often see the world (such as when I take a drink out of my water bottle), it would be similar to how you would view water in an apocalypse -- you would treasure water and find it so delicious. You would be so happy when you found a new box of bottled water in an abandoned warehouse. That's a pretty good summary of what flashes before my eyes when I sip my water. Haha, am I weird? I don't know...it may be weird, but I think it's pretty neat to appreciate things to that degree.

I am also a big believer in what I personally refer to as "body awareness". Going about your day and noticing your body's reactions. Are you smiling all of a sudden? What made you smile? What thoughts make you laugh during the day? Find out what those things are that make you feel good and do more of them. This was one of the biggest things I did earlier this year in order to stop ignoring my heart and start listening to it again. I found myself smiling throughout the day because of certain things and when I thought about what made me smile, I realized it was usually because I was thinking about a specific person. When you listen to your body's reactions to thinking about a specific person, it is your heart telling you the right decision. If when you think about a particular person you feel only excitement about being with that person but don't feel a whole lot of support, that is your heart speaking to you. If you think about someone and feel an overwhelming sense of a warm feeling and calm, that is your heart telling you who to trust. The difficulty comes when you are faced with multiple people in your life, each of who cause your body to react differently. One excitement, one warm and comforting. That is the decision that I have been struggling with for a long time.

Same with anxiety and stress - when you feel that roll of anxiety in your stomach and your blood pressure goes up, what caused that to happen? And is it necessary to be scared of it? If it is, then how can you go about fixing the situation so that you don't have to feel that roll of anxiety? Well, that's actually why I'm here writing right now. I'm summarizing my fears on "e-paper" and at the same time writing about some powers that I do possess that have always made me enjoy life. It's important to remind yourself of all the things you do well so that you have a healthy mindset. One of the things I do throughout the day is to say, "That was a good choice" to myself whenever I make a good decision. I say it out loud. When I decide to go to bed rather than watch another episode of Vikings (which didn't happen because I watched the whole season in one sitting lol), I say, "That was a good choice." So maybe a better example would be The Shield -- when I stop watching TV in favor of sleep, I appreciate myself for making that choice. When I eat a sandwich instead of pizza, I say, "That was a good choice". By doing this throughout my days, I am constantly reminded of all the good things I am doing. I believe many people might forget to do this when they are improving their lives -- they focus on what is left to accomplish in the goal to rehaul their lives. In the process, they have tunnel vision for only seeing the massive amount of work left on the to do list, rather than all the items that they crossed OFF the to do list or items that they were able to make sure never made it on to the to do list. This point is something I would definitely like to talk about in more detail later -- especially as I have had significant learning experiences with this in graduate school when I never saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

I would like to continue writing but in an effort to reduce my stress, I'm going in to work early to cross some things off my to do list! :)

To be continued...

The One

The One Ring, that is. I find strength in wearing the ring.

It is a constant reminder that even when things are hard, you should never give up. Even if in the moment you find yourself thinking that things are hopeless, don't give up. I think Sam said it best here...

That is my favorite speech of all time. R is my Sam. He has been my ally since I was 19 and has been the person in this scene for me on many, many occasions during this hard time of my life. In fact, last year when I watched this scene it was one of the factors that encouraged me to move back here, thinking about how I could never let go of him. Turning away someone like Sam would be such a wrong thing to do. This scene always makes me cry because it reminds me of him and how sweet he always is to me. When I see this scene I really think about him and how great of a friend he has been to me. He is the one at my side encouraging me to go on. :)

I find myself missing DC a lot. I miss the life I had last year. We did a lot of really fun things. Maybe I will document those in this journal, if they aren't too painful (by bringing up memories about who I was with). It is hard to let go of good things. That's the truth. Sometimes you have to let go. I know this sounds cryptic, but hopefully I'll have more time to write about that later. I just hope that I can make it through this project in one piece and move forward.

