Just Another Status Update

It’s clear to me that my writing interest and mojo have left the building.  I recognize that it’s my fault and that my lack of interest is really about laziness.  Since I’m out of practice it stands to reason that my skill is in the toilet at the moment as well.  And this fuels that bitter circle of I don’t write so my writing skills are lame <—–> I avoid writing because I know my writing skills are lame (for now).

So again I’ll just lay out a few updates:

• Spring quarter has officially ended and I’m 99% sure I’m looking at a 4.0 for all three classes.  Yea!

• Summer quarter will consist of a psychology research methodologies class, a psychobiology of women course, and my first (of two) quarters of Anatomy & Physiology.  The research class is via the university but entirely online so I’ve gotten started, the psychobiology class is also through the university but a typical on-campus style lecture & quiz section – which starts on Tuesday, and the A&P course is through the community college and starts a week from Tuesday.  I’m both excited and nervous about the A&P course, and I’m just plain excited about being back on the old campus again for psychobiology.  I really doubt I’ll 4.0 over the Summer, but I’d rather be more challenged!

• My friend Kayle got me a fantastic internship at a local clinic that does all three of the rehab fields (PT, Speech & OT).  I’ll be on a M/W/F 2-6pm schedule, and I start Monday.  Not really sure what to expect but I am thrilled about having the opportunity to work in a real OT setting!  I didn’t think I’d get this kind of opportunity until grad school!

I’ve been suffering from a bit of boredom lately.  I think the serious amount of downtime was good to just replenish my sanity, but I’m ready to be busy again – and I think the next three months are going to fit that bill.

 

Absent

Yeah, well… I’ve been absent haven’t I?  Three weeks without writing.  I haven’t been writing elsewhere, I just haven’t been writing.

And I haven’t just been absent from my blog.  I’ve felt a bit absent from my life.  Detached.  Going through some motions.  A bit socially isolated.  Sleeping a bit too much.  Not being very productive.  Too many TV episodes on Netflix.

Correlation?  Causation?  In which direction does the equation flow?

I’ll just step outside of my head before I hurt myself and give you some updates:

• I’m 1.5 weeks away from being done with Spring quarter.  But I’m a procrastinator so I have about 3 weeks of schoolwork left to do.  Still seem to be on track to 4.0 all three classes.
• I’m officially accepted and registered for classes at the university starting Summer quarter.  Took a couple of phone calls and some tracking down of 35-year old immunization records but I’m in.  I’ve even got my student ID card, which looks remarkably identical to the one I had in 1993 – except I think I look better now then I did then.  Seriously.
• My undergraduate advisor confirmed that I should have no problem graduating next Spring (June 2012).  Excellent, fabulous news.
• I still have two classes to take at the community college – Anatomy & Physiology I and II – and I start that series over the summer.  God help me with all the memorization… I hear a lot of horror stories.  The text is arriving via UPS on Monday and I’ll have to refrain from opening it prematurely and freaking myself out.

There’s more stuff in my head that I should get out but I don’t enjoy carpet-bombing on my blog posts.  I’ll try to check-in more often.  For now I’m off to make headway on my paper about the relationship between traumatic head injury and PTSD in soldiers from the Iraq & Afghanistan wars.

 

It’s Too Quiet Around Here

The amount of time between posts is getting dangerous.  I’m not in a writing frame of mind, but I’ll go ahead and just list out a few things that have been happening lately…

I’m still doing really well in school.  As far as I can tell, I’m still at a 4.0 for the quarter and we’re mid-way through.  I’m trying to balance my feelings of pride with the humility of realizing that I don’t have any other (legitimate) competing priorities at the moment.  I continue to be appalled at how lazy and spoiled “kids these days” are, and how much hand-holding they get from the profs.  If the prof tells you that you need to print out materials and bring them for a class – and tells you this WEEKS in advance – then just be a responsible adult and do it already.

I had lunch with one of my favorite males today.  And was reminded that I have several amazing men in my life.  Which is ironic since I have two failed father relationships under my belt.  It’s been a long road to find men that I trust and that I trust easily.  Perhaps at some point I’ll find a single heterosexual one, but perhaps not.

My car broke down and required a $500 fix today.  Tomorrow I have a vet appointment that’s gonna be about $150.  This is the week o’ hemorrhaging money.  And next week I’ll be paying part of Summer & Fall Quarter tuition.  Bring on the Cup O’ Noodles and cereal diet for awhile.

