Summer

Hello!

As of April 27, 2014 I'd lost 15 pounds. As of June 18, 2014 I've lost 26. Geez! I'm hovering around 139 right now, hopefully will get to 135. I've been working a lot lately so it has been hard to manage my crazy specialized diet.

Work is insane. Legal issues that are insane.

This morning I was checking progress on my 2014 new year's resolutions:

• Get to 145 pounds. Status = met that and exceeded it, down to 139.
• Play fantasie impromptu. Status = I can play 3 out of 9 pages.
• Get a new job. Status = I have my first interview soon. Not a lot of jobs are open, but I'm in full applying mode now just watching and waiting for jobs to open up here.
• Go on 12 vacations. Status = 2 vacations, San Juan Islands and Kauai.

I've been having difficulty at work. I'm afraid to talk about it here so I won't. It is a legally precarious situation that is causing me/us a lot of stress.

Hawaii was amazing. The money I shelled out on the penthouse on Kauai was definitely worth it. Comfort and award-winning views.

Here is a view from the dining room table

Here's one of our views from the lanai

Our sail/snorkel cruise along the Na Pali North Shore coast:

I felt so relaxed and happy after being there for a week and a half. The day before we had to come home I started to remember work situations and the anxiety hit my stomach like ghost peppers. It was clear to me what effect this job is having on me. 

Don't get me wrong about the anxiety -- there is a lot of great stuff here. This town is beautiful, the work is exactly what I want to do (minus the legal stuff which I have now spent over 100 hours on...), and I like a ton of the people I work with. It's other things that are forcing me to leave. One reason is that I want to settle down in a bigger city. Other reasons are more important and scary, which is why I'm forced to leave.

I have a list of projects that I want to accomplish before I leave so that I can put them on my resume and use them in the future. This job is amazing in terms of being able to do what I want...it's almost ideal in many ways. I can work on so much stuff and have control over what I work on. I'm trying to work hard on getting those projects accomplished and am starting to make progress -- I have nearly completed 2 of the 6 projects I wanted to push through before I leave.

I'm also excited about traveling. I am currently planning out these trips over the next two years:

2014

• Oregon coast (summer, weekend)
• San Juan Island (summer, weekend)
• Olympic National Forest (summer, weekend)
• Crater Lake (summer, weekend)
• Pacific Crest Trail portion (summer, weekend)

2015

• Mexico (winter, 1 week)
• Philadelphia (week spring, .5 week)
• Ireland/Scotland (summer, 3 weeks)

It's ambitious. That's why I'm planning now so that I can see how much I need to save up. I also am wanting to do this now so that if I get a job soon I can try to bargain in a long trip. For example, when they hire me I could say, "I have previously booked a 3-week vacation next summer -- is that going to be okay?" I'm hoping J can do the same and we can spend 3 weeks over in Ireland and Scotland. 

I feel like right now I could really use an "awakening" trip to get back in touch with myself. Like hiking the whole Pacific Crest Trail, quitting my job and camping for a few months, traveling a foreign country for a couple months, something like that. I decided that I can't do that right now (even though the "live life!" side of me wants to drop everything and do that) because the job market is tough. There are so few job openings here that I don't feel confident I could quit without having a new job. Therefore, I decided I'm going to try to fit in regular traveling while continuing to have a normal working life:

• 1 week tropical vacation every winter
• 2 weeks foreign travel every summer
• Every 3-day holiday weekend should be a local weekend trip

I'm also hoping to work for a global company so that MAYBE someday I could get permission to work from a foreign office for a period of time. I'm visualizing working in London for a summer or something. Especially if I decide to have kids (that is increasingly becoming a really big "if") it would be awesome to live somewhere else during the summer so they can experience other life. Seems like a lot of places on earth aren't really good for traveling right now (Africa, Central America, Middle East, Russia, China), so I'm trying to focus my travel on safer countries for the time being. I've decided that I want to allot a significant portion of my annual budget to travel...maybe $10,000. Maybe less. I dunno. I also need to start a retirement account and pay off huge student loans though...lol.

