up and down and up and down

Oh my word, what a day.  What a week, really.  3 main issues making me feel like I'm on a mini (not that great) roller coaster:

1) The part time job I have taken on - I don't want to write any specifics about it on my blog, because it's not appropriate to talk negatively about it in a public forum - while providing me with some really nice extra cash, has just been way too much thankless, frustrating work to be worth it.  I put in my notice this past week, saying I won't be continuing beyond this semester.  The thing is, I was feeling really good about the work we're doing after the two meetings I went to this week.  I felt like things were finally starting to move along, we were all making some progress, and maybe it would be worth it to stay on for next semester.  And then this afternoon I get sucked into another backandforthandbackandforth email exchange, and I'm ready to be done now.  So I get to go to another meeting tomorrow!  (grumble grumble)  I will stick it out this semester, but after that, no more!

2) Earlier this afternoon, I found out my dissertation study has finally been approved!  So I was super excited, and I emailed the research director at the campus preschool, and she suggested I call her immediately, which is never a good sign.  I just got off the phone with her, after a very long chat (I just love this woman, she's wonderful), and it turns out UC Berkeley has decided to privatize their child care system, effective immediately.  So people are being laid off and everyone is freaking out, and some of the parents are boycotting the research program because they're totally powerless and don't know what else to do.  I can hardly be angry at the parents, but my immediately reaction is nevertheless, "WHAT?!  Are you kidding me??"  The week my study finally gets approved is the week everything goes to hell in a handbasket, and it is suddenly rather up in the air whether I'm going to be able to find enough non-boycotting children to participate in my dissertation study.  I was already cutting it pretty close, but feeling confident I could be done collecting data by January or so, and now I just have no earthly idea.  What a mess.

3) Plus, as if I needed this day to be weirder, I drove down to the Alameda County Courthouse and filed our divorce paperwork this morning.  Honestly, it was a refreshingly/alarmingly sterile process.  I stood in line for a few minutes, went up to a window, handed over the paperwork, signed some things, and I was basically done within half an hour.  California has a 6 month waiting period, so on May 2nd, I will officially be divorced, and I can finally legally change my name back.  I thought I would be more upset about filing, but it actually feels pretty good.  It's been this weird, supremely unpleasant thing hanging over my head for months now, and I'm pretty tired of dealing with the two last names problem, so it just feels good to have done it.  It's still sad in some respects, obviously, but I've been feeling so sad for so long that it's like my sad muscles have given out.  So instead I just feel relieved, and like it's time to move on now.

You know what?  F*** this day, man.  I'm going for a run.

ill-advised evening post after a long day

Someday -- someday -- I will be mentally and emotionally stable again, and it will be oh-so-nice.

Workin' on it.  Super tired of the mood swings and the random crying and feeling totally manic all the time.  I am not as put-together as I project myself to be, not right now.  I feel like I used to be about as put-together as I acted, and now I'm just continuing to act all put-together on auto-pilot when actually I feel slightly insane at least most of the time.  But you know?  I'm moving very gradually in a positive direction, and every week I feel a little bit more like myself, for the most part.

It's just taking a really long time, and I'm so tired of it.  But I'm working on it.

***

I never make posts like this, because I always tell myself that I will regret them almost immediately.  Why is this an exception?  I have no idea.  I already know I'm going to regret it, and I'm having serious second thoughts about clicking the "publish" button.  I think it just feels kind of nice to admit that I am having a pretty rough time right now.  To say it out loud, and to realize that it's normal and that it will get better.  It is getting better, just... slowly.  And I'm tired of waiting to feel like myself again, y'know?  I pride myself on being on an even keel, normally.  I guess I think of an essential part of my personality as being fairly unflappable.  I'm strong.  I'm happy.  I don't let things get to me.  Well, this gets to me.  This whole awful transition period.  I have been gotten to.  And I hate it and I want it to go away so I can feel like myself again.

That's all.  I'm just biding my time and taking it as it comes, and some days are far better than others.  This was kind of a rough day, and tomorrow will probably be better.

depressurizing

I think it wasn't that I was "running out of steam" so much as I needed to depressurize.  :)  I'm feeling much better now!  So here's the update: I am not applying for the Penn State job right now.  My advisor talked to the person in charge of the job, and now that we have some insider information, I will be applying for a very similar job next year.  Sorry to be so cryptic, I just feel weird talking about it on a public blog, even though I don't think anyone terribly... "important"... reads this thing.  Except for you, dear reader! ;)  No, I just mean... well, you probably know what I mean.  The point is, there is probably going to be a very similar job opening up next year, so there's no reason to rush this one.

