RBOC

• I haven't woken myself up coughing for the past two nights; maybe I'm starting to get better.
• Three months after asking the lost-item-retrieving powers of the internet to help me, I found this jumper!
• I forgot to take my happy pills with me on my trip last week. It's now been 6 days since I took them and I'm still happy so I'm even more tempted to just not take them anymore... Then I could avoid the scary psychiatrist.
• I procrastinated yesterday by going to another procrastination workshop. I think it was actually helpful, though.
• I only have a week left for my current star challenge. What should I add next? Things I've been considering include tidying my room, reading a paper, not eating when I'm not hungry and knitting/playing the piano/sorting photos. Vote in the comments!
• Anyone want a postcard? I just found a bunch that I never got around to sending from the last few places I've been.
• The fabulously awesome Shrinkykitten made me a pig-puppet! Hopefully, it will have lots of good advice for me.
• I have a long list of posts I want to write, but still no laptop (although it has been ordered), so I'm not sure when I'll get to them.
• I really need to start reading again. I'm in the middle of a not-great book, and have been for a long time. I should find something more fun to read.
• I went to a yoga class on Monday. I am incredibly inflexible, but it was fun, and I wasn't the very worst in the room, so I think I'll go again.
• I think this is the most random collection of bullets I've ever written.
• Each one being about something different doesn't really make it random, of course.
• My favourite assignment in undergrad was about how people ruined codes in WWII by either trying to make them more random (X is clearly a more random letter than E) or not even trying and just using their girlfriends' initials as a key.
• And now I have ruined the randomness.

skipping stars

I came so close to not going to the gym this morning. I wanted to just stay home from lab, too, because my cough/cold thing seemed to be worse and I was just feeling bad. My mum always claimed you should never exercise with a cold or something terrible would happen (the virus would get into your heart and kill you somehow? I don't remember), which was great when I was in high school and didn't want to do PE, but in hindsight might not necessarily be true. I've been trying to break myself of some of the irrational fears Mum passed down to me, and I really wanted my star, so I decided to risk it. I didn't work too hard at the gym (and I watched Dragon Tales, instead of reading), just in case. It turns out it's fine to continue exercising with a cold, but "exercise may cause a virus to invade the heart muscle or pericardium", according to one googled source, so Mum was half right. The consensus on google seems to be that symptoms above the neck are fine to ignore, but not below. I'm not sure if my cough is just rhinovirus-associated asthma, since it mostly goes away when I use my puffer, in which case it's probably fine to exercise, or if it really is due to an infection.

I'm wondering under what circumstances it would be appropriate to skip earning a star, anyway. If I really am sick and miss a day, does that mean no reward, or do I just have to make up a day at the end? Also, I'm travelling this week and won't be able to go to the gym. Is walking around sightseeing enough exercise to make up for that (I did do that once already)? Do I still have to do something productive? I'm not sure I can do that without inconveniencing my travelling companion. Can I just say those days don't count as part of the 30? I think I need someone to make up the rules for me, so I don't feel like I'm cheating.

shrinking

When I last bought jeans in September, I finally gave up on the idea that I would magically lose some of the weight I'd gained since giving up going to the gym two years earlier. I bought the pair of cords that actually fit properly at the time, instead of the ones that were just slightly too small. Maybe that acceptance was required for the magic to work, because last week I realised that the zipper and button on those pants were now entirely unnecessary for taking them on or off. Today, I'm wearing another pair of cords that I bought when I was last going to the gym. Their size is half that of the ones I just added to my pile of stuff to be donated*.
I think I'm mostly compensating for the increase in activity by eating too much sugary and/or free food, but apparently not completely. I think I did magically lose most of the weight before even starting exercising, but I have lost a little since then, too. I didn't have "lose weight" as part of my Plan, because I was trying to avoid the body issues and just focus on being healthier, but now that I'm noticing a difference, I'm kind of tempted to actually try to continue it. I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not.
The Plan does include not eating when I'm not hungry, though, which is when I end up eating all the sugary/free food. Presumably, if I worked on that I would lose weight, and be healthier, although, would it be bad if I weren't sufficiently hungry to maintain my weight? It's probably a better idea than cutting out all sugar and feeling deprived, anyway. Maybe I'll tie that to the stars next month.

