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Adjectives
I’ve been working on values and what exactly they are and what they mean to me. The guiding definition is a state of being that I am continuously working toward. Goals, by contrast, are achievements along the way. This definition is startling because it flips aspects of personal growth. I have read countless articles and media click-bait about how to achieve goals. What I’m learning is that the goals aren’t really the point. This concept made sense once I was challenged by “what happens when the goal is achieved?” The goals becomes a checkmark; that’s all. There’s no other interaction with them. I can achieve them, then what? Values are…
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Questionable Vacation rest
From July fourth to July seventh I was in my most favorite geographic place, the north woods of Wisconsin. I get nervous when I try to explain why this area ranks above anywhere else because in order to do so, and do it with justice, I need to display a part of myself that few see: the mystic, connected to Mother Earth, all of a sudden I have an extra sense person. It goes something like this: Every time I come up here time stops. Every time I come up here I feel closer to nature. While I am here I feel truer to myself and the insignificant pressures of…
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Values
It is an interesting coincidence that in therapy we are just started to work on values. Without going into the necessity of therapy, the values study is a piece of acceptance and committment therapy. The idea of this therapy is to base our actions on our values in order to live fully. What I am discovering is that values are more simple and more complicated than I expect. The simple view is that values are what we desire and want most in our life. The complicated view is how do we distinguish a “want” as a somthing fundamental and important versus a “want” that is superficial and unimportant. And by…
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Badass life
I realized on my first train home today, that it’s time to acknowledge that I have a pretty badass life. A few examples: I regularly get on a train home and have stimulating conversations about feminism, sci-fi/fantasy book discussions, current events, and a myriad of other topics I get to spend my day doing what I like: educating people about resources and teaching them about data management I get to spend other parts of my day trying to answer questions that are interesting to me and that I think are valuable to the science and library science community I get to come home to family and three (!) dogs. I…
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Clarity
I’ve been sick for almost a week. Last week started with a sore throat late Friday and becoming a lingering annoyance Saturday. By Sunday I was feeling the full effects, aches and raw, painful swallowing. It’s now Thursday and I have been drugging myself for days to be functional. Chloraceptic in the beginning, moving to ibuprofen for the aches. These last two days have ended with sinus-induced, blistering headaches, incompletely managed through hot compresses and the serious drugs. Between the pain and the side effects of drugs, I haven’t slept well in days. Being overstimulated is generally bad for my anxiety. Over the years I have learned to recognize that…
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Headaches
Blistering headache to end the workday. The bitter chill of the bike ride to the train station did it. I was optomistic that the sun and building body heat would keep it from happening, but no. There is a steady breeze directly into my ears and I’m done for. I’ve been doing strange stretches on the train to ease my neck. I’ve taken off my glasses because they have been pushing on my right ear and creating some pain. They are sitting on the seat next to me and I’m hoping that a sudden stop doesn’t fling them somewhere. I’m cautious about looking too far down in order to see…
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Summer work
The semester is over and we are officially in intercession. The building has been quiet, but that hasn’t stopped the work. I need to turn in the first draft of this years performance review. I’m somewhat hesitant to look at it and see what targets I miscalculated on. However, I am looking forward to writing this years goals because I have a more focused idea in mind. I seriously want to have one goal with many facets to that goal. Last year I had several goals and some were dependent on others instead of me. I need to make sure the I get the basic foundation of my liaisionship stable…
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Manuscripts
Today I was talking with a colleague and realized that I have five papers to attempt to write in the coming year. Three in the general field of informatics support (on about to be submitted), one on the data management pilot project that I am leading. I give a talk on that one in a few weeks. And last, a collaboration on case studies in DM. It’s going to be a busy year. And I can’t tell you how convenient (although statistically improbable) that I would be converted to tenure-track this year. Just so all this work “counts,” especially since I will be first author on at least two of…
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It’s not as simple as “Stop Whining”
I think I have gotten away from writing lately because all I seem to be doing is either whining, or listing out my day. Even as I write this, I feel the urge to start the litany. To list all the injustices in the system I am working in and the volume of what needs to get done. Instead I’m tring to force my thought processes into a new direction and see if I can examine the source of this behavior. With some introspection behind it (no real epiphany though), I can sum these processes up with “garbage in, garbage out.” My of the whining comes from listening to coworkers…
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Direction
My last entry was over a month ago. I hadn’t realized that the time slipped by. I also didn’t realize that my Grandmother’s thank you letter from Christmas was sitting under my insurance renewal papers. I’m on the express train home because it’s my husband’s birthday. We’ll see what the mood is like when I get there. His birthdays are starting to take the flavor of self-fulfilling prophecies. The specific flavor I can’t get into in this forum, lack of readership or not. One thing has been true more often than not. It’s snowing. It seems to do that on his birthday. But aside from the home drama, not much…