True Confessions of a Worrywart

So, I had a realization today.  I was thoroughly enjoying relaxing over lunch, appreciating not having any responsibilities related to Cath's wedding hanging over my head (disclaimer: I was also thoroughly excited about and looking forward to Cath's wedding--I hope that would be obvious, Cath ;) ), when I took a read on my feelings and realized no, there was more to it than just that.  I thought about it and it occurred to me that this is actually the first time in ages that I haven't had something massive hanging over my head.  Before wedding prep it was am-i-going-to-find-a-roommate?  Before that, what decision am I going to make about going to grad school?  Before that, applying to grad schools.  Before that, researching grad schools and studying for the GRE, and before that, am I going to apply to grad school?  Before that, education classes.  Before that, other second-guessed, deadline-driven plans for grad school and the future.  It's been literally years since I haven't had something with a deadline--even if it was self-imposed--hanging over my head that I needed to be working on in my free time.

The future isn't exactly crystal-clear now, per se, but I have a deferred program sitting in my pocket that I don't need to commit to either way for months, and I'm not angsting about it.  And if I decide to do anything related to art, I have a lot of work to do just getting back into my art to the point where I have a good, creative flow going in creating a body of work that would function as a portfolio, and that is best served by taking the pressure off and allowing myself to play.  If I decide to try to edge into design/graphic arts in the meantime, I can take community night classes at Kendall at just about any time with little notice and no application process.  I have absolutely nothing hanging over my head at the moment.

It.

Feels.

Awesome.

This mini epiphany is fresh enough that I'm still getting used to the idea and am not entirely sure what it's going to mean for me and my day-to-day attitude about life.  Generally for me, when one stressful situation is over, a lesser stress point makes itself known and expands to fill the void of the previous stress point.  (I'm a worrier, what can I say?)  Will I start worrying about my love life?  Will I start focusing again on my dissatisfaction with my job, to the point where I feel like I need to take some dramatic action of some sort?  Will some entirely new situation pop up?  Will I just start stressing about stupid things like my hair and weight and personality flaws and completely blow them out of proportion?  I really hope not.  I think I have all those doors basically repaired and shut tight at the moment ...but we'll see what happens.  I feel a little bit like I'm waiting for the second shoe to drop.

In the meantime, however: studio time, canoe time, sweetcorn season, peach season, and maybe a little bit of good reading all demand my attention.  Maybe working on establishing a better sleep schedule.  Cutting down on internet time.  Improving my job performance.  Maybe I can fit in some more church stuff.  We'll see.  For a start, tonight I think I'm going to clean my room.  We'll go from there.

Getting there!

Oh thank God.

I got into MSU's Masters program!!!  I still don't know exactly what I'm going to do, but at the very least, I've gotten one acceptance.  Yay!!!  :D

Operation Snugglenest: Complete

They moved it in this morning, and I stopped by over lunch to arrange things.  I'm very pleased with it.  My room looks a lot more like a room now, and less like a packed-in jumble of furniture.  :)  The only downside is that this is almost as far from the modem as you can get, so movies/youtube videos/etc won't stream well, but I think I'll live.

February update, and other creative descriptors

Well, I got my first grad school rejection.  Duke took very little time in weeding me out.  Six months ago they were my top-choice school -- I'm very glad I've shifted gears since then, or it would've been crushing.  No rejection is fun, but it hasn't been too bad.  Plus, less than half an hour after I found out (last Friday), I also found out that my cousin is having another baby!  Nothing like joyful, important news to put things in perspective.

It's sunny this afternoon, which has been wonderful.  Last I heard, it was supposed to snow all day.  I took my lunch break at a deli that has big, south-facing windows, and sat in the sunshine and read and ate delicious cheddar-smothered roast beef deliciousness, then picked up a coffee on my way back to work.

Tomorrow, I'm having one of my parents' old love-seats delivered.  They didn't have room for it anymore, and I've been wanting a place in my room to curl up and read or whatever.  I'm pretty excited.  Plus, it's the fold-out I slept on as a child, so it's nostalgic.  Woot!  So excited!  Operation Snugglenest: all systems go.

I am having a lot of trouble getting back into the swing with running after my December break to fill out applications.  After I got sick in October, I just sprang right back, so I wasn't expecting it to be quite this hard. :/  I don't know whether it's the weather, what I'm eating, or just that I really did lose that much more ground with a month off than with three weeks being sick, but there's definitely a difference.  Must! Picture! Ryan! Gosling! At! The finish line!  .....With kittens!!!!  Urgh.  Alternately, I could imagine I'm Starbuck, jogging through the halls of the Galactica -- that'll help, right?  Maybe I could get Kim to re-draw that tattoo on my arm.  At any rate, I miss feeling good, and I miss feeling like I'm a ~*~runner~*~.  Y'know?

I've been thinking about giving up my various social media outlets for lent again this year.  It went pretty well last year, and it's functional: around this time of year, the negativity, critical attitude, focus on the negative and shallow, and general douchebaggery that you see on the internet really start to get to me.  Plus, it drives me nuts how little time I have for the things I really care about, and maybe this will help.  I haven't actually been spending much time outside of work online, but maybe it will occupy less headspace so I can think about other things.  Plus, I'll probably be a bit more efficient at work. ;)  I'll keep up with blogs, though.  :)

Also I have a stiff neck.