I’m booked for 7 nights of housesitting and 10 kitty visits between now and the end of the month.  This month also includes my first non-friend housesitting gig.  Next month I’m already booked for 14 nights of housesitting.  Business is getting good and the cash is nice.

I am still waiting by the mailbox for a letter welcoming be back to UW as a returning student.  Come on now… this girl needs to meet with an advisor and register!

 

“Waiting” is an Action Word

I’m an impatient girl.  When I want something, I want it now… especially when it comes to answers.

I knew for at least a couple of years (in reality probably all of my adult life) that I wasn’t living the life that I was supposed to lead.  That fact was obvious to me.  I was sad, angry, frustrated, empty.

What wasn’t obvious to me was what I should be doing.  I had interests, but translating those into a specific life eluded me – even when I took concern about an income out of the equation.  I made the decision to leave my old life before I knew where I was going.  I didn’t actually leave that life, but I knew I was going to leave that life.  And that time span between knowing what I wanted to leave and knowing where I wanted to go was torture.

I obsessed over that big question.  I read a lot of blogs, read a lot of articles about growing careers, I poured over memories of my life to find the “defining” ones, I stayed awake at night turning different lifestyles around in my head for inspection, I searched job descriptions online.  I constantly complained about my dissatisfaction to my friends.

At some point I remembered my favorite (partial) verse from the Bible: “Be still, and know that I am God…” (Psalm 46:10).  I’ve had other times in my life when I was fretting and this verse came to mind.  Even in my atheist periods, this verse still brings me peace.  Answers, resolutions, inspirations… they always come with time.  Sometimes they come with searching, but they always come with time.

I was at a gathering at my sister Arwen’s home (OK, she’s not really my sister, but about as close as this only-child gets to one), and met a woman named Fahren.  Fahren is an absolutely beautiful soul with a knockout singing voice who’s on her way to hitting the world stage.  Another woman at the gathering was fretting about not knowing her purpose and feeling lost, and Fahren began to talk about being still.  About giving God the space and quiet to speak to you.  If you’re screaming within your own mind, how will you hear what you’re meant to hear?

I just finished reading When the Heart Waits by Sue Monk Kidd.  I wish I had read this several months ago.  It’s gold.  It’s about finding answers in the silence.  About allowing epiphanies the space and time they need to reveal themselves.  About not being in a rush to hunt it all down.

“Crisis, change, all the myriad upheavals that blister the spirit and leave us groping – they aren’t voices simply of pain but also of creativity.  And if we would only listen, we might hear such times beckoning us to a season of waiting, to the place of fertile emptiness.”

I believe my active waiting period prior to knowing the answers for this leap was during my 7 weeks abroad.  I was so blessed to be able to escape the daily grind of the life I hated, but I didn’t spend the whole time away trying to plan what was next.  I got lost on the Earth and in my head simultaneously.  I stared at expanses of ocean and forest and mountains… I stared into nothingness and allowed it to empty my own mind.  The answers came not too long after.

And when all of my resolve to wait and listen and be still falls apart… when I can’t wait another damn minute… I remind myself of the long list of things that I do know about myself, and all of the work that I have to do in those areas.  Right now I don’t know where I’ll go to grad school – perhaps stay here in Seattle, perhaps go to Boston.  I don’t know how I’ll deal with an east coast culture, or east coast weather, or the expense of post-graduate work & living.  But I know that the harder I work this week, the better I’ll do on my exams next week.  And I know that the better those grades, the more options I’ll have a year from now.  So instead of fretting on those future worries, I’m just going to focus on Chapter 3 in my Chemistry class.

 

Rockin’ It

This is the beginning of week 4 of Spring Quarter and I have to say… I am SO pleased with how things are coming along for me scholastically.  I’m 4.0-ing all three of my classes so far.  I’m either at 100% or really close to it in each of them.  I am even doing well in the class that I’ve been worried about since I picked up the textbook (Biopsych).

I can’t remember the last time that I’ve felt this proud about something this worthwhile.  I’ve had proud moments over the last few years in relation to my job, but if I were to stand before some sort of cosmic panel and explain that pride I would have felt shallow.  And I’ve felt pride when I’ve had great volunteer experiences, but should I really gloat about that?  Volunteerism is a duty (that can be fun, of course) that I believe every citizen should take part in.  I think this brand of success – scholastic in pursuit of my life’s calling – is more about my effort and my focus.  And I’ve been focused.  And I have made an effort.

