Thanksgiving

1. I am profoundly appreciative of my mother in my life. She is strong, smart, patient, fiery, no-nonsense, caring, respectable, loving woman. She is a good template that I can hang my own characteristics on. She is my best friend, my role model and fiercest supporter.

2. I have been lucky to be able to study in a place of my choosing.

3. I am lucky to live in a place that many people only get to vacation to.

4. I am very glad to have found two good people out there in internetland. One provokes me to think about my situation from a different point of view, and the other brings succour, helpful anecdotes and sympathy. (I would love to be able to wander through the web world of yours, VJ)

5. I am healthy. More or less. This is more than many can say, so I will not take it for granted.

6. I have a great cat that has been a wonderful companion for 6 years. I will enjoy all my moments with him and hope that he stays healthy.

7. I am lucky to have known great love in my life.

8. I am grateful for the knowledge that time does heal. Even if a scar remains, the gaping wound eventually closes.

9. My friends back home give me a feeling of grounding. I am thankful for them.

10. I am glad to own my dream jeep (1984 CJ7.) Owning it has let me live the dream, and now I am ready to move on from it when I return back stateside (give me something with shocks and doors, please!)

11. I am glad that I have direction and a sense of purpose. This helps me steer my own boat, rather then be dashed every which-a-way by the currents of change.

12. I am fortunate to have a forum into which I can distill my thoughts. Or purge them-unconsolidated.

13. I had a wonderful experience in DC this summer, one that has shaped my direction and finalized my own thoughts on the next step. I am grateful to have had a wonderful mentor and friend there and hope to retain that relationship.

14. I enjoy my adult peer-like relationship that is emerging with my brothers and look forward to years of it in the future.

15. I am grateful for hope.

16. I am more thankful for my recent chemical lobodomy.

Meds or Peace? and Gratitude

So how do you know if crazy person medications are to credit with a semblence of normality or if it is more of the time as salve option? I am a few days into the meds and don't really think they could work that fast, so maybe it is just time.

I am thinking a lot on gratitude with the upcoming holiday, and I am glad to have two great readers/responders for my thoughts. It is like I yell into a canyon and a voice yells back saying, "hey, you aren't alone. I'm not an echo. Try thinking on this..."

So I am working on gratitude. This will help redirect my thoughts away from the what I don't have or have lost to the what I am glad to have.

Think on this with me. And I will write more later this week.

Random

So I am not usually into the chain mail/blog tag type thing, but I saw this and thought it was cute. then I did it and was "whoa"-ed by how accurate it was. To the regular me. Not to the me that anyone that reads the blog thinks I am. Or at least more like the me that I usually am, or the surface me, or....ok, enough already, just put in the info!

Your Birthdate: December 21

You're a restless rebel with an unpredictable nature. Bright but unbridled, you tend to seek out wild experiences over new ideas. People are frustrated by your great potential, but you love your unconventional life. You're a heartbreaker. People get attached to you, and then you're gone. Your strength: Your thirst for adventure Your weakness: Not taking time for slow pleasures Your power color: Hot pink Your power symbol: Figure eight Your power month: March

The bouncing happy face

Okay, el gato has been diagnosed with the FIP causing coronavirus. But I will not freak out until he shows symptoms.


I dug through my luggage to find a bottle of prescrips that I thought I remember being there. Zoloft. Not prescribed to me, but people self medicate with alcohol all the time. So last night I popped one. I don't know if the placebo effect will kick in, and just the idea of taking a mood stabilizer will make me stabilize or the actual medicine will do it. I am not comfortable with taking medicines, so taking one that isn't even prescribed to me, is a bit weird. But there is only a month's worth in the bottle, and if it seems to help, then I will get out to the old doctor and get some legitimally.

I hate the idea of being one of "those people" on drugs, just to maintain an even keel, but some people need it, and it may be that I am one of "those people" right now. I am really hoping that this is situational malaise/blues/depression (I hate that word) and will dissipate as I pull my life piece by piece back from the brink of mental collapse (again too lady-like a visual, more like mental implosion) that I am currently flirting with.

In an effort to be personally involved in the rebuilding of myself and life, rather than wishfully hoping for it all to fall back together, I present for the committee's review: "The Better Kc Plan!"