The ideal life I'm working toward right now is acquiring skills and experience at work, getting a job in Seattle, setting up a garden, and starting to travel and do hobbies again. See friends. I'm getting there. I've made a ton of progress in changing my life in the last year. A ton. Dropped 26 pounds, gained a PhD, another year of relevant work experience, mental health is much improved since the PhD, and I've started to get back to myself. Playing the piano multiple days a week, working out multiple days a week, traveling more, it's all getting me back to myself.

Unknown

It has been a rough month. I've had a lot of pain and mental anguish.

I felt like I was enjoying work because I was finally working with someone I enjoyed working with. Then when that project ended, I felt like I lost a friend at work. We are totally different people so we don't really talk now, so I feel like I lost the only thing that was making work fun for the last few months.

I'm having a lot of anxiety over the last few days. It's because I have an upcoming conference and trip. I'm not sure why they are making me anxious, other than the fact that I am nervous about seeing people from my past (whom I don't want to see).

There are some people I want to see and I hope I can meet up with them for a bit. But most of the time, I'm just going to be doing stuff on my own and going to conference sessions. Then J is meeting up with me after the conference and we're going on vacation.

I feel anxious partly because I'm flying (I don't like it). Partly because I haven't done much planning so I feel unprepared. And a big part because I have a lot of projects at work that I need to move forward -- so I don't feel like I can take a full vacation, like I originally intended this trip to be. This was going to be my PhD reward trip and I was going to do NOTHING. Now, I feel pressure to work on projects so that I can finish them, get them on my resume, and get a new job SOON.

I obviously just need to balance work with relaxation on the trip, even though I don't like the thought of that. But I REALLY want to get a new job so finishing these additional projects and increasing my hirability is very valuable to me right now. I'm going to try to do a lot of the work during my conference days so that I can take more of a full vacation after the conference ends.

I used to love traveling. Now, I feel ambivalent about it...even anxious. That is so unlike me for the past 30 years. I use to get GOOD anxious before a trip -- I couldn't wait to go. Now I'm just afraid. I know why. Beyond all the factors mentioned above, it's that I have yet to rebuild my life and I fear coming back from vacation to nothingness.

So I'm quite aware of what is causing the anxiety, but it's hard to fix. I came up with a strategy for work so that I front-load the work during the conference portion of my trip. Then I will just do about 30-60 minutes of technical interview studying a day and real work while I'm on vacation...no more than that. I can do it in the morning. The rest of the time I need to make this trip what I intended it to be -- my PhD present to myself.

I hope this anxiety goes away.

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I also wanted to start feeling good about myself again even though I'm surrounded by things that don't help that goal. I want to be me again. I want to like myself again. I will start writing about the things I like about myself. What do they call that, a self-esteem journal?

(1) I like that I have had the commitment and strength to lose 22 pounds so far in 2014 (I wasn't even overweight to begin with, so that is even more impressive because it gets harder to lose weight when you're closer to your ideal weight). I started out with a BMI of 24.5, just under the top range of 18.5-24.9 range for normal weight. Now, my BMI is 21.5 -- right in the middle of normal weight range. 125 is underweight range for my height. My goal is about 135-140 (140 if I have a lot of muscle, 135 if I'm sedentary). This is actually the thinnest I have been since I was 13 years old - 5'9" and 135 pounds. I am proud of myself for accomplishing that weight loss and being more active.

(2) I like that I can appreciate the little things in life. After living with John I have noticed how much of this trait I have. I frequently tell him to look at our view and enjoy it. Me, on the other hand, I probably look at our view 20 minutes a day as I'm going about my business -- not including when I deliberately sit there to enjoy the view. I enjoy eating my food and trying new things. I enjoy seeing animals.

(3) I like that I can analyze a situation and think about the bigger picture. At work I think at a strategic level and have independently come up with projects on my own, because I think they will meet a business need.

It was surprisingly hard to come up with three things. That is how much I'm struggling right now. A lot of the reason is because my qualities are totally not appreciated in the environment I work in, and that just crushes your self-esteem. I try to remind myself that this culture is unique, but it's just impossible to give in after a while. That's why I'm so desperate to get out of here. I don't want to get sucked down further and lose all hope of self-esteem, confidence, happiness, enjoyment of work.