Pointless, excited update: I just realised that if I fit into these pants, I probably also fit into my favouritest jeans ever! I'm glad I didn't give them away despite not being able to wear them for years. And now I sound like I'm in a Sex and the City episode... which is also why I didn't want to make losing weight an official goal.




*They both came from Old Navy, so that means precisely nothing, but the old ones are smaller (possibly a little too small, since I bought them when I was still assuming I would continue with my gym-going etc).

reading about shyness

I had a therapy appointment this morning. As usual, I didn't really think about it beforehand, because it's not like I can come up with something to talk about. Last time I'd told her that the psychiatrist gave me a book to read. She asked if I'd discussed the book with the psychiatrist and seemed disappointed with him when I said no. I felt bad, since it's hard to discuss anything with someone who won't talk at all. I hope she realised that.
She had said she'd try to find some books that were written for people with social anxiety, rather than for clinicians and this time she had some printouts from Amazon to show me. I glanced through them enough to read the titles, but there was no other information by which to compare them. Because I didn't spend long enough examining the list, she thought I wasn't interested in reading them, but I'm not sure what I was supposed to be looking for.
I'm supposed to look at them now and see if any would be helpful. It's hard to tell from the information online, because there are always a few reviews saying "this book cured me!" and a few saying it was completely useless. I have read several books like this before, so I know what they're going to say, anyway.
I'm not sure how I feel about working through something like cognitive-behavioural therapy with the therapist. It might help to actually be held accountable for doing the exercises, instead of just reading the books and thinking I'll try it sometime. But, on the other hand, I might be less willing to try things if I know she's going to ask about it.
I did start looking up the books, and even checked the library catalogue for them, so I could read some of them before deciding if they'd be helpful. The first three all came up as missing, which made me wonder if they were stolen by people too shy to buy them.
I also came across a reference for this book, which looks very interesting, since it talks about shyness in terms of performing in social situations. It's not out yet, but it's on order at the Prestigious U library, luckily.

motivation

I'm doing my half an hour of productivity a day in order to earn my star, but not much more than that. I keep thinking I'm ready to start working properly, but I only seem to be asymptotically reaching that state. The last few times I've talked to my advisor, I've actually had a couple of things to contribute, kind of, and I've left each meeting feeling like I know what I need to do and can actually do it. Sadly, I fairly quickly end up just reading blogs (although I still have hundreds of unread posts, somehow) and wasting time. I think my problem is that the things that I really need to do next to make some progress are big, undefined, thinky things, like come up with an overall plan for each project.
I finally got my GTD system set up this week, with projects and contexts and everything. I thought that might help me get more work done, but instead it's just helped me feel more productive without accomplishing anything work-related, because I can always find next actions for things that are more fun (I signed up for a photography class this weekend!) or just easier. Maybe it's just a question of breaking the broad, undefined tasks down into smaller pieces, but I can hardly bear to even think about them enough to do that.
A while ago, Jeremy mentioned the Kurt Vonnegut story, "Harrison Bergeron", about a genius who is reduced to normal intelligence by a transmitter that plays a distractingly loud noise in his ear every 15 seconds. Jeremy was likening meeting-derailing comments to this "Bergeron beep", but it seems like procrastination serves a similar function for me. Every time I think I might know what I need to do to build up some momentum on a project, I feel compelled to read blogs or check my email or do any number of small, insignificant tasks. The only work-related things I can actually get done are those that don't require any concentrated effort, and therefore don't lead to much progress. Of course, I'm not starting from genius-level to begin with, so all this procrastination sets me back to incompetence level, rather than merely normal.
My advisor suggested this week that I could just abandon my current project (which should have been completed last year) in favour of getting New, Exciting Project going. I found myself arguing that I could finish this one while getting things reading for NEP, because I don't want to have wasted all this time for nothing*. It seemed perfectly reasonable to me at the time (and it would be, for anyone with reasonable motivation), and my advisor ended up agreeing, but now I'm wondering how I thought I could do two (or possibly three - there's a second NEP) projects at once, when one has been far too much for me so far.