The caveats here are that I’m taking relatively low-level classes this quarter (nothing above 200-level), and I don’t have the distraction of a traditional job.  Also, the amount of daily hours it is taking me to succeed at school are still well below the number of hours I had to work at my job to be successful there… and let’s just say that my three professors exhibit a significantly healthier psychological profile than the personality types I had to endure at the law firm.

I am hopeful that I can continue to avoid a job for a while longer as I continue to pick up more and more petsitting jobs.  And I don’t see my focus disappearing anytime soon.  Outlook = positive.

I am now in the process of trying to get approved as a “Returning Student” at UW.  The community college doesn’t have enough offerings over Summer Quarter to give me a full load of classes, so I’ll need to start part-time at UW in June to keep the ball rolling on my targeted graduation date.

 

eSTRANGEd

I’ll admit it.  I’ve been feeling lonely.  I hate to admit it because it somehow implies that I’m not happy.  Or that I’m not 100% satisfied with my recent decisions and actions.  But I am.  I’m still confident about what I’m doing.  But… I’m lonely.

I’ve been dissecting these feelings quite a bit over the last couple of weeks.  And I’ve been scrutinizing my social calendar.  And I’m trying to figure out if there’s anyone in particular that I’m missing.

When I compare how much time I spent with friends before I left the job vs. now (including work people that I was friends with outside of work), I think it’s the same.  I wasn’t the most social person before I quit the job… it wasn’t uncommon for me to spend an entire weekend alone.  I used to joke with people that I could die at home at 6:00pm on a Friday and people wouldn’t begin to wonder where I was until about 11:00am on Monday.  OK, that’s not really funny.

I’ve caught myself nagging a couple of my friends, either by sending them emails or texts too often, or trying desperately to nail them down for social engagements (key word = desperate).  At first I told myself they were ignoring me and that they were having a hard time coping with my new lifestyle.  That I probably made them uncomfortable with my lack of employment, carefree days, forward movement into greatness.  Ahem… right.

It only took me a couple of weeks, but I’ve figured it out.  It’s so obvious:

OK, just kidding.  BTW – If you haven’t caught onto the fact that my brand of humor is sarcastic & self-deprecating then there was your clue.  If your instinct is to tell me to say something nice about myself right now, then you should probably just move along to some other blog.

Here’s the real answer:

I went from 8+ hours a day of human contact to… well… a lot less.  My favorite thing about the job I had was that it was extremely collaborative, especially in the last couple of years.  I was juggling projects that included people from all levels of the corporate ladder and from many different departments.  In the last year I developed some really fantastic working relationships with peers.  And (warning: here’s back to my egotistical nature) I would hear at least a couple of times a day how in-demand I was… voicemails and emails and conversations that would begin with “I know you’re so busy but could I have a few minutes with you to discuss…”.

Now it’s almost nothing.  I may get an email a day.  I may get a text.  I never get phone calls.  My calendar feels very empty.  And no matter how many social dates I put together, I’m never going to replace the same type of consistent interaction that I had before – at least not during this season of my life.

I imagine that as I get more into my undergraduate major at school and start having more classes with the same people this will get better.  And from what I read via OT grad student blogs, I’ll be absolutely inundated with human interaction during those two years.  So again, this is just another somewhat uncomfortable phase I need to push through.

For now I’ll just try to remind myself that I prefer quality of time over quantity of time.  And quality of friendships over quantity of acquaintances.  And a life that looks like me.

 

Ignorance Helps with the Leaping

Apparently I didn’t investigate this whole Occupational Therapy path that well.

When I made the decision that I’m going to be an OT, I had ideas about what the work would involve and knew that there would be some amount of anatomy knowledge required (the prerequisite of taking two quarters of Anatomy & Physiology in order to apply to the Master’s program was a clue).  But in reality I had no freaking clue.

To back up for a second, one thing that I do know is that I’m one stubborn girl.  I’m not sure how I feel about astrology in general, but I’ll tell you that my Taurus-ness is right on the money.  If I say I’m gonna do something, or I say I’ve made a decision about something, then you better bet I’m gonna do it… even if somewhere along the way I realize it was a really stupid idea.  I think the bottom line might be that I’m just too proud to admit when I’m wrong.  Or maybe something to do with feeling like I should be able to overcome any obstacles that present themselves along the way.  This stubbornness has kept me in ridiculous romantic relationships for way too long… but I digress.

The first clues that I had no idea of what I’ve committed myself to came as I started reading the blogs of current OT students… and found their posts about cadaver labs.  WTF?!?  I’m going to have to cut into dead bodies?!?  BTW, thank you OT students for posting tips about which body I should try to pick based on things like cutting into the skin of old people and fat layers that will need to be scraped away.  Sick.  Helpful and awesome of you to post, but sick.