Fantastic Four(th Month)

I miss writing about my life. I feel like it keeps me in touch with myself. I intend to start writing again more frequently.

Updates:

• I lost 15 pounds (possibly 17-18, but I don't know if I trust this new scale that we got)
• I got my PhD diploma a couple months ago
• I am just starting to apply for jobs again, and I feel like I'm in a much better place now
• My tropical trip is totally booked, minus the fun events and adventures that we need to sign up for
• We went to the Washington State Fair a couple weekends ago. We rode a monster truck, watched "dock dogs" compete in a jumping competition, went to an animal exhibit, and did other fun stuff. He got donuts that he claimed are the best he can remember having (he's a donut fiend).
• I am trying to seriously work on my sleep. I slept about 9.5 hours Friday, but got up at 5 this morning after just about 4.5 hours of sleep (had a HORRIBLE nightmare about work). Seems like any progress I make on sleep (9.5 hours on Friday) is just totally negated the next day (4.5 hours of sleep). My goal is 9 hours per night, although 8 hours on average would be a tremendous achievement.
• I have a costume planned for this year's festivals - I'm paying someone to hand-craft it because I don't have time. Next year though, I'm going to hand-make this one I really like. I just am not ready for a big project like that right now.

I'm excited about getting a new job and living in a big city. There aren't a whole lot of jobs open for my field in this geographic location right now, so I decided to change my game plan. I made a list of actual companies where I would like to work because they have good cultures, good work-life balance, and they are in the area. 

I want to find somewhere I can stay for at least 3-5 years, because my resume has no indication of longevity -- I only stayed at my last 3 jobs for 1 year 2 months, 1 year 6 months, and now 1 year 2 months at this job. I need a longer stint, which means I need to find a place I am happy at. I made a list of 25 companies that I plan to watch and apply for any new job opening. There are currently 2 semi-related job openings that I'll be applying to today. They are jobs that are related to skills I have, but aren't directly in my field. 

My plan, because of the lack of current "perfectly relevant" job openings, is:

• To get an "in" with a company I like and work there until a job opens up in my field. I expect it will be easier to transfer to a position internally than externally, partially because if I start working there now I'll have the advantage of having direct experience with that company.
• As far as timeline, I've just really started my job search this weekend. I am about halfway done revising my resume. 
• I need to really start studying topics in my field so that I can start preparing for technical interviews (which is the most stressful part of interviewing). 
• I have also come up with a plan to fast-track some projects at my current job so that I can finish them and put those on my resume. I plan to put in some extra hours to get this done because there isn't enough time at work to get additional projects done. 
• Also, I really need to start working on getting 3 strong references. To do this, I plan to ask my current supervisor and the coworker I work with a lot at work (he's basically the VP of my division, so I think he would be good). I feel like I'm on shaky terms with my supervisor, so I need to work on that area the most. This is another reason I want to fast-track a few extra projects on my spare time, so that I can impress him and show a lot of accomplishments over the next month before I announce that I'm leaving.
• I plan to study for technical interviews over the month of May and start applying to jobs now whenever I see them. The tricky part is that I'll be on vacation for 2 weeks in May, so I may need to do some studying for interviews while I'm there. I'm thinking a minor amount, maybe 30 minutes a day (which equals about 1 journal article). Then when I come back, start studying more often. 
• My ideal plan is to study for interviews, prepare myself, and apply to jobs throughout the month of May, and hopefully get interviews in June. I hope to start a new job in July.

I'll update the trip pictures when I can -- J has to finish formatting them in his special program before he'll let me get final copies of them. Off to grocery shop, go on a nature education program, and do some job prep work!

Spring

I feel like I'm about to start getting back to life. I have lost 10 pounds. I've been working out 3-4 days a week for the last month. I've been working like crazy for the annual project going on at work right now, but hopefully that will calm down soon.

Went to the park last Friday with J, sat there and watched Mount Rainier, the Sound, and the mountains for a while. It was beautiful. On Sunday we went to the lake downtown and then walked down the port until we found a restaurant. I had blackened salmon and it was really good. I've been eating fish and eggs again, due to the allergies. Some salmon doesn't gross me out -- I've figured out ways to make it taste acceptable so that it doesn't really bother me too much anymore. We plan to go to a concert next weekend.