Searching for the path

Feeling bad again today haha. It seems like three steps forward, two steps back. It's slow going and very mentally taxing. I felt pretty damn good on Thursday, given all the things I could have been feeling. I felt progress. Then on Friday one of my committee members said he couldn't meet at the scheduled time--so now I'm struggling to find another date to meet that will still let me meet all the required deadlines I need to meet by November.

I had a slight panic attack for a few hours at work after hearing about this, partially because this particular member is one of the most antagonistic of the committee and he scares me. I'm always a little afraid that he'll suggest that I shouldn't pass for some reason, based on the past five meeting experiences I've had with him throughout the years. I need to get on his good side, so it stressed me out to have him just state that he couldn't meet then without any additional information as to when might be an alternative time to meet. Two of the other members on my committee immediately responded and said they could come in earlier than 8 AM if needed, which seemed very supportive. But an earlier time wouldn't work for this individual so now I am forced to find a new date. I really, really hope I can find a new date that week -- otherwise I'm getting into trouble with having enough time to make edits and submit my final manuscript before the deadline. It will be a very serious time crunch (maybe undoable?) if I set the meeting too much later than the first of October.

I hope that this blog can once again turn into a journal of fun activities in about a month or so. But for now it's stuck recording the trials I'm going through. These are definitely still "adventures" that I'm going through, just not at ALL the fun kind of adventure. :) You know when you wake up from those horror nightmares and are so thankful that it wasn't real? Well, imagine having those nightmares become reality and having to face them all day. That's the best way to sum up some of the things I'm going through -- the degree of panic, fear, anxiety, stress, and frustration that you experience going through this. I have many times woken up from a horrible nightmare only to not feel that sense of relief upon realizing it was just a dream; instead, I realize that the dream was in fact reality and that I was living that situation and must face it during the day. It's not a good way to feel.

I have been getting a lot of help from "R" (nickname) and L. Lots of instrumental help in getting this thing finished. Help with editing, writing, and other crazy tasks that are required for this project. I hope I can help L finish up with her project soon too :).

I need to keep focused on this thing. I can't be distracted by crap I hear from unsupportive people in my life relating to why I haven't finished yet or how I keep saying I'll be done at a certain time and I'm not done. Haha, I just wrote a reeeeeeally long section here about why I dislike my family, but I deleted it. I'm trying to keep this blog focused on the fun things in life and my adventures, rather than my past. I did keep a copy of the text though and saved it offline. To give you the short version without all the gory details, my family and I have no relationship and I have continued to be sad about not having a family. I wish I had support from the people who are "supposed" to be there for you more than anyone. But I don't. And I'm only keeping them in my life for money purposes and so my future children can maybe have a relationship with them. I have more love for my grandparents than my parents, so I at least know that maybe there is some value for my children in having some sort of relationship with them, even if I don't want them to have one. So my reasons for keeping them around are both very self-centered and very selfless at the same time. My life is a paradox in many ways.

Anyway! Back to my life. I am still planning to go to Hawaii next year! I am really looking forward to relaxing and being healthy again. I think that no matter what happens in early October, once I'm finished with this thing I'm going to take a vacation before I go back to work. I don't know where I'll go because I want to save all my money for Hawaii and Ireland trips AND it will be nearly winter (so vacations around here won't be quite the tropical resort atmosphere that I'll need at that point), but maybe I can take a short trip to Southern California. Maybe Disneyland or Sea World for five days! I'll have to think about it. But I have to be finished with everything by that point, otherwise I won't have time for a vacation before I have to start work again on November 1.