Wait, Wait , Wait. We know you here, you have done this plan before.
No, really, that was just for losing weight. The is the new and improved "Better Kc Plan."
So, what's the difference then?

Well, it goes like this:
1. Drug myself into happiness (or at least away from mleh.)
2. Get my ass in gear at least 30 minutes five days a week (for that more natural endorphin boost)
3. Take lunches away from my data and enjoy the small dock (see, meditation aspect...)
4. Enjoy my little furry cat boyfriend as well as I can (the practice of appreciation.)
5. Enjoy one non data related fun thing a week (movie, event, out for a drink, social aspect.)
6. Feel triumphant for the small victories with my thesis, for each small victory brings me closer to the large one.
7. Be in better phone contact with my three ace girls at home (mental and social aspect.)
8. Try to find one small happiness or apprciation every day. One good thing about being where I am, while I am here.

So there you have it the Mind/Body/Spirit Better Kc Plan. Filled with simple things that I can accomplish, even among my limited resources of armpit island. Got more ideas that I should put into ze plan?

Feeling in control of something in your life, even if it is just a silly list like this, is uplifting and energizing and wonderful (that may just be the drugs talking.)


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Thesis Victories:
3/4 of the way through with the Matrix redo. I expect to be done with it (again) by the end of the week. My professor returns on Tuesday, so then we can chat about the next step. And I have begun writing. In fact, all I have left to put in is a section on ontogeny, the results,discussion and my appendices of tables. And voila. done. It is amazing to see all that I have left to do summed into one sentence. One very approachable, very easily broken down into manageable targets little sentence.

Random Victory for the "Other" program:
I was writing furiously for a term paper two nights ago. Write Write Write. At about 4500 words, I stop for the night. Yesterday, I write some more and outline what I need to put in it to make it to 10000 words. Happened to glance at the syllabus, only 500! Yay, so a month a head of schedule, I am essentially done with ze term paper. One big load off my back, let me tell you. So I am in the sprucing up of what I wrote stage.

Even though they are supposed to come in threes, here is #4

The capacity a human has for grief and stress is amazing. I watched Birth the other night and thought this. Like foreshadowing of dire events to come, however, it did leave a pall over my days until the hammer dropped.

My roommate informed me that her stray-cum-adopted cats carry feline FIP. It is nasty. It is aerosol. It is contagious. It is fatal.

So my little boyfriend went in for a battery of bloodwork this morning. Comprehensive feline blood tests? Bloody expensive! I hope to hear that he is fine. I will have to ship him to live with my mother if he is, just to get him out of the house. Apparently the idea of having two infectious animals with a healthy one does not lead to the next logical conclusion of getting rid of the sick ones. So I will try to get my lovely orange buddy evacuated from the area.

What do the two thoughts have to do with each other? Every time I think I have hit the bottom... a trap door opens beneath me to a whole new loss, a whole new low I couldn't perceive possible.

I wish I had been stronger. "No, he is an indoor cat, do not put him outside, even if he is on a leash." "No, you cannot bring a stray into the house." "No you cannot bring another stray into the house."
My weakness might have signed the death warrant on my little buddy.

Mental wicket

So something I have been mildly grappling with (only mildly since it is decently in the distance) is this: Is it better to get a prestigious fellowship after gradschool (this sets you up to get placement with *insert govt agency here*) or to get a job with the agency straight away?

Fellowship pros:
You get that byline on the old resume' "XXX Fellow" (and it opens doors...)
Fellowship cons:
Procrastinate PhD program entry (although the fellowship could help me get into a program...

Agency placement pros:
Well, work. Money. Experience.
Agency cons:
Might not be the exact fit or desire to work there...

These are my mental battles that deal only with me right now.
A taste of what else I think about other than DCS and Thesis.

Fellowship application deadline in March, going to put in for it, no matter what I decide about the mental wicket. Keep the option open, you know? But still the mental gymnastics...

Closet Girl

So I have four brothers, and my mother is not a girly girl. I was raised to be rough and tumble with the boys and that has made me the hyper competitive, never say die, independent, edgy person that I am. It has also overwhelmed any girly girl that I might have or wish to have. Makes me view any of those traits as shamefully weak. So this tomboy is the person that men fall in love with, when they fall in love with me. That brash, outgoing, opinionated, outboy the boys type of a tomboy.