Again, to back up for a second, I am not a hearty girl.  I’m downright squeamish.  I fainted TWICE as a young person… once in 6th grade while learning about first aid, and the second time in middle school while learning about AIDS.  Keep in mind there were no visual aids in these situations – it was merely hearing the teacher talk about these things that flushed the blood from my face and sent me to the floor.  And actually, that reminds me of an even more recent example.  When we were on our trek in Nepal a couple of people in our group got leeches and just hearing them mention the damn suckers made me light-headed… and I didn’t even see the nasty things!

OK, so you should be getting my point and understanding a bit of my panic.

The other thing I didn’t realize when I made the decision (read: I can’t back out now) was all the detailed anatomy information I was going to have to absorb and know.  I am not Science Girl.  The first time around I was an Art History major.  I’ve never even had quasi- or really serious medical issues to acclimate me to any sort of medicalese.  Do not ask me to point to where my liver is.

This quarter includes a Chemistry class (which I won’t go into here) and a Biopsychology class.  We’ve had four class sessions of 2.5 hours each… so… (crap: math)… 10 hours total of class time.  We have our first exam on Tuesday.  I have a list of about 200 terms like “dorsal root ganglion” and “saltatory conduction” and “sulcus” that I need to know to be well-prepared for the exam.  [expletive]

So I guess the point of this post is that if I had truly and completely investigated what would be required to fulfill the idea I had in my head as to what OT entails, chances are I wouldn’t have done it.  But here’s the thing… jumping off the cliff was still the right thing for me to do, I’m still confident I’m going to absolutely love this work, and I wouldn’t change anything right now.

I think I’ve read about this concept a lot in inspirational books and heard about it in inspirational songs… sometimes you just have to drop the fear and the procrastination masquerading as investigation, and just go for what feels like the right path for you.  What’s the absolute worst that can happen?  Chances are the worst potential failing of the life you’re dreaming about is better than the daily death that you’re suffering through in your compromised life.

 

What she said.

Sometimes WordPress’ Freshly Pressed just gives me gold, pure gold.

 

Starting to Settle In

I wouldn’t necessarily categorize it as a “worry”, but one of the big questions rattling around in my mind as I approached my quit date was, “How am I going to deal without the daily structure that comes with a 9-5 job?”  Or perhaps, “Will I be wasteful with my time when I have so much flexibility in my schedule?”  You see, even though I’m taking a full load of classes (3 classes, 15 credits), my schedule is extremely open.  Two of my classes are online courses, and the 3rd only meets two nights a week.  I think it can be very easy to waste things that we have in abundance… a sort of taking for granted.

And let’s be real.  I could fit a job in right now.  I’m taking classes with people working 30+ hours on top of their full-time class load.  So yes, I’m a bit of a pansy-ass.  I’m coddling myself.  But you know what?  I’m fine with that.  I’ll take advantage of the savings account for a little while.  And if anyone wants to flip me shit about it, bring it.  I’m freakin’ gonna help people for a living bitches!    Just kidding.  The real issue?  I’m old and have been out of school too long and am afraid that I need to study 5x more than the average student to do well at all.

OK, so I’m just a little over a week into the quarter and I’m already finding a rhythm, a quasi-schedule.  It’s not quite hammered out yet, and at some point I am going to have to fit a job in, but this progress within the first couple of weeks is promising.  And even though I haven’t had any quizzes or exams yet, I feel like I’m doing well and absorbing the information… and therefore I feel like this approach is working out.

The first surprising thing about my schedule is that I’m actually getting out of bed at a decent hour in the mornings.  It’s pretty rare that I’m not out of bed by 8:00.  I have a lot of friends that are those morning people (ick) and will say that 8:00 is wimpy, but it’s really good for me.  I don’t usually fall asleep until midnight, so it’s not that I’m sleeping loads of hours.

The morning needs to start with a cup of coffee.  I’ve learned that I need to stop fighting that and just accept the requirement.  There’s no shame in it really, especially in this town.

I handle a couple of demanding cats, then refine my to-do list for the day.  I’ve always been a to-do list kinda girl, and I usually have a couple going that tentatively plan out the next few days.  But on the morning of I hone it and prioritize the items on the list.  While numbering them in the order I plan on tackling them, I keep reminding myself that school is my #1 priority over and over and over again so that home improvement projects and running errands don’t dominate the daily assignments.  I really don’t need to paint my bathroom today!