If I don't have time for a long trip, I'm certainly going on a short trip. Probably to San Juans. There is a festival in the San Juans all October that I am interested to see, plus I've been wanting to go there all year and didn't get the chance. Believe me...once this "project" is done, I will be taking all the "chances" I want! I used to go out 5 days a week to festivals, events with friends, fun things, trips, parties, etc. I used to spend my spare time playing the piano, learning the banjo or the mandolin, taking Mandarin or French lessons, learning new things, writing in my journal, reading books for fun, cooking up a storm, scrapbooking my fun times, building things, designing things, etc. That's my "normal" life. I miss living that way. Really the only aspect of that life that I'm living right now is that I am doing some reading at night before I go to bed. I just finished Railsea by China Mieville. It wasn't as good as Perdido Street Station by China, but it was still an interesting creation of a world (basically, in Railsea the world is based around trains...it was an interesting idea).

Pretty soon, this journal will no longer reflect the "life that I have while finishing this project" but will reflect the real me. The real life I lead. If you only took a snapshot of my life during this year and tried to figure out who I was, you would think I was a very boring person lol. Working ALL the time, fitting in a couple things here and there. But that's NOT me. It's just me now as this deadline looms. It won't be me for long. I miss me. I miss me a lot. L and I both feel the same way and I'm so glad (but also sad) that she's in this with me. Without her, I think I would have lost my way. Now we both have a chance to finish and move on to being ourselves again.

I watched Vikings and Whodunnit this week. Both captured my full attention (I watched both of them in one sitting...lol). Seems I'm pretty bad about that. Once I start, I can't stop doing something I love. Which is why for the time being, I have to be really careful thinking about the future for the next 6 weeks. I can't get sidetracked thinking about all the fun things I want to do and stay up all night planning trips.

Some more things that are a part of my "real" life that I'm looking forward to getting back to once I'm back to being me and free from this project:

• Costume parties. Going to Dragon*Con and Comic-Con and GeekGirlCon as Jean Grey. 
• Hiking trips with friends.
• Kayaking trips with friends. When we were kayaking up here in July, J/A/C and I talked about doing a kayaking trip along Puget Sound. We would pack our stuff in the kayak and kayak up Puget Sound to different campgrounds and beaches and camp overnight. The next day, we would hop in our kayaks and go to a new beach. It was a great idea and a very local thing to do so it would be relatively easy for a week trip next summer. I love the idea! Eventually, my goal is to kayak all the regions of Puget Sound -- my map already has some pegs on it.
• Concerts. I miss music and I miss going to so many concerts. I used to go to about a concert a month. Lately, I've been avoiding music because it stirs up emotions and distracts me from working. For example, listening to "Gypsy" by Fleetwood Mac the other day distracted me for a long time and got me on a roll being excited about life. Isn't that sad -- that I am in the wrong for being excited about life? It makes me sad when I am "off track" and "being unproductive" when I'm planning fun trips or writing novels or being excited about life events. It's a very sad life to be living, feeling that way. Honestly, that's the main reason I'm excited to move on with my life -- I will no longer feel guilt when I spend my entire weekend planning out a trip! Or even more so, going on a trip! I will be able to spend 8 weekends next year camping out at Renaissance Faires if I wanted to do so. I don't think I'll do 8 weekends, but at least 2. 

Bottom line, I have a lot to look forward to and I need to avoid people who are a bad influence on my life. I have so many supportive people in my life and I am happy to have them. Life should not be spent forging relationships with people you don't want to be around -- you should find those who make you all you can be, who help you get to a good place, who help you when you're down, and who want to support you in being who you are and being who you want to be. They can see through the rough times and see how the external circumstances are affecting you -- they can see through all that and help you through it. I have been fortunate to have a number of friends in my life who do exactly that. I am so thankful. This blog is going to remain anonymous as much as it can so I am avoiding names, but I hope they know who they are. Once this is all done (and once I get time to do things like spend time on other people again!), I will let them know how much I appreciated them during this period of my life. :)

Gypsy

Song I'm listening to right now: Fleetwood Mac, "Gypsy"

A great breakfast of papaya and lime, blueberries, banana, grapes, donuts, coffee, and Oregon Chai tea with almond milk. I'm feeling alright. I've had some epic nightmares about nuclear war that would be blockbusters, but that's nothing new. I heard that the Twilight author came up with the idea from a dream she had. Well if that's the case, sign me up for turning-dreams-into-money! Lol. I don't even need to pay for Netflix for the horror movies -- I get free ones all night.

