I feel like I need to write a response to my last post. Like an apology. I am in general strongly against venting negativity, and it shows how bad I'm doing that I not only felt so angry but let it pop out somewhere public. Normally when I'm angry I'll go and tree preach or write in a private journal or something and be done with it.
My general policy is not to put down anybody ever, and I have not been following my own policy recently, and I feel really bad about that. I think my close friends would agree that it's been pretty tame by normal world standards, but it's pretty low for my own. I don't think I need to apologize to anyone who reads this but perhaps just in general to anyone I may have spoken poorly about. I'm really fond of all my main teachers, from my masters, and from the Montessori training I'm doing, and I can't find any fault in the care and diligence they put into teaching my and my classmates and I'm pretty certain I wouldn't be able to do a sixth the job they did/are doing.
This doesn't change the fact that I'm frustrated with teacher training programs, but the problems are more systemic. Even really good teacher trainers end up severely limited in what they can do by time and money and applicants.
I talked with the lead teacher, and now have a better understanding of the purposes of the homework I'm doing, and so as I do it, I'm approaching it in a less careful and meticulous, but more useful way, and that feels a lot better. It has the definite purpose of preparing me for the exam, in that I'm creating study cheat-sheets, and am doing a first pass at memorization by reading it and then trying to recall it without looking back at it. The quiz and recall method that is far more effective than just reading something a while bunch of times.
In addition, I'm adding my own spice to it, by then looking over the handout and seeing what parts I missed, and adding them in with asterisks, reminding me of the parts I'm liable to forget or mix up the order on. That's all familiarizing me with the presentations in a useful way, it makes sense.
It's way too much, but the trainer admitted as much, and he didn't say it then, but I can guess that the reason is because we are trying to cram things in to a shorter time period than they deserve, because people can't afford to pay for longer schooling or take more time off. To do this right, it would be maybe a year and a half and then another half-year of practice, something like that. That would be more like the ideal rate to absorb things and not be unhealthy and overly stressful, which it certainly is. But it's not just about the ideal method of teaching, it's about the practicalities of life. It's expensive enough as it is, without tacking on more time. So while I think it's a bad idea, it might be one of those, "least bad" kind of answers. If the training were perfectly tailored for maximum learning, maybe 90% of the people who wanted to do it, wouldn't be able to, because of time or money.
So, I get it. I get it all. Here's the real problem:
I hate rushing, it's like poison in my system. When I feel rushed and worried about the time, I go from being really sweet and easy-going, easy to forgive, relaxed and understanding, to this fire breathing monster. The contrast is stark. Normally it's extremely difficult to get any kind of rise out of me, even if I find something reprehensible, I'm able to put myself in the other persons shoes and understand where they are coming from.
When I am rushed, when I feel like I've got a million things to do and they're all do in 4 days and I've got 6 days worth of work to do, I start getting pissed off at the most silly trivial things. Finally I understand road rage. That slow man crossing the road throws me into paroxysms of vitriol, technical difficulties that take extra time to solve become the devil incarnate, mocking and tormenting me. Each new irritation makes me more susceptible to the next, until I am seeing obstacles everywhere, and each of them makes me want to scream and curse.
I'm exaggerating only moderately. The other horrible thing about this state, is I just feel bad. I end up hating everything. The pleasures of the world turn to ash in my mouth. All I can taste is the bitter hot bile of my frustration and impatience.
It saps my energy, it saps the joy from my life, it makes the world grey. with splotches of red.
There are more issues with this rushing hurried state: I hurt myself more often, I make mistakes I never would otherwise. Talking poorly about others being one of the bigger one's I realized I was doing recently.
In any case, I've decided that I refuse. Nothing is worth that. I will work hard and long, and perhaps still curse my slave masters for the backbreaking, eye-strain inducing labor. But not seriously, because ultimately I signed up for it, I chose it and continue to choose it. Now that I have an understanding of the purposes, I can work on not doing more than is actually useful, and doing what is useful, in the most economically beneficial way. Understanding the purpose means I can do it for myself, not for some shadowy creature that demands random, torturous, incomprehensible actions of me, that feels a lot more empowering.
My dad suggested I just not do some of the work, or do it poorly. Sorry dad, I'm probably not gonna slow down much or get much more free time. Maybe a little bit. But I just don't like doing a poor job at things. It almost feels like I'm incapable of it, in some ways. If I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it well. Hopefully I'll be doing a bit less work because I'm working on focusing on just the effort that is useful. But I can't really short-change it, and still graduate. If I slack off now it means even more work later down the line. I can't control how much time it will take, beyond a small percent, but I can try and control how I'm spreading out that work, and the process of doing the work, and hopefully make that less stressful.
