Learning Curve

It sucks that an inevitable part of the learning curve in graduate school is figuring out how to handle being pissed on from a very great height.

After a small panic-y breakdown and some hours to consider, my solution is thus:

1. Try to ascertain the cause of the technological problem at hand
2. Calmly explain the results to the one who is pissed
3a. IF person calms down or becomes otherwise rational, continue with my job, and go to 4.
3b. IF person continues to be irrational and does not land after flying off the handle, quit.
4. Continue with my job working hard to minimize future errors and issues.

Yep, I have decided after reflection that the paltry amount that I'm paid (hourly) for this job is not worth putting up with people who can't handle problems in a constructive and useful way. I may be a graduate student, I may be poor, and I may have to deal with consequences down the line. But I will not be anyone's flogging post just because they think it's OK to treat underlings like dirt. I didn't put up with it 2 years ago, and I'm not about to put up with it now.

We'll see how this all falls out.

Timeline

Time sure does seem to get away from me.  And when time isn't sprinting past, I'm much too good at frittering away and wasting time.

I try to be organized an productive. I make lists, I break large projects into smaller tasks, and I'm even working on getting out of bed earlier in the day. When I do have a hard and fast deadline I'm good at getting things done. It's the lack of deadlines, or loosy-goosy deadlines that are my bane. It's so easy to put things off when there's no end point for the task in question.

So. Shawn has two student defending their doctoral dissertations with in the next two weeks. After he's done with them and has time again, I am going to have a sit down with him to hammer out a solid timeline. AND I'm not going to show up at the meeting empty handed. I will have at least a detailed outline of my dissertation proposal and a list of people whom I intend on contacting as potential committee members. I may end of having to do some things out of "order," such as writing my full proposal this summer and then having my oral examinations at the beginning of fall term, but that will allow me to launch into my research and writing once my exams are out of the way.

So now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go read 16 pages in Cultivating Communities of Practice, 1 dissertation related article, post 3 things on Craigslist, clean my kitchen, and look over some work materials for an upcoming meeting. Not in that particular order.

spring break

Ahhh, Spring break hasn't been kind to me.  I helped Jenn with her garage sale organizing and we ate Pot Belly sandwiches, and thunderclouds sandwiches and I age home made cinnamonon rolls with pecans and last night we had mexican food.  This morning I weighed 134.5 lbs.  GUH!!!
Tomorrow night it's new orleans seafood.  How can I resist?
no dessert?
maybe grilled instead of fried.

Swamped

It's been a while. This past month if I haven't been actively working on something I've been almost completely shut down. Every time I start scrabbling up the side of the mountain of things I have to do,  it feels like an avalanche buries me again. It is overwhelming and, at times, disheartening.

Right now I'm going to go see if I can climb at least as high as getting the kitchen clean...

sugar is my downfall

I'm still struggling with too much sugar in my life. 
Yesterday I had a couple of small candies. 
Saturday's food:
cornflakes, skim milk, 50% sugar o.j.
oatmeal, skim milk
one bean/beef chalupa, one beef puffy taco, chips, one beer.
one mint candy
one tootsie pop without the tootsie roll.
water

I know it seems like not too much, but I would like to add more vegies and less breads.
sugars:  milk  sugars, bread starch, sugar from oj and candies, sugars in cornflakes.

counting calories

well, I decided to count my calories and fat intake for the day:
breakfast:
milk   80/0
corn flakes 100/0
oj 50/0
splenda 0/0

snack:
coffee w/ 1/2 & 1/2  20/0
breat & butter:  bread homemade (unknown) butter 100/11

lunch:
1 small piece pizza from EZ's (unknow)
oj  50/0
chocolate piece 30/3

Snack:
activia  110/2
chips  140/6

Dinner:
Chicken 160/8
dressing 110/1
cauliflower  ?/11
strawberries ?
with coolwhip 20/1

Snack:
1/4 small bag popcorn from Target (unknown)

Well, I did pretty well until I was tempted by the popcorn.  Too much salt, but I only ate about a quarter of the bag.
Total: at least 970 calories and 43 g of fat.

February Check-in

January went fairly well. I'm building a habit of going to the gym twice a week, I've found a machine that I really like using, and watching Netflix really does make it feel faster than 30 minutes. So far I've lost about 3 pounds according to the scale, but I think I've also been building muscle.

I finally finished a long outstanding spinning project, 2 ounces of carbonized bamboo is now 336 yards of heavy lace weight yarn.

I found a fantastic deal on a new (to me) wheel this past Saturday, so I purchased a Lendrum with awesome accessories, and so far it's been a wonderful spinning wheel. Most importantly it does not hurt my back the way the Joy did during long spinning sessions.

I am still tired from this past Saturday, which was the annual Newport spin-in. The weather was perfection, the company was excellent, the bargain on my wheel was epic. But it was a whole day of being around lots of people and being engaged and social, which is really quite draining for me. Yesterday was a wash for me as it was mostly spent on recuperation, today might require a bit of white tea to get me going. I've got lots to do for work and school, and I'm determined this week to not fall behind on things.