In all honesty, I enjoy remembering most of my dreams, even though sometimes it can be scary. It can also be very enlightening, curious, and can spark creativity and solve some of my problems. More than once I have solved a technical problem in my dream (such as figuring out how to manipulate data in Excel or Access) and it helped me the next day.

My advisor commented on my second draft. He said it's coming together pretty well. Of course, he had a big list of things to address, but that's expected. I feel better knowing he thinks it's getting to a decent place rather than a huge 80-page mess. It doesn't have to be perfect (more like how a journal article would have to be), but it has to be "dissertation perfect". I read through some recent dissertations of his other students who graduated in the past few years, and they had typos, bare bones descriptions of things, and were pretty matter-of-fact about many descriptions. That made me feel a little better in terms of knowing that this doesn't have to be a novel that gets edited to the point of a book before publishing -- the point is to clearly communicate all the details of your study and to make sure you did all the analyses correctly in order to be able to defend them.

I also finished confirming the replacement of my outside committee member and I confirmed the defense date. So things are real. I need to book a room and projector for the meeting, advertise my defense publicly (I guess that's required...unfortunately for me!), and get another draft sent to my advisor in the next week.

So I feel slight relief today. Baby steps are all you get in this business. I keep a huge checklist of items I need to do so that I can track those baby steps one-by-one. The list has something like 200 items on it. And I didn't even start tracking until I started collecting data! But at least this way, I can see my progress and appreciate steps forward such as getting confirmation for replacement of the outside member, booking a date, and getting feedback on draft 2. Those are all steps, even if outsiders don't think they are. The bad part about this is that people keep asking,

"Are you done yet?"
"Well no...but wait! I have finished 115 of the 200 steps toward finishing!"

Yeah, doesn't really mean much to anyone except those who have gone through it.

Next week (1 week from today) I begin my leave of absence at work. I will get to keep my benefits, saving me $600/month. I will move to get free rent for 2 months, saving about $2,500. I won't have to worry about finding a job until November, when I start looking again once I'm back at my current job. I will move into a cheaper place for a 6-month lease once I'm up here, and will aim to move to a new job around mid-June, after my month in Hawaii. :) I'd really like to see if I can get my Ireland and Scotland trip fit in next year, but that might have to wait. I need to figure that out still. But I definitely will be taking a month vacation -- it is my present to myself to be done with school forever.

Before then, I already have some plans for when I'm done with this in a couple months (I'll probably know by October 1st if I will graduate):

• 1 week of doing NOTHING but sleeping 10 hours a night, playing Skyrim, and listening to music
• Trip to Crater Lake for snowshoeing and other winter activities
• Visiting Leavenworth, the Bavarian town in Washington (http://www.leavenworth.org/)
• Santa pub crawl

Oh, time for work!

Weekend in OR

I've lost 8 pounds since January -- 1 pound a month! I still have about 15 more to lose, but it's a big start. 

I'm in PDX this weekend. Stayed with a friend yesterday through this morning, and off soon to a family birthday party. This weekend has inspired me to get excited about doing stuff again -- to be how I used to be before enslaving myself to school. Most of it was my fault in terms of not finishing 1-3 years ago, but I can't fix that now. I have a chance to finish it now and move on.

My supervisor said that I could take the equivalent of a sabbatical and come back to work when I finish in 3 months. He also said if I want to work for 8 hours a month over the next 3 months, they could cover my health insurance (which is $600/month if I quit) each month. He even said if I come back in December and after 4-6 months I decide its not right for me there, I could leave at that time. Wow. So I have to tell him tomorrow what I'm going to do. I'm considering that option because then I would be done with school and would have more time to look for jobs while I already have a job. And I would have a chance to save up money to hopefully take the month-long trip to Hawaii that I want to take next year. 