So much of our experience of life comes not from the direct experience, but from the story we tell ourselves while we do whatever we're doing. Am I getting my toe stubbed! Dang it! Anger! Am I getting cut open with knives for a surgical operation? Thank God for modern medicine! Anger or gratitude, depending on the story around it. So I'll try and tell a good story, and I'll try and do it in such a way that it is a good story.
OK, that's all.
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Sunday, June 23, 2019
frustration. busywork. sadness.
I'm feeling quite irritable, so I don't want to post much, because I don't want to rant. But I mine as well post now, because I don't see myself having any more free time in the foreseeable future.
I am ticked off because I just spent my whole weekend doing homework. And it's going to be the same for the rest of the summer, and I don't think the homework is particularly useful. It makes me furious, frankly, feeling like my time and energy is being wasted.
I have great admiration for the teachers I've had, in my masters in education, and the main trainer for the Montessori certification I'm getting. But each time I've done a teacher training program, I've become deeply frustrated at how poorly they are structured for training teachers. I guess it just reflects the state of education in general: so much of our theories and schools of thought are baseless, not backed by science. And nowhere is that more true than the teaching of teachers. I don't think any scientific research has been consulted most of the time. I don't think much scientific research has even been conducted on the subject. Which is deeply frustrating. There is excellent info on how to train a world-class athlete, or a surgeon, or musician, or a pilot. The methods have been tested, revised, honed until they are super effective. But there is nothing like that, which I have heard of, for teachers. Nobody seems to care how they do, once they've been sent off into the wild. Nobody cares if their methods are particularly effective, and so they're not. You're basically on your own, and it's a roll of the dice, or a matter of what you were already coming in with.
I guess I was hoping this would be different, because an expert teacher said it would help, but perhaps I was running into the problem that often experts in a field are not necessarily experts at creating other experts in that field. It wouldn't be quite so bad, if it wasn't also deeply unpleasant, sitting in front of a computer, typing all day long, every day. typing up things that are quite possibly garbage, pointless. Maybe it's to try and help me memorize, but it seems like an extremely inefficient method of memorization. Maybe it's just to prove you can work really hard, but I already did that during my masters program, I don't need to prove that again. I'm too old for this $%^# and life is to short for it.
Anyways, I'm quite unhappy right now. It has become a drudge, and is likely to stay that way for the rest of the summer, and I'm having angry thoughts of just quitting and being done with it.
I am ticked off because I just spent my whole weekend doing homework. And it's going to be the same for the rest of the summer, and I don't think the homework is particularly useful. It makes me furious, frankly, feeling like my time and energy is being wasted.
I have great admiration for the teachers I've had, in my masters in education, and the main trainer for the Montessori certification I'm getting. But each time I've done a teacher training program, I've become deeply frustrated at how poorly they are structured for training teachers. I guess it just reflects the state of education in general: so much of our theories and schools of thought are baseless, not backed by science. And nowhere is that more true than the teaching of teachers. I don't think any scientific research has been consulted most of the time. I don't think much scientific research has even been conducted on the subject. Which is deeply frustrating. There is excellent info on how to train a world-class athlete, or a surgeon, or musician, or a pilot. The methods have been tested, revised, honed until they are super effective. But there is nothing like that, which I have heard of, for teachers. Nobody seems to care how they do, once they've been sent off into the wild. Nobody cares if their methods are particularly effective, and so they're not. You're basically on your own, and it's a roll of the dice, or a matter of what you were already coming in with.
I guess I was hoping this would be different, because an expert teacher said it would help, but perhaps I was running into the problem that often experts in a field are not necessarily experts at creating other experts in that field. It wouldn't be quite so bad, if it wasn't also deeply unpleasant, sitting in front of a computer, typing all day long, every day. typing up things that are quite possibly garbage, pointless. Maybe it's to try and help me memorize, but it seems like an extremely inefficient method of memorization. Maybe it's just to prove you can work really hard, but I already did that during my masters program, I don't need to prove that again. I'm too old for this $%^# and life is to short for it.
Anyways, I'm quite unhappy right now. It has become a drudge, and is likely to stay that way for the rest of the summer, and I'm having angry thoughts of just quitting and being done with it.
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Habits, Memory Palaces, the impending doom of the AMI written and oral exams.
It's getting well past my Sunday deadline, so I must post something, even if it's just something short I write in a few minutes early this morning, as I'm doing now.
