what Was, what Is, and what Will Be

Oh hey there, Collective Internet Hive Mind!

It’s been quite a while since I last utilized this particular digital sounding space, but it’s about time I started again. A lot has happened since we last spoke, and there is much I’d like to tell you about from my last year and a half of existing in this odd, Xanth like realm of Florida. But first, I will start with some pictures. Drawings, to be specific.

I have been trying my hand at seriously drawing birds for roughly five years now. That half decade has taught me a lot about art, about the world around me, about the beautiful beasties that I attempt to capture, and most importantly about myself. More musings on that later. For now, let’s go straight to the birds. Here are the 36 birds I have drawn for this humble little project, in the order in which they were drawn, after having migrated to their final destination (i.e. to the person who requested the drawing in the first place). My birds have landed in Indiana, Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, New York, Virginia, California, Vermont, Kansas, Washington D.C., Illinois, Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio, and even Guam and Mongolia!

It has been my privilege and pleasure to send these guys to so many good people in so many places. I hope you enjoy looking at these birds as much as I enjoyed drawing them, but I suspect that is not possible! This is part of who I am now, (this is possibly just a tangible expression of who I’ve always been), and I utterly love it.

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Sometimes routines are OK.  In my case, I have a set list of things that I inevitably do before any sort of productive writing can be accomplished.  Productive thesis writing, that is.  This blog writing is productive too, but in a very different way, and indeed is part of the list I run through in the mornings.  I used to get fantastically anxious before trying to write anything important, with things like “what if I never finish it”, “I have too much to do and too little time”, “my writing’s not assertive enough”, and “I’ve only sort of skimmed these citations what if they don’t match my text” running through my head, obviously increasing my amount of discomfort for writing instead of helping me get stuck in and get things done.

Now, however, I allow myself to “kill time” before being productive by doing fun things like listening to fairly catchy but, admittedly, fairly “trendy?” “crappy?” whatever(y) music on YouTube (see my new Sounds for Sore Eyes page for a list), looking at the news pictures on the HuffPo (I almost never actually read any of the articles), briefly flicking through Facebook to see if anyone has put up fun pictures or said anything particularly pithy, hopefully writing one of these fun posts, and occasionally watching some Eddie.

These “distractions” are now tools to get me calm, cool and collected (and awake, less annoyed, and more functioning) in the mornings where the last thing I really want to do is sit at a computer, reworking pieces of text over and over and over again until its not as boring as it started out being a month ago.  Coming to the realization that this is time spent not time wasted has really helped me balance the chore of writing with the chore of being happy.  Both need to be worked at some times, but both need to be recognized for their importance in my daily life.  Soon, however, that writing will be done, and my job here will be something completely different.  A welcome change to which I will now start a semi-formal and probably slightly inaccurate countdown.

T minus 9 days to release the thesis to the committee (and the start of my full time organic ag temp job).

T minus 23 days to final defense.

T minus 39 days to permanent submission of the thesis to the graduate school.

T minus 55 days to graduation.

T minus  70 days to Trinidad.

but this makes me happy.  Yes it does.

I haven’t been feeling well.  This post is not about that, but about the greeting card I got from Grams because I wasn’t feeling well.  The card reads –

“Here’s a card that’s sure to cheer you up.  It doesn’t poke you, prod you, shove a popsicle stick in your mouth, a thermometer in your ear, or a needle in your butt…  It just sits in your hand and tells you to get well.”  (Grams added two !! at the end just for good measure).

How simple is that?  Really simple.  Simple and fun.  Fun and well-getting.  Some say that the greeting card industry is just a useless set of hype that exits for Valentines day and Christmas.  I say its a nice way to let someone else know that you are thinking of them.  Sure, someone else has made up the cute little dog getting pretend poked in the ass by needles, (and actually in this case, the cartoon dog has managed to escape that fate with a comical puff of running away smoke) but it was you that picked it out, lovingly wrote a little after punch line sentiment, put three stamps on it, and sent it off.