Right now, I'm trying to finish draft #2. I finished a rudimentary version and was going to send it to my advisor last Friday, but he said he was traveling so he asked if I could send him a pretty good draft by Tuesday. So I need to get it pretty good today and tomorrow. Time to do that!

Big change

I am up at 3 AM, again. I feel so confused and scared and lost right now. I spoke with my supervisor yesterday about my resignation. We walked away and plan to regroup to finalize the plan tomorrow. He wanted to think about it for a bit. He asked if we could make any adjustments that would keep me there -- part-time, leave of absence, etc. I tried to bring up some of the reasons I don't think I want to be there in the long run, but it's difficult to be honest and not have it come across poorly no matter what you say. You either sound like you're prissy and need everything to be as you wish it, or you come across in some other way.

I'm terrified of all the changes that I need to make in the next few weeks to make this happen. My plan is to leave around August 23. That's so far away...but I don't think he's going to agree to let me leave earlier because I have a lot to wrap up. I have to figure out moving, healthcare, canceling utilities, figuring out car registration in a different state (I'd be moving to the city 1.5 hours south of here), etc.

All I care about now is that how this happens over the next 2 weeks leaves him with a good enough impression of me to get a good recommendation. I hope so. I also hope that I can minimize how it looks on my resume. People giving me advice seemed to be very concerned that I might start looking unemployable if I don't stick around at a job for longer. I agree, but this isn't the job to do that with. And right now I do have a good reason for unemployment -- I'm in school, a type of school that most people understand requires full-time work. I can't worry about that now. My basic reason was for school (which is true), which I explained by saying that I have a lot of factors to juggle and I can only base my decision on facts that I do know. The facts I do know:

• I have a deadline at the end of September that is rapidly approaching. In order to be ready for it, I need much more time (like 80 hours a week).
• I know I don't want to be here in the long run -- it's not a good match.
• I have enough money to get by for many months (and I will start applying for jobs immediately once this degree is partially over in 2 months).
• I'm not enjoying myself at this job, and I know a lot of the reasons aren't going to change.

Well, time to start on my draft #2. I'm supposed to send it to my advisor today!

Pep talk

I'm pretty overwhelmed right now.

My health is not so good, which concerns me.

I feel like I'm in over my head on some work projects and kind of feel like this position should have been an "in-training" position, rather than thrusting me into this alone (but I'm sure they can't afford to have two of us there, due to budget).

All I hear are negative comments from the majority of people at work ("tell me you finished that degree so you can FINALLY move on with your life" -- um, excuse me? Way to be supportive about something you know nothing about...). Or they'll say, "Why haven't you decorated your office?" That was pretty much the most common thing I heard for the first month when I was "meeting" people. Meeting them mostly consisted of them stopping by to say, "You should put some pictures up!" Gee, nice to meet you too. Now I understand all those police shows -- the culture is very harassing, teasing, rude by normal social standards. But apparently that's how the culture works? I don't like it. I have actually learned a lot from watching the police shows -- I can see all the "initiation" that goes on and all the "teasing". It doesn't make it any easier or more enjoyable to deal with, but it's slightly more tolerable because at least I know it's a particular cultural experience. I didn't sign up for that, though, so it kind of offends me to this day. I'm tired of feeling like I'm going through initiation when I didn't sign up to do that.

And the school thing is its own bailiwick. I am so close to having this out of my life forever, but I'm still terrified I won't pass. I'm tired of putting my life on hold for this. I am in the stage of preparing my drafts for the final meeting, but it still feels like I'm so far (probably because my draft isn't really "complete" yet haha). But at least I have a sketch of a draft, and I'm working on draft #2. My plan is to send another draft to my advisor every Sunday night. I'm going to work hard on this all August to get it to a place I feel okay with. Then I'll have another week or so in September to continue to work on the editing and writing of it. Maybe I should hire an English student to help fix the writing and editing and formatting? I wish I could call myself Dr, but I'm still so unsure that I will pass and that everything will work out that I'm still anxious about thinking like that.

