I e-mailed my Senator this weekend to comment on the ACA. I remember when I used to be involved in change. I desire that again. I intend to get involved in the causes I believe in once this is finished.
I also intend to get my PHR certificate next year so that I'm more marketable. And I intend to stay at this job and request that I am allowed to work on particular projects that will give me the experience that I need to get the job I want to move into. Right now, I have too much experience in a particular area of my field and it's not where I want to end up (but it's where the lower-level jobs tend to be so I've taken them out of need). I don't want to pigeon-hole or type-cast myself by taking any job that is available so that I can't get the jobs I want down the line. If I could go back and give myself the advice that I didn't receive from others at the time, it would be to tell myself to get an internship every summer and also one immediately after graduate school when I was ABD. There are no entry-level jobs in the areas I want to work in, but there are internships for students who are currently ABD. That's something I really wish I had done. Now it's too late to take a step back and do an internship so that I can actually get experience in the area I want to work in. I need to redirect my career to get to where I want to be. I recently saw an opening in California for a job in the field I want to be in, but I'm not in a place to apply to it now.
Another night of not-good sleep. I managed to get the total up to 7.5 hours, but, I was in bed 10 hours. I'm getting enough to be functional for another week, but not stellar. Time for some grades. I've decided I'm going to try to do a monthly report card for "life". I tried to insert a chart here...I hope it doesn't look weird with the formatting:
| 9/9 | 9/29 | |
| Sleeping | D | C |
| Exercising | D | C- |
| Eating | B- | A- |
| Mental Health | C+ | B- |
Improvements I have made since the last report are: Went on a few 1-mile walks around my neighborhood (more exercise than I had done in the months prior to that), increased my sleep average to about 7.5 hours a night and got a couple 8-hour nights, stayed with a friend while working on this project so I wouldn't be completely alone, have been eating very good foods every day (still eating too many calories to lose weight, but I'm maintaining it and eating well so that's great), and stopped drinking beer.
Goals for this month are to increase sleep average to 8 hours/night, start yoga and meditation, start up the activities I like to do again, exercise 15 minutes a day, eat 300 fewer calories a day, and start to be social again after next weekend (I've had to ignore people for the last couple months while I focused on this project).
I'm proud of myself for the good things I have chosen to do in the last couple months. :) It's extremely hard to make good choices under this much insane pressure, so I am very happy with myself for making so many good choices. Particularly with sleep -- rather than get up at 6 am this morning when I was awakened, I read my book for a bit and fell asleep for another 45 minutes. That is HUGE for me. Any increase in sleep is phenomenal and I'm really happy with myself for this positive change that I've made over the past couple weeks. I also continue to be thankful that I stopped working, and would probably be in an asylum right now if I hadn't! Lol.
L has been really good about motivating me to exercise more, which got me out of the house to do my 3 1-mile walks earlier this month. She has encouraged me enough that I want to start doing more too. My goal this week is to do just one 15-minute walk this week. It's going to be a crazy week because I'm heading out of town for 3 days, so if I can just do one walk I'll be happy. Then, this will all be over and I can do walks every day starting Saturday :). In fact, I may do much longer walks...like an hour. In 2012 I was walking 1-2 hours a day and I loved it. I also kept up this walking pattern during my 2-week visit to Oregon, which meant that for a while I was walking ~30-degree hills for 1-2 hours a day (difficult). I will start doing that again soon. I was 145 pounds then (at 5'9" that's pretty good, and it's my goal to get back to 145 again).
I'm also happy with my financial decisions even though they were difficult to make and implement. I moved out of my luxury apartment and saved $835 this month in rent alone. I finagled that leave of absence scenario at work while maintaining my benefits, which has already saved me $675 this month. That will mean by the end of my 2-month leave of absence, those 2 choices alone will have saved me $3,000!! That's how I'll be able to afford my luxury vacation when this degree is out of my life very soon. I'm considering going to DC for the week prior to my beach vacation, but if that doesn't work out, I may go to the beach for a 10-day vacation instead. I'm SO EXCITED!! :-D
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