When I say "must" I mean it less in a "something bad will happen if I don't" and more in a "I really have to brush my teeth" way. It's a habit, and it feels a bit weird not to do it, at this point, as all good habits should. That's the magic (and frustration, if it's a non-desirable one) of habits. As I've said before, getting good at installing habits is one of the great superpowers you can develop. Do all the cool things you want, without having to use a bunch of braincells or willpower to do it. It takes a lot of persistence and consistency, and the first while can be challenging, but if your choosing meaningful habits for yourself, it's overwhelmingly worth it. But you have to go about it the right way. I don't know how many people I've talked too, who bemoan how they've tried to get started doing something, over and over, but keep failing, and when I asked them what they were doing, they pretty much always were violating one of the cardinal rules of habit creation.
I don't remember all those rules off the top of my head, but the salient one's for me are very simple:
-most important: make your habit so easy you never have a good excuse not to do it.
meaning make it 2 minutes or less. You can always do more if you're feeling it, but you just have to do the 2 minutes to satisfy your "did it today" requirement. why is this so important? because of rule number two:
-never skip a day.
also very simple, and when your habit is only 2 minutes, there's no excuse not to do it (except perhaps within point #3, but we'll get there.) But it's another thing people forget. skipping a day doesn't just put you back a day in habit development, it can put you back several days, and since setting a habit can take anywhere from around 21 days, to 3 months, to a year or more, it's absolutely essential that you not make it take longer than it needs to.
an addendum to this that's also important is: if you do miss a day, don't beat yourself up, just make extra super sure you don't miss two days in a row. It's an exponential thing, two days is even worse than one day, and not additively worse, or even multiplicative-ly worse, but probably exponentially worse. random examples to give the feel but not in any way scientific: miss one day: get set back 5 days. miss 2 days: get set back 18 days.
It's only two minutes, so there's really no excuse, again, if you miss one day, to miss a second. just set it as your #1 priority for the day. simple, unless you violate rule #3:
-choose a habit that's intrinsically rewarding
sounds simple, but often people 'want' to install habits because they were told it's good, or they 'think it would be cool' or some long distant goal like, 'getting fit so they'll look good at the beach.' You need some activity that provides a reward at the end of it. This doesn't mean certain things are off limits, but it may mean you have to re-jigger your habits a little bit, or perhaps even just rejigger your thinking about it.
here's a popular one a an example: someone wants to establish a habit of exercising, say, in the morning, or after work, or something. (that's a whole other branch of habit engineering that's super useful as well, about having consistent cues for your habit, but I don't have time to get into that now) their goal is, "get fit so I'll look good" or even "get fit so I'll be healthy when I'm old" these goals sound good, but then the person picks some kind of exercise that they hate, like, say, repeatedly smacking themselves in the face until they're exhausted. Or weightlifting, or sprinting, or whatever exercise someone told them was what they should do, but they actually really don't like it.
as soon as speedo season is over, if they're doing it for the bod, or as soon as they have a girlfriend, or whatever, they're not going to keep it up. Which is sad, because being healthy when you're old or looking good are fine things to be.
But there are simple fixes:
-just choose a version of the thing that you enjoy:
if you don't like jogging normally, do it in nature, or with a friend (though that's dangerous because you're reliant on someone else. you want other elements as well, in case you don't have another person available.) or walk instead, if that's what you like.
or do something else entirely. maybe you enjoy hula hooping, or dancing, or climbing tree's. whatever, just do some exercises that you find enjoyable.
or maybe you don't like jogging because of how you feel afterwords. exercise an amount that leaves you feeling good at the end of it. exercising until you feel bad is shooting yourself in the foot. Some people enjoy the sore but endorphin laden feeling after a hard workout, but some people don't. And nobody likes feeling like they're gonna throw up. (though crossfit has somehow turned that into an ok thing via the power of peer pressure or something.)
to establish a habit, you need a little reward pellet at the end of the action, like a mouse pressing a lever and getting a bit of food. If you feel bad at the end of exercise, your like a mouse pressing a lever and getting an electric shock, your training yourself not to do that thing.
I used to lift weights till I felt light throwing up, or felt like jello and couldn't walk up stairs for days. after a few weeks I'd stop. I was giving myself negative reinforcement. it may have been good for getting swol, but it was real bad for me developing a habit with staying power, and so I never got swol anyways, (which isn't a good goal for habit setting and keeping (more on keeping in a little bit) because it's too far in the future, and too extrinsic, in most cases.) I didn't really want to get swol, I just wanted girls to think I was attractive, so once I stopped feeling bad about my body, I wouldn't keep exercising. It would just see-saw back and forth, me doing it when I felt ugly or inspired, and then stop when I was no longer inspired or ugly-feeling.
