RBOC: stars and scrabble

• I haven't been updating my star tracker thing this month, because I got confused about my criteria. I meant to have a separate Plan for weekends, but I didn't explicitly spell it out. I think as long as I go to the gym and don't spend all day hiding in my room, that's good enough, although that doesn't seem star-worthy. I don't want rigid rules to get in the way of fun things, though, because socialising is also part of The Plan. Maybe I should have to do something productive if I don't spend time with other people. That could work.
• I didn't even go to the gym today or yesterday, but I think what I was doing instead was a better (and more fun) use of my time, so I'm happy, but I'm not sure what to do about the stars. Can I just skip those days, or do I have to start over?
• I also didn't do my reading on Friday. Since I said I needed to do 20 hours of work a week, I've been worrying less about doing anything at all on weekends, since that was generally non-work productive stuff, anyway. Maybe I'll count Friday as a weekend, kind of, and read tomorrow, since I have to go in to lab anyway.
• Despite these lapses, I am doing a lot more work, so The Plan is working as planned.
• I now have 5 friends in my Facebook network! I added a couple of housemates, but the majority are blog friends. You rock.
• So far, my Facebook Scrabble win:loss ratio stands at 1:2.
• I think my country memorisation efforts will now be redirected towards Scrabble word memorisation. Is there a game for that?
• I also need to work on speed. My snail-like pace is okay when playing someone on the opposite side of the world, since I might only play one turn a day. However, when playing someone in the same time zone, especially someone speedy, it means I can fill all my available time permuting letters.
• I'm feeling unethical about my use of the in-game dictionary. I wouldn't look up words on an external site, but somehow when it's right there, it's too hard to resist the temptation to check that my word is right, or worse, to guess at words, before playing. I wonder if it's possible to disable it.
• Should that comma after worse be something else? A colon or dash or something?
• I think I use too many commas.
• A comma-loving friend whose honours thesis supervisor was rabidly anti-comma was going to add a comma after every word or two in her acknowledgment to him. I was tempted to add several "however"s for my own supervisor (apparently two in 50 pages was still too many for him, although maybe he was remembering the ten I'd already cut).

more outgoing

This made me laugh: The friend she compared me with must be almost entirely mute.

I joined facebook recently because a friend at home invited me. I'm not sure what to do with it, though (other than play Scrabble). So far, most of my friends are people I was kind of friends with in undergrad (only kind of, because I spent more time avoiding people than actually hanging out with them) and haven't spoken to in years, or friends of friends. I was thinking about adding my housemates, at least, but now I'm feeling all shy about it. I feel awkward about claiming people as friends, even though I know it's unlikely they'd say no.
I think my real problem is that my wall seems so public. I don't want to put anything on there in case it reveals something about me. I don't want to have conversations by writing on people's walls because anyone can read it.
I know, I should get over my weird anxiety. Plus, I just added my first friend at Prestigious U and now it's announcing that I only have one friend in my network, so maybe I should add more people so I don't look like a loser...

putting my brain to good use

When I was in grade nine, my geography teacher used to start each lesson by putting up an overhead of Africa or South America and getting us to find countries as he named them. I liked those activities a lot better than the stuff about Lesser Developed Countries that made up the actual syllabus. Perhaps it's not surprising then that I've become somewhat obsessed with these games where you have to try to list countries/states in ten minutes. I can now fairly reliably list all the European (although I keep forgetting Italy for some reason) and African countries. I learnt another 70-something countries today, so my high score on the UN nations one is up to 180 out of 192. If there were a game like this to learn where they are all located, that would be even better. Or perhaps not.
Don't worry; I didn't spend all day memorising countries. I also went cycling with a housemate, which was fun.

plus ça change...

I'm sitting in my room listening to my housemates and others talking and laughing outside. They're having a barbecue. I really was going to go. I told a housemate I would and I bought some vegetarian sausages to try grilling. I kept thinking I would just wait a bit, until there were more people around, then go outside. I want to be sociable and have friends, and yet, here I am, hiding again.
I know that if I go out and talk to people, I'll have an okay time. The problem is that it won't change anything, so it doesn't seem worth the effort and anxiety. I'm too worried about whether people will think I'm anti-social for avoiding the party until now, or whether I'll have anything to say and too busy trying to keep people from learning anything non-superficial about me to really get to know anyone else. Obviously it's impossible to make real friends that way.