*It doesn't help that two (intimidating) faculty members asked me how my hypothetical paper was going this weekend.

valentinr

Get your own valentinr

Giving valentines to friends/classmates etc is very American*, but I like anything that might get people to send me messages. :)
Via B* and Dr Brazen Hussy


*I saw valentine's day multi-packs of play-doh the other day, which made me giggle.

I guess beta isn't so bad after all

Google finally gave up on trying to convince me I should switch to beta and forced me to move today. I resisted it for as long as I could, but it doesn't seem to have done anything dreadful. Of course, it is very irritating to have to be signed out of my real gmail account to post, especially since blogger won't load in an IE tab... I do like new dashboard and the labels, though. I didn't use my categories very much before, but now that it's easier, I might go back and label things.

good vegetarian

I went to the sushi restaurant for dinner with recruits tonight and I didn't eat any animals. I realised, when I found out that no faculty were going to the dinners, that my problem was with stating an opinion in front of them, rather than more generally. Most of the faculty I've been to fancy dinners with before choose their favourite restaurant and then order for everyone, or recommend dishes. I've ended up trying to eat things that are too spicy for me, thanks to the faculty member who loves szechuan food. I am clearly far too obedient.
Since it was only students, though, I was fine with ordering yummy vegetarian things. I even stuck to the very limited vege appetisers on offer at the event last night where dinner consisted of hunks of meat on sticks. Although, they didn't look at all appetising, anyway. I was a bit tempted to eat the last piece of sushi tonight, since it does seem worse for the poor thing to have died, only to be thrown out, but I didn't.

ask, and ye shall receive

I took my laptop to the help desk last night and they confirmed my suspicion that it was irrevocably dead. I wasn't sure what to do about replacing it, other than hope my advisor would notice that it was broken and repeat his offer to buy me a new one, yet again.
The idea of asking him outright whether he would replace it seemed completely out of the question. Someone in the goals group I'm in wrote a draft email for me, but I just couldn't imagine actually sending it. I was so close to being willing to just pay for a new laptop myself and, worse, allow a friend to follow through on a threat to cut off a toe if I didn't email my advisor, because I hate asking for things that much. In the end, I felt bad about considering my irrational fear worse than the amputation of a body part (even a very small one)*, so I sent the email.
My advisor immediately said yes, because he's nice like that and I really shouldn't have been worried, so I've been looking at laptops online today. You'd think I'd learn from sending the email that even things that seem impossible aren't really that bad, but I think it will probably still take the threat of bodily harm to someone I like to get me to overcome my fear.


*Although, I might not feel sufficiently bad for just anyone, so this is a risky motivational strategy.

Countdown

Because I feel bad for not posting, but am fairly uninspired.
Via Luckybuzz and Kermit.

10 Firsts
1. First best friend: Lucinda.
2. First car: I kind of owned my brother's tiny, $500 car while he was overseas, but I only drove it a few times before discovering it wasn't at all roadworthy.
3. First love: I'm not sure.
4. First vacation: Probably the beach, with my family.
5. First job: Hearing my mum's students read.
6. First piercing: Ears, when I was 14 (I wasn't allowed any earlier). I thought about getting the top of my ear pierced a while ago, but my mum said she would refuse to be seen with me. I'm less concerned with what she would think now, but given how infrequently I change my earrings, I'm not sure I care enough to do it.
7. First concert: First concert I went to of my own accord was Spiderbait. First concert I was taken to by my parents was probably an orchestral thing for kids (I'm glad that came before the Christian pseudo-pop concert...)
8. First record/CD bought: Also Spiderbait, and Ben Folds Five at the same time. Oh, but I think my brother and I split a Pet Shop Boys CD before that... (I will argue I was coerced into it by him.)
9. First real love: n/a
10. First screen name: I don't remember what I used to sign up for bulletin boards before we got the internet, because I think my brother and I made up a bunch of different names so we could cheat and download more, but after that I just used my real name.