This leads to the final point: maintenance: habits pretty much run themselves once they are installed, but it's always possible to let them run down. There is often a small amount of thought you have to put into maintaining them, when life gets hectic. the equivalent of a butler coming to you every day at a certain point and saying, "well sir, would you like to keep your 2 minutes of jumping jacks?" and all you have to say is "yes" but if you consistently say 'no' for a while, the habit will mostly undo itself. though if it's really established, it will be much easier to re-start. still it's something to be aware of. don't take them for granted, once they're established. if things are crazy, you can cut them back to the original 2 minutes, but it's a good idea to keep the habits your happy with going with those 2 minutes, when life is crazy. It's easier than re-setting the habit once the crazy period is over.
Hum, I spent all my time on habits. I don't know why, I guess it was on my mind?
a few more update-y things: I'm in San Diego now. It's actually kinda cold.
Class started yesterday, deceptively gently. I'm still waiting for it to get overwhelmingly intense and trying to brace myself so I'm ready for the onslaught, trying to figure out a good daily and weekly routine that let's me get all my work done with minimal burnout. And at the same time trying to plan my preparation for the final AMI certification exams. there is, I believe, a 3 hour written exam portion (which I'm hoping I don't fail solely on the basis of my handwriting and spelling, but also need to make sure I'm good with all the theory and can write on a subject for 3 hours well.)
and the oral/practical portion, where an examiner will ask me to perform presentations, I think several, and I will have to recall and present them to a person acting as the kid, while they look on and judge, and afterwords grill me on what presentations come before or after, what extensions I might do, what the purpose of the presentation is, etc.
when I say "presentation" that's... like a lesson with a specific material, usually. I might give a lesson on geometric multiplication, using graph paper and colored pencils, or one on multi-digit multiplication using a bead frame. But there area also stories that I might present, that I have to have memorized, that usually include some props that have to be used as well.
The thing is, you never know which things you'll have to present so you have to memorize a huge number. Some from each physical material, and all the main stories, and some other stuff that doesn't use just the normal materials, like some botany stuff where you'd be using a live plant to demonstrate something.
I recently read Moonwalking with Einstein which talks about memory devices like memory palaces and how memory athletes can train to perform extraordinary feats, like memorizing the order of a deck of cards in a minute, and I'm trying to use some of the simpler memorization techniques to help me with all the stuff I'll be needing to memorize. I think it will be really helpful, but it requires a lot more thinking and planning and analyzing than the simple drill and kill method. But after the initial high time investment, it should end up being a little quicker, and a bit more reliable. (or a fair bit quicker, but less so when you take into account the up front time investment)
I've already been using it to replace my phone for to-do lists, and it's fairly effective, and very useful when you don't have your hands free, like when driving. The more you use it, the easier and more effective it gets, so I'm trying to practice. I'm trying to learn all my classmates names using some of the simpler methods, but that means I have to surreptitiously ask the names of the one's I've forgotten, and it's been a year so I'm supposed to know them all, already, in terms of social etiquette.
anyhoo, that's some updates. By for now! I think I spent a bit to long on this. What's the name of that rule? Parkinson's Law, that's it. work expands to fill the time allotted to it. I keep forgetting about that.
When I say "must" I mean it less in a "something bad will happen if I don't" and more in a "I really have to brush my teeth" way. It's a habit, and it feels a bit weird not to do it, at this point, as all good habits should. That's the magic (and frustration, if it's a non-desirable one) of habits. As I've said before, getting good at installing habits is one of the great superpowers you can develop. Do all the cool things you want, without having to use a bunch of braincells or willpower to do it. It takes a lot of persistence and consistency, and the first while can be challenging, but if your choosing meaningful habits for yourself, it's overwhelmingly worth it. But you have to go about it the right way. I don't know how many people I've talked too, who bemoan how they've tried to get started doing something, over and over, but keep failing, and when I asked them what they were doing, they pretty much always were violating one of the cardinal rules of habit creation.
I don't remember all those rules off the top of my head, but the salient one's for me are very simple:
-most important: make your habit so easy you never have a good excuse not to do it.
meaning make it 2 minutes or less. You can always do more if you're feeling it, but you just have to do the 2 minutes to satisfy your "did it today" requirement. why is this so important? because of rule number two:
-never skip a day.
also very simple, and when your habit is only 2 minutes, there's no excuse not to do it (except perhaps within point #3, but we'll get there.) But it's another thing people forget. skipping a day doesn't just put you back a day in habit development, it can put you back several days, and since setting a habit can take anywhere from around 21 days, to 3 months, to a year or more, it's absolutely essential that you not make it take longer than it needs to.
an addendum to this that's also important is: if you do miss a day, don't beat yourself up, just make extra super sure you don't miss two days in a row. It's an exponential thing, two days is even worse than one day, and not additively worse, or even multiplicative-ly worse, but probably exponentially worse. random examples to give the feel but not in any way scientific: miss one day: get set back 5 days. miss 2 days: get set back 18 days.
