what Was, what Is, and what Will Be

And no, it’s not because I wear “sky-high heels all day”…  Which would look pretty funny with my usual outfit of fairly unwashed (aren’t you lucky that none of you live close to me) and therefore comfy jeans, some sort of t-shirt (some are dressyish, I swear I’m getting better) and, since its winter, a sweatshirt.  I can’t really fathom doing to yourself what feudal societies did to their women so they couldn’t run away, but that’s a topic for another post.

Anyway, I ran yesterday and did the set of stretches I can remember from the various sports I’ve played in the past, but my calves still feel like they are being grabbed and twisted.  A slight exaggeration, I suppose, but still.  I’m looking into how I’m really supposed to stretch to address said issue that makes me walk like an idiot for the first minute or two after I get up from sitting, and I’m going to assume that my body will stop rebelling at some point and accept the fact that I’m going to use it on a daily basis. This site seems pretty useful, plus I’m starting to stretch before bed in an effort to fight this wonderful insomnia I’ve developed (yes, I blame grad school…).  Oh, and that move at 1:30, I seriously can’t even start to do.  Yes, it’s sad, but I’m working on it.

That’s about all I’ve got for now, other than that it’s seriously dumb out (i.e. cold, cloudy, and snowing again).  So in order to pretend I’m not in Indiana, I’m going to need some help.  Sing it, Wolverine.

So I turn to my go to happy music.  Rock it, guys.

Time is a squirrely little beast.

This is not the first time I’ve expressed my dislike for this confluence of perception and reality.  I mean, the thing doesn’t really actually exist.  It goes fast or it goes slow.  You can make it, you can take it, you can use it, and you can loose it.  What a silly concept.

Perfect example is sleeping, of which I have not been doing much lately.  I try, and time passes, but I seem to be awake or semi-awake for most of the time spent laying in bed.  Not a good thing.  Unless you happen to enjoy dreaming and remember them when you wake up, which I do and can.  Not the most restful of sleep, but pretty darn interesting in my opinion.  I like the waking world just fine, but the dreaming world is full of adventure and confusion leading to never dull and always ridiculous situations.  But, the longer I sit here, the more sluggish my body gets (mind is still kicking like a fiend), so, sleep is good, evidently.

As a side note, I can’t believe I almost let dark chocolate marzipan go stale.  Blasphemous, that is.

A friend of mine just posted a blog entry about Saturdays, and basically how nice they are.  I very much agree, even though I rarely actually feel like I can enjoy the weekend myself.  This is a choice, I am now willing to admit.  A choice which I am going to reverse.  I am going to enjoy weekends, and enjoy myself, and still be a functioning member of the graduate school community.  Yes, you people will get your papers and I will get my thesis, but I’m going to come out a balanced individual if it takes every ounce of effort in my mind and body.

One of the main things that came out of my last committee meeting (i.e. me, a computer, and a projector in a smallish, very purple room with four professors I respect and like but are gently intimidating when they’re together all paying attention to me and only me, in theory) was that I should seriously consider / reconsider going on for a PhD.  They told me to take that as a compliment, and I’m trying my darndest to do so, because that means I’m good at this school and learning and publishing papers thing.  I’m going to have a conversation with one of those professors next week that will run along the similar theme.

And my point of frustration is this.  I’ve never been out of school.  I’ve always had tasks to do at every point in the day on every day of the week because yes, the tasks had deadlines, but it would be better if I did them sooner or put more time into them because everything can be better with more work.  I, I don’t think I like this.  I am not the kind of person who takes responsibilities lightly, and my mindset for the last threeish years has been that I am here for school and school alone, so therefore that is what I should be doing at all times.

That conversation should be interesting.  I do see the point of further education and further degrees, but I also need to see the point of my own life.  This, as many people tell me, is a choice.  I know a number of grad students that choose time for themselves and appear to be relatively sane.  But that number is not very large.  The vast majority of grad students I interact with on a daily basis have a hard time balancing themselves with the work they need to do.  One of my main advisors has told me on a few occasions that graduate school is not the place to find yourself.  And while I agree with him, I also hate it and think its a dirty lie at the same time.  I’m learning a lot about myself by struggling through the hoops placed in front of me.  I’m also learning a lot about the person I want to be, which is that of one who is balanced and finds worth in both things I would do purely for myself as well as in the things I do for others that benefit me on paper in the long run.

We shall see what happens.  As for right now, I am going to do what I think will make me feel good and content.  Which means at the moment writing a bit on my thesis so I can go run / walk / be somewhere not at a computer.  I apologize slightly if I’ve broken the rule of no whining on this virtual space of mine, but not too much, because I consider this a cathartic musing more than a rant.  It is what it is, right?

I’ve avoided this for a long time.  This being the need to address certain choices in my life, not my blog.  Well, I’ve avoided the blog too.  Maybe those to go hand in hand.  But that ends now.  You know, again.  But for good, this time.

I here by commit to post something, even if its one word or one picture, at least four times a week until I’m a more balanced person.  I will not use this blog as a whining post or a place of inner reflection, but as a place of outflow.  Maybe I’ll write when I get to school in that “between” time when I’ve gotten to my desk but am evidently not ready to address my duties for the day because all I’ll do is browse websites and look at the news pictures for the day.  Maybe I’ll write before I go to bed to assist in the relaxation process that is now needed for me to sleep and avoid insomnia.  Regardless of when, how much, or about what, I will write and write I will.