Over the past four years though, I have gotten very comfortable in being that person, but also letting more of the interior person out. That girly girl. The one who wears pink, and bakes and feels insecure sometimes, and emotional and sometimes jealous and all the more typical (stereotypical?) feminine traits. Then I get a ration of shit about not being the person he fell in love with. Damn me and my multi facets. Damn me for feeling comfortable enough to bring more parts of me into the light.

So the real yick of today's thought is this. When I get hurt or just move on from a relationship, I draw up that strong, independent powerful woman around me as armor. Then some stiff falls in love with that unattainable, cool, aloof, capable, mannish, omnipotent person. And then is surprised as that eventually melts away to reveal another aspect(not a different, just another aspect of who I am.)

So, I guess I would need to put a out a personal ad to the effect of: SWF, 26, in search of SWM, 26+ able to be Prince Charming to both Cruella Deville/Queen Malificent/Eleanor Roosevelt and closet Sleeping Beauty/Cinderella/etc.

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Thesis Update: I have begun writing! I am tempering my data analysis with bouts of writing, so this has left me with only the ontogenetic stage characterization left to write and the appendices to add (which is what the data is going to give me) and then write a little bit (very little bit) about the results and then carry on in a discussion. Three parts: Ontogeny, Results and Discussion. Granted the discussion is the hardest part to write and the appendices will be huge, but still I am quite pleased with the movement.

Personal Ad addendum

And Prince Charming will spout such charming ideas as the song included within the link above.

King of Mixed Signals

Email (from our shared engagement account):

"Love you Kc, still check up on our life together, thinking i may hear from you in this secret place to communicate. I have missed hearing your sweet voice. I miss you and love you, i worry so much when i do not hear from you, i hope all is okay. you are in my thoughts.

DCS"

Really, what in the world does he expect me to do with that coupled with all of the other. The male mind is so out my my intellectual grasp...

Remember that oldish song?
"Should I stay or should I go, now?
If I stay, there will be trouble,
If I leave, there will be double."

The evening report concludes, thusly.

Morning edition

*sigh* to have a fella like VJ and an ace girl like Chel...

I am being productive, just in other things. My policy program is too easy to ignore, then an exam sneaks up and scares the bejesus out of me, making me drop everything and pay attention there. So thus I am, snapped to attention, furiously reading text, watching class and trying to be up to snuff on "emergy."

No that isn't misspelled. The guy invented three new laws of thermodynamics, and new science word and has never mentioned to the class that it is in fact, a theory. I hope the other "kids" in class aren't suckers and have figured that part out....

That's all folks.

Changing my thesis

So I think I could write a really good thesis on heartbreak and breakup. Please refer to asschronicles.blogspot.com for a very short study on the topic to be submitted to Nature (c with a little circle around it to protect the commercialism of said journal/magazine.)

Really. A whole sociological science study (of which I have no authority, expertise or experience to write) on why one should not date to therefore potentially break up during grad school. Base (and please don't swipe my stellar research ideas, here...) is this: Grad students don't have time to date, which naturally kills a relationship, grad students move around, which naturally kills relationships, grad students are poor, which naturally stalls relationships, grad students are supposed to be thinking about other things as top priorities, which naturally kills relationships or relationships kill theses. When the break up inevitably occurs, the distraction of it takes too much time away from the work at hand. Productivity plummets. To levels never thought possible before.

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Thesis update: No work on data this week (didn't see that one coming, didja?!?!) But really I have an exam in my "other" grad program, and I haven't watched class since the last exam. Think good thoughts for me on Friday. And a monster paper to write on MPAs for the other program. Damn you, "other" program. Damn me, overachiever.

Generally this wouldn't be a thing, except my prof is leaving for two weeks, and I expect to be at a place of questioning in about a week. So a week of cooling my heels, right around Thanksgiving (which I will be here on armpit island, alone since DCS won't be coming. Not that he has gotten the balls to say that. But he doesn't have a ticket. Oh - and I haven't spoken to him in over a week. That might play a part too. Almost fell off the wagon the other night, but fate intervened with voicemail rather than voice, at which point I clambered back onto the wagon and hung up. And then tried to smother myself. You can't do that, by the way. Nature intervenes, you pass out and muscles relax before your body expires.)