It's only two minutes, so there's really no excuse, again, if you miss one day, to miss a second. just set it as your #1 priority for the day. simple, unless you violate rule #3:
-choose a habit that's intrinsically rewarding
sounds simple, but often people 'want' to install habits because they were told it's good, or they 'think it would be cool' or some long distant goal like, 'getting fit so they'll look good at the beach.' You need some activity that provides a reward at the end of it. This doesn't mean certain things are off limits, but it may mean you have to re-jigger your habits a little bit, or perhaps even just rejigger your thinking about it.
here's a popular one a an example: someone wants to establish a habit of exercising, say, in the morning, or after work, or something. (that's a whole other branch of habit engineering that's super useful as well, about having consistent cues for your habit, but I don't have time to get into that now) their goal is, "get fit so I'll look good" or even "get fit so I'll be healthy when I'm old" these goals sound good, but then the person picks some kind of exercise that they hate, like, say, repeatedly smacking themselves in the face until they're exhausted. Or weightlifting, or sprinting, or whatever exercise someone told them was what they should do, but they actually really don't like it.
as soon as speedo season is over, if they're doing it for the bod, or as soon as they have a girlfriend, or whatever, they're not going to keep it up. Which is sad, because being healthy when you're old or looking good are fine things to be.
But there are simple fixes:
-just choose a version of the thing that you enjoy:
if you don't like jogging normally, do it in nature, or with a friend (though that's dangerous because you're reliant on someone else. you want other elements as well, in case you don't have another person available.) or walk instead, if that's what you like.
or do something else entirely. maybe you enjoy hula hooping, or dancing, or climbing tree's. whatever, just do some exercises that you find enjoyable.
or maybe you don't like jogging because of how you feel afterwords. exercise an amount that leaves you feeling good at the end of it. exercising until you feel bad is shooting yourself in the foot. Some people enjoy the sore but endorphin laden feeling after a hard workout, but some people don't. And nobody likes feeling like they're gonna throw up. (though crossfit has somehow turned that into an ok thing via the power of peer pressure or something.)
to establish a habit, you need a little reward pellet at the end of the action, like a mouse pressing a lever and getting a bit of food. If you feel bad at the end of exercise, your like a mouse pressing a lever and getting an electric shock, your training yourself not to do that thing.
I used to lift weights till I felt light throwing up, or felt like jello and couldn't walk up stairs for days. after a few weeks I'd stop. I was giving myself negative reinforcement. it may have been good for getting swol, but it was real bad for me developing a habit with staying power, and so I never got swol anyways, (which isn't a good goal for habit setting and keeping (more on keeping in a little bit) because it's too far in the future, and too extrinsic, in most cases.) I didn't really want to get swol, I just wanted girls to think I was attractive, so once I stopped feeling bad about my body, I wouldn't keep exercising. It would just see-saw back and forth, me doing it when I felt ugly or inspired, and then stop when I was no longer inspired or ugly-feeling.
This leads to the final point: maintenance: habits pretty much run themselves once they are installed, but it's always possible to let them run down. There is often a small amount of thought you have to put into maintaining them, when life gets hectic. the equivalent of a butler coming to you every day at a certain point and saying, "well sir, would you like to keep your 2 minutes of jumping jacks?" and all you have to say is "yes" but if you consistently say 'no' for a while, the habit will mostly undo itself. though if it's really established, it will be much easier to re-start. still it's something to be aware of. don't take them for granted, once they're established. if things are crazy, you can cut them back to the original 2 minutes, but it's a good idea to keep the habits your happy with going with those 2 minutes, when life is crazy. It's easier than re-setting the habit once the crazy period is over.
Hum, I spent all my time on habits. I don't know why, I guess it was on my mind?
a few more update-y things: I'm in San Diego now. It's actually kinda cold.
Class started yesterday, deceptively gently. I'm still waiting for it to get overwhelmingly intense and trying to brace myself so I'm ready for the onslaught, trying to figure out a good daily and weekly routine that let's me get all my work done with minimal burnout. And at the same time trying to plan my preparation for the final AMI certification exams. there is, I believe, a 3 hour written exam portion (which I'm hoping I don't fail solely on the basis of my handwriting and spelling, but also need to make sure I'm good with all the theory and can write on a subject for 3 hours well.)
and the oral/practical portion, where an examiner will ask me to perform presentations, I think several, and I will have to recall and present them to a person acting as the kid, while they look on and judge, and afterwords grill me on what presentations come before or after, what extensions I might do, what the purpose of the presentation is, etc.
when I say "presentation" that's... like a lesson with a specific material, usually. I might give a lesson on geometric multiplication, using graph paper and colored pencils, or one on multi-digit multiplication using a bead frame. But there area also stories that I might present, that I have to have memorized, that usually include some props that have to be used as well.