So I need a pep talk. What DO I have?

• I went to a very good high school.
• I have a double-major Bachelors Degree.
• I have a Masters Degree. 
• I have three years of full-time working experience across a variety of fields.
• I can communicate in a different language (Spanish) and I can at least read and interpret written (and some spoken) French.
• I have lived in 2 foreign countries.
• I've traveled to 9 foreign countries.
• I've lived in 4 states.
• I've traveled to 12 states and DC.
• I've ridden a hot air balloon across the Willamette Valley of Oregon and rafted the white waters of Eastern Oregon.

• I've ridden horses on the beaches of Hawaii, high in the Andes Mountains that divide Argentina and Chile, at Gettysburg behind Confederate lines, and have galloped through the oceans at the Oregon coast.

• I've had 10 jobs in my life starting with working at our family pizza restaurant, working at a video rental store (I think I just dated myself there!), being a librarian's assistant, and moving on to being a research assistant, research analyst, consultant, and now my current position. I have had a wide range of experiences.
• I've volunteered helping disabled children ride horses for therapeutic purposes, worked with Easter Seals to help out parents with disabled children, translated and answered phones at a battered women's shelter, participated in a beach cleanup, served on a statewide team of coordinators of a food drive, and mentored and tutored elementary school children.
• I got a very selective internship at a research university as an undergraduate and also won multiple scholarships. 
• I was Vice President of Intellectual Development in one of my undergraduate organizations, and I was Vice President of Event Planning for one of the honor societies.
• I have received an undergraduate award and a fellowship as a graduate in my field of study.
• I've received an award in 2 of the 3 full-time jobs I've had so far. most recently, I received an award after just 3 months in my current role.
• I have been an author on a publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
• I've done a lot more than this, too!

I have done a lot of things in my life that I can be proud of. The problem is that I have trouble accepting that I am worthy of them :). I just don't see myself that way. Perhaps that should be a self-driven goal of mine for the rest of this year -- be proud of what you have done. I used to be proud of myself, but graduate school and work have killed that...I think it's time to get that back.

I do feel a little better after writing that. Even though my life may not be where I desire it to be right now, I am close. I will finish this chapter of my life in a little over 2 months. Well, if I pass, I will have to do work for the month of October as well, but if I don't pass then I will be done in 2 months. I will have FREE TIME either way! I can do all those things I dream about doing, and have tried to fit in here and there over the last few years. More trips, more sleep, a dog, more festivals, more friends, more everything!

One day at a time.

Papaya and lime

Sitting here eating my papaya with lime juice. It's delicious. My grandma taught me this method of eating papaya and I don't believe I will ever go back. You cut a papaya in half and squirt half a lime into the center of the papaya. Scoop with a spoon and enjoy! So simple. The combination of incredibly sweet, neutral fruit and some acidic lime is wonderful.