Every time my house has some kind of party, I find myself thinking I should just give up on trying to be part of the house and move out on my own.

I fantasize about starting over and eliminating the film of dragginess that hangs over me. ... it’s too late for these friends. They wouldn’t be able to see that I’m not a drag anymore. I need clean new people who associate me with fun. This is my number two problem: I am never satisfied with what I have.

(from The Man on the Stairs by Miranda July in No One Belongs Here More Than You)

Then I feel bad, because they are nice people, and if I could just stop hiding myself away, maybe we could be proper friends. It probably wouldn't be any easier with other people, anyway, although it's tempting to think that it would be if I just met the right ones.
Blog friends I've met have been uniformly easier and more fun to talk to, which I'd like to claim as evidence that it's just easier with especially cool and interesting people, but maybe it's more the fact that by the time I meet them, they already know me a lot better than anyone I meet first in real life.
I wish there were some way to skip over the risky part of opening up in real life, and only do so with people who won't mind the real me. I guess blogging works pretty well for that. It's a pity blog friends are more likely to move away or be located in inconvenient places to begin with.


Update: I just ran into a housemate while sneaking down to do laundry (if I'm going to hide, I may as well get something done). She didn't ask why I wasn't at the barbecue and just offered me some of the pie she'd baked. I had to turn away to unload the washing machine so she wouldn't see the tears in my eyes. Now I feel even more horrible. I wanted to explain, but I couldn't tell the truth and any other excuse would probably be too lame to convince anyone I don't really hate them and not want to hang out with them. I suck. Seriously.

97 years exactly

My grandmother died today. It was her 97th birthday. When I saw her just two months ago, she was kind of frail and not able to see well, but it seemed quite plausible that she'd live to be 100 or more. At the same time, though, I knew it could well be the last time I saw her. I'm glad I got to spend that time with her, even though I spent a lot of it feeling pathetic that I didn't have much to talk about. I did get her to tell me some stories about moving from the UK to C'land, and back, multiple times (each voyage taking months at sea), but I still feel like I missed out on learning about her interesting life. I'm still not sure whether she spent time in India, or whether that was another family member.

My mum called to tell me while I was still at the lab, and she was more obviously upset than me. She was worried about whether I'd be able to make it home okay, and if I'd have someone around to look after me. I haven't even told anyone here. I felt bad enough that I didn't really react on the phone; I don't want my housemates feeling bad for me, and I'd just feel like I ought to be displaying outward signs of grief so they won't think I'm unfeeling and heartless.

I'm sad, but it's not a shock, and she had a good long life. I guess I should at least be feeling bad about missing the funeral and being with family, but really I'm relieved... My hatred of funerals has, shamefully, outweighed my concern for friends who've lost loved ones in the past sometimes, so while I'd like to show that I care, I'm glad not to have to go.

On that matter, should I send flowers or something? I'm not sure if that part of my family would think it was pointless and wasteful or not...

I haven't spoken to my Dad yet. I'm not sure if I should contact him. I didn't right away, because I wasn't sure if he knew and it felt wrong for him to find out via Mum, even indirectly... I guess I should try calling him, but I don't know what to say (reason #1 I hate funerals).

free time

Today I completed all my work and reading by 3pm! I would be happier about that if I hadn't achieved it by getting to lab at 8.15am, and if I'd made it to the gym... Still, it was nice to be done so early, instead of dragging it out all day and late into the evening. I'm not sure what I'd do with all my free time if I did that more regularly, though. The one day last week when I finished by 7pm, I ended up going to bed at 9. I did need to catch up on sleep, but perhaps I should also find some more useful/entertaining way to spend leisure time.
The reason I finished early today was so that I could go to a housemate's thesis defence. I'd be feeling more inadequate in comparison if he hadn't spent the whole four years we've been here working until 10pm every night. After getting home from the defence and subsequent celebrations, he was feeling a bit at a loose end now that his thesis is done. His response, rather than to just sleep and laze around all day tomorrow (as mine would be), was to plan to clean the kitchen and get a haircut...
I was trying to suggest fun things he could do now that he's finished, but I couldn't come up with anything much. What do productive people do with all their free time? If I had fun things planned, maybe I'd be less likely to string out my working hours by endlessly hitting refresh and playing minesweeper (I'm ashamed to admit I broke my expert level record yesterday).