A surprising revelation is that one of my favored procrastination methods in cleaning.  [I'll pause while Jacquie re-reads that.]  This is WEIRD.  But I’ve already found a way to combat it because I am the bomb (and I have a lot of time on my hands to solve ridiculous “problems” like this).  I put together a daily cleaning schedule (my place works out to about 1 room assignment per day) and I am not allowed to do any more than two days worth of cleaning (i.e. two rooms) in any one day.  So yes, I still get to keep my place clean, but I can’t spend too much time cleaning on any given day.  Like I said, this is WEIRD.

Another rule for myself is that when making up my to-do list I have at least one item that requires that I leave the condo, or that inspires me to leave the condo.  It’s so easy to stay in my pajamas all day, especially on the days that I don’t have class onsite at the college.  My natural inclination is to hibernate, and based on the habits of my maternal grandmother and mother this appears to be hereditary.  But I don’t want to be that middle-aged woman who wears bunny slippers more often than cute sandals, so I’m gonna fight this inclination tooth and nail.

The good news is that my favorite place to study is in coffee shops.  Before I was this girl I would look at people hanging out in coffee shops with their laptops as tools, people trying to look cool or trendy or… I don’t know… just something.  But now I’m one of those tools now.  The right coffee shop (and not all of them qualify) have just the right amount of background noise, and just enough going on in them that I can look up and be distracted for just a few minutes but not too long, and the steady stream of caffeine ain’t bad either.  The absolute best ones have good snacks and sammiches for those marathon 4+ hour sessions.  Oh, and it’s flippin’ fantastic when I feel that I can leave the table for a bathroom break without worrying about all my stuff getting stolen.

Most days I tackle school work in a couple of different sessions.  Usually a session in the morning and a session in the late afternoon, with one session at a coffee shop and the other on my couch.  So far this time commitment has allowed me to stay just a bit ahead of schedule in my classes, and all the time in the world to reread and closely review material a couple of times over.

So, like I said, I haven’t had any exams yet so there’s no quantitative measurement of how this approach is working.  But I’ll be taking one exam this week, and the other two exams early next week… stay tuned.

 

MY time.

For the time being I’m jobless.  One good thing about selling my soul for the last 10+ years was that I was able to amass a decent chunk of money, of which I am living off of now.  At some point that well is going to dry up, but I have at least a few months before I need to figure out some sort of income to offset the spending (mainly the mortgage).

The time to focus on school is good.  One of my classes is kind of a joke, but one is going to be kind of challenging, and the third is going to kick my ass.  Being able to make studying my absolute priority without any competing time constraints is invaluable as I try to figure out things like how much time I personally have to study in order to keep up, and not only keep up but excel.  These grades are actually going to matter, not to mention the foundational knowledge.

But a girl can’t sit in front of a computer or with her nose in the books every waking hour.  The brain just isn’t designed to work like that.  So I’m planning on filling a good portion of my time with volunteering… specifically in settings that compliment my long-term goal of becoming an Occupational Therapist.

It was volunteering with two particular organizations that originally sparked my interest and eventually led to my decision to pursue this career path – Outdoors for All and Little Bit.  So it was only natural that in putting my first couple of volunteer commitments on-calendar that I would start with these two.  This week I’m volunteering twice with OfA during their Spring break day camp.

Yesterday we spent most of the day biking around Magnuson Park.  OfA has this fantastic fleet of adaptive bikes that allow folks of varying abilities to enjoy the activity.  Most of the kids yesterday (including myself!) were on recumbent 3-wheelers, one shared a two-seater with his sister, and one had his own “normal” two-wheeler mountain bike.  One of the things about this organization that I appreciate so much is their ability to work with kids of so many different abilities simultaneously.  I cannot begin to diagnose the boys (we only had boys for some reason) that participated yesterday, but they all had different cognitive, speech and physical abilities from each other.

On Friday we’re planning on spending time at an outdoor rock climbing training wall.  I haven’t played on one of these types of walls in well over a decade so it should be fun!  If the weather doesn’t cooperate then we’re going to play on inflatable bouncing toys.  OK, so I’m not exactly sure which one I’d prefer. 

Spending time with the group yesterday was a great reminder of why I quit my job and am working to move into a related field.  Reminders like this are going to be so important to help me get through marathon study sessions… including the hours I’m spending today trying to learn words like “postganglionic” and “colliculi”.  Yikes.