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Tuesday, 25 September 07
heading down
as fall semester started i knew that what lays on the other end of the semester - the goal i so desire to get to, is also the time of year that i dread the most. as i am looking strongly to the end of this thing called 7610, i also know that the x-mas time comes with it. a time that i used to look forward to, but, now, as a 34 year old single woman, a time that i dread. while i could go home to family, when i am around all of them - siblings and step siblings with their kids and partners, my feeling of loss and 'which one of these is not like the others' is heightened to an uncomfortable degree. if i didn't want what they have, i wouldn't be bothered, but i do, so i am bothered.
so, i'm not sure what to do. i want to go to oregon, but.. will anyone be there for me? does anyone want to spend that day with me? am i important enough to anyone, but my family of birth, to spend the day with them?
these days i'm trying not to focus on what i don't have. i'm trying to focus on what i do. but as i'm planning for the end of stats, i know that the time of year when it is so difficult to avoid what i try not to focus on is coming. i need to come up with strategies, plans so that i don't fall into the darkness i fell into last year.
Posted by brooke at 11:40 PM
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Late night confessions of a lazy PhD student.
It often helps if I confess my sins in my public journal. Well, not confess my sins, but, ramble on about how I may have screwed things up here and there.
So. That said.
I screwed up and let things fall by the wayside with the study I'm conducting. It's not as though I need to be there face to face, but it would have been good if I'd checked in with them sooner than 1 month. Agh. The only thing I have on my side - a very understanding teacher at the program I'm working with. I guess it's a sign that a bit of the old Brooke is still laying around, eh? The old Brooke let things fall by the wayside all the time and didn't care.
We were going to work on an article this semester, but I emailed the group kind of huffily about how busy I am. I guess I'm busy putting off so many other tasks that I just feel overwhelmed by my over all workload. My workload wouldn't be so bad if I just did my work in a timely manner.
What else? I need to be returning calls of friends who's presence in my life makes such a difference. Yes, I am a crappy crappy friend. But, I'm too busy being lazy that I don't do it. So, I tell them I'm busy.. but I'm not busy, I'm just busy being lazy.
Can I recover from this unprofessional behavior? I hope so. I hope I can redeem myself. At some point this week I'm going to talk to my major prof about my program of study, and my wish to explore a topic that is related to us, but to the side, rather than directly. It's because my laziness is starting me to worry about future employment (I want to be).
I hope I can continue to learn from these periods of relapse back into lazy Brooke and pick up the pace again, while doing it unstressed and with a bit more joy. I need to not dread stats. I need to not focus so much on the exhaustion. I need to not be overwhelmed and rather instead learn how to focus better on difficult tasks.
I wrote a note to my doc back in Eugene tonight - I'm sending her a payment. At the bottom I thanked her for all that she's done for me through the years - there simply not enough thank you's. I ended by telling her I look forward to the day that she opens a package with a hardbound copy of my dissertation and her name in the thank you's in the beginning. In order to get to that point I need to step up my game again, play at the level I know I can, the level I played at to get hired on with my current research group. I don't want to let my chair down, I don't want to let the director of our group down. Most of all though, I don't want to let myself down.
*sigh* but I also want to enjoy my moments of laziness. Really. I just hope that my moments of productivenes are enough to accomplish all that I want to. I want to reach for the stars and grab them. I want to find that place deep within me and change the world. I need to hold up my end of the bargain so that the sweet A.B. from Dancing on the Edge can rest from carrying so many of our bargains. I need to, because it feels good, because it is my duty.
Now, now I just hope that my laziness hasn't screwed things up wildly at my study. I'll just hold on and hope, really hard.
Posted by brooke at 02:43 AM
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Thursday, 20 September 07
authentic intention
i'm constantly amazed at my friend angel and what he writes in his blog on tribe.net. all of this stuff that i think about all the time - living with intention, being in the present, learning to live with love rather than anger, etc - he actually writes about and appears to live every day. honestly, a lot of me is jealous, because i wish i could live such a life, and then there's the other side of me (the one i like a lot better) who simply looks to angel as an example of where i can go towards, where i can be, what i can do, how i can live my life.