I also realised today that my Personal Olympics goals are way too ambitious, because my recorded time working doesn't include seminars and meetings. The previous months also haven't included time spent reading, although I did start counting that. I'm revising the goals to 130 for bronze, 150 for silver and 175 for gold.

The Plan: month six

I got off to a good start this morning, but I've slowed down this evening... Maybe writing out my new plans will help.

1. Health



The "real dinner" line jumped way back up, mainly because I started counting meals eaten out, since at least I ate a meal instead of filling up on junk food. This week, I cut up a bunch of stuff for salads for lunches and cooked enough vaguely-moroccan stew-thing to last all week. The veges in the farm share are more appealing now, too (yay, corn!), so I'm hoping to use some more of them. I did more tidying than in previous months, but I'm not sure that translated to my room actually being pleasantly uncluttered. So, not a good month, really.
I said I was going to start using the weights at the gym. I don't think I can claim success on that one, since I've only done that once. It took me all month to work up the courage to even venture into the weights area, but now that I've realised there's a slightly less scary circuit, I'll hopefully use it more often. I just noticed there's some kind of strength class on Friday mornings so I'm going to try to go to that, too. I was thinking I might need a personal trainer to overcome my fear of the weights room and, while that didn't turn out to be true, I'm still considering it. I can go around using the machines, but I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Of course, I'm also scared of having a trainer see how pathetic I am...
I got up early this morning and, while it was very tempting to go back to bed after my alarm went off (it's on the other side of the room, in an attempt to force me to wake up), it was very nice to have a bunch of ticks on my joe's goals page before 10am.

2. Professional



Last month's super-high point for time worked was an aberration, but this month wasn't so bad, especially considering it wasn't a whole month. I'm trying something ambitious this month: adding another whole hour a day of reading (since my "papers to read" bookmark folder (which I just resorted to after firefox started running slow, with the 50 million papers open in tabs) just keeps growing). And I'm aiming for a total of 20 hours of work a week, which is another 2.5 hours spread out over the week. That still seems pathetic, especially after reading all the discussion about whether or not academic work can be confined to a 9-5 job, but it'll be a big jump from 12.5. In aid of this goal, I'm going to try to limit non-work internet use to 2 hours before either 6pm, or I've done 3.5 hours of work, whichever comes later.

* stage 1: finish optimising the assay conditions, repeat the big set of experiments, analyse
I figured out a way of analysing my data that I think makes sense, although it doesn't give me graphs quite this pretty... I'm waiting for new reagents so I can test whether it will work again. I'm back to being aimless in terms of knowing what to do next. I thought I could just go ahead with the rest of the big set of experiments, but now my advisor is asking if I want to do various other things instead. Argh. This is why I need to read more, though.

* stage 2: make/find the new reagents I need, use them
I need to read more for this, too. And then actually do something with my list that's been sitting around for months.

* stage 3: in vivo stuff.
I did set up an experiment with this stuff last week, but then I killed my cells... I just set it up again today. Remind me not to add antibiotics this time.

3. Social
I've been doing better at emailing people, although still not as much as at the start of the year. I have been more sociable, I think, but I've also kind of been hiding from my housemates a bit. I missed out on a couple of fun things they were doing because I just haven't been around, or joined in their conversation properly. I'll try to work on that.
I'm not sure what else to do...

5. Being Selfish
I gave blood! It was so quick and easy compared to trying to donate platelets.
I'm not sure what else to do. I'm still contemplating the idea of tutoring, but maybe I really am too selfish and/or scared.

6. Other
Maybe I should drop this category, too... Or come up with a goal. Oh, I should really get back to taking photos for project 365, I guess. And post my backlog...

I've been reading about various productivity and goal-setting systems at Reinhard Engels' Everyday Systems. I'd come across his shovelglove exercise routine before, but what caught my eye this time was the Personal Olympics. I'm setting the minimum blocks of work to satisfy my star goals (176) as a bronze medal. 198 is worth silver and 220 is gold. 176 is above even last months high score, but I think I can do it, besides any medal should be a stretch, I think.
I'm also thinking of trying his No-S diet (no sugar, snacks or sweets, except on days starting with S), because the no-sugar thing did work well for a while; it was only after I gave up on it that I started eating far too much rubbish. Getting to eat sweet things on weekends and special days might be enough to make it sustainable.

Okay, I only have to read for 53 more minutes to get my star for today, so I'm going back to it.