The thing is, you never know which things you'll have to present so you have to memorize a huge number. Some from each physical material, and all the main stories, and some other stuff that doesn't use just the normal materials, like some botany stuff where you'd be using a live plant to demonstrate something.
I recently read Moonwalking with Einstein which talks about memory devices like memory palaces and how memory athletes can train to perform extraordinary feats, like memorizing the order of a deck of cards in a minute, and I'm trying to use some of the simpler memorization techniques to help me with all the stuff I'll be needing to memorize. I think it will be really helpful, but it requires a lot more thinking and planning and analyzing than the simple drill and kill method. But after the initial high time investment, it should end up being a little quicker, and a bit more reliable. (or a fair bit quicker, but less so when you take into account the up front time investment)
I've already been using it to replace my phone for to-do lists, and it's fairly effective, and very useful when you don't have your hands free, like when driving. The more you use it, the easier and more effective it gets, so I'm trying to practice. I'm trying to learn all my classmates names using some of the simpler methods, but that means I have to surreptitiously ask the names of the one's I've forgotten, and it's been a year so I'm supposed to know them all, already, in terms of social etiquette.
anyhoo, that's some updates. By for now! I think I spent a bit to long on this. What's the name of that rule? Parkinson's Law, that's it. work expands to fill the time allotted to it. I keep forgetting about that.
Monday, June 10, 2019
The week before the big trip. Reflections on being a disciplinarian of cats. Too much work and just enough.
I find myself, ready for bed, feeling reflective, with the sun setting outside my bedroom window. It's only 8:22, so I likely can't fall asleep quite yet, and even if I could, the wanderer cat is still out wandering and hasn't come back yet for supper. It's Saturday night, and I'm feeling good about the day. I worked hard and with focus. I took breaks regularly, so as not to burn out, but the breaks were just different kinds of work. I took a nap around 3 pm, because I thought it would be effective in making me more productive for the rest of the evening, and meditated, for the same reason. I had a number one priority, which I worked on for most of my time, and got perhaps two thirds of it done. Once that's finished, which will be tomorrow unless an emergency comes up, there will be many smaller tasks, but only one big piece of homework left, which I can get started on and get a better idea of how long it's going to take, and then plan everything else around that.
It feels good, deciding what I need to do, and then doing it. It feels good, being my own boss and thus being able to work in the way that's most efficient for me. It feels good, getting things done. It feels good, only being mildly sick. There were numerous other things vying for my time, very useful and good things, but it was very clear where I needed to spend my time, so I could, without deep regret, not do them. I love simplicity.
Tomorrow or the next day, my girlfriend will get back, and I'll be able to focus even more on my work, since I'll be relieved of cat duty and such things. It was a beautiful day, and I had frequent chances to spend moments looking outside and enjoying it. And even a little bit of time outside, watering the garden (after covering myself in bug protection from the ravenes swarms of bloodsucking gnats)
I feel calm and grounded. Not because I've got everything under control. I still have no idea if it's even possible to finish everything I have to do. But I'm at least doing the best I can, and I have clear courses of action, if I can't finish things. I've got a list, and I'm working through it. That's all I can ask for.
Next week's post, I'll be in San Diego, if all things go as expected.
Ah, now the final cat is back. I'm finishing up this post as it's eating it's dinner. Something about all this-- the routine of dinner, the lazy summer light and warm evening, the satisfied feeling of a good day's work-- it's very relaxing. It feels like home, somehow. Very comfortable and nice.
And a call from my girlfriend, who's gonna get back tomorrow and have some time to cuddle and have dinner before bed. A good day.
--
It's now Monday, as I get back to this. Sunday was a bit frantic. I finished my final of three paper type things in the morning (boo-ya) and then it was time to survey the damage of just how much time it would take to do my biggest chunk of homework. The document, un-filled out, was already about 56 pages long, and after listing all the different assignments, it was about 45 different small assignments, each one, I thought, taking about a half-hour to an hour. I started to sweat, and then buckled down and got to work. Thankfully, the time-range was better than I had remembered, some things were done in as few as 10 minutes, though others took an hour and a half. I resigned myself to working every available moment up to the time I had to leave, and still maybe not getting it done.
Today, Monday, felt a lot better. I was making reasonable progress, making me thing that it was at least possible, if I kept up my break-neck rate, to do it in time, just barely. But I was going to be doing a 3 day cross-country drive, already exhausted, and have no time to catch my breath before class started the very next day.
