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 :)

Story

I wrote the first page of my book today! I also outlined multiple pages of plot ideas, character ideas, and brainstorming notes. I had so much fun! That might have been the most fun I've had in 10-12 months, besides the Superhero pub crawl. Maybe longer. I miss doing fun things like that. I miss having time. This is what I would fill my time with if I didn't have stuff to do outside of work! On that note, here is a quick list of things I used do to and plan to do once I have this degree out of my life in 2 months:

• Write fiction and historical novels (based on research) for fun
• Read scholarly research
• Photography class
• Scrapbooking
• Journaling
• Travel
• Camping
• Hiking
• Kayaking
• Marathon
• Buy a dog
• Play the banjo 
• Play the piano
• Go on adventures (hot air balloon, superhero parties, etc.)
• Go to every event I want to go to (renaissance faires, world championship bathtub race, Caribbean festival, Star Trek in the Park, concerts, Mustache and Mullet pub crawls, etc.)
• Sleep 9 hours a night
• Run with my dog

:) I'm so excited about my book. I plan to write it a little every night instead of watching TV. Time for bed!

I love the Northwest!

I really love thinking about the U.S. as different "clans" of people. Each region and small universe of culture is so distinct in geography, climate, values, and lifestyle. In fact, this idea has inspired a fiction novel that I intend to start this weekend. I want to create a universe of my own for fun!

It's no surprise to anyone I know that I am in love with the Pacific Northwest. I have always been so thankful to grow up here. The beautiful summers, crisp falls, "stormy" winters, misty and colorful springs. The four seasons.

On the topic of storms...
I do have to say that after having lived in various places, the NW "storms" are more of a HINT of a storm than a real storm -- outsiders may even believe we're joking when we claim we're having a "storm". In the winter of 2012 the weather people told us to prepare for a storm -- do you know what that storm entailed? 33-degree weather. That's it!! Lol. I mean, I know it's dangerous because we are people of the mountains and mountains + black ice = a bad thing. But lightning is a once in a blue moon thrill here, whereas in DC lightning seems to be nearly a nightly occurrence while tornado sirens in Ohio become your lullaby. We don't have tornadoes, lightning, thunder, floods, heat waves, or cold fronts. I didn't know what wind chill was until I lived in Ohio. I didn't know what the heat index was until I lived in DC. I wonder if people who grew up in other parts of the U.S. really knew what black ice and hydroplaning were before moving here? Curious.

I love being back here. I love the views, the majestic mountains I see every day, the water surrounding everything, the beautiful Olympic mountain range, the ever-present greenness. Forests are so exciting to me. We are forest people. I also love the cultural mindset here. My parents claim that the mindset of the west started when our ancestors emigrated over here on the Oregon Trail. Only the adventurous or persistent made it here. I think there may be something to that, but I think many other people came here because of the terrain, the opportunity, the adventure. And I think that has created the culture we see today. Personally, I think the experiences I've had speak volumes about the culture. If you listen, you can really hear the culture speaking out to you. Here are two real situations I've had within the past year, living on opposite sides of the country:

Situation 1. Happy hour party full of new people I didn't know (2 hours):
"What do you do?"
"I like to kayak, travel, learn the banjo--"
"--Hmm, I meant what do you do for work?"
"...oh. I do XYZ for the local headquarters here. What do you do for work?"

Situation 2. Costume party full of new people I didn't know (12 hours):
"What do you do?"
"I like to kayak, travel, learn the banjo, do nerdy things."
"That's awesome! Have you gone to the Music in the Park events? We should go next weekend!"

In the 12 hours I spent in Situation 2, not one person asked me what my job/profession/work/career was. Seriously, it's almost like people here are socially inept and introverted when it comes to talking about work, but wildly fun and extroverted when talking about other things. People don't really know how to answer "What do you do for work?", and they shy away (physically, too), from the question. They answer the first thing that comes to mind and then change the subject. It's almost like we as a culture are totally socially awkward about this idea of "work". People think of themselves as people, who happen to get paid to do XYZ. I felt the opposite in DC -- I was defined by my position. I have heard that this culture is extremely pronounced in DC (probably due to the proximity to so many headquarters, contract positions, and political jobs), but oh boy, I did not fit in. At all.

One thing I really miss about the DC region is the strip of museums. DC has such an amazing center of museums on the National Mall. I do wish those were available here. But after some hard decision making, I decided that cultural values, daily life experience, proximity to my preferred nature (I say preferred because some people do prefer desert life, so there is no one true "best" nature for everybody), and attitude would determine where I wanted to live. Not the presence of jobs or museums. I have made my choice and I have never been happier with it.

Budd Inlet kayaking (part 2)

Yesterday I met up with 5 friends on the east side of Budd Inlet at Boston Harbor Marina. We headed out around 1:15 and got back around 3:00. We came back a little early because one of the girls had a small leak in her boat and was getting wet. J also fell out of her kayak, so that was interesting trying to help get her back in! Good thing she has strong arms to pull herself up into it! We were out in the open water so it probably would have been at least a 20-minute swim if she tried to swim to shore. It's a good thing they give you the paddle support (a life jacket attachment for your paddle that you hook onto the end and hook the other end of your paddle into the kayak lines) so you can help get yourself back into your kayak if you fall out.

This location was very choppy and felt more like sea kayaking than river kayaking. We saw jellyfish but no seals. :( But overall I preferred this location because it felt like the sea and was absolutely gorgeous due to better and more exposed views (we were pretty much out of the inlet and into the main channel of the Puget Sound that goes among the inlets).

Boston Harbor Marina

Heading NE from the marina

After kayaking we headed back to Olympia and met up with another friend P at the Fish Tail Brew Pub. Lots of organic brews and food -- amazing fish tail ale vinaigrette. Then we all drove up to J's parents' house with a view of Eld Inlet. Hung out on the deck and then played games all night. Beautiful view.

Budd Inlet kayaking (part 1)

One of my goals is to kayak every inlet in Puget Sound, and kayak off every island. Starting out on South Puget Sound because it's close to me and easiest to manage for the time being.

Went kayaking on the west side of Budd Inlet on the morning June 30th. Headed to breakfast at a place on the Puget Sound called Tugboat Annie's. They had a breakfast/kayak special where you get 2 hours of kayaks + breakfast for a discount. So we had pancakes, an omelet, coffee, enjoyed the view of the marina from our table and then headed out to kayak. The boathouse is right off of the restaurant so it's extremely convenient. View from Tugboat Annie's during breakfast:

It's a DIY boat rental place so you get a key to unlock the shed, pick out an oar and life vest, and put a kayak in the water. We spent about an hour heading up north at a leisurely (for me) pace. Lots of huge jellyfish (some of the bigger ones had bodies alone that looked about 1-1.5 feet in diameter). A number of seals were swimming around us throughout the whole trip. I think we made it up to right around Little Tykle Cove before heading back. It was so warm, not windy, and was much easier paddling out than back (due to tide shift I'm sure).

After kayaking we went up to Overlook Point Park and took in the views of Mount Rainier, Puget Sound,  and the city.