Day Multiple

It's been a few days since I posted last. Which isn't to say I've forgotten to be grateful -- I am grateful. Works goes on, I've been meeting friends (and still calling myself grumpy cats), the apartment search continues. I am getting better at taking notes using my stylus and reducing the amount of paper in my life. Work is a little bit more balanced (grateful for the good people hired :)). I met friends from my fellowship today (I meet them often, this was just a subset I spent a lot of time with) -- it was such fun, time flew by and I remembered why I enjoyed it -- I enjoy easy company with friends, it is when we run out of conversation and silence that when it gets harder. My days have a happy little ribbon tied to them, conversations that I look forward to. That's all folks :)

Day 5, calmly chaotic

Today started early. Early mornings are tricky for me but I made it to work. We were out for a site visit and when I returned to work, my very nice colleague had gone to the new gym that opened close to us and got me a free yoga mat as instructed (I don't need it, I just wanted some free swag). I had a chance to attend an event about equitable funding, take the Metra, and meet a friend who I am very fond of. It was a day full of a lot of different things but even though the sum of it felt chaotic, I did not let it get to me. I have the fleeting thought that I'm forgetting to worry about something, that I shouldn't be as calm as I feel. But that will pass. I'm absorbing every single details of the Poirot series on Netflix. I am grateful today for how rich my life is in the different kinds of experiences I have, places I go to and people I meet. I am also glad I am occasionally able to remember how meaningful each individual piece even if the sum is overwhelming.

Day 4, rested and thoughtful

Despite my usual waking up to work emails routine, I caught a quick second nap and woke up rested. Take a second with that, I woke up rested. It doesn't happen. My whole work day had no meetings and I got a lot done, while not on constant alert. Being constantly hyperaware is exhausting and I've only recently started to notice how unconsciously tense I am. It was a calmer day, it was a good day. I made some progress with hiring for the team I am building and it reminds me that I am doing something here. Days like this, I don't mind the long hours. Towards the end, I was chatting with colleagues and it was convivial, a pleasant in-between moment between leaving work and being back home/outside. I'm out in the field tomorrow and that will be interesting -- I think the key to this week has been the number of unexpected and new experiences. They keep me curious. I think day 4 was full of more aware gratitude :)

Day 3, still trying, still here

A-comforting-background-noise-sort-of-gratitude

I woke up today, dealt with lots of work emails and fell asleep. Of course I ran late and usually that makes me twitchy. I tried to stay calm and I was grateful not to myself, but the work space that allows for the occasional lapse. I had a long day at work and my favorite, most productive moments are after the office empties out. I was irrationally grateful for the Uber driver on my ride home not wanting to talk. I type this right before bed (hello wicked vivid dreams), knowing I need to wake up in five hours.

...

Decal on a Wall

There's lots going on. Work is in full momentun (and I am enjoying it, even though it has crept a little into my weekends and weeknights). Most days I feel fierce, occasionally I find myself a little tired and today I found myself amused and appalled -- so your regular work life. I have realized that along with the things I do well, I also have to remember that I tend to bluntness and directness that can seem abrasive. I also ask a lot of questions and push hard when I don't get clear answers. This is good to get work done but isn't always a great interpersonal trait. It is what I tend to naturally though and so I have to be conscious about it.

Summer in Chicago is full of hope and sunshine and it is good for my soul. Although without coffee I am nothing. I've been changing the room decor in spurts and now have two walls that are bright and cheerful - one of them has a lovely wall decal sourced via Etsy and the other has cheerful and positive posters from TJ Maxx and Etsy. I really struggled with mood recently and I have decided I can use all the good cheer in my life. 

Here's what is going on

This is my life in pictures these days. I am settling in, everything is unpacked if not correctly stocked and shelved. The neighborhood feels familiar, the dogs don't bark as much when I enter. I know my bus stop and even a few stops before. I have made it to all the giant superstores and hope to explore all the local grocery stores and thrift shops soon. Fall is almost here (you can tell by the amount of pumpkin spice latte advertisements).

I opened the door today only to see this. Now it won't lock properly. 

I poured some butter and Nutella on waffles and called it a day.

Wall decorations. I loved the golden earring above and recently lost one. 

The blue and pink triangles are relics from college.

Blingy earrings I still don't understand why I bought them.

But they look lovely on the wall.

Toss It

Settling in means I've been trying new bus routes, taking walks around the neighborhood, even chilling with my new flatmates one evening. I had Grace and Frankie on in the background and I am so impressed with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin - those ladies are rocking the seventies. There was a baby-birthing scene so inaccurate, it drew a lot of scorn from me. She said and I quote "I think the baby is in my pants" and then there really was a baby in her pants and all of this happened in a few minutes, with her mostly standing. Seriously.

Finding Balance

This is definitely the semester where I am trying to find balance. I try and remember that it is the experience, and not only the end. Also, what good would a grad school degree be if I couldn't enjoy at least parts of it. I'm trying a combination of factors, tweaking and adjusting. The first week is never very indicative of what the rest of the semester will be like. Assignments aren't due yet nor have group projects started. This week (and weekend) have gotten away from me as there are two student-group related tasks on a Friday night and Sunday afternoon. But both are things I am involved with out of will and I am glad to do them (they help provide services for the graduate student body). I do still want to find balance (or equilibrium as the economists would say :)). 

All the missing

I remember so much from my childhood. I remember the childhood I did not have. I remember the childhood I did have. The one that was, for all its warts and flaws, a childhood. I can see that clearly, from the lens of adulthood, closer to thirty than ever. A new year starting is always a place of reflection and remembrance.

ix by Wendell Berry

(Shared by a friend at school)

I go by a field where once

I cultivated a few poor crops.

It is now covered with young trees,

for the forest that belongs here

has come back and reclaimed its own.

And I think of all the effort

I have wasted and all the time,

and of how much joy I took

in that failed work and how much

it taught me. For in so failing

I learned something of my place,

something of myself, and now

I welcome back the trees.

Internet Finds

Please go and check out the cartoon strips at the following link:

www.conniewonnie.com


Current favorites:

http://www.conniewonnie.com/2014/10/just-right-amount-of-tired.html

http://www.conniewonnie.com/2014/09/the-other-side-of-discomfort.html

Too Many Names by Pablo Neruda

Mondays are meshed with Tuesdays

and the whole week with the whole year.

Time cannot be cut

with your exhausted scissors,

and all the names of the day

are washed out by the waters of night.

No one can claim the name of Pedro,

nobody is Rosa or Maria,

all of us are dust or sand,

all of us are rain under rain.

They have spoken to me of Venezuelas,

of Chiles and Paraguays;

I have no idea what they are saying.

I know only the skin of the earth

and I know it has no name.

When I lived amongst the roots

they pleased me more than flowers did,

and when I spoke to a stone

it rang like a bell.

It is so long, the spring

which goes on all winter.

Time lost its shoes.

A year lasts four centuries.

When I sleep every night,

what am I called or not called?

And when I wake, who am I

if I was not I while I slept?

This means to say that scarcely

have we landed into this life

than we come as if new-born;

let us not fill our mouths

with so many faltering names,

with so many sad formalities,

with so many pompous letters,

with so much of yours and mine,

with so much signing of papers.

I have a mind to confuse things,

unite them, make them new-born,

mix them up, undress them,

until all light in the world

has the oneness of the ocean,

a generous, vast wholeness,

a crackling, living fragrance.