It was a great weekend, hanging out with him. It was just great. Things are pretty stressful at work, but I'm trying to just continue acting how I would normally act and forget all the bad attitudes and unprofessional behavior and just keep acting like how I would act. I don't know why people are so unhappy or rude, but at least I can control how I act.

I have only recently felt ready to "move on" with my new life. I have felt physically better in the last month, even given the incredible decline in sleep (the last couple months of sleep have been worse than when I was defending my PhD). I have been proud of myself for maintaining my health, my basic lifestyle, trying to learn at work, keeping a positive attitude at work in the midst of unpositive attitudes, and for trying to move forward and grow into a new person with a new life. I am proud of myself for how well I've kept it together.

Hawaii trip coming up this year, hopefully some more local trips too. I'm looking forward to doing some traveling with J.

The Fourth Decade

What is my fourth decade in life like so far?

• Got a PhD
• Living with the person I love more than anything
• A well-paying job that's exactly the work I want to be doing
• A beautiful view from our apartment of the Cascade Mountain Range, the Olympic Mountain Range, Puget Sound, the Capitol, and a partial view of Mount Rainier
• The nicest penthouse on Kauai will be ours for 8 days, along with a photo shoot on the beach
• A salary and the ability to start paying off my debts
• Lots of crime shows
• Lots of playing Fantasie Impromptu, nocturnes, Debussy, and Michael Nyman on the piano
• Totally new style of eating
• A fiction book in the works

What's next for this year?

• Learning the banjo
• Hiking and camping
• Costume parties
• Getting back in shape
• Cleaning my belongings
• Crater Lake
• Cannon Beach
• Vancouver BC
• San Juan Islands
• A new job in Seattle?
• A condo in Seattle?
• Finishing my fiction book and self-publishing
• Submitting 2-4 journal articles
• Getting my certification
• Friends
• Getting married
• Possibly planning for kids
• Possibly getting a dog

Orcas Island

J and I went to Orcas Island last month. The iPhone pictures don't do it justice. The beach below was so blue and beautiful. We rented a car and drove around nearly the whole island. We spent the rest of our time sitting in our room staring at the sound. It was a great getaway. I was really, really sad to leave. We got a good deal with a Groupon and ended up getting about $50-75 in free food throughout the weekend, plus a good view. 

Our favorite beach on Orcas Island

Sitting on our bed, this was the view

Sitting on the deck you can see the ferry landing

After we went there I got my heart set on buying a house there. I hope we can have a vacation home there that we can visit really often.

When the pantry door closes, another one opens

Things are going better. I have barely been sick since I jumped into the allergy-free diet. I have felt SO much better. I've only made a couple mistakes, but so far I've been really consistently not sick.

It's amazing what you take for granted...food was my LIFE over the past few years...it was the only thing I could control when my life was out of control and I felt helpless. There was always food to look forward to and it was something I had control over. The same week I finished graduate school, I developed that massive list of allergies. It was very frustrating to me that the same week that school ended and I should have been feeling great, I developed that list of allergies.

In a way, perhaps it was my body's way of saying that I am living a new life now. I don't NEED food anymore. I have control over so many other things now that I didn't for the past few years. I finally have a life. It's a pretty sick lesson in many ways, to finally make it through a PhD and literally the day after you finish school you become allergic to nearly everything on earth.

I've always been an avid food label-reader, but you really have no clue the nature of what I'm going through unless you really start looking to avoid CORN, SOY, WHEAT, BARLEY, RYE, ALMONDS, ONION, CARROT, PEA, SESAME SEED, FLAXSEED. Those alone are in nearly everything. Just take a look sometime when you're shopping and try to find foods without ANY byproduct of foods from that list alone, let alone all the other stuff on my list. Plus, I used to also avoid dairy and meat, and mostly ate organic food. Yeah...it's just too much to handle now with all those restrictions.