Then, around 6 pm today, I realized, (after double and triple checking it) that I had a full 14 less assignments than I thought I had. That's the only reason I'm writing this now. Suddenly, I had actual time. I could leave on my planned day, rather than the last minute, and have a day to settle-in and allow for something unforeseen on the trip over. I had actual time to pack up my stuff. I could do a few things besides my homework over the next few days. It was a euphoric feeling.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to be working all day every day, but it is no longer the desperate, getting angry at every delay, no time to relax, constant push for speed that I find so stressful. Now it's just the level of busyness that keeps me focused and on my toes, without the panicked stress of "how the heck am I possibly going to get this all done."
I like having work-mates: someone who's just working on their own thing in the same room. It keeps me focused and happy, and I've discovered that my girlfriends cats do a good job of that. Also, my training as a disciplinarian of children seems to somewhat transfer to the cats. I think I'm a better cat disciplinarian, because of that experience.
I haven't mentioned this yet, but reflecting on all I've learned over the year, I think I've gotten to a place where I can discipline without it being personal, either for me or for the kids. It's a much less stressful way of doing things. It doesn't feel like I'm fighting their wills. I'm just laying down the law and enforcing it, and they know it's not a personal grievance or vendetta when I do that. I don't get angry, they don't feel attacked. I'm not tense and contracted trying to force something, they don't feel personally repressed by me. It feels a lot healthier in every way that what I started out with, or the other side when I was trying to be disciplinarian but it did feel personal and I was actually getting angry.
I think theres still lots further to go and much more to learn, but I'm really happy with what I managed to learn, this year.
OK, the end for this week. Next week in San Diego!
It feels good, deciding what I need to do, and then doing it. It feels good, being my own boss and thus being able to work in the way that's most efficient for me. It feels good, getting things done. It feels good, only being mildly sick. There were numerous other things vying for my time, very useful and good things, but it was very clear where I needed to spend my time, so I could, without deep regret, not do them. I love simplicity.
Tomorrow or the next day, my girlfriend will get back, and I'll be able to focus even more on my work, since I'll be relieved of cat duty and such things. It was a beautiful day, and I had frequent chances to spend moments looking outside and enjoying it. And even a little bit of time outside, watering the garden (after covering myself in bug protection from the ravenes swarms of bloodsucking gnats)
I feel calm and grounded. Not because I've got everything under control. I still have no idea if it's even possible to finish everything I have to do. But I'm at least doing the best I can, and I have clear courses of action, if I can't finish things. I've got a list, and I'm working through it. That's all I can ask for.
Next week's post, I'll be in San Diego, if all things go as expected.
Ah, now the final cat is back. I'm finishing up this post as it's eating it's dinner. Something about all this-- the routine of dinner, the lazy summer light and warm evening, the satisfied feeling of a good day's work-- it's very relaxing. It feels like home, somehow. Very comfortable and nice.
And a call from my girlfriend, who's gonna get back tomorrow and have some time to cuddle and have dinner before bed. A good day.
--
It's now Monday, as I get back to this. Sunday was a bit frantic. I finished my final of three paper type things in the morning (boo-ya) and then it was time to survey the damage of just how much time it would take to do my biggest chunk of homework. The document, un-filled out, was already about 56 pages long, and after listing all the different assignments, it was about 45 different small assignments, each one, I thought, taking about a half-hour to an hour. I started to sweat, and then buckled down and got to work. Thankfully, the time-range was better than I had remembered, some things were done in as few as 10 minutes, though others took an hour and a half. I resigned myself to working every available moment up to the time I had to leave, and still maybe not getting it done.
Today, Monday, felt a lot better. I was making reasonable progress, making me thing that it was at least possible, if I kept up my break-neck rate, to do it in time, just barely. But I was going to be doing a 3 day cross-country drive, already exhausted, and have no time to catch my breath before class started the very next day.
Then, around 6 pm today, I realized, (after double and triple checking it) that I had a full 14 less assignments than I thought I had. That's the only reason I'm writing this now. Suddenly, I had actual time. I could leave on my planned day, rather than the last minute, and have a day to settle-in and allow for something unforeseen on the trip over. I had actual time to pack up my stuff. I could do a few things besides my homework over the next few days. It was a euphoric feeling.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to be working all day every day, but it is no longer the desperate, getting angry at every delay, no time to relax, constant push for speed that I find so stressful. Now it's just the level of busyness that keeps me focused and on my toes, without the panicked stress of "how the heck am I possibly going to get this all done."
I like having work-mates: someone who's just working on their own thing in the same room. It keeps me focused and happy, and I've discovered that my girlfriends cats do a good job of that. Also, my training as a disciplinarian of children seems to somewhat transfer to the cats. I think I'm a better cat disciplinarian, because of that experience.