because, it seems, for me, these days are filled with a lot of pushing through exhaustion. i wake up in the morning, think about what the day ahead of me has in store - what is on the calendar, what i can't miss, what i can miss, what i can put off until tomorrow- and then i think about when i get to fall back in bed again. spending my days pushing through exhaustion isn't a nice way to live, and there are days - like yesterday - when i give in to it. i don't get on my bike to ride to the bus and then up the hill. i simply stay in bed for most of the day, getting done just what i need to for the day, and hope that the next day will be different, hoping that i will wake up the next day with more energy, knowing in the back of my mind that that wish is unlikely.
but i do my best, because i know that with every task accomplished, every paper written, every email sent, every assignment completed, that is one less that i have to do, one less that takes me closer to finishing this degree and, hopefully leaving utah. not that it is absolutely awful here, and not that my life in eugene was spectactular, but it certainly felt easier. living in utah feels difficult, like i'm moving on a different wavelength than most people here. and i look forward to the day when i point my car.. who knows what direction.. with my belongings, starting out new some place else, hopefully where there are more people on my wave, people who don't think i am the freak, rather that i am just like them. yes, i think some of my exhaustion has to do with that different vibration, the constant fighting against the different, the craving to be back home where i am a part of the homogeny. if not home to eugene, some place similiar - like madison, ann arbor, berkeley or boulder. towns (cities) with huge quaker meetings and big beautiful uu fellowship houses.
Posted by brooke at 09:57 AM
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Wednesday, 19 September 07
CT
long time readers of this weblog will remember a year ago, how i wrote about the death of this young woman who i'd never met, yet who's story helped me to better process and understand my own father's battle with this damn cancer thing - who's story has touched my heart deeply.
christi thomas's mother has continued to write in their weblog over the last year. she has continued to share her story with complete strangers. i have no idea why angela thomas has done this, but, honestly, i'm glad she has. though i tend to be one who is touched deeply by stories like the thomas's, angela's story, christi's story, continues to affect me to a greater degree than so many other stories. and, honestly, that i get to support these strangers is a true honour.
it was a year ago today that christi died. 9 years old, 9am on 9/19. it is an anniversary her family is suffering through. if you have a moment today to think about strangers, i'm sure christi's family would be terribly humbled if you thought about them.
Posted by brooke at 12:49 AM
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Wednesday, 12 September 07
jodi foster on guns.
"I really don't think that kind of power should be in the hands of feeling human beings." ~Jodi Foster on Guns, said on the Daily Show, 9.12.07
Posted by brooke at 09:27 PM
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Monday, 10 September 07
anita roddick, thank you.
one of my most favourite books of all times is 'a revolution in kindness' by anita roddick. i turn to it in times of anger or sadness at either my immediate world, or the world at large.. it gives me hope and it reminds me to stop my anger reaction and instead turn towards kindness. i'm grateful for this little orange book because that someone conceived it means that there are people like me who hope to turn our (sometimes much deserved and culturally encouraged) anger into something that will actually do good.
so, anita roddick died today in london. she was rich, and though some people may not like the fact that she was as rich as she was, at least she acknowledged what she had and she knew she needed to do something with it. she used her power for good, for those far less fortunate than she was. when i saw the headlines shock hit the heart. no, this is not a death that brings tears to me, but my second or third reaction was 'i hope there is someone there to carry on her torch, because we need more people like her, and - selfishly - more books like 'a revolution in kindness.'
thank you anita, thanks for all that you did, and for the legacy you've left to us.
edited to add:
i know, i know, i need to do my part to carry on her torch. maybe the 2nd book i write (the first being my dissertation) will be 'a revolution in kindness, 2nd ed.'
Posted by brooke at 08:49 PM
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Saturday, 8 September 07
random thought about living in logan..
! i'm a fucking peace activist from eugene oregon! and i say words like fuck and queer!
Posted by brooke at 01:29 AM
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Wednesday, 5 September 07
grumpy.
i'm having another grumpy afternoon. i have a lot of grumpy afternoons. i think it just comes with the territory of having class in the afternoon. frankly, i'd rather have class early in the morning when i'm too tired to notice what's happening. by the end of the day i just want to go home and have my time be my own, rather than someone else's. esp. when that someone else is teaching statistics. yes, it's facinating stuff, but, darnit, i'm tired of taking classes from the psych department. they have very different methods of evaluation than we do down here, and our methods of evaluation fit my style much better. So, thinking of what is keeping me from home just makes me grumpy.
Posted by brooke at 03:28 PM
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