I hate winter.

I hate winter and I hate job searching and I hate dating and I will be cold and alone and in a job I hate forEVERRRRR.

UGH.

Haaaaaaate.

In which I make up for not blogging by rambling for a very long time, which is obviously everyone's favorite style of blogging

Well, it's a new year, and it's been almost exactly 4 months since my last post.

I was sick in bed for a few weeks in October, then, since Halloween, I've been working on grad school apps like crazy (as most of you know).  It's felt like a 2+ month long exam week.  Barf.  But I'm finally done with the hard stuff -- research, writing sample, etc. -- and am just uploading, submitting, and paying schools absurd amounts of money for the privilege of letting them decide if they feel like rejecting me. Yay! 

The crazy thing is that through this process and through a little more talking to those of you who already have PhDs, I've decided I don't really want to go to grad school if I do get in.  So much incredibly miserable work (working on my writing sample reminded me I really don't like writing very much), with so little chance of reaching my ultimate goal, and I'm not sure it's actually a goal I'd even want if I got it:  even more incredibly hard work, stress, and busyness; not much free time or time for art or a family; dealing with ...students!  Ew.  So I'll probably stay in publishing.  I'm very glad to have at least come to some sort of decision regarding what I want to do -- it's been about 10 years in the making -- but I do wish I'd managed not to waste the holiday season and almost a thousand dollars on apps and sending out GRE scores figuring it out.  Realistically, I think that's the only way I'd have come to that solid a conclusion, but... *sniff* Christmas.  Savings.  Both... gone...........

Plus, now I'm in a bit of a pickle.  I'm looking for other publishing jobs; I've applied to one in Seattle I really want.  But if I do get into a grad program and by that point haven't gotten a new job I like, do I stay at Current Workplace in my current dead-end job, or do I go get a masters in the hope that it will help me achieve a better position in publishing, risking that I'll end up critically unemployed when the masters is over?  Woe.  In the meantime, I'm going to research what I should really be doing if my ultimate goal is, say, an acquisitions editor position or something.  

But either way, I have no idea where I'll be in seven months, which is disconcerting.  Roomie!K bought a condo with her boyfriend and will be moving out, and I'm not sure what the situation is with, uh, other-Roomie!K.  New Roomie.  Craigslist Roomie.  Who has been great, by the way.  My apartment's a fun place to live, and everyone's really friendly and good about being considerate and pulling their own weight.  It's a good situation -- too bad it isn't going to last very long.

In other news, I'm taking another pottery class. :)  I actually took one in November when all my grad school app work was ramping up, which... maayy not have been the best decision?  It was a raku class: raku is a relatively newly developed pottery technique which involves treating your pieces with certain kinds of glazes, taking them out of the kiln when they're orange hot, then enclosing them in metal containers with combustibles like straw or newspaper so the flames will either stain the pieces with smoke or leech certain chemicals out of the glazes and give you a coppery or metallic finish.  It was interesting, but I was really stressed and didn't technically have time for it.  Unfortunately my teacher won't be offering it again til next fall, and again, who knows where I'll be, so I decided to go for it.  It was a bit overwhelming, but interesting.  I'm back on the potter's wheel for this class, and it's tons of fun, and more relaxing.  

The pottery class and the fun, supportive roommate social atmosphere, together with almost having my apps completely done, are helping keep my mood up, and I just had a legitimately relaxing weekend for the first time in forever.  It was both relaxing and productive, which is the best kind -- I got tons of laundry washed and put away, I hand-washed some scarves and painted my toenails, and I got my room semi-straightened, the junk on my bedside dresser put away, a few things organized in the bathroom, and my purse cleaned out.  I also ran a few errands, getting my watch battery replaced, picking up a couple plain long-sleeved tees for layering, and I bought new slippers, too, which are practically perfect in every way.  (Much as I loved the pink bunnies R!Kim gave me when my old ones went kaput, these are a bit more practical and, well, harder to trip over.  Minus points for not scaring Gracie as much, though.)  It was so good to just shut myself in my room with my music and straighten things, or even just sit still for a bit.  The roommates, who used to reliably be gone all weekend every weekend, have been around a lot more this winter, as have their boyfriends, so it's been a full house lately.

Also, R!Kim's boyfriend decided for whatever reason that he was interested in watching the BSG miniseries this weekend, which was pretty much the frosting on my cake.  Can a weekend get any better?  

I just started reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, which, although I'm not very far into it, has already been an empowering read.  It's good just to be reminded that just because you don't like meeting new people, going to loud parties, dating, or promoting yourself to businesses, doesn't mean there's something wrong with you.  It's a good read so far.  Also, people keep recommending it to me, which, at some point you start wonder about what that says about how you come off.  Holly, you really need to read this book about introverts!  It made me think of you!  Hmm.

Maybe now that life's not too crazy, I'll actually be back on here again after not too long.  I need to get back into a regular running schedule again (yay!), which will take up a lot of time, and I'm trying to promise myself more down time like last weekend, since it was so restorative.  And I need to see people, too. :) So we'll see what happens.  

Have a good January, people!  :)