9 Latest
1. Latest alcoholic beverage: I don't remember. Christmas, maybe.
2. Latest car ride: My advisor drove me from one lab to the other today.
3. Latest movie watched: All About My Mother.
4. Latest phone call made: To call a cab from school to lab, since I got a cab voucher.
5. Latest jacuzzi bath: I don't remember.
6. Latest played CD: Camera Obscura, Underachievers Please Try Harder
7. Latest time you cried: Talking to my mum on the phone.
8. Latest meal: Cheese pizza (free lunch!).
9. Latest curse: Dead laptop screen.

8 Things You Wear
1. docs
2. jeans
3. t-shirts
4. star earrings
5. mittens
6. hat
7. scarf
8. watch

7 Have You Ever

1. Dated one of your best friends: No.
2. Been arrested: No.
3. Fallen in love at first sight: No.
4. Been in a TV program: Yes.
5. Had your heart broken: No.
6. Said you love someone without meaning it: Yes.
7. Made a prank phone call: No.

6 Things You've Done Today
1. Gone to the gym.
2. Made porridge for breakfast (with raisins, peaches and brown sugar).
3. Knitted some hat.
4. Read a paper (that was my 30 mins of productivity).
5. Looked at laptops online.
6. Written some emails (some of them work-related, at least).

5 Favorite Things
1. Flying.
2. Polar (and other) bears.
3. Books.
4. Blogs.
5. Hugs.

4 People I Can Tell Anything
You and you and you and you.

3 Choices
1. Black or white? White, because I hate black, but really neither.
2. Winter or summer? Summer.
3. Chocolate or chips? Chocolate.

2 Things to do Before you Die
1. Travel a lot more.
2. Graduate.

1 Thing You Regret
1. The whole LtEHB saga.

Something you could do an infinite number of times:
Daydream.

Now that I've done that I might be feeling more inspired to blog, but maybe I'll save my inspiration for later.

bears vs colts

I got an email yesterday from the World Wildlife Fund, advertising their special superbowl e-cards, with pictures of real bears and colts. Does the text strike anyone else as odd, coming from an animal conservation group? Did the copywriter think they were working for the other WWF?

As the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts get ready to face off in this year’s match up, analysts and sports enthusiasts alike are hard at work predicting who the victor will be. But instead of looking at the teams based on their offensive firepower or defensive might, how would this match up turn out in the wild? Put up against each other head-to-head, who would win in a battle, a bear or a colt?

Who do YOU think would win? While speed, endurance and sheer numbers goes to the colts, power, strength and agility remains with the bears...

WWF's Pick
Who does WWF think would win the battle? "Bears would likely win any encounter in the wild, but that's only if they could catch the colts," said WWF's president and CEO Carter Roberts. "And there's always a chance that a bear wouldn't come out of hibernation, which would cause them to forfeit any match."

30 stars + 2

So, I got my thirty gold stars, but I still haven't figured out a reward. I should have had something planned for that day, because now I'm less inclined to do anything about it. I'm not very good at rewarding myself...
Anyway, I'm back to 2 stars now. The new plan is to still go to the gym, but then make a plan for the day (which I've mostly been doing, although I often then ignore it) and do something productive for half an hour before I check my email. I was thinking that would be harder on weekends, but I'm going to count emailing people at home as productive, and I went grocery shopping this morning.
I'm actually not going to have trouble keeping from checking my email at home now, because my laptop screen just died. For a while now it's been pink for a few seconds after starting up, then yesterday the image suddenly started jumping around with staticky lines across it, then last night it would only show a very faint outline of the windows so I couldn't see anything. Luckily, it had its jumping fit while I was showing my advisor something on it, so maybe he'll repeat his previous offer to get me a new computer...