For breakfast, I'm eating enough fruit here for a small family. Half a banana, 1/3 cup blueberries, 1/3 cup strawberries, 1/2 cup red and green grapes, 1/3 nectarine, 1/4 apple. Left out the peach from this mix. Usually I wash a whole bunch of fruit and dump it in a bowl so that I can scoop it out easily during the week. That is why my refrigerator has probably 5 bowls of mixtures of fruits and vegetables sitting there, ready-to-eat. I do this with my salad topping too -- bell peppers, tomato, sundried tomatoes, asparagus, artichokes, grapes, onion, cranberries, raisins, avocado, flaxseed whole and ground, walnuts, and pecans. Just pour it on some lettuce and ready to go! I wonder if fruit/vegetable loses nutrition when it's cut? From a quick search, seems that store-bought produce dwindles in nutrients due to not picking at prime-time, length of commute to your store, and trying to grow foods en masse too fast. Farmers markets have food with shorter commute time and produce shorter pick-to-plate time as well. They "may" contain more nutrients for this reason, but there is debate. Personally, I'm a believer of logic and at first glance it makes a lot of sense that trying to grow foods too fast makes them not as potent, and then picking them before they're ripe so they'll be ripe once they're in your grocery store is probably also not that great of an idea. So I'm voting for the farmers' markets produce having more nutrition, based on my logical assessment. Also, fruit that is ripe doesn't appear to be losing nutrients at a horribly high rate, but studies of food (cut and uncut) that sat in a refrigerator for 9 days lead to slight declines in Vitamin C and other phytochemicals, in certain foods. Bottom line, again, appears to be, "Why take a chance -- eat your food within one week from a farmers' market that sells local produce". That's my conclusion.

On another note, I started the prologue and first chapter of my novel this week. I was pretty excited about it all week. I only wish I had money and time to fly to Ireland, rent a cottage, and write on my laptop for 3 whole months while overlooking the ocean from the cottage grounds. In fact, that is what I intend to do in 2015.

I have made a tentative plan for my near future in order to enable me to go to Ireland in 2015 and write a novel while looking out at the sea every morning and night. But first, my plan is to go to Hawaii for one month in 2014! Here's how I'll get there.

• I will be moving to a cheaper place in the next month or 2 months that will save me a few hundred dollars per month. 
• Then I'm going to save up as much as I can over the next 10 months.
• Then I'll quit my job at the end of May 2014 and go to Hawaii for a whole month. I already have the itinerary planned. Oahu, Maui, Big Island, and Lanai.

My plan is to start applying to jobs in the spring of next year, around March. If everything went according to plan, I would have an offer by the time I leave for Hawaii in May and then come back to a new job. But I'm going to save up some money in case I can't find a job by then. I have a hard time imagining how I'll survive another 10 months here, but I might have to start imagining it.

There are too many uncertainties in my life right now, so all I can do is make my decisions based on the certainties and not get too overwhelmed thinking about how I'm going to solve ALL of my life problems at this moment. I get overwhelmed by the stress and non-existence of free time because I'm still in school, and I feel like I can't find a job that is a great fit for me in the area I want to live. I want to settle down and have a stable life, clean through and simplify my physical possessions, and have regular travel breaks scheduled in my life that I can be excited about. I want to have free nights and weekends again! But I can't solve all those things right now. I'm in the process of solving them, that's what I need to tell myself. I'm working on trying to fix the major one right now -- school. That will be done in 2 months, either way (pass or fail). I should know what my outcome is by then and either I'll be ecstatic or depressed. Lol. The point is, I just need to keep pushing through it for 2 more months...2 more months of putting things on hold. It seems like an eternity, but also not long enough.

So for the time being I'm focusing on getting school out of my life, and it will happen soon and the outcome will either be positive or negative and I will move on. I'm also focusing on budgeting and saving as much money as I can, because no matter what happens in the next year or two, I will need money for sure. I hope to be able to make the time to have long trips, but I would also need it to pay loans or buy a house and a dog. I want to settle down, but I can't think about that right now until I resolve my other dilemmas (Maslow's line of reasoning). And as far as trips, I can still go on local trips to Bend, Oregon, Sunriver, Oregon, Crater Lake, San Juan Islands, Vancouver, BC, and Hawaii. I know that I want to go to Hawaii because of a work event there, so I might as well increase the utility of the time spent traveling, flight, and lodging costs. I'm really excited. I already planned a budget and a lot of beaches I want to visit and activities I want to do. Parasailing, snorkeling, beach relaxing, kayaking, volcano tours, Pearl Harbor tour, botanical gardens, hikes to beautiful views, festivities, and one week on four of the islands. I'm really, really looking forward to it :)