I think that’s pretty nice.  Don’t you?  I’m going to go call my grandma now.

It’s not that hard to figure out that although I came to Purdue for the people, the project, and the degree, I didn’t really come here for the location.  Admittedly, I don’t really explore too much beyond town, and maybe that’s my fault.  But I don’t feel like I fit here, land wise.  There are no views, few trees, even fewer streams (one river, which I’m thankful for), no rolling hills, no sheep.  Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of little things that make me happy about being outside here, I don’t feel connected to my space.

Wisconsin will always be home, and Minnesota too, it’s pretty similar I suppose.  I want to go back there eventually, but I want to find my own spot before that.  This isn’t it.  I’m confident that I will eventually find a place that feels like me.  I got close once, without being so foreign (i.e. tropical) that everything was too exciting and unfamiliar.

Regardless of where I go next, it won’t be here after this summer.  I have my goals, I have my dreams of where I think I want to be.  In order to accomplish those goals and get somewhere I feel connected to, to give me back my sense of place, I need to graduate.  And to graduate, I need to write.  Write then defend what I write.

I’ll get it done, I know I will.  But no wonder I’m not sleeping.

Of all the things that have been on my mind recently pun intended, ranging from fevers, commitment to work, time management priorities, the subjectivity of pain, and the trouble of miscommunication, headaches are probably the most fun topic I could choose to talk about now.  Yes, I know I said I wouldn’t use this space to whine, and maybe I am and maybe I’m not, but holy shit, do I hate headaches.  They are pointless, and they ruin days.

Take today.  I have been sick recently, which is what it is, lots of people are sick right now.  I also haven’t been sleeping well, what I’m now labeling “insomnia”, maybe even “stress induced insomnia” after a couple visits to the school health center.  Neither of those two things get me much sympathy.  I’m expected to still do my job because everyone gets sick and all grad students have insomnia.

But headaches.  Headaches are different.  I get them.  Others don’t .  And that really confuses me.  I can’t remember the last time I’ve gone for more than a week without a headache, and that distance between pain is pretty unusual.  In general, I get some type of headache every other day, a pretty bad one once a week, and a migraine at least once a month.  Yes, I’m finally doing something about this issue and talking to a doctor who knows things, even trying out some fun drugs and prevention / fixes.

That’s nice in the long term (hopefully), but in the short term, migraines fucking suck.  I dreamed the most crazy stuff last night (part of that was probably due to the fact that I dream a lot anyway meaning I’m not getting into the right kind of sleep, that I spent most of the night coughing fun things up from who knows where so really wasn’t sleeping anyway, and that I woke up with a slight fever that I probably had during the night).  But mostly, I had a headache.  And headaches aren’t fun.  It will go away eventually, and then it will be like nothing happened.

I can’t wait.

As anyone who has browsed this blog enough or has known me in the last, oh, 15 years might remember, I like to take pictures and, more recently, draw birds.  See exhibits A and B for a refresher course.  These things make me happy.  They may make me happy for one or a combination of a number of reasons, I don’t really care about the exact mechanisms of contentment.  I like pictures, and I really like pictures that have come from my own hands.

And now we come to the point of my post.  Would I still like photography and drawing if they were actually my job?  I am currently being paid (well enough to live but not as much as I should be) to  sit at a computer and write about things I’ve already done, research I’ve already finished, and data I’ve already analyzed.  That is better than having to analyze the data (which I did last semester) but not as fun as collecting it in the first place (and by collecting it, I mean playing in a greenhouse and paddling a kayak).  But maybe those two other activities were fun because I was getting to take pictures and look at living things at the time as opposed to word smithing said biology into numbers and letters on the virtual page.

Well, there’s nothing I can do about my current career choice.  I am a graduate student, and I need to graduate.  So enough stalling, back to the thesis.

Don’t worry, I’ve got some Trini birds to draw later.  Pictures to follow.