My job at the moment (graduating graduate student) is to write anyway.  However, I find that process neither easy nor enjoyable.  It takes a long time for me to get out of my inner self enough to put productive words on the virtual page.  I’m hopeful that another thing this consistent blogging will do is to assist in that process.  If I can write on here, I can write on there, right?  Yes.  Because I say so.

I also intend on changing my mind on a number of things throughout what I assume will be a long and arduous process.  People say you are happy if you choose to be, and now I choose to be.  One way I think I can accomplish this is to rack up a bunch of posts, successfully shifting this task from, well, a task, to something I enjoy and look forward to as a way to express myself.  My definition of which uses of time are “worth while” and which are “pointless” really comes from a frustration with the lack of tangible outcomes in my life.  I have a few uses of time that do have immediate tangible outcomes, namely drawing and soon biking / running (even if that immediate tangible outcome is to feel tired and to feel like I’ve utilized my body), but I believe that writing on here is also a tangible outcome that may help me feel accomplished something for the day.  All of these steps are good ones.

And there we have it.  Even if it is the Royal We of just Me that is having it, as I’m now obviously writing for myself and the few others that may stumble upon the site now or in the future (Hi mom).  Every step forward is worth the time to take it.  So here I go.  Stepping forward.

Is a very odd thing. You can find it, make it, take it, and loose it. But no matter what, it is always moving.

This really pisses me off.

What needs to happen is for us to be conscious of the time right now. An eye on the past and the future, yes, but the mind on the present.

And listen.ing is good too.

Otherwise how will we know what is truly going on?

Yes. I’m writing a paper right now.  Yes, that paper is due tomorrow.  Yes, I am in college (how could you tell!?).  Yes, I am deliberately wasting time that could be spent finishing that paper to write this entry.  And yes, I don’t really care.  What’s ten minutes anyway?  (According to my professor, ten minutes is all it takes to wikipedia the information needed for this paper, but that’s besides the point.)

What is the point, you may ask?  Circles.  So no points, heh.  Good imagery.

I think the point is that even though I know what I want to say in my head, I can’t lay it out in writing because everything I am trying to say comes full circle to other points I haven’t even made yet.  How do I explain one thing when that explanation hinges on a second explanation that also hinges on the first?  I mean really, I can’t even get this concept out without sounding nuts!

They say that if you can’t explain something, then you don’t actually understand it fully.  To them I say “ppppppthhthhtht, you write my paper and see how well you lay these concepts out!”.  It’s not that I don’t understand the material in the paper, it’s that I don’t see a clear start or finish to the ideas that need to be put in the assignment.  One thing causes another and causes itself at the same time by causing that second thing.  Circles.  This is where my mind is, and it’s getting dizzy.

Well, back at it then.  I still say that I could have drawn a picture of this faster than this is taking me to write.  But that’s not what they asked for.  They asked for words, and words they shall get.  But it’s not my fault if everything is jumbled, loops lead to tangents, and lines of thought connect.  Ecology is full of webs, and after all, that is what the paper is about.  Circles.

Well then.  It seems that the purpose of this journal was not particularly fulfilled during my time here at Purdue, which is where I have been since I started this thing two years ago.  And that sort of sums up said two years as well, the whole “not really paying attention to things I always meant to do, would be good for me, and would benefit mostly me alone”.  Graduate school is an interesting thing.  It is an extension of the regular undergraduate class-study-test cycle with the added bonus of independent projects that you alone are responsible and accountable for.  My reaction to this wonderful combination has so far been to put everything I physically can into the completion of all those tasks, regardless of how many hours that means I spend away from home.  Weather it is spent outside kayaking through a marsh or at this very computer in a lab with questionable smells and no windows, that time goes towards the completion of goals agreed upon by myself and my committee (and whatever further great “side projects” they think of and shove off on me in chance encounters in the hallway).

No more.

This is me putting my virtual foot down and saying that I will make time to do tangible things for me, myself, and I.  I’ve written it, you’ve read it, so shall it be done.

Now, it’s not like I have been a complete slave to the Man here.  I have sneaked a few fun things in using the guise of work, such as the two awesome kayaks that I get to play with during the summer while sampling and the plants that I “have to” draw so I can study for my spring ephemeral class right now.  And Friday Seminar.  Ahhhhhh Friday Seminar.  The perfect excuse to go have a pint and some fantastically good (but ever so unhealthy) pub food with lab mates and good friends in an attempt to have real conversations that don’t involve school.  That never works, by the way, we always and forever will talk about professors, research, and classes until the wee hours of the morning.

Point is, I’ve done some cool stuff both for school and for not school. And to prove it, I will post (and will continue to post) pictures of drawings, outings, innings, and other general creativeness to prove both to myself and to the world that I am more than a grade, a huge amount of seemingly meaningless numbers, and a few (hopefully) published papers.  I am the sum of what I produce, and things I do beyond school are just as important contributions to who I am as my GPA and thesis are.

I am determined.  I have goals.  And I will enjoy everything I do at least a little, and at most a lot.  Well, except stats.  No one ever actually enjoys stats.

Now it begins.  Um, again.