It’s another feeling-late night (though I know it’s only 11) and that means list time:
Tomorrow… I’m going to mostly chill the heck out. And go to a Bollywood movie with the KEs!
Too tired… can only list:
Tomorrows gonna be a big day. I think it might be join-the-gym day. And early morning blood sample day. But it’s also hang out with Heather and Kevin day, and the big trip to the nursury to get our fruit trees and front yard goodies! Yay!
It’s been a most triumphant spring break kind of day. Got up early to go to the doctor… turns out I have twelve kinds of stress. Or at least I have enough stress I’m failing to do anything with that I’ve racked up three stupid body things this quarter – migraines, heart palpitations, and a knot in my neck that feels like a tumor. Anyway, doctor checked everything out, and he’s going to do some routine bloodwork, but otherwise I’ve been prescribed some chilling the hell out. So… yeah. Like I said yesterday, I guess I need to take this seriously. That’s a really difficult thing to get ones mind around – seriously needing to chill out. It’s a lot easier to think you’ll get to chilling out at some point when all the important stuff is done, instead of the chilling out being part of the important stuff.
I’m making headway in that direction though. I toured a gym today, and I think I’m feeling settled on joining. It seems like a great place – a separate women’s workout room, classes are all free and are all drop-in, towel and locker service… they even put shampoo and conditioner in all the showers, have free towel service, don’t play any music, have the TVs all on mute, and give you two free sessions with a trainer. The class schedule looks nice, the fees aren’t terrible, and there’s no contract. The people in there today also seemed really reasonable – no crazy bodybuilders, no meat market feeling, and a surprising number of middle-aged folks and seniors… just the sort of folks I want! Plus, it’s just a stone’s throw from the Center (where I have a class, and will be doing research at next quarter), thus not far from the house, and also could be made to be on the way to campus. I don’t see how there’s a downside, other than general gym-phobia. But if yoga classes and some regular working out-type exercise make me feel better, and maybe teach me to release some stress… it’s got to be worth it. And maybe I’ll stop having panic attacks and migraines! I’m pretty excited, if somewhat aprehensive.
So post gym and doctor today, we spent the whole day working in the front yard. I put together a little master plan for what I want to do with the front garden, and we got a really great start today! I spread out the whole pile of dirt that was left over from the palm tree stump’s removal. We’ve been letting the pile decompose for a while hoping to make dirt out of palm fiber, and it was looking really nice when I got into it today. So I flattened all that, and trimmed the front hedge, and helped Lewis remove some small tree things. It’s amazing how much nicer it looks already! Thursday is going to be our big nursury trip, I think, to get the plants and vines and whatnot we’d like to put in. I’ll post pictures as soon as there’s something more than excitingly flat dirt. I’m very excited!
Blog, blog, blog.
It’s spring break! I’m not doing a very good job blogging. I got all my papers turned in, and I think all is well. I’m attemping to not think about school, though I had to go to campus today to drop off the graded finals for the class I read for.
Sadly, I’m going to have to go to campus tomorrow too, boo. Though this should be a good trip, I guess, as I’ve got an appointment with a doctor to talk about these heart palpitations, and the notted mess I’ve made my neck. I seriously need to find a way to destress this next quarter, because I spent way too much of this one feeling crap. Plus I’m sure it’s just not good for me, and feeling unwell stresses me out double. Urgh. Anyway, I’m pretty nervous about tomorrow, but I’m hoping that by lunch I’ll be full of relief at finding out that as usual I’m worrying about a mountain when faced with a molehill. Yup. Sigh.
Spent today running errands of many types around town, which was great. Had a lovely lunch at Kathmandu, and picked up some tasty goods at the Co-op. It’s so nice to be around town without any particular aim and with no time constraints. Lovely day. Capped it off by daydreaming through what I wanted to do with the front yard and garden, and hammered out some semi-concrete plans with Lewis. I’m rather looking forward to some yard work, maybe tomorrow, and I hope the weather warms up a little, it’s been really breezy.
Today: two papers finished, turned in. 20 phonology finals graded.
Tomorrow: neuro quiz, grading. celebration?
Tonight: hopefully sleeping well, not having any kind of panic in the night. i’m really tired of feeling like an ape is sitting on my sternum.
Today, by most measures, is successful. I got up early, and got working early. I think I’ve pretty much finished my semantics paper. Worked on it until about 5, and that’s long enough to make any brain too addled to do any more good. Any paper you work that solidly on eventually all starts sounding like nonsense, so hopefully a restorative sleep tonight and some business in the morning will clear my mind enough for the final edit tomorrow. I did manage to get a bike ride to campus to drop off some library books, and make dinner tonight, before sitting down and doing some low-rev paper tidying tonight.
I had great help this morning (and a lovely conversation) from my Quechua professor, who is greatly amused that I’m doing a semantics project on Quechua. She seems really eager to help, and we actually talked on the phone for something like 40 minutes hammering out examples and working out the particulars of the verbs I’m decomposing. She also for some reason gave me 100% on the final, and said I got a 99.5% in the class. So… I suppose I should have not bothered to take this one pass/fail, but it did reduce the amount of stress I had over the class. And I’m feeling pretty inclined to take Quechua II, as it’s becoming rather amusing and interesting getting into the nitty gritty.