I won't lie that the first couple times I went grocery shopping, I cried right there in the store, looking at everything I could not have. I felt hopeless that there was basically nothing I would be able to eat. But I did find a couple things, including exactly one brand of pizza...which just happens to be amazingly good :)

I believe that maybe this door closed so that another door could open. Of course, you can never see the door that has opened right away...that's why the saying works. You're so busy looking at the door that's closed that you fail to look down the hall at the open door. Well, I spent a good 1-2 months looking at the closed door. That is, until I went in and got allergy testing and figured out what was making me sick. I'm SO glad I got tested. I will say that having to avoid all those foods has forced me to totally redo my diet. I'm talking TOTALLY. Most of the things I am allergic to were things I ate my whole life, nearly every day, and I loved them dearly...and they never made me sick. Here are the cornerstones of my new diet that I've had to adopt over the past month -- I eat most of those every day, as there is not much else out there besides this list:

• Coconut (shredded, milk, oil, ice cream)
• Juice (cranberry, papaya, cherry)
• Yogurt (whole/plain, chia seeds, banana, and this hemp/buckwheat/chia granola)
• Eggs
• Rice (rice bran, rice, rice pasta, rice pudding, rice crackers, rice bread)
• Millet (I think this is what I used to feed my parakeet...)
• Salad (spinach, avocado, pecans, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, pear, tomato, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, cranberries, raisins, parmesan)
• Plantains
• Potatoes, sweet potatoes
• Beans (black, pinto)
• Potato chips
• Guacamole
• Apples
• Cheese
• Chocolate
• Dried fruit (apricots, mangoes, pineapple)
• Kiwi
• Vegetable chips (sweet potato, beet, etc.)
• Broccoli
• Tapioca

That's pretty much it. There are other little things like ginger, gingerbread cookies, buckwheat crackers, a few other treats I've found. I'm mostly concerned that if I just stick to this list, I'm going to become allergic to those foods too, and then I'll really be screwed!! Soon I'll be left with just water and fish...hey, isn't that Gollum's diet? Hmmm...lol

I met with a nutritionist last week. It wasn't very helpful, but it did encourage me to think about trying to restore my immune system and treat my allergies. I need to try to fix my body and she got me thinking about a diet that claims it can help with that. I'm definitely going to look into it, but I'm not convinced. However, I believe that I can get better because in grad school I developed an allergy to almonds and I stopped eating them for 2-3 years...then I gradually reintroduced almonds to my diet, and voila -- I was eating handfuls of nuts every day for years. Until November 2013.

I'm eating pretty well, considering. My fat and sugar intake are too high (because many of the treats I can have are sugary and coconut stuff has lots of fat), so I'm working on shifting things around. I worked out 2 days this weekend :).

Quick rant on food stuff... :)

I have decided to eat eggs again regularly, which has never been a huge deal to me because I believe life begins at birth (but that's just my view), so to me I'm not eating "meat" when I'm eating eggs. :) I've decided to loosen up on salmon too, so hopefully I can start eating that more often. I have difficulty with fish, but I refuse to eat animals unless things get dire. FYI I think people make a lot of assumptions about vegetarians and vegans. My refusal to eat animals is only partially based on not liking the idea of eating animals. It is primarily based on the gross negligence, money, waste, resources, and horrible effects that have come from growing animals for food (watch any of the documentaries on this topic).

The carbon footprint is huge, let alone the fact that people who support those types of mass-producers are allowing them to alter our bacteria structure. So now I am vulnerable to resistant bacteria because some farmers feed their cows shitty stuff and it changes the bacteria. The point is, THAT is what bothers me, not so much the gross-ness of eating an animal (which is partly there). I take similar issue with mass producing other types of food and altering our food structure (GMOs), so it's not like animals are my one and only thing. I am anti-engineering our environment just for our ease and benefit. But that's a story for another day :). I buy local, organic, and non-GMO as much as I can. Once I get a garden, I'm going to do a lot more growing. I think I grew and ate about 5% of my food in 2012 (I had a garden with someone). I hope to increase that to 10-20% this year or next. Fewer trucks to transport food, less crappy unripe food in the market. "Less crappy unripe food" -- that's a good motto for a store eh.