Which means I may still be moving to Pennsylvania (chances are even fair to good, I would say), but it would be next summer.  And I am not applying for any other jobs just yet, so I will be in Berkeley at least one more year, which is so freaking good to know.  I didn't realize how much the up-in-the-air-ness was getting to me, stress-wise.

Also, my stomach hasn't been bothering me at all since Thursday morning, and I'm not sure what to do about that.  If my ulcer is healing/has healed on its own, then I don't need to go to the doctor.  But if it comes back in a few days, I'll feel dumb for canceling my appointment and then having to schedule another one.  I guess I'll probably just go anyway and see what they say.

Also also, this is totally dorky, but I just downloaded a sweet application for my iPad that lets me organize and annotate PDFs like a boss.  I am clearly being tongue-in-cheek about it, because it feels like a silly thing to be excited about, but I am really excited.  Especially now that I don't have to write a dissertation in 6 months, I'm really looking forward to reading a lot, having some time to wrap my head around what I'm doing, and hopefully doing some really good work, that I'm really proud of.  Now I have at least until May, and I want to do this thing right.

Also also also, now that my summer has magically been freed up (i.e. I don't have to lock myself in a room and stare at my computer as much as I was mentally preparing myself for), it looks like the aforementioned road trip is going to happen relatively soon, like at the end of June/beginning of July.

Today Jevon and I went down to the farmers' market in Jack London Square, wandered around in the sunshine, tried a bunch of yummy samples, bought some crazy-delicious fruit (we are at the height of strawberry and peach season - YUM), and sat in the grass enjoying the breeze and noshing on juicy nectarines.  It was just what I needed, and I feel approximately 1,000 times better than I did just 3 days ago.

Now it is time for a snack, and for drinking some ice water and reading a book.  I am at peace.

running out of steam

I'm sitting in my beautiful apartment with all of the windows and the door open - it feels like I live on a screened-in porch when I do that, and I love it - and I am having a heck of a hard time forcing myself to work.  I am applying for a job at Penn State University which would probably start in January, and it has been incredibly stressful for many reasons.  Am I moving across the country in a few months?  Dunno.  Do I have to write an entire dissertation in 6 months?  Maybe.  Can I finish this dissertation chapter before I have to apply?  Definitely not, but I have to try anyway.  What in the hell is going on??  No idea.

So it turns out that getting divorced + the end of the semester + trying to write a dissertation chapter in two weeks + applying for a job = stomach ulcer, in case you were wondering.  I woke up with this awful searing pain in my stomach last Thursday, which went away after I ate some food, but it's been back periodically ever since then, and after doing some reading online, I'm pretty sure I have a stomach ulcer.  So that's interesting!  As long as I take some Pepto Bismol every once in a while, it's fine, but I'm anxious for my doctor's appointment to get here (it's on Tuesday) so I can get some antibiotics and nip this thing in the bud.  (Did you know that 70 - 90% of stomach ulcers are caused by a bacterium that usually only gets a foothold when you have a compromised immune system due to stress?  I learned that this week!)

Anyway, things are mostly good, actually.  I've gotten a lot of work done in the past two weeks, and now I know exactly what my dissertation's going to be about, and I've even started writing it.  Crazy, right?  It's just that I'm in the home stretch of finishing up this chapter to send off with my application materials, and I have to finish up my 'statement of research interests', and I'm just... close enough to finishing that it's hard to motivate myself to just DO it, y'know?  I need to just do it.

Ok.  Self pep-talk over.  I'm gonna do it.  And then I'm gonna submit these things and wait to hear back about whether I have to write the rest of this thing and move to Pennsylvania in 6 months.  I have no idea what is going on, but I am excited and super anxious, in the good way and the bad way.

I leave you with some awesome pictures of my brain that I recently rediscovered.  I participated in a speech perception experiment at UCSF last fall, and they made MRIs of my brain, which I think are awesome and I'm going to frame them and put them in my office.

Look at that corpus callosum!  Look at that beautiful cerebellum!
And look at how huge the human tongue is!

Ghoooost faaace...  Ghooooost faaaaaaace...