Tomorrow I’ll turn in my report to for my independent research class (another pass/fail, by design) and pick up the final exams from the intro phonology students to grade this weekend. I do hope the exam isn’t a long one, I’m really feeling ready for break. I got a jump on my neurosciecne “quiz” tonight and it’s not going to be too terrible. I’m kinda hoping to be done with everything but my grading tomorrow night. Boy, it doesn’t even quite seem possible, does it? I shouldn’t put too much stock in that one. I bet it takes me through Saturday, when all these things are actually due. But I’ll get some time off after that, eh?
Finals week. Things to say.
Awesome day off yesterday. Got hair cut by favorite, Melody. Much catching up. Ethiopian dinner with Ben. Major life questions deftly unanswered. Mind-blowing free jazz concert at favorite Oakland club/cement box/accordian repair shop. Home very late. No studying at all.
Took Quechua final this morning. Utterly flubbed oral portion. Actually spaced out instead of answering questions in dialog! Brain: -1. More amused than bothered. Feeling happy about pass-fail. Confident about spending study time at Ethiopian + jazz.
Came home. Celebratory (abashed?) sushi lunch. Recieved email from neuroimaging professor / goon. Surprise, your quiz *is* an essay! Discomfited. Rejected from working memory until semantics is attended to. Worked outside on semantics paper all afternoon. Did I mention, 75 degrees today? Saw more birds than semantics.
Manual labor break to wash, clean, oil bike. Feeling very mechanical. Much grease under fingernails. Hands well chafed, bike well tended.
Spent all night (is it midnight already?) working on semantics. Triumphantly (abashed?) emailed Quechua professor all remaining lexical questions. Feeling somewhat assified. Isn’t this paper done yet?
Last day of classes! I’m so close to spring break, I can almost taste it. I think I’ve finished my research write-up, and I’m feeling well prepared for my Quechua final on Wednesday. Not sure my neuroimaging professor is going to actually give us a final quiz… so that just leaves my semantics paper! I’ve got it half done or more already, and I’m hoping I can maybe polish off the draft tomorrow. Phew. I’m really ready for break. Aaaand for sleeping in tomorrow!
Lovely day for a lovely wedding.
Got up mightily early this morning to make it to a 10 am wedding in Berkeley. The groom was one of Lewis’ friends from junior high. It was quite a nice affair – both the (fairly non-traditional Jewish) ceremony and the reception were both at The Brazilian Room in Tilden Park in the beautiful Berkeley Hills. There was a great Bay Area mist about this morning, with lots of light rain and fog.
The wedding was a much smaller affair that I anticipated, since Lewis and I got invited and I’ve never really met either the bride or groom in the years we’ve been together. But they were at our wedding, and Lewis and the groom seem to have solid affection for one another… so it was quite an honor to be on the list! Our friends Ben and Maya were there, as well as some other old classmates of Lewis’ from Davis, so we were in good company. We also carpooled with another couple from Davis who we hadn’t met who were quite lovely and I’m sure we’ll see around town in due time.
I’d never been to a Jewish wedding before (actually, this is the first non-family wedding I’ve been to!), and it was very cute. They aren’t particularly orthodox, so it was a very casual ceremony, but it did have the various blessings and canopy and glass-crushing I came to expect. And a klezmer band. And lots of circle dancing! All in all, it was a really warm and relaxed reception with lots of participation from the crowd and lots of silly happenings.
Only downside for me was for some reason my heart wouldn’t stop palpitating in the latter half of the reception. I kept walking outside to get some air, getting myself calmed down, and then going back inside and having it start up again. It did eventually stop, but I think I went through four prolonged rounds of it or so, and it’s usually just one or two off beats before it rights itself. It was at least well timed to prod myself into getting an appointment at the health center, since I had spoken to my nurse about the general palpitation issue last week and she told me to come back in with my records from my old place in LA where they had done an echo cardiogram.
I do think it’s just stress (as in, this always happens waaay more frequently around finals week and such than any other time), but anyone who has had regular palpitations must know how off-putting and a little troubling they are. At any rate, when I had that echo cardiogram done last time all my doctor said was that I had a slightly irregular heart beat, and I’m sure that’s all that’s going on now. It’s funny how nervous I get about my body when I’m stressed out. I keep finding muscle knots (I think) in my neck that my brain just can’t let go of. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to talk myself out of thinking that they’re cancerous lumps or some sort or another. Any tiny thing goes wrong and I presume the worst. This doesn’t happen when I’m feeling less stressed – I wonder what it is about stress that makes me feel so… perishable? At least my hair isn’t falling out, like one of my grad school compadres.
I think we’re about to hit that point in the blogging where I don’t have anything to say, and no time to say it in. It’s finals week!
So I guess that’s it. One day of classes left. Lovely weather today – worked outside most the afternoon. Got started on my semantics paper, and my research write-up. Made a tasty dinner and played Zombie Fluxx with Lewis while we ate.
Boy, I guess that’s it. How sad! Amazing how time flies when you’re staring at this screen. Oy.