I haven't mentioned this yet, but reflecting on all I've learned over the year, I think I've gotten to a place where I can discipline without it being personal, either for me or for the kids. It's a much less stressful way of doing things. It doesn't feel like I'm fighting their wills. I'm just laying down the law and enforcing it, and they know it's not a personal grievance or vendetta when I do that. I don't get angry, they don't feel attacked. I'm not tense and contracted trying to force something, they don't feel personally repressed by me. It feels a lot healthier in every way that what I started out with, or the other side when I was trying to be disciplinarian but it did feel personal and I was actually getting angry.
I think theres still lots further to go and much more to learn, but I'm really happy with what I managed to learn, this year.
OK, the end for this week. Next week in San Diego!
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Sick. Idiosyncratic. Cat scientist.
I'm thinking of pretending to get hip to y'all and get hootsuite or something so I can simultaneously post to all mediums (facebook twitter, instagram, etc.) when my blog is out. (does instagram even work that way? I heard it was for posting pictures. anyways) and maybe getting a new website, with wordpress or something that's a little more functional.
Anyhoo, not now. no time for it.
But I was just getting home from a weary Friday afternoon at work (especially weary since I'm exhausted from being on my feet working despite being sick enough that I should have ideally been resting in bed) and as I got home I thought of how I was going through a very similar skeleton of routine as the average male my age, but as a very different animal:
I get home from my demanding job as a Montessori preschool teacher
and think TGIF as I crack open a nice cool can of coconut water
and get ready to relax on my couch in front of a laptop playing some Twitch "let's play" videos of "Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney".
OK, that's all I have for now. Really I just wanted to record the color-coded tidbit, but while I'm thinking of it, I just heard some juicy gossip that one of my friends who's been avoiding dating, has started. It's not a bad bit of gossip. For me, it just makes me happy. He's a really great guy, and people who know him, know it, so hopefully he will find a really great girl. And I know now that when that happens, it really is a cause for celebration. It does make life better. I just hope he has the right kind of high standards, and the right kind of "good enough" standards. There are some things that it's very important not to settle on, and other things that people think will be important, that don't matter, and often people ignore or devalue the important things and way over-value the unimportant ones.
OK, now it's Sunday night. So exhausted still. Just got the bare minimum chores done, laundry, basic cleaning, a few things that had to get prepared for today. It's frustrating because I need to be working super hard now, to get all my stuff done on time, but my brain isn't good for it, and my energy levels won't let me do very much before I get exhausted and need a nap.
Welp, that's this week. It's been pretty much all week. Not exciting or particularly positive, but some weeks are just like that. I'm gonna go to bed now and hope I get over the brain fog low energy part of it soon. Good night, see ya next week.
Oh, I'm house-sitting/cat-sitting at my girlfriends, and I'm discovering that it's fun to feed the cats. And give them love when they want it and I have time. I like getting to know them, they're good people. A few data points in my hypothesis that pets end up being reflections of their owners in large ways.
Anyhoo, not now. no time for it.
But I was just getting home from a weary Friday afternoon at work (especially weary since I'm exhausted from being on my feet working despite being sick enough that I should have ideally been resting in bed) and as I got home I thought of how I was going through a very similar skeleton of routine as the average male my age, but as a very different animal:
I get home from my demanding job as a Montessori preschool teacher
and think TGIF as I crack open a nice cool can of coconut water
and get ready to relax on my couch in front of a laptop playing some Twitch "let's play" videos of "Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney".
OK, that's all I have for now. Really I just wanted to record the color-coded tidbit, but while I'm thinking of it, I just heard some juicy gossip that one of my friends who's been avoiding dating, has started. It's not a bad bit of gossip. For me, it just makes me happy. He's a really great guy, and people who know him, know it, so hopefully he will find a really great girl. And I know now that when that happens, it really is a cause for celebration. It does make life better. I just hope he has the right kind of high standards, and the right kind of "good enough" standards. There are some things that it's very important not to settle on, and other things that people think will be important, that don't matter, and often people ignore or devalue the important things and way over-value the unimportant ones.
OK, now it's Sunday night. So exhausted still. Just got the bare minimum chores done, laundry, basic cleaning, a few things that had to get prepared for today. It's frustrating because I need to be working super hard now, to get all my stuff done on time, but my brain isn't good for it, and my energy levels won't let me do very much before I get exhausted and need a nap.
Welp, that's this week. It's been pretty much all week. Not exciting or particularly positive, but some weeks are just like that. I'm gonna go to bed now and hope I get over the brain fog low energy part of it soon. Good night, see ya next week.
Oh, I'm house-sitting/cat-sitting at my girlfriends, and I'm discovering that it's fun to feed the cats. And give them love when they want it and I have time. I like getting to know them, they're good people. A few data points in my hypothesis that pets end up being reflections of their owners in large ways.
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