As I have recently been looking at houses and thinking about where to live, I consistently look for places with a view. A view is really important to me. As I've pondered why that is, I realized...it's because of my claustrophobia. I never realized I was claustrophobic until I was about 28. I used to have a severe fear of flying and elevators, and it was suggested to me once that I was afraid of closed spaces. I never bought into that because really my fear was of falling, obviously. But later, I realized (or maybe even had a late development/progression) that I was afraid of not being able to "get out". An old relationship of mine had a room that was in an attic -- you had to climb up a ladder to get into a small attic room that wasn't even tall enough to stand in. Well, it got hot a couple times and there were a number of nights I woke up and FREAKED OUT and had to go downstairs to "get out". Once I was sleeping on a bunk bed that was really close to the ceiling (about 2 feet above my head) and I had the same experience. I woke up in the middle of the night and it was hot and I freaked out and had to go walk around. This all happened within the past 2 years. It was after this that I realized I might have developed claustrophobia. I don't remember any experiences like this prior to the last 2 years, except for the flying and elevator fears.
ANYWAY, what I realized when looking at houses lately was that a view is so important to me because I don't feel trapped. I can see far away. I never realized why a view was so physiologically and mentally important to me until I made that connection to the claustrophobia. It's not just the importance of having something pretty out your window, it's feeling uninhibited and not closed in. You can see for miles on a hill.
Of course, the presence of a view might not be as important in other areas of the country. For example, a particular suburb of Ohio has houses built in the middle of a big flat area with no trees. There were very few trees in a lot of suburbs. The reason for the structure of housing there may be influenced by the amount of farmland there -- you can obviously see a lot farther if you live on the edge of a cornfield than if you live on the edge of a forest. So, it's probably a lot easier to see long distances there. But no matter what the cause is, the land is much flatter (meaning you can see for a long distance) and there are no trees (another factor allowing you to see very far). So the issue of "hill or no hill" might not matter as much in other parts of the U.S. I never felt claustrophobic in Ohio.
But take where I'm at right now in the West Hills of Oregon -- this house is in a forest. I can't even see the sky because this neighborhood has a bunch of houses built surrounded by trees that are all 60-80+ feet tall? (I'm no expert on estimating tree height, but from a visual estimate they are probably 6-8 stories tall by my guess). Here's my old apartment that I just moved out of in Washington -- beautiful backyard, but you can see how it's hard to see the forest for the trees :). That fence is approximately human height, ~5 feet tall or so. You can see how far the tree goes above the fence:
I've been thinking about living somewhere in Sherwood, OR so I could get a couple acres to plant things on. Plus, there's the Robin Hood Festival there in the summer :).
Today I must be productive. I need to:
- Finish updating the data from my recent analyses (30 minutes).
- Finish revisions based on advisor feedback from drafts 2-4 (4 hours).
- Finish revisions based on L's and R's feedback (3 hours).
- Edit the draft twice myself (3 hours).
- [Tomorrow] Send the draft (30 minutes).
I'm still terrified about the meeting, but mostly focused on this draft. I've already developed a plan for how to spend my time over the next 2 weeks and budgeted time on my calendar:
- I'll spend about 40% of the time researching remaining questions and redoing analyses to bring with me on a flash drive to the meeting, in case they have questions. My thought is that I'll put some blank slides at the end of my presentation and then include some of these analyses and data at the end of the file so that if they bring up questions, I'll be able to show them some of the work that I did to answer that question (e.g., a table with some more in-depth demographic summaries of my sample, such as ANOVA comparisons among the different sample groups to show that they are similar enough to one another, or a sensitivity analysis to show how my missing data treatment method had similar effects to other missing data treatment methods).
- I'll spend 40% of the time reading recent research on my main topic, rereading articles on my main topic, and reading articles on all the tangential topic areas related to my main topic (similar fields that might overlap with my main topic).
- I'll spend about 20% of the time preparing my presentation, practicing the presentation, practicing answering questions they might have, and coming up with notes to bring with me to the meeting as a reference for discussion.
- I'll be missing a full day in the next 2 weeks for a doctor appointment (2 hours), driving back home (2 hours), driving to airport and waiting for plane (4 hours).
- 6:00-7:00 Get ready, breakfast
- 7:00-12:00 Research statistical questions, redo analyses
- 12:00-1:00 Lunch, 15-minute walk
- 1:00-6:00 Read research, practice presentation
- 6:00-8:00 Dinner, errands, mail, other life tasks
- 8:00-9:00 Reading before bed, researching travel plans and houses
- 9